Bethenia Owens

Overview 

Bethenia Owens was born in Van Buren County, Missouri, United States, on February 8, 1840. Discouraged and against odds and prejudices, Owens was constantly told, that she could not rise above her station. Her gender. As she puts in her autobiography “The regret of my life up to the age of thirty-five was, that I had not been born a boy, for I realized very early in life that a girl was hampered and hemmed in on all sides simply by the accident of sex”  but in spite of naysayers and and obstacles due simply to her gender, Bethenia in 1874 graduated from Eclectic Medical College of Pennsylvania to break barriers and become one of the first female doctors to hold a medical degree.  
 
In fact Owens went on in 1880 to earn a second medical degree from the University of Michigan. She went on to establish her own medicine practice.