A Mission for Change in China: The Hackett Women's Medical Center of Canton, China, 1900-1930

Abstract

The idea of men and women sharing one larger world is a very important one: the twentieth century struggle for women's rights has been fought specifically against the idea of separate men's and women's spheres. It is difficult to know exactly how and how deeply most early Hackett students were influenced by the style and teaching of their medical school years, since most Hackett records reflect only the impressions of the missionary staff. The new Hackett needed a much larger staff, but was unable to attract and keep a sufficient number of Western-trained medical women. By the early 1930s the Hackett medical college reported a staff of twenty Chinese and fourteen Western instructors, with total graduates numbering one hundred eighty-seven. The Hackett was influenced by its Chinese women, although not on a directly woman-to-woman level.