author
Edward H. (Edward Hammond) Clarke
1820–1877
A 19th-century American physician and medical writer, he taught at Harvard Medical School and became widely known for books that stirred public debate. He is remembered today both for his medical career and for the controversy surrounding his views on women's education.
1 Audiobook
Sex in Education; or, A Fair Chance for Girls
by Edward H. (Edward Hammond) Clarke
About the author
Born in Norton, Massachusetts, in 1820, Edward H. Clarke was a physician, author, and longtime member of Boston's medical world. He studied at Harvard and later taught materia medica and therapeutics at Harvard Medical School, building a reputation as a respected doctor and lecturer.
Clarke wrote on medicine and health, but his best-known book was Sex in Education; or, A Fair Chance for the Girls (1873). In it, he argued that intense academic study was harmful to women's health, a position that drew major attention and strong criticism in his own time and has remained controversial ever since.
He died in Boston in 1877. For modern readers, Clarke is an interesting figure not only because of his place in American medical history, but also because his work captures a revealing and often troubling side of 19th-century thinking about science, education, and gender.