The Hidden Costs of
Paying For School:
A Look at The
Struggles of Esther Lovejoy's Path to Becoming a Physician
Esther Pohl
Lovejoy faced many financial barriers to becoming a female physician. Financial
hurdles were sometimes linked together with gendered barriers to form what
could have been an impossible obstacle. However, Esther was not stopped by
these barriers because she had a determination to escape her working class
family background and gain an independent life, free from being dependent on a husband
or anyone else. The lengths she would go to becoming a physician can be
inspiring for us today and show the challenges faced by women who wanted to
work in medicine at the turn of the 20th century. [Kimberly Jensen,
"Becoming a Woman Physician," Oregon's
Doctor to the World: Esther Pohl Lovejoy and a Life in Activism. Seattle:
University of Washington Press, 2012. 33-55.]
One of
Esther Lovejoy's biggest hurdles was the financial burden of paying for school.
Esther came from a large working class family and at the time that she applied
for medical school, she and two of her brothers were helping their mother with
expenses by working as clerks in department stores. [Jensen, 36.] Kimberly Jensen points out that
her own family felt she had taken on too large a job and while she was able to
pay for the first year of tuition amounting to 120 dollars, she had to drop out
to raise more money after just one year in school. [Jensen, 36] This meant that
even if she were able to raise more money to continue her school, she would be
with different students and be forced to start up new relationships. Esther
said herself about having to leave school that, “....There were no scholarships
to be won...” [Jensen, 36-37.] There being no scholarships is an important point
for us to remember in today's world where students are able to get scholarships
or at least take out loans.
This
financial barrier was heightened by the role of gender in the department store
where she worked to raise money. In the first store she worked at, Lipman and
Wolfe, Esther talks about her direct boss, a floorwalker. This man was
antagonistic toward women becoming doctors and quickly came to represent all
the negative attitudes concerning professional women. While her main barrier at
this time was financial in nature it had become gendered as well. Eventually
the supervisor confronted her about studying human bones on company time and in
front of the high-class customers. He gave her an ultimatum that she would
either have to give up her dreams of being a doctor or lose her job. This very
easily could have been the end for Lovejoy's dream of becoming a doctor, but
Esther was lucky because she had a fellow co-worker who was able to secure her
a job at Olds and King, another department store. [Jensen, 39.]
This story
gives us one great example among many of how the financial cost of school,
especially an expensive type like medical school, can lead to barriers of a
different nature. The cost of dealing with persons in power who are hostile to
women or minorities, and even the jobs themselves, take a heavy toil on people
who must work to go to school. Esther Lovejoy faced many more barriers,
including gendered ones such as being denied an internship because she was a
woman. [Jensen, 49.] However, I have chosen to focus on the financial burdens
Lovejoy faced, because I feel institution can learn from them today. While a
school might be completely gender unbiased in who it admits and the way it
teaches, the world is not. Therefore, it is important for universities to
understand the full cost and burden that high tuition fees can cause outside of
the “safety” of the university.
