Emily Stowe

Dr. Emily Stowe, the first Canadian woman doctor, was born in South Norwich, Ontario, in 1831. She began teaching at age fifteen and later graduated from teachers college with high honours to become the first woman principal of a school in Canada. After marriage and three children, Stowe decided to study medicine. She felt that female patients should have female doctors. She herself needed a higher income to support her three children and ailing husband. She received her degree from a United States medical school in 1868 and, because it was difficult for a woman to obtain a licence, practiced without one in Toronto until 1880. Stowe crusaded vigorously for equal rights for women, especially voting rights. She founded Canada's first woman suffrage society. The stamp design is the work of Muriel Wood, and is based on portraits of this remarkable women, along with vignette symbolic of her sphere of feminist activity. Thus, the design for Emily Stowe incorporates the old Toronto General Hospital. The typographic design is by Dennis Goddard.