By Tom Emery

While female doctors are common today, they were few and far between in the nineteenth-century. The first female medical graduate of Macoupin County managed to break new ground both in the county and outside its borders.

Lucinda Hall Corr was the first woman of the county to earn a medical degree, practicing in Carlinville for several decades until her death in 1914. Corr, whose husband was also a doctor, was a member of various medical societies statewide and authored a number of acclaimed articles on medicine.

Born on March 9, 1844 in Carlinville, Corr, who only stood five fe...