Q and A with a Story Guru: Mary Daniels Brown: People Choose Their Life Story from the Plot Lines That Their Culture Makes Available to Them

See a photo of Mary, her bio, Part 1 of this Q&A, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.

Q&A with Mary Daniels Brown, Question 5:

Q: What has been your favorite or most meaningful project or initiative relating to life stories/narrative identity theory and why?

A: I loved working on my dissertation, which was about the life stories of five women who graduated from medical school between 1849 and 1905. Because these were some of the first women to train and then practice as professional physicians, they had no books to read about how to do this. They all wrote the book as they went along. Although they took somewhat different approaches to their work, they all faced the challenge of reconciling their life choice with a culture that was initially opposed to education and professional work for women.

Doing the individual analyses of the five life stories was fascinating, but even more exciting to me was the overall cultural progression of the stories throughout the latter half of the 19th century. The first two were very strong women who faced almost universal disapproval of their chosen life work. But by the end of the century, because the earlier women had provided a model, more women began to train as physicians and to document their own journey. As a result, the role of woman physician gradually became more acceptable to society.

People generally choose their life story from the plot lines that their culture makes available to them, and all of these women contributed to making life as a woman physician a possible choice for girls. In this way life stories, which are always rooted in a particular cultural context, can lead to social change.