Mabel S. Ulrich

Mabel Palmer Simis was from Vails Gate, New York, the daughter of Adolph Simis Jr. and Emma Van Duzen Simis. Her father was born in Germany, and a United States Navy veteran of the American Civil War. He was Commissioner of Charities for Brooklyn and Queens at the time of his death in 1900.{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/33647363/adolph_simis_jr_1900/|title=Adolph Simis, Jr., Dies Suddenly|date=July 23, 1900|work=The Brooklyn Citizen|access-date=July 7, 2019|page=1|via=Newspapers.com}} Mabel Simis graduated from Cornell University in 1897,{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HQE4AQAAMAAJ&q=Mabel+Simis&pg=PA148|title=The Cornellian|date=1898|publisher=Secret Societies of Cornell University|pages=76, 148|language=en}} served as a naval hospital nurse in 1898,{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/33647200/mabel_simis_1898/|title=Miss Long a Nurse|date=June 16, 1898|work=The Dighton Herald|access-date=July 7, 2019|page=6|via=Newspapers.com}} and earned her medical degree at Johns Hopkins University in 1901.{{Cite journal|last=Fernandez|first=W. G. Tinckom|date=April 18, 1914|title=Y. W. C. A. Traveling Lecturer on Sex Hygiene|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=37pIAAAAYAAJ&q=Mabel+Sims+Ulrich&pg=PA76|journal=The Survey|volume=32|pages=76}}{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/33648457/mabel_simis_1901/|title=M.D.'s of Johns Hopkins|date=June 8, 1901|work=The Baltimore Sun|access-date=July 7, 2019|page=7|via=Newspapers.com}}

Ulrich practiced medicine in Minneapolis, where she served on the vice commission,{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/womansworkinmuni00bear|quote=Mabel Sims Ulrich.|title=Woman's Work in Municipalities|last=Beard|first=Mary Ritter|date=1915|publisher=Appleton|pages=[https://archive.org/details/womansworkinmuni00bear/page/101 101]|isbn=978-0-405-04446-5 |language=en}} the Board of Public Welfare,{{Cite journal|date=January 1921|title=News Items|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tdYyAQAAMAAJ&q=%22Dr.+Mabel+Ulrich%22&pg=PA23|journal=The Journal-Lancet|volume=41|pages=23}} and the Health and Hospitals committee.{{Cite journal|date=January 15, 1921|title=The Minneapolis Alderman and the 'Irreconcilables'|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tdYyAQAAMAAJ&q=%22Dr.+Mabel+Ulrich%22&pg=PA48|journal=The Journal-Lancet|volume=41|pages=48}} She was a student health advisor to young women at the University of Minnesota, and Supervisor of Social Hygiene Education in the Division of Veneral Diseases at the state Board of Health.{{Cite journal|last=Irvine|first=H. G.|date=1920–1921|title=Minnesota State Board of Health|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hN5HAQAAMAAJ&q=%22Dr.+Mabel+Ulrich%22&pg=RA1-PA214|journal=Biennial Report on Vital Statistics of the State of Minnesota|pages=214–215}} She spoke in favor of eugenics education in high schools at a teachers' conference in Montana in 1913,{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/33641122/mabel_s_ulrich_1913/|title=Eugenics Should be Part of High School Curriculum, Says Dr. Mabel S. Ulrich|date=November 26, 1913|work=The Butte Miner|access-date=July 7, 2019|page=3|via=Newspapers.com}} but favored preventive measures such as education and premarital health certificates, and denounced eugenic sterilization.{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/33641756/mabel_s_ulrich_1913/|title=Health Certificate Would Tend to Solve Problem of Marriage|date=November 26, 1913|work=The Independent-Record|access-date=July 7, 2019|page=1|via=Newspapers.com}}

In 1914, Ulrich was appointed by the YWCA to tour schools and colleges, lecturing on sex and hygiene subjects.{{Cite news|url=https://commons.emich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1349&context=student_news|title=Lecture for Girls of College|date=April 24, 1914|work=The Normal College News|access-date=July 7, 2019}} In 1916, she gave a summer institute for teachers interested in teaching sex education classes.{{Cite journal|date=May 18, 1916|title=A Sex Problem School|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2JNxsTp3Qv8C&q=%22Dr.+Mabel+Ulrich%22&pg=PA547|journal=The Journal of Education|volume=83|pages=547–548}} Her pamphlet "Mothers of America" (1919), aimed at young women, has been described as an unusually direct, detailed, and informative example of the genre from before World War I.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7YkCnhASDRMC&q=%22Dr.+Mabel+Ulrich%22&pg=PA88|title=Dirty Words: The Rhetoric of Public Sex Education, 1870-1924|last=Jensen|first=Robin E.|date=2010-10-01|publisher=University of Illinois Press|isbn=9780252090172|pages=88|language=en}} Another Ulrich pamphlet was "The Girl's Part" (1918).{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TlfcngEACAAJ|title=The Girl's Part|last=Ulrich|first=Mabel Simis|date=1920|publisher=Minnesota State Board of Health, Division of Venereal Diseases|language=en}} She debated with Alice Stone Blackwell in an essay in The Woman Citizen in 1919; she was in favor of laws confining women with sexually-transmitted diseases, Blackwell was opposed.{{Cite journal|last1=Ulrich|first1=Mabel S.|last2=Blackwell|first2=Alice Stone|date=April 19, 1919|title=As to 'Dangerous Legislation'|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KtMRAQAAMAAJ&q=%22Mabel+S.+Ulrich%22&pg=PA988|journal=The Woman Citizen|volume=3|pages=988–989}}

Beyond medicine and public health, Ulrich was interested in writing. She published short fiction, including "The Swede's Angel" (1905),{{Cite journal|last=Ulrich|first=Mabel S.|date=March 1905|title=The Swede's Angel|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ea4rMkbfy_IC&q=%22Mabel+S.+Ulrich%22&pg=PA313|journal=Everybody's Magazine|volume=12|pages=313–318}} and a play, Daylight Saving (1933).{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WUlhAAAAIAAJ&q=%22Mabel+S.+Ulrich%22&pg=PA168|title=Catalog of Copyright Entries. Part 1. [C] Group 3. Dramatic Composition and Motion Pictures. New Series|date=1934|pages=168|language=en}} She opened a bookstore in Minneapolis in 1921, and by 1927 owned five bookshops in Minnesota.{{Cite journal|date=December 1, 1921|title=News Items|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tdYyAQAAMAAJ&q=%22Dr.+Mabel+Ulrich%22&pg=PA635|journal=The Journal-Lancet|volume=41|pages=635–636}}{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/33641279/mabel_s_ulrich_1927/|title=Dr. Mabel S. Ulrich to Address Chamber|date=November 7, 1927|work=Des Moines Tribune|access-date=July 7, 2019|page=9|via=Newspapers.com}} Her shops also sold rare prints.{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/33652093/mabel_ulrich_1924/|title=Dr. Ulrich Returns from Europe with Rare Prints|date=July 9, 1924|work=The Minneapolis Star|access-date=July 7, 2019|page=2|via=Newspapers.com}} In 1931, she was appointed to head of the Minnesota implementation of the Federal Writers' Project, a program of the federal Works Progress Administration.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5mvHrc_axisC&q=%22Dr.+Mabel+Ulrich%22&pg=PT9|title=Wpa Guide to the Minnesota Arrowhead|last=The Federal Writers' Project|date=2008-10-14|publisher=Minnesota Historical Society|isbn=9780873517096|language=en}} She resigned that post in 1938.{{Cite web|url=http://www.mnopedia.org/thing/wpa-federal-writers-project-1935-1943|title=WPA Federal Writers' Project, 1935–1943|website=MNopedia|access-date=2019-07-07}}{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/33642105/mabel_s_ulrich_1938/|title=Mabel Ulrich Gives Up Post|date=June 30, 1938|work=The Minneapolis Star|access-date=July 7, 2019|page=1|via=Newspapers.com}} She edited a collection of essays by women, titled The More I See Of Men (Harper & Brothers, 1932), with an introduction by Frederick Lewis Allen.Ulrich, Mabel S., ed. [https://books.google.com/books?id=CFC3wgEACAAJ&q=%22Mabel+S.+Ulrich%22 The More I See Of Men] (Harper & Brothers, 1932). In the 1930s and 1940s, she wrote book reviews for The Saturday Review of Literature.

Mabel Simis married a fellow Hopkins-trained doctor, Henry Ludwig Ulrich. They had two daughters, Katherine and Josephine; their younger daughter Josephine Simis Ulrich followed her parents into a medical education at Johns Hopkins University.{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/33647948/josephine_simis_ulrich_and_elinor/|title=They Want to Be Physicians|date=October 10, 1933|work=The Baltimore Sun|access-date=July 7, 2019|page=22|via=Newspapers.com}} Mabel Simis Ulrich died in 1945, aged 69 years, when she fell off a cliff{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/33649815/mabel_s_ulrich_1945/|title=Dr. Mabel Ulrich Killed in Fall|date=August 13, 1945|work=Star Tribune|access-date=July 7, 2019|page=1|via=Newspapers.com}} while staying at her summer home in Marine on St. Croix, Minnesota.{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/33649603/mabel_ulrich_1945/|title=Mabel Ulrich Sparked City's Cultural Growth|last=Day|first=Dorothy|date=August 26, 1945|work=Star Tribune|access-date=July 7, 2019|page=13|via=Newspapers.com}}

{{reflist}}

• [http://www.mnopedia.org/multimedia/portrait-dr-mabel-ulrich A 1931 portrait of Mabel S. Ulrich], in the collection of the Minnesota Historical Society.
• David A. Taylor, Soul of a People: The WPA Writers’ Project Uncovers Depression America (Wiley & Sons 2009; {{ISBN|0470403802|}}). Discusses Ulrich's work with the Minnesota Writers' Project.

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Category:20th-century American physicians

Category:American women writers

Category:American sex educators

Category:Educators from Minneapolis

Category:Physicians from Minneapolis

Category:Cornell University alumni

Category:Johns Hopkins University alumni

Category:1876 births

Category:1945 deaths

Category:20th-century American educators

Category:20th-century American women physicians

Category:American people of German descent

Category:20th-century American women educators