Letter Recipients

Lecture Award Mary “Mollie” McMillan (1880– 1959) is remembered as one of the pioneers of our profession and as the founding president of the American Physical Therapy Association. Born in Hyde Park, Massachusetts, she grew up and was educated in England, where she decided on a career in physical therapy. As the first physical therapy aide to be sworn into service in World War I, she supervised the training of reconstruction aides and came to be known as “The Mother of Physical Therapy” in the US Army. Mary McMillan organized one of the first courses in physical therapy in this country at Reed College in Oregon, and she established the first physical therapy training center in China at Peiping Union Medical College. Her book, Massage and Therapeutic Exercise, was the first comprehensive text on physical therapy written by an American physical therapist. During World War II, she treated prisoners of war while enduring the rigors of Japanese internment camps in Manila and Shanghai.