Julia Holmes Smith

Julia Holmes Smith (December 23, 1839 – November 10, 1930) was an American physician, publisher, and suffragette from Georgia. Born to a wealthy family, she received private tutoring then attended a women's school in New York City. Widowed at an early age, Smith remarried in 1872 and attended medical classes at the Boston University School of Medicine and Chicago Homeopathic Medical College. She opened a medical practice in Chicago, Illinois and was the first dean of the National Medical College. In 1895, she was appointed the first female trustee of the University of Illinois

Julia Holmes was born on December 23, 1839, in Savannah, Georgia to a wealthy family. Holmes grew up in New Orleans, Louisiana where she was tutored at home. She attended school in New York City, graduating from the Springler Institute for Girls when she was eighteen. Smith married Waldo Abbott, nephew of principal Gorham Dummer Abbott, in 1860. He died four years later of yellow fever, leaving a son and a daughter; the daughter died months later. To support herself in the meantime, Holmes taught school and published. She was the drama critic for the New Orleans Picayune.

In 1872, Holmes married wealthy merchant Sabin Smith and moved with him to Boston, Massachusetts. She attended Boston University School of Medicine from 1872 to 1874, then studied medicine in New York City. She moved to Chicago, Illinois in 1876, where she completed her medical education at the Chicago Homeopathic Medical College, graduating in 1877.

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