Women in Pharmacy

From the Buffalo Express, September 30, 1892

Article Text

WOMEN IN PHARMACY

Women druggists are common in most of the larger cities, but in Buffalo they are few and far between. And this does seem strange, for the expenses are small and one would think it a profession especially adapted for women, whose deftness and neatness are an established fact. The college course is short, too, lasting only two years, with an apprenticeship of three years. But here, say the leading pharmacists, is the rub. It is difficult for a woman to get a position as an apprentice, for a proprietor would be rather backward about asking a woman to do the work of a boy of 12. The boy apprentice, besides waiting at the soda fountain, sweeps the store and runs the errands. And then the prejudice—that great stumbling block in the way of women workers.

The Buffalo College of Pharmacy, a department of the University of Buffalo, has in its existence of six years graduated seven women, four of whom were Buffalonians. There are now in the city two women who are owners of drug-stores: Miss Rosa Schurp, who was in the first class graduated at the college, and Mrs. Elizabeth Dort of the class of '90.

Mrs. Meta A. Miller, who retired from business last February, was one of the most successful women druggists in the city. One of the six years in which she was in business, she managed two stores at some distance apart.

Among the other graduates from the college are Miss Bontecou and Miss Mosher, both skilled pharmacists; Miss Salina Colegrove, who has a fine drugstore at Salamanca, and Miss Fisher, who is established at Springboro.