Alice B. Stockham

Alice Bunker Stockham (November 8, 1833 – December 3, 1912) was an American obstetrician and gynecologist who was the fifth woman to become a doctor in the United States. She promoted gender equality, dress reform, birth control, and male and female sexual fulfillment for successful marriages.

Leo Tolstoy and Havelock Ellis were among her friends. She visited Sweden and from her trips to schools there she brought back the idea of teaching children domestic crafts, establishing shop and home economics classes in the United States.

Her children were William Henry Stockham (1861–1923) founder of Stockham Valve and Fittings Inc. and Cora L. Stockham (1857–?)

Activism

Stockham was born in Cardington, Ohio, on November 8, 1833, and received her MD from the Chicago Homeopathic Medical College in 1892.

She lectured against the use of corsets by women, advocated complete abstinence from alcohol and tobacco, and believed in women's rights. Stockham was a vegetarian. In 1893, she was a speaker at the Third International Vegetarian Congress in Chicago.

Stockham was concerned with the economic plight of divorced women with children and prostitutes who wanted to get off the street. She felt these women had no marketable skills and would be unable to support themselves, so she had copies of her book Tokology, a layperson's guide to gynecology and midwifery, privately printed and gave them to "unfortunate women" to sell door-to-door in Chicago. Each copy came with a bound-in certificate signed by Stockham, entitling the bearer to a free gynecological exam.