Faculty Scholarship

This presentation explores the history of chiropractic, tracing its development and key milestones over time.

This presentation highlights women chiropractors practicing in Minnesota between 1899 and 1910

This presentation profiles women chiropractors who practiced in Minnesota between 1899 and 1919.

 In the turn-of-the-century United States, women were among the first chiropractors. In a period when established medical schools barred women from entering because of their gender, chiropractic and other “irregular” medical practices provided a more welcoming home for women interested in health care and a professional career. Immediately before and during World War I, chiropractic schools increased their marketing to women students, as current and prospective male students enlisted in the military or returned to the workforce or the family farm.

Schools emphasized women’s duty to serve their country and to save the field of chiropractic while men were unable to practice. After the war, however, fewer women became chiropractors for a variety of reasons, including federal school funding for male veterans, the spread of licensing laws and required exams, and the rise of chiropractic assistant jobs.

This presentation takes the form of a timeline, detailing the evolution of the chiropractic profession in Minnesota starting in 1899.

Chiropractic was founded by D. D. Palmer, who performed his first spinal adjustments in 1895 and started the first chiropractic school, the Palmer School and Cure, in 1897, both in Iowa.1  Diplomas granted to early graduates proclaimed them competent to teach and practice chiropractic, and many of these newly minted chiropractors did just that, often tutoring individuals and small groups in offices and clinics rather than setting up school buildings.2  For many of these tutorial schools, whether they had any graduates or even any students is unknown, and some schools were known to have been diploma mills3 (teaching chiropractic by correspondence course seems like a questionable proposition).  However, many other schools operated by the standards for a quality course of study as defined at that time.4 The earliest school teaching chiropractic technique that is known to have been in operation in Minnesota was the National School of Neuropathy & Psycho-Magnetic Healing, located in Minneapolis in 1899.5  Including tutorial schools, approximately 30 schools operated in the state from 1899 to NWCC’s founding in 1941.6  The total number of schools operating is difficult to gauge with precision, as some underwent slight name changes and others adopted names nearly identical to those of other schools.  Many schools seem to have been in existence for no more than a year or two.7 Four early Minnesota chiropractic schools are known to have operated for at least a decade.