Emily Bronson Conger

Born in Ohio in the 1840s and later married to Arthur Latham Conger, she is remembered as an unusually adventurous woman for her time. Sources about her life describe her as one of the early American women to study and practice osteopathy, and as someone willing to step beyond the roles most women were expected to fill in the late nineteenth century.

She is best known for An Ohio Woman in the Philippines (1904), a memoir-like travel narrative based on her experiences abroad after her husband's death. In it, she writes about the Philippines as well as stops in Honolulu and ports in Japan and China, blending personal observation with descriptions of daily life, travel, and cross-cultural encounters.

Her story has endured not only because of her book, but because it captures the voice of a woman who was determined to see the world for herself and to be useful in it. That mix of practicality, courage, and firsthand storytelling gives her work lasting interest for modern readers.