Rebecca Lee Crumpler
| Rebecca Lee Crumpler | |
|---|---|
| Born | Rebecca Davis February 8, 1831 Christiana, Delaware |
| Died | March 9, 1895 (aged 64) Hyde Park, Boston, Massachusetts |
| Nationality | American |
| Fields | Medicine |
| Alma mater | New England Female Medical College |
| Known for | First female African-American doctor |
Rebecca Lee Crumpler, née Davis, (February 8, 1831 – March 9, 1895) was the first African American woman to become a physician in the United States. She married Arthur Crumpler who had served with the Union Army during the American Civil War. Her publication of A Book of Medical Discourses in 1883 was one of the first written by an African American about medicine.
In 1831, Crumpler was born Rebecca Davis in Christiana, Delaware to Matilda Webber and Absolum Davis. She was raised in Pennsylvania by an aunt who cared for infirm neighbors. Crumpler later attended the elite West Newton English and Classical School in Massachusetts where she was a "special student in mathematics."
She moved to Charlestown, Massachusetts in 1852. During the next eight years, Crumpler was employed as a nurse until she was accepted into the New England Female Medical College in 1860. It was rare for women or black men to be admitted to medical schools during this time. That year, there were 54,543 physicians in the United States, 300 of whom were women. None of them were African American women. She won a tuition award from the Wade Scholarship Fund, which was established by the Ohio abolitionist, Benjamin Wade. After having completed three years of coursework and a thesis, she gave her final oral examinations in February 1864. On March 1, 1864, the board of trustees named her a Doctor of Medicine, making her the first African American woman in the United States to earn the degree, and the only African American woman to graduate from New England Female Medical College. The school closed in 1873, without graduating another black woman. It merged with Boston University.
Crumpler first practiced medicine in Boston, primarily for poor women and children. During this time she "sought training in the 'British Dominion'".
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