Author: Divya Malhotra, Yr 11
In 1864, Dr Rebecca Lee Crumpler made history by becoming the first African-American woman to become a doctor of medicine in the United States. She was an extraordinary woman who persisted despite facing formidable obstacles like racism and sexism yet managed to inspire many women of colour, even to this day.
Born in Delaware in 1831, Rebecca Lee Crumpler was born as Rebecca Davis to Absolum Davis and Matilda Webber. However, she was raised in Pennsylvania by her aunt who became Crumpler’s role model. Even at a young age, Crumpler was passionate about helping others. In her 1883 publication, she wrote: "...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."
Soon afterwards she moved to Massachusetts and, for 8 years, worked as a nurse where she was recommended to the New England Female Medical College. She gained acceptance in 1860 and won a tuition award from the Wade Scholarship fund to pay for her tuition. Four years later, she graduated and was the first African American woman in the United States to earn an M.D. degree, and the only African American woman to graduate from the New England Female Medical College.
The following year after her graduation, she moved to Richmond where she felt it was “a proper field for real missionary work and one that would present ample opportunities to become acquainted with the diseases of women and children. During my stay there nearly every hour was improved in that sphere of labour. The last quarter of the year 1866, I was enabled [. . .] to have access each day to a very large number of the indigent, and others of different classes, in a population of over 30,000 coloured." During this time, she primarily cared for freed slaves while working with the Freedmen’s Bureau with other black physicians even though they were all subjected to intense racism in the post-civil war south.
She later moved to Boston where she “entered into the work with renewed vigour, practising outside, and receiving children in the house for treatment; regardless, in a measure, of remuneration” according to her book. She eventually stopped practising medicine in 1880 and used this time to write and publish a medical journal called “A Book of Medical Discourses in Two Parts” which discussed paediatrics and other medical care for women and children. She dedicated the book to nurses and the book itself is considered one of the first medical publications written by an African-American. At the time, African-American authors had to have their prefaces written in the style of white men in order to give them authenticity, yet Crumpler was able to sustain her own writing with her own introduction with great authority.
On July 22, 1894, The Boston Globe wrote, “Dr Rebecca Crumpler is the one woman who, as a physician, made an enviable place for herself in the ranks of the medical fraternity.” She is remembered through The Rebecca Lee Pre-Health Society at Syracuse University and the Rebecca Lee Society which is the first medical society for African American women.
Not only did she provide free healthcare for freed slaves, women, and children, Dr Rebecca Lee Crumpler also became a pioneer in medicine and a role model by challenging prejudices and inspiring women of colour in the medical field. She was a compassionate doctor who “early conceived a liking for, and sought every opportunity to relieve the sufferings of others”.
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