Boston Gravestone Dedicated To First Black Female Doctor In US

BOSTON — The first Black woman to become a doctor in the U.S. lived in Boston. She died in 1895 and was buried in a Hyde Park cemetery where her husband, who escaped slavery and eventually became the oldest student in Boston public schools, joined her in death in 1910. The two lead remarkable lives, but there was no monument to their legacies, until this week.

"Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler (1931- 1895) challenged the racist beliefs that prevented African Americans from pursuing careers in medicine," according to the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

Thursday at the Fairview Cemetery in Hyde Park the Friends of Hyde Park held a dedication ceremony and revealed two new tombstones, marking the achievements of Crumpler and her husband Arthur Crumpler.

"Only in the last 10 years or so have Dr. Crumpler’s accomplishments been recognized," according to a blog post by the Friends of Hyde Park Library. "She was the first African-American women medical doctor trained in the United States. She graduated in 1864 from the New England Female Medical College in Boston. The college later became Boston University School of Medicine. She lived, studied, and work in the Boston area, but is still generally unknown in Boston."

Although Rebecca was born in Delaware and spent her early years in Pennsylvania, she made her way to a private school in West Newton then moved to Charlestown and worked as a nurse before getting her degree from the medical college.

Arthur Crumpler, her second husband, escaped from slavery in Virginia, and found his way to West Newton, thanks to the Union Army in Norfolk, Virginia.

The couple moved to Richmond, Virginia for a few years to work before returning to Joy Street in Boston's Beacon Hill, neighborhood. In the 1880s Rebecca's "Book of Medical Discourses" became the very first medical publications by a Black person, according to the US National Library of Medicine.

She intended the book to be a guide to caretakers. In it, Crumpler described practical, domestic remedies for many ailments. Her advice covered everything from how to care for a newborn, to general scientific information about anatomy and development.

In her book she sheds light on how she came to become a doctor:

"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."