Emily Stowe and Augusta Stowe Gullen collection

Emily Howard Jennings Stowe (1831-1903) was a teacher and principal, a medical doctor, and a suffragette. Educated at home, Stowe became a teacher in 1846 and graduated from the Provincial Normal School in Toronto, Canada West in 1854. In 1865 Stowe applied to study medicine at the University of Toronto, but was denied entry because she was a woman. Unable to pursue her education in Canada, she attended the New York Medical College for Women. After graduating in 1867, Stowe returned to Toronto to practice medicine without a license. In 1870 she was allowed to attend the University of Toronto and was granted a medical license in 1880. In 1877 Emily Stowe organized Canada's first suffrage organization, initially called the Toronto Women's Literary Club, which later became the Toronto Women's Suffrage Club.

Ann Augusta Stowe-Gullen (1857-1943) was a medical doctor, a lecturer and a suffragette. She was born in Mt. Pleasant, Ontario, the daughter of John Stowe and Emily Howard Jennings. She married John Benjamin Gullen in 1883. She died in Toronto. Stowe-Gullen was educated at the Toronto School of Medicine, then at the Faculty of Medicine at Victoria University, Toronto, where she became an M.D. in 1883, the first woman to graduate from a Canadian medical school. Immediately after graduating she was appointed Demonstrator in Anatomy at the Woman’s Medical College in Toronto (from 1894 onwards known as the Ontario Medical College for Women). In 1890 she was appointed Lecturer on Diseases of Children, subsequently Professor of Diseases of Children. She also served among the original staff members of Toronto Western Hospital (founded in 1896). Stowe-Gullen was a member of the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons, the Ontario Social Service Council, the Senate of the University of Toronto where she represented women in the medical profession (1912-24), the Toronto Board of Education (1892-96), the University Women's Club, the Women's Art Association, the Women's Board at Toronto Western Hospital, and the Women's Canadian Club. She was also active in the suffrage, temperance and other social movements. She was among the founders of the National Council of Women in 1893, (President) of the Canadian Suffrage Association, (Vice-President) of the National Council of Women, and she succeeded her mother as President of the Dominion Women’s Enfranchisement Association in 1903. In 1935 she was awarded the Order of the British Empire.