Dr. Emeline Horton Cleveland
Dr. Emeline Horton Cleveland
Born Emeline Horton on September 22, 1829 to Chauncey Horton and Amanda Chaffee Horton, Dr. Cleveland could trace her ancestors to the Puritans who emigrated to the United States in the 1630s. She was born into a family of eight siblings. Her time in Ashford was brief: at two years old, her family left Ashford and settled on a farm in Madison County, New York,
Dr. Cleveland had originally aspired to a life as a missionary, however, with the death of her father in 1848, she took work as a teacher to earn money for a college education. She enrolled in Oberlin College in 1850, graduating 3 years later. From there she attended the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania, and with two additional years of education, earned her medical degree.
Dr. Cleveland continued on at the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania where she taught anatomy and was eventually appointed Professor of Anatomy and Histology. In 1860 she left the United States and traveled to Paris where she studied Obstetrics, Gynecological Surgery and Hospital Administration at the Maternité hospital. Upon her return in 1862, Dr. Cleveland became the chief resident at her former hospital, while simultaneously teaching obstetrics and diseases of women and children and running a successful private medical practice.
By the early 1870’s, Dr. Cleveland had become dean of the Women’s College, a post she would not hold for long. After suffering from tenuous health, she left that position in 1874, dying one year later of tuberculosis. Her legacy of work in the medical field lived on, as her mentee Dr. Anna Broomall took Dr. Cleveland’s former chair of Obstetrics at the college, and her son, Arthur Horton Cleveland, went on to become a physician and practice medicine in his own right.
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