Kenosha Sessions

(Mar. 23, 1862–Jan. 27, 1947). Kenosha Sessions was born and raised in Anna, Illinois and began her teaching career there in the public schools and at Union Academy. Later, she left her hometown and taught math at Kirkwood Seminary in Missouri and at Bryant & Stratton Business College in Chicago. From childhood, Sessions wanted to study medicine but felt apprehensive because few women entered the medical profession at the time. Despite this, she quit her teaching job and attended the Women’s Medical School of Northwestern University, graduating in 1893.  

Sessions began her medical career in 1894 by working at the Chicago Daily News’ Sanitarium for Sick Babies. She moved to the small town of Hueneme, California during the last five months of 1894 to take over her brother’s medical practice while he recovered from an illness. Sessions then moved to Evansville, Indiana where she opened her own medical practice in 1895. She shuttered her practice in 1897 to take a position as the lead physician at the Department for Women in the Indiana State Hospital for the Insane in Evansville from 1897 to April 13, 1910.  

Sometime between 1902 and 1905, while at the Hospital for the Insane, Sessions traveled to England where she met members of the Lunacy Commission (a public body set up by the Lunacy Act 1845 to oversee asylums and the welfare of mentally ill people in England and Wales) with whom she visited all the outstanding medical institutions in England and Scotland. While touring these facilities, Sessions took great interest in the Bethlem Hospital for the Insane in London, observing the treatment protocols for its patients which centered on humane treatment of people with mental illness and segregation of people with criminal insanity from other patients. 

Meanwhile in Indiana, a group of women had been advocating to separate the young girls from the grown women incarcerated at the Indiana Women’s Prison. The Legislature of 1905 approved the plan to construct a separate facility for young girls, the Indiana Girl’s School at Clermont. By 1907, 250 girls moved from the Women’s Prison to the facility. 

After Sessions’ departure from the Hospital for the Insane in 1910, she enrolled at the University of Chicago for postgraduate work in sociology for instructional purposes. She also resumed private practice in Anna, Illinois until the Board of Trustees of the Indiana Girls’ School at Clermont elected her superintendent on September 1, 1911, a position Sessions kept for 30 years. 

Sessions implemented what she learned in London at the Girls’ School. First, she separated the girls who had been incarcerated for some time from those newly admitted to the facility. She then developed a training program that focused on preparation for housekeeping as a wife or a service industry worker. Her work at the Indiana Girls’ School earned her national recognition for which she received an award of merit for achievement from the Indianapolis alumni organization of Northwestern University in 1940. 

Outside of her career, Sessions belonged to countless philanthropic and social organizations. During World War I she was a member of the Voluntary Medical Corps. She held membership in the Governor’s Committee on Law Observance and Enforcement in Indiana. By 1917 she had become president of the Indiana Conference of Social Workers. She was also a member of the American and Indianapolis Medical Associations, the National Conference of Social Workers, the Child Welfare League of America, the National Conference of Juvenile Agencies, the State Conference on Social Work, the International Mental Hygiene Congress, the American Association of University Women, the Indianapolis Propylaeum, the Fortnightly Club of Indianapolis, president of the Charities and Correction Organization in 1915 and 1916, and an honorary member of the Indiana State Medical Association.  

Help improve this entry

Contribute information, offer corrections, suggest images.

You can also recommend new entries related to this topic.