Born in Ashford, Connecticut, on September 22, 1829, Emeline Horton grew up from 1831 in Madison County, New York. After attending local schools she became a schoolteacher herself until she was able to afford to enroll at Oberlin College, from which she graduated in 1853. She then entered the Female (later Woman╒s) Medical College of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and took her M.D. degree in 1855. During that time she married the Reverend Giles B. Cleveland in March 1854. Her husband╒s ill health ended their plan to undertake missionary work, and after a year of private practice in the Oneida valley of New York, Cleveland became a demonstrator of anatomy at the Female Medical College in 1856. A short time later she was named professor of anatomy and histology. In 1860╨1861, with the support of Dr. Ann Preston of the college, she took advanced training in obstetrics at the school of the MaternitÄ hospital in Paris and then returned to Philadelphia as chief resident at the rechartered Woman╒s Medical College, a post she held until 1868. From 1862 she was also professor of obstetrics and diseases of women and children, and she carried on an extensive private practice as well.
Cleveland╒s professional reputation was unsurpassed among women physicians; on several occasions she was consulted by male colleagues, and she was admitted finally to membership in several local medical societies. Her work at the college, where she had early established training courses for nurses and for nurse╒s aides, the latter a pioneering venture, was capped by her service as dean, succeeding Preston, in 1872╨1874. In 1875 she performed the first of several ovariotomies, apparently the earliest recorded instance of major surgery performed by a woman. In 1878 she was appointed gynecologist to the department for the insane at Pennsylvania Hospital. Cleveland died in Philadelphia on December 8, 1878.
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