Amelia Dranga (1866 — May 27, 1933) was an American medical doctor and public health educator, based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Early life Amelia A. Dranga was born in Otsego, Wisconsin, and raised in California, the daughter of Niels G. O. Dranga and Emily Ogden Dranga. Both of her parents were born in Norway. Her younger sisters Mary Dranga Campbell and Wilhelmina Dranga Campbell both found careers in blind education. Her brother Theodore Dranga married artist Helen Thomas Dranga. She was educated at the California State Normal School in Los Angeles, and at Radcliffe College. She earned her medical degree at the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania."Some Outstanding Women of Pittsburgh's 200 Years" Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (December 31, 1958): 6. via Newspapers.com
Career Amelia Dranga taught school in Los Angeles before going east to medical school."School Marms" Los Angeles Times (July 4, 1888): 3. via Newspapers.com Her internship in the Allegheny County hospitals opened the system to female medical students. She was the first woman to take the intern examination at West Penn Hospital.
From its founding in 1900 until her death 33 years later,"Benefit of Sick Babies" Pittsburgh Post (May 18, 1900): 2. via Newspapers.com she was the medical director of the Pittsburgh Milk and Ice Fund Association, and ran a popular twice-weekly baby clinic as part of that work.Anne Weiss, "Milk and Ice Fund Aids 1,000 Babies" Pittsburgh Press (September 5, 1932): 10. via Newspapers.com
Dranga served on the executive board of the American Birth Control League's Pennsylvania branch.Mary Winsor, "The Cost to the State of the Socially Unfit" Birth Control Review (September 1923): 223-224. She lectured on subjects from child nutrition to eugenics to sex education to Pittsburgh community groups."Plea for Babies by Medical Director" Pittsburgh Post (April 11, 1911): 13. via Newspapers.com"Pittsburghers Who Figured in the Week's News at Home and Abroad" Pittsburgh Post (May 6, 1912): 14. via Newspapers.com
Dranga was also president of the Woman's Medical Society of Western Pennsylvania."Items", Pennsylvania Medical Journal (April 1912): 578. She was one of the women doctors who planned a hospital for women and children in Pittsburgh in 1902."New Hospital Now Assured" Pittsburgh Post (November 2, 1902): 2. via Newspapers.com "I do not think that there is another profession which offers such advantages to women as does the medical," Dranga declared in 1909.Gertrude Gordon, "Greater Pittsburg's Successful Women, No. 31: Dr. Amelia A. Dranga" Pittsburgh Press (June 24, 1909): 15.
Dranga was the first chairman of the Committee on Prevention of Blindness.
Personal life Late in life, Dranga publicly described "regret" that she had never married.Ruth Ayers, "Why I Never Married; Dr. Dranga Regrets Trading Romance for Medical Career" Pittsburgh Press (August 10, 1931): 22. via Newspapers.com Amelia Dranga died in 1933, aged 67 years, in Pittsburgh."Rites Tonight for Dr. Dranga" Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (May 29, 1933): 7. via Newspapers.com The University of Pittsburgh medical school offered Amelia Dranga Scholarships in her memory, funded by the Congress of Women's Clubs of Western Pennsylvania,Frank C. Harper, "The Dranga Medical Scholarship"" Pittsburgh Press (November 25, 1929): 25. via Newspapers.com for women pursuing medical careers."Pioneer Woman Doctor is Dead" Pittsburgh Press (May 28, 1933): 4. via Newspapers.com
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