Adaline Pendleton Satterthwaite papers

Adaline Pendleton Satterthwaite was born on 6 February 1917 in Berkeley, California to Jessie Larimore and John Lewis Pendleton. She graduated magna cum laude from Pomona College in 1937 with a B.S. in chemistry, and earned her M.D. degree in obstetrics and gynecology in 1942 from the University of California at San Francisco. She met her future husband, William Satterthwaite, also a doctor, in 1944 while working in San Juan, Puerto Rico; the couple had one son, David. In 1947 Satterthwaite and her family traveled to China as medical missionaries where she was involved in Barefoot Doctors, a UNICEF program that trained villagers to administer basic medical care to their communities. She continued her work in China following the death of William Satterthwaite in 1949, returning to the U.S. in 1951. From 1952 to 1967 she again lived in Puerto Rico, working as resident physician at Ryder Memorial Hospital, and it was during this time that she was struck by the plight of women who had more children than they could support. She subsequently became involved in running some of the first clinical trials for oral contraceptives, and her data was instrumental in the FDA decision to approve the Pill in 1960. Satterthwaite also conducted pioneering research developing the intrauterine device (IUD). As she became more expert in the realm of maternal child health and international family planning, Satterthwaite was employed by various organizations, including the Ford Foundation, the Population Council of the Rockefeller Foundation, and the United Nations Fund for Population Activities under whose auspices she lived and worked in Thailand, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Mexico, and Venezuela. In the early 1980s she shifted from full-time work to short-term consulting projects in such countries as Mauritius, the Dominican Republic, Colombia, Peru, and Nepal.

In the late 1980s, upon retiring and relocating to Langhorne, Pennsylvania to be near her son and his family, Satterthwaite became an active volunteer in numerous organizations. She served on the board of directors of the Institute for Development Training, the Medical College of Pennsylvania, Planned Parenthood of Bucks County, the Newtown Friends School, and the Bucks County YWCA. She was also involved with the American Public Health Association, the League of Women Voters of Bucks County, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Meals on Wheels, and the Middletown Society of Friends. She used her fluency in Spanish to translate for patients at local hospitals, and as a tutor for the Latino Leadership Alliance of Bucks County. In 2002 Satterthwaite received the Bucks County Women's History Award for her contributions to the community. Her professional awards included the National Council for International Health Award, the Women's Health Award of the American Medical Women's Association, and the Margaret Sanger Award of Planned Parenthood of Bucks County. Satterthwaite published widely in professional journals throughout her career. She died in 2005.