Dates

• Existence: 1853 - 1927

Biography

Sarah Braunwarth, MD, was born in 1853 in Iowa, the daughter of German immigrants Jacob Braunwarth and Louisa Wagner (who was the niece of the composer Richard Wagner). The eldest of six children, Braunwarth's two brothers inherited her father's shoe store, while Sarah and her sisters favored medicine, with three matriculating through medical school, and the fourth pursuing pharmacy. A medical career was encouraged by Braunwarth's parents; while women entering the medical field was controversial in the United States, it was commonly accepted in the Braunwarth's native Germany. Sarah Braunwarth entered the University of Iowa medical school in 1873, two years after it opened as a co-educational facility. She graduated in the spring of 1876, and began a private practice in Muscatine, where she worked for fifty years. Braunwarth retired in 1926 and died the following year at the age of seventy-four.

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