In 1860, out of 54,543 physicians in the United States, only 300 were White women. Less than 200 were Black men. And exactly one was a Black woman: Rebecca Lee Crumpler. Which makes the accomplishments of Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler stand out. Born Rebecca Davis in Christiana, Delaware on February 8, 1831, she grew up in Pennsylvania, where her aunt provided care for the ill, exposing her to a life of caring for others. Her aunt's work in the medical field would have an abiding influence on Davis for the rest of her life. Those early experiences made her want to work to "relieve the suffering of others." This ignited her passion for medicine. Rebecca recalls that it was the quality time spent with her aunt who encouraged her to pursue a career in medicine.
By 1852 she had moved to Charlestown, Massachusetts, where she worked as a nurse for the next eight years, assisting various doctors in the area. This is where she met her first husband, Wyatt Lee, whom she wed on April 19, 1852, and took his last name, changing her name to Rebecca Davis Lee. With commendations from her work with different doctors, Rebecca Lee ultimately was admitted to the New England Female Medical College in Boston in 1860. The New England Female Medical College was established in 1848, as the Boston Female Medical College, primarily to train women in obstetrics and gynecology. Her acceptance at the college was highly unusual as most medical schools at that time it did not admit Blacks, especially Black women.
Many men argued that women were too delicate or not intelligent enough to be doctors. Rebecca Lee was accepted into the college, but her studies came to a brief halt in 1861, due to the outbreak of the Civil War. She continued her nursing, and in 1863, after the death of her husband from tuberculosis, was able to return to the college. She found herself a widow and financially strapped, she was able to finance her studies after winning a tuition award from the Wade Scholarship Fund, established by Ohio abolitionist Benjamin Wade. The NEFMC initially trained women to work only as midwives. This focus reflected its founder Samuel Gregory's belief that it was improper for male doctors to assist with childbirth. Her curriculum included classes in chemistry, anatomy, physiology, hygiene, medical jurisprudence, therapeutics, and theory.
In 1864, Crumpler took her final oral exams at NEFMC alongside two White women. Despite all of the difficulties, when she completed her medical doctorate on March 1st 1864, she was the first Black woman in the United States to do so. And she was one of only three hundred female doctors in the United States. Her official degree was “Doctress of Medicine”. Also she was the only Black woman to graduate from the New England Female Medical College, which merged with Boston University School of Medicine in 1873. Shortly afterwards, she began practicing medicine in Boston. After the Civil War ended, she felt a call to “missionary work”. After the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery in the U.S., was ratified in December 1865, Rebecca Lee moved to Richmond, Virginia.
As a Christian woman, she saw it as both a religious and professional opportunity. It was the deprivation caused by the war that drove her to Richmond. Richmond, Virginia, was a wreck at the end of the American Civil War. About 10 percent of the town had burned down when, in April of 1865, Confederate soldiers lit fires to burn up supplies as the Confederate government escaped. There were shortages of everything, and inflation was rampant. The city was, as she described later, “The proper field for real missionary work, and one that would present ample opportunities to become acquainted with the diseases of women and children.”
On May 24, 1865, Crumpler married her second husband, Arthur Crumpler, a formerly enslaved man who had escaped from Virginia. She worked for the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands. This institution, also known as the “Freedmen’s Bureau,” was established after the conclusion of the Civil War to offer relief support, primarily to formerly enslaved people. It was here where she joined other Black physicians caring for freed slaves, even though Black physicians experienced intense racism working in the postwar South. But, Rebecca experienced the double sword of racism and sexism. Rebecca worked under the aegis of General Orlando Brown, the Assistant Commissioner of the Freedman’s Bureau for the State of Virginia.
Richmond was hostile to its African American citizens in the years immediately following the war. The Freedman’s Bureau records show numerous occurrences of the arrest of Black men for no other reason than not having a pass. What Dr. Crumpler found when she arrived was hospitals that were under-resourced, understaffed, and neglected, and a healthcare program that had allotted only 100 doctors to care for 4 million newly emancipated humans. She learned that the Black community had been told they were biologically inferior and therefore couldn’t be helped or healed. In her work with the Freedmen’s Bureau, she tended to newly freed slaves that were refused treatment by White doctors.
She worked to dispel the myth that recently freed slaves were spreading disease, rightly pointing instead to poor living conditions. Working with the Freedmen’s Bureau, and missionary and community groups, Crumpler was denied hospital privileges and some pharmacists refused to honor her prescriptions. Some colleagues reportedly said that the M.D. behind her name stood for “mule driver”. Yet, Dr. Crumpler continued to work for the medical division of the Freedman’s Bureau, administering to sick and hurt indigents. While Dr. Crumpler experienced racism, sexism, and constant questioning of her intellectual prowess, she was committed to providing care to large Black communities who had little access to medical care.
The sentiment at that time was that women lacked the mental capacity to practice medicine. She collaborated with the Freedmen’s Bureau and other charity and missionary groups to care for freed Blacks. The enormous needs of these patients, and the discrimination they faced from many White doctors, encouraged an increasing number of African Americans to seek medical training. Many of her patients were very poor people who would otherwise have had no access to medical care. It is not surprising that her stay in Richmond would be relatively short. Before returning to Boston in 1869, Rebecca married Dr. Arthur Crumpler.
She established a practiced from her home on Beacon Hill, in a mostly Black neighborhood, and dedicated her services to women and children, especially through nutrition and preventative medicine. Dr. Lee Crumpler saw that Black communities had an increased risk of such epidemics due to precarious living conditions and understood that infections could be prevented by taking appropriate measures. By 1880 she had moved to Hyde Park, Massachusetts, and was no longer in active practice. To combat misperceptions and lack of knowledge in women’s and pediatric health, Crumpler in 1883 published the two-volume set, "A Book of Medical Discourses". Her 1883 book is based on journal notes she kept during her years of medical practice.
She dedicated the book to nurses and mothers. Her dedication reads, “To mothers, nurses, and all who desire to mitigate the afflictions of the human race, this book is prayerfully offered.” It primarily gave advice for women on the health care of their families. Her book urges parents to be vigilant in caring for their children and emphasizes the importance of what doctors today consider the “social determinants of health.” Her main desire in presenting this book was to emphasize the "possibilities of prevention". The first part of the book discussed intestinal problems from infancy to age 5, and the second part discussed puberty and the accompanying health issues. In addition to medical advice, Crumpler also added her thoughts on marriage, and political and social issues.
Rebecca Lee Crumpler’s Book of Medical Discourses was among the first medical guidebooks published by a Black doctor in the United States. Her life and work testify to her talent and determination to help other people, in the face of doubled prejudice against her gender and race. Throughout her career, Dr. Crumpler worked to improve the health (and lives) of poor Black women and children. She battled deep-seated prejudice against women and African Americans in medicine. No photos or other images survive of Dr. Crumpler. The little we know about her comes from the introduction to her book, a remarkable mark of her achievements as a physician and medical writer in a time when very few African Americans were able to gain admittance to medical college, let alone publish. She passed away at the age of 64 in 1895 while still residing in Hyde Park. Rebecca Lee Crumpler will never be forgotten since she left her mark in the world.