25/02/2020
February 24, 1864 Rebecca Lee became the first black woman to receive an M.D. degree.
Although Rebecca Davis Lee Crumpler was born free in 1831 in Delaware, she still had to face many of the everyday struggles of not only being Black and interested in health (a career choice unpopular and believed during that time to be unfit for Negroes to perform), but she was also a woman–both two strikes against her. Crumpler was raised by her aunt in Pennsylvania. Growing up, her aunt quickly became her inspiration, as she attended to neighbors when they were sick and was compassionate in providing health care to others.
Throughout the 1850’s, Crumpler worked as a nurse in Massachusetts, and after being noticed by supervisors early on, she was recommended the New England Female Medical College in Boston, where she attended classes and graduated on Feb. 24, 1864, becoming the first African American woman to receive a Doctorate of Medicine degree.
Dr. Crumpler worked as a general probationer in Boston for various families, and at the end of the Civil War in 1865 she relocated to Richmond, Virginia to treat the newly freed slaves who needed urgent looking after. During the war, Crumpler describes the progression of experiences that led her to study and practice medicine in her A Book of Medical Discourses (1883):
It may be well to state here that, having been reared by a kind aunt in Pennsylvania, whose usefulness with the sick was continually sought, I early conceived a liking for, and sought every opportunity to relieve the sufferings of others. Later in life I devoted my time, when best I could, to nursing as a business, serving under different doctors for a period of eight years (from 1852 to 1860); most of the time at my adopted home in Charlestown, Middlesex County, Massachusetts. From these doctors I received letters commending me to the faculty of the New England Female Medical College, whence, four years afterward, I received the degree of doctress of medicine.
Text and Image From:
Lane, D. (2017, March 3). Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler: The First Black Woman To Receive An M.D. Retrieved from https://blackdoctor.org/455351/the-first-black-woman-to-receive-an-m-d/
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