The Women’s Professional Baseball League (WPBL) held its inaugural season this summer, running through August and September and culminating in a forced game 5 championship. Four teams took part in this historic season; each with a name and identity reflecting women’s history.
The Boston Hunters were named for Dr. Harriot Hunt, a pioneering Boston physician who became a physician and was one of the earliest women to challenge gender barriers in medicine. Dr. Hunt was the first woman to apply to Harvard Medical School. After being denied twice, she continued to practice and eventually received an honorary Doctor of Medicine degree from the Female Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1853.
Several students from SIU School of Medicine’s chapter of American Medical Women’s Association (AMWA) were able to attend several games of the inaugural season. They enjoyed great weather, great company, and great baseball while celebrating the legacy of a woman physician who helped open doors for the generations that followed her.
There was something especially fitting about future women physicians gathering at games played by a new generation of women athletes—each benefiting from pioneers who challenged assumptions about where women belonged and what they could achieve. More than 170 years after Harriot Hunt pursued her dream of becoming a physician, her story continues to inspire women who are forging new paths of their own.
Read more: What’s Women’s Professional Baseball Got To Do With AMWA?