Charlotte Yhlen

Charlotte Yhlen (1839-1919), was the first female Swedish physician.

Charlotte Yhlen was the daughter of a shoemaker in Helsingborg. Her only education in Sweden was primary education. In Sweden, it was not yet permitted for females to study at universities when she emigrated to USA in 1868. In America, however, she studied medicine at the Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania, were she graduated as a physician in 1873. She thereby became the first Swedish woman to graduate as a physician from a university, though Karolina Widerström was the first woman to to so in Sweden.

She returned to Sweden, were she applied to practice medicine, but her foreign degree was not accepted there. However, the universities was opened to women in Sweden in 1870, and she was accepted as a student at the Uppsala University, but she never started to study there. The same year, she was elected the first female delegate at the Nordic Science Conference in Copenhagen.

Charlotte Yhlen returned to the USA, were she worked as a physician at the Women's Hospital of Philadelphia and then with her own practice. In 1874, she married the Norwegian engineer Tinius Olsen. She retired in 1889.

References

• Elianne Riska: Medical Careers and Feminist Agendas: American, Scandinavian, and Russian ...
• http://www.lakartidningen.se/Aktuellt/Kultur/Kultur/2013/12/Hon-maste-flytta-fran-Sverige--for-att-fa-jobba-som-doktor/
• Brev till Rudolf Schmidt 1866-02-21 & 1866-06-24, Håndskriftsamlingens Brevbase, Det Kongelige bibliotek, Köpenhamn
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• Twenty-first annual announcement of the Woman’s medical college of Pennsylvania, Records of W/MCP Publications 1850-present, Archives & special collections, Drexel university college of Medicine
• A thesis on glaucoma, Records of W/MCP Medical Students 1850-1981, Archives & special collections, Drexel university college of Medicine
• Nils Eriksson, "I andans kraft, på sannings stråt-":De skandinaviska naturforskarmötena 1839-1936, Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis, 1991, s. 230-31
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• Brev till Johannes Steenstrup 1899-1919, Håndskriftsamlingens Brevbase, Det Kongelige bibliotek, Köpenhamn