Former schoolteacher became one of state’s earliest registered female pharmacists

According to Pharmacy Times magazine, as many as 75% of pharmacists in the United States in 2020 were female. A century and a half earlier, it was a much different story, as few women managed to find jobs in pharmacy.

Harriett A. Fyffe was an exception. A former rural schoolteacher, Fyffe was one of the earliest registered female pharmacists in Illinois history.

Born on March 20, 1838, in Putnam County, north of Peoria, Fyffe was the oldest of five children. Her father, Derious, was a druggist in the village of Magnolia, in the southern part of that county.

Harriett’s initial career plans were obvious when she enrolled at Illinois State Normal University (now Illinois State University). When ISU was founded in 1857 as the state’s first public university, its original mission was teacher training.

That was reflected in the designation of a “normal school,” the terminology of the time. Fyffe graduated in 1866, the seventh class in ISU history.

Like many rural schoolteachers of the time, Fyffe was sort of nomadic, never staying at one school for long. She held teaching positions in Menard County and McLean County for two years each before returning home in 1870 to Magnolia, where she served as principal.

There, she worked strenuously to designate the high school as “graded,” or much like the system of today, where classes are divided by year and age. The first class graduated from Magnolia High School in 1875.

Meanwhile, Harriett dove into politics, another place where few women were found. In 1873, she was the Republican candidate for Putnam County school superintendent, a fitting office for her talents.

The Illinois Schoolmaster, a top educational journal of the period, reported that Putnam County “has but 35 school houses, but they are generally in good condition, and the people sustain and appreciate good schools.” The journal confidently predicted that “the present prospect” is that Fyffe “will be elected.”

The prediction proved false as Fyffe lost decisively, with 40% of the vote. Her influence on the local school system, though, was indisputable.

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However, Harriett’s life was about to take a major turn. Her father, in the words of local accounts, “was stricken with blindness,” threatening the family pharmacy.

The tragedy spurred Harriett to action. She enrolled at the Chicago Pharmacy School with the intent of running the family business herself. Harriett passed the examination and became a licensed pharmacist.

It was a rare achievement at the time. One account accurately states that women in pharmacy were “a thing almost unheard of in those days.”

At least two sources report that Fyffe was the first female registered pharmacist in Illinois, and the second in the nation. Those claims may be debated, but Fyffe was certainly well ahead of her time.

She spent 12 years with the family drugstore in Magnolia, working with little fanfare. Even ground-breaking women like Harriett Fyffe were rarely celebrated in the mainstream in her day.

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Harriett never married, though she was very close to her sister, Beatrice, who was 10 years younger. Family ties were not the only reason for the closeness. Beatrice had also become an educator and taught in the “primary department” of Magnolia while Harriett was the local principal.

On Christmas Day 1882, Beatrice married Thomas McIntosh, also a pharmacist. Oddly, McIntosh also lost his sight in later years, forcing Beatrice to care for him.

Sometime in the 1880s, Harriett moved with Beatrice and Thomas to Hastings, Nebraska, a booming railroad town. The population spiked from 2,817 in 1880 to 13,584 in 1890. Apparently, Harriett also managed a drugstore in Hastings, likely with her brother-in-law.

Around this time, Harriett began suffering from health issues, which plagued her for life. Still, she remained an active member of the Hastings community.

In March 1893, she was elected as librarian by the Hastings Library Association and, that same year, became the first president of the local Round Table Club. For a time, she also taught at the East Ward school in Hastings.

One evening in November 1895, she was a guest at a dinner party themed on “The Forest of Camelot.” A local paper reported that “questions were asked, to be answered by the name of forest trees.” Fyffe won by answering 16 of 20.

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Fyffe’s most noteworthy achievement in Hastings, however, was the result of her managerial skills. She was appointed “as one of the board of lady managers” for the Trans-Mississippi Exposition, a five-month world’s fair in Omaha in 1898.

Intended to celebrate Western development, the fair attracted over 2.6 million visitors to 4,062 exhibits on the 180-acre grounds. Fyffe appeared at speaking engagements across the region and promoted the creation of “The Girls’ and Boys’ Building” on the fairgrounds, which was supported by subscriptions from schoolchildren.

Like everywhere she had lived before, Harriett Fyffe was a pillar of the community in Hastings. However, she eventually left with her sister and brother-in-law for Fairfield, Iowa, in the southeastern part of the state.

Back in Putnam County, she remained a revered figure. The festivities at a Fourth of July celebration in Magnolia in 1906 included the public reading of a letter from Fyffe.

From June 8 to 11, 1907, her alma mater, Illinois State, held a 50th anniversary gala. It was just a few days from Harriett’s death, as she passed away that June 17 at Beatrice’s home in Fairfield. She is buried there, in Evergreen Cemetery.

An obituary summarized her legacy: “Many will be saddened by her death, as they were made better and happier by her life.”

• Tom Emery is a freelance writer and historical researcher from Carlinville, Ill. He may be reached at 217-710-8392 or ilcivilwar@yahoo.com.