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Against all odds:
Challenges, criticism name of the game for early female pioneers in veterinary medicine

By Kira Everhart

Although today women make up the majority of students in veterinary medicine at Kansas State University, there was a time when it was rare to see a female seated in one of the classrooms.

In 1932, the first woman graduated from K-State in veterinary medicine. By 1950, the total had only risen to nine. Among those were Louise Sklar and Ruth Kaslow, two women who faced societal, academic and individual challenges to achieve their goal.

Sklar, pictured left, had always excelled academically. She skipped two grades in elementary school and graduated in 1930 at the age of 15 from Manhattan High School, said Lesley Gentry, author of "The Lady is a Veterinarian," an account of the pioneer women who graduated from the College of Veterinary Medicine at K-State.

Sklar was admitted into K-State's veterinary medicine program that same year, by-passing the pre-veterinary curriculum. She was the only female in a class of approximately 40. But animal care was not her initial goal, Gentry said.

"Louise had mentioned to a reporter one time that she had entered the veterinary curriculum as a sort of pre-medicine work, but she became so interested that she wanted to finish," Gentry said. "She would graduate to become a distinguished scientist later in her veterinary career."

According to Gentry, Sklar is the youngest woman to have entered veterinary school and the youngest woman in her field, having graduated from the curriculum in 1934 at age 19.

Kaslow, pictured right, came 13 years later. Her graduating class was made up of a diverse group of students, including Hispanics, Jews, African-Americans and women. Kaslow, who was a Jewish woman, faced a number of challenges as a minority in her class.

"It was no doubt a difficult time to be in veterinary school," Gentry said.

Perhaps Kaslow's greatest challenge was that she had several physical disabilities, including being deaf. She lip-read her way through veterinary school and graduated with honors in 1947, Gentry said. Later in life, she became a research assistant and advocate for the betterment of the lives of research animals.

Photos courtesy K-State College of Veterinary Medicine.

Fall 2004