Today’s random object was a veterinarian figure from the Women of Industry set.
Sketch & Coffee, Live! is streamed daily at 5:30am, Texas Time, at the YouTubes
As long as we’ve kept animals, we’ve practiced veterinary care. About 10,000 years ago we domesticated livestock, and their survival became our survival. Around 3,000 years ago, Mesopotamians started recording ways to treat animals. It wasn’t about pets, it was about food and work. Writing helped share that knowledge, and animal care became part of everyday life. The word “veterinarian” comes from the Latin veterinarius, tied to beasts of burden, and shares roots with “veteran,” the old dogs of war.
Claude Bourgelat opened the first veterinary school in Lyon, France, in 1761 to standardize horse and cattle care. In the U.S., Iowa State opened the first school in 1879. But for a long time, women were barred. Aleen Cust cracked the barrier in Britain, graduating in 1900 under her initials but not legally recognized until 1922. Florence Kimball became the first U.S. woman veterinarian in 1910 at Cornell.
Meanwhile, on farms, women were already bottle-feeding piglets and calves, giving shots, and keeping animals alive while men worked the fields. My grandmother did it, and animals trusted them. The profession just took its time catching up.
After World War II, things shifted. The middle class left farms, got pets, and had money to spend on them. Vets went from tending cattle and horses to cats, dogs, iguanas, and backyard chickens. In the 1960s only 5 percent of U.S. vets were women. Today, close to 80 percent are. Along the way, women like Tracey McNamara showed how vital the field is for everyone. In 1999 her work at the Bronx Zoo linked bird deaths to the first West Nile outbreak in the U.S., proving that animal health is human health too.
Click here to watch the Veterinarian Woman episode of Sketch & Coffee, Live!
Also, if you would like a 20-30 minute lesson about the history of women veterinarians, feel free to download this lesson plan:
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