SHERO: Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler (Doctor)
In 1831, Rebecca Lee Crumpler was born in Delaware and raised by an aunt who was dedicated to caring for sick neighbors and friends. At the age of 21, young Rebecca moved to Charleston, Massachusetts, to work as a nurse for the next eight years. The first formal nursing school wouldn’t open for another 20 years, so she was able to practice nursing without any sort of degree. In 1860 ➬ 29-year-old Rebecca entered the New England Female Medical College. Upon graduation, she became the first black female doctor in the United States, and the only African-American woman to graduate from that college, which closed in 1873.
Dr. Benjamin Spock published his famous “Baby and Child Care” book in 1946, eventually outselling all other nonfiction books other than the Bible. However, in 1883, 63 years before Spock’s book, America’s first African-American woman medical doctor published her “Book of Medical Discourse,” offering medical advice for women and children. What makes Dr. Crumpler’s success even more remarkable is that she received her medical degree in 1860, one year before the start of the American Civil War. To be black and trying to become a doctor at that time was challenge enough, but to also be a woman breaking into a male bastion like medicine required heroic strength and courage and commitment.
She practiced in Boston until the end of the Civil War. Then, in 1866, she moved to Richmond, Virginia, to help those affected by the devastation of the war. It was here, among a black population of 30,000 that she felt she could learn most about “the diseases of women and children.” Despite enduring horrific racism and sexism, she, along with other brave black doctors, cared for freed slaves who otherwise would have received no medical care.
She returned to Boston, living in a mostly black neighborhood, caring for women and children until her retirement in 1880. She died in 1895.
Tags: Black History, Doctor, Female. Rebecca Crumpler, Shero
March 25th, 2010 at 7:26 pm
Even though i know no more and o less of this great women of our past time i can say that she paved the road for the women that have changed our world for today we all know who they are and we can all see the ones in the development of becoming the leaders of tommorow and the ones who will change the worl and set new expectations to the word WOMEN if we can all put our knowledge and talents to work we can make something of ourselves and also go down in history like the young women of yesterday and today lets set history and build up our futurs from the ground ther on now to new heights in the sky……..xoxo