author
Rebecca Lee Crumpler
1831–1895
A groundbreaking 19th-century physician, she became the first Black woman in the United States to earn a medical degree. Her work caring for women, children, and formerly enslaved people helped open doors in both medicine and publishing.
1 Audiobook
A Book of Medical Discourses, in Two Parts
by Rebecca Lee Crumpler
About the author
Born Rebecca Davis in 1831 in Christiana, Delaware, she was inspired early by an aunt who cared for sick neighbors. After working as a nurse in Massachusetts, she entered the New England Female Medical College and earned her M.D. in 1864, becoming the first African American woman in the United States known to receive a medical degree.
After the Civil War, she practiced in Richmond, Virginia, where she treated formerly enslaved people and other patients with little access to medical care. She later returned to Boston and continued to focus especially on the health of women and children.
In 1883, she published A Book of Medical Discourses, one of the earliest medical books by an African American author and the first known by a Black woman physician in the United States. Her life stands out not only for breaking barriers, but for the practical, compassionate way she used medicine to serve people who were often overlooked.