At the End of the Day

In the spring of 1875, the city of Boston was still clinging stubbornly to its cobblestone streets and sober traditions. Dr. Clara Whitaker threaded her way briskly through the narrow alleys every morning, her medical bag thumping against her hip, her mind already racing ahead to the day's patients. She wore a professionally styled dress, hat and gloves. Despite years of tireless study at the Woman's Medical College, and a residency at the city's charity hospital, Clara's ambitions routinely collided with the same high, invisible wall: She was a woman, and the men who ran Boston's medical establishment would never let her forget it.
She was allowed to practice, in theory, but it was always under the scrutinizing gaze of elder physicians who delighted in reminding her where she did not belong. Even her patients sometimes peered at her, wide-eyed, as if expecting her to sprout wings and fly around the room. Which she did, on occasion, when she cured a difficult patient.