Susan La Flesche Picotte, courtesy Smithsonian Institution

As I write this post–interestingly enough on Election Day–I have just finished some research on a remarkable Native American woman named Susan La Flesche. Her achievements are especially striking when you consider the barriers that existed for women in her time; women today are frustrated because of an uneven playing field in certain areas of life, but La Flesche lived in a time when women couldn’t vote, and as a Native American, didn’t even have citizenship.

La Flesche was born in 1865 in a buffalo-hide tipi on a Nebraska reservation. Before she died at age 50, she had attended the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania (graduating at the top of her class), become the nation’s first female Native American doctor, and established a modern hospital on her impoverished Omaha Indian reservation. La Flesche was a crusader of staggering energy, fighting against land fraud, whiskey peddlers, and poor health conditions among her people. Before her own health failed her, she served more than a thousand patients scattered over nearly 1,500 square miles of reservation territory.

I have been continually amazed at the achievements of women who lived without the right to vote, own property, or sign legal contracts. My own paltry achievements are nothing in comparison, and during this season of thanksgiving and appreciation, I am indeed grateful for the inspiration and example they offer.