Birth of Mary Frame Myers (Mary F. Thomas)

On October 28, 1816, Mary Frame Myers—later known as Mary F. Thomas—was born in Maryland into a Quaker family whose religious convictions would profoundly shape her life’s work. Quaker beliefs in equality and social justice created a rare environment in which women’s education and public engagement were encouraged, laying the groundwork for her dual career as a physician and reformer.

Coming of age in the early nineteenth century, Mary’s birth placed her at the center of a transformative era for both medicine and women’s rights. At a time when formal medical training for women was largely inaccessible and married women had few legal rights to property or wages, her eventual decision to pursue medical education and suffrage activism represented a radical departure from prevailing norms.

This birth date marks the beginning of the life of a woman who would later work as one of Indiana’s earliest women physicians and become a prominent figure in the Indiana Woman’s Rights Association. Her later advocacy for married women’s property rights and woman suffrage grew directly from the values and lived experiences that followed this October day in 1816.

Although nothing about the day of her birth was recorded as extraordinary, historians now recognize it as the starting point for a career that helped expand professional and political possibilities for women in the United States. In women’s-history timelines, 1816-10-28 serves as an anchor date for tracing the emergence of female medical practitioners and suffrage leaders in the Midwest.