American Historical Ephemera & Photography Online

Autograph card signed ("Dr. Mary E. Walker / A.A. Surgeon Mar 1861"), [Washington, D.C.], [1916]. Approx. 3 1/2 x 2 in. (very light soil). Accompanied by mailing envelope postmarked "Washington, D.C. / Mar 27 / 2-PM /1916" with mailing address which appears to be in Walker's hand. Envelope addressed to autograph collector W. North Robins of Syracuse, New York. 

[With:] "Proclamation By Dr. Mary E. Walker. Copied from Hearing Before the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives: 1916." Signed in type "Dr. Mary." Washington: Government Printing Office, 1916. 4pp. 6 x 9 1/4 in. (folds, small crease at left top corner). Proclamation advocating for women's suffrage, stating that "with the power vested in me as the president of the Women's United States Constitution Association I here and now, in Washington, D.C., on the fifth day of January, 1916, proclaim that the women of these United States 'are and right ought to be' the equals of men politically, and go in a body to the polls on next November and cast their ballot for the presidential electors...."

Dr. Mary Edwards Walker was the first, and remains the only, woman to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor. This award was bestowed upon her on 11 November 1865 by President Andrew Johnson for her "valuable service" to the United States Government during the Civil War. During the war she worked as a "contract surgeon" because she could not be commissioned into the service, and she endured four months captivity in a Confederate prison. Walker's Medal of Honor was rescinded following the 1916-1917 review of Army MOH awards because she was a civilian at the time of her valor. The Medal of Honor was later restored to her in 1977. Beyond her work as a surgeon, Walker also was a staunch abolitionist before the war and an advocate for women's suffrage post-war. The enclosed 1916 “Proclamation” appears to be exceptionally scarce, as OCLC locates only one similar document, a "proclamation" housed in the Dr. Mary Edwards Walker Collection at SUNY Oswego.