Pioneering Women Physicians

Rebecca Lee Crumpler, Rebecca Cole and Susan McKinney Steward defied great racial and gender barriers in 19th Century United States to become the first African-American women to receive medical degrees.

Rebecca Lee Crumpler became the first African-American woman to graduate from medical school in the United States. Graduating from the New England Medical College in 1864, Crumpler practiced medicine in Boston for several years before relocating to Richmond Virginia to work for the Freedmen's Bureau caring for newly freed African-Americans. When the Freedmen's Bureau closed, Crumpler returned to Boston where she continued to service the African-American community in Beacon Hill. In 1883, she published one of the first known medical books by an African-American, Book of Medical Discourses.

Philadelphian Rebecca Cole became the second African-American physician in 1867, graduating from the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania. After practicing medicine in South Carolina for six years, Cole moved back to Philadelphia and established the Women's Directory Center, granting medical care and legal help to needy women and children. She went on to become superintendent of a home established byThe National Association for the Relief of Destitute Colored Women and Children.

In 1870, Susan Smith McKinney Steward graduated from the New York Medical College for Women and became the third African-American woman to receive a doctoral degree and the first in New York state. While running her private practice in Brooklyn, NY from 1870 to 1895, Steward served the African-American community as a board member of the Brooklyn Home for Aged Colored People and established the Brooklyn Women's Heopathic Hospital and Dispensary.

Crumpler, Cole and Steward must be remembered for their ability to overcome societal barriers as well as their commitment to improving the health of women and children.