Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. Hello and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2: I'm Tracy V.
Speaker 1: Wilson and I'm Holly Frye.
Speaker 2: I accidentally picked an episode that has a little bit
Speaker 2: of a connection to George Washington Williams, who we just
Speaker 2: talked about. It might not be a direct connection though.
Speaker 2: Today we are talking about Rebecca Crumpler, who started attending
Speaker 2: Twelfth Baptist Church in Roxbury, Massachusetts in eighteen seventies. This
Speaker 2: was right around the time that George Washington Williams was
Speaker 2: pastor there. I did not find confirmation on like the
Speaker 2: exact timeline when she started attending this church, so it's
Speaker 2: not totally clear whether they definitely were there at the
Speaker 2: same time, but based on this timeline, it is possible.
Speaker 2: Rebecca Crumpler was the first black woman in the United
Speaker 2: States to earn a medical degree. She also wrote one
Speaker 2: of the first, if not the first, medical texts by
Speaker 2: a black person in the United States. When she graduated,
Speaker 2: the New England Female Medical College was conferring the degree
Speaker 2: Doctress of Medicine, and that title might seem disparaging or
Speaker 2: belittling today, but it's one that she really seems to
Speaker 2: have embraced because to her it signified something important about
Speaker 2: her work, which we will be talking about. Rebecca Davis
Speaker 2: was born on February eighth, eighteen thirty one, in Christiana, Delaware.
Speaker 2: Her parents were Absolom and Matilda Davis, but Rebecca spent
Speaker 2: a lot of her childhood being raised by an aunt
Speaker 2: in Pennsylvania. Christiana is roughly ten miles from the Pennsylvania border,
Speaker 2: so it is possible that she was still able to
Speaker 2: see her parents while she was in her aunt's care.
Speaker 2: We don't have much detail about her life, though, it's
Speaker 2: not even clear how long her parents lived after she
Speaker 2: was born or why she was raised by an aunt.
Speaker 2: But Delaware was a slave state and Pennsylvania had passed
Speaker 2: a gradual Abolition Act in seventeen eighty. The number of
Speaker 2: people enslaved in Pennsylvania had declined after that, so there
Speaker 2: were fewer than one hundred remaining by the time Rebecca
Speaker 2: was born, so it's possible that her family thought that
Speaker 2: Rebecca would be safer in Pennsylvania than in Delaware. At
Speaker 2: the same time, black people were still at risk throughout
Speaker 2: the United States, even if they were free. The Fugitive
Speaker 2: Slave Clause in Article four of the US Constitution specified
Speaker 2: that people could not free themselves from bondage in one
Speaker 2: state by escaping to another state. The Fugitive Slave Act
Speaker 2: of seventeen ninety three created a legal mechanism to enforce
Speaker 2: this clause, and the Fugitive Slave Act of eighteen fifty,
Speaker 2: passed when Rebecca was nineteen, expanded that earlier act and
Speaker 2: led to a huge increase in free black people being
Speaker 2: kidnapped and enslaved. So it's possible that that was part
Speaker 2: of Rebecca's decision to move farther north to Massachusetts in
Speaker 2: the eighteen fifties. By eighteen fifty two, she was working
Speaker 2: in Charlestown, which is part of Boston now but at
Speaker 2: the time was a separate city. She worked as a nurse,
Speaker 2: and her initial nursing training was informal. As Davis would
Speaker 2: later write, quote, having been reared by a kind aunt
Speaker 2: in Pennsylvania, whose usefulness with the sick was continually sought,
Speaker 2: I early conceived a liking for and sought every opportunity
Speaker 2: to be in a position to relieve the sufferings of others.
Speaker 2: This kind of informal training was not at all unusual.
Speaker 2: Nursing had not evolved as a formalized profession yet. There
Speaker 2: were not any nursing schools in the US or Europe,
Speaker 2: so most people who were working as nurses were learning
Speaker 2: from a family member or somebody else in their community.
Speaker 2: Rebecca got married on April nineteenth, eighteen fifty two, to
Speaker 2: a man named Wyatt Lee. We don't know much about
Speaker 2: Wyatt except that he was a laborer born in Prince
Speaker 2: George County, Virginia. He had previously been enslaved, and he
Speaker 2: had a son named Albert from an earlier marriage. Albert
Speaker 2: sadly died at the age of eight of what may
Speaker 2: have been some kind of heart failure. That was just
Speaker 2: about a year after Rebecca and Wyatt got married. Rebecca
Speaker 2: worked as a nurse in Charlestown for about eight years,
Speaker 2: and in eighteen sixty some of the doctors she had
Speaker 2: worked for gave her letters of recommendation that she used
Speaker 2: to apply to the New England Female Medical College. This
Speaker 2: medical school had been founded as Boston Female Medical College
Speaker 2: in eighteen forty eight, and it was the first institution
Speaker 2: in the United States to formally offer medical training to women.
Speaker 2: Its founder, Samuel Gregory was the author of a work
Speaker 2: called man Midwhiffery Exposed and Corrected, or the employment of
Speaker 2: men to attend women in childbirth and in other delicate circumstances,
Speaker 2: shown to be a modern innovation, unnecessary, unnatural, and injurious
Speaker 2: to the physical welfare of the community, and pernicious in
Speaker 2: its influence on professional and public morality, and the whole
Speaker 2: proved by numerous facts in the testimony of the most
Speaker 2: eminent physicians in Boston, New York, and other places, and
Speaker 2: the education and employment of midwives recommended. As is obvious
Speaker 2: from this very long title, he thought it was indecent
Speaker 2: for male doctors to attend women who were giving birth,
Speaker 2: and he thought that women should be trained.
Speaker 1: To do it. The Female Medical College initially offered a
Speaker 1: basic midwiffery program, and in eighteen fifty its curriculum expanded
Speaker 1: to include more comprehensive medical training. By that point, Gregory
Speaker 1: had also written letter to ladies in favor of female
Speaker 1: physicians for their own sex. This was a nearly fifty
Speaker 1: page letter that started quote, it is not a recent
Speaker 1: or hastily formed opinion on the part of the writer
Speaker 1: that there ought to be a class of females thoroughly
Speaker 1: educated and qualified to act as medical advisors and professional
Speaker 1: attendance in those departments of practice which relate particularly to
Speaker 1: their own sex. The daughter, the wife, the mother.
Speaker 2: Rebecca Lee was accepted into this program, but she had
Speaker 2: to put her education on hold for a while to
Speaker 2: care for her husband, who had contracted tuberculosis. Wyatt died
Speaker 2: in April of eighteen sixty three, and after his death,
Speaker 2: Rebecca returned to school. She graduated on February twenty fourth,
Speaker 2: eighteen sixty four, with the degree Doctress of Medicine. There
Speaker 2: was apparently some hesitation around allowing her to graduate. Tracy
Speaker 2: wasn't able to find specifics, so we can't really say
Speaker 2: whether she genuinely struggled with the coursework, or whether her
Speaker 2: examiner's opinions of her performance were influenced by racism or
Speaker 2: some combination of the two. According to a transcript of
Speaker 2: the faculty notes, quote, owing to the deficiencies in the
Speaker 2: academic education of missus Lee and the slow progress she
Speaker 2: has made in her professional studies, we have hesitated very
Speaker 2: seriously in recommending her certification. The school did ultimately allow
Speaker 2: her to graduate out of deference to the Board of
Speaker 2: Trustees and to public feeling. Nothing spells out the details
Speaker 2: of that public feeling, but in eighteen sixty four, the
Speaker 2: US was well into the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln had
Speaker 2: issued the Emancipation Proclamation, and Massachusetts had become a focal
Speaker 2: point in the fight to abolish slavery. Regarding the title doctress,
Speaker 2: eighteen sixty four seems to be the first year that
Speaker 2: the school used this title for its graduates, but the
Speaker 2: question of what to call women doctors wasn't entirely settled,
Speaker 2: and at least in some years, the school conferred the
Speaker 2: degree as doctor or as doctress, depending on the preference
Speaker 2: of the individual graduate. Rebecca Lee Crumpler later wrote about
Speaker 2: it in her own book, making it clear that she
Speaker 2: thought doctress was the correct title for her quote, there
Speaker 2: can be no more important duties to perform in the
Speaker 2: capacity of housekeeping than that of caring for the helpless babe. Women. Doctors,
Speaker 2: or more properly speaking, doctresses of medicine, although usually treated
Speaker 2: with less courtesy by doctors, are nevertheless by them considered
Speaker 2: to be in their proper sphere in the confinement room
Speaker 2: and nursery. While I feel under no obligations to them
Speaker 2: for their charity. I must admit their honesty and truthfulness
Speaker 2: in the matter, For surely women cannot fill a single
Speaker 2: position in the world so freighted with material out of
Speaker 2: which the moral and physical condition of humanity can be affected,
Speaker 2: either for good or evil.
Speaker 1: Graduating from the New England Female Medical College made Rebecca
Speaker 1: Lee the first black woman in the US to earn
Speaker 1: an MD. At that point, there were about fifty four
Speaker 1: thousand doctors in the United States, and only about three
Speaker 1: hundred of those were women, and only one black woman.
Speaker 1: She wasn't the United States first black doctor, though that's
Speaker 1: typically recognized as James Durham, who is on my list
Speaker 1: for an episode if I can find enough information. Durham
Speaker 1: didn't have a formal medical degree, though he was enslaved
Speaker 1: from birth and learned medicine from the doctors who enslaved him.
Speaker 1: Durham's work as a doctor attracted the attention of doctor
Speaker 1: Benjamin Rush, who was so impressed with it that he
Speaker 1: read a paper Durham wrote on diphtheria before the College
Speaker 1: of Physicians of Pennsylvania. The first black person from the
Speaker 1: United States to earn a medical degree was James McCune
Speaker 1: Smith in eighteen thirty seven, although he earned that degree
Speaker 1: in Scotland because US medical schools wouldn't admit him because
Speaker 1: of his race. The first black American to earn an
Speaker 1: MD from a US institution was David J. Peck, who
Speaker 1: graduated from Rush Medical College, Chicago in eighteen forty seven.
Speaker 1: We will talk more about Rebecca Crumpler's life after we
Speaker 1: pause for a sponsor break. After graduating from the New
Speaker 1: England Female Medical College as a doctress of medicine, Rebecca
Speaker 1: Lee went to Canada to gain some more experience in
Speaker 1: Saint Johns d Brunswick. On May twenty fourth, eighteen sixty five,
Speaker 1: she married Arthur Crumpler.
Speaker 2: Arthur was a blacksmith. He had been enslaved in Virginia
Speaker 2: and had been hired out to somebody in that trade. Eventually,
Speaker 2: Arthur had been set up with a shop of his own,
Speaker 2: which of course still belonged to his enslaver, but he
Speaker 2: had escaped at the start of the Civil War.
Speaker 1: Arthur initially wound up at Fort Monroe, which we have
Speaker 1: taught talked about on the show before. Fort Monroe was
Speaker 1: the only federal fort in the Upper South to remain
Speaker 1: under the control of the United States for the duration
Speaker 1: of the war. It was under the command of Major
Speaker 1: General Benjamin Franklin Butler, that is, the person who declared
Speaker 1: three men who had liberated themselves from slavery and escaped
Speaker 1: to the fort in eighteen sixty one to be contraband
Speaker 1: of war. The term contraband came to describe enslaved people
Speaker 1: who escaped to US territory or were captured by the
Speaker 1: US army, and the United States eventually established contraband camps
Speaker 1: all over the territory that it controlled. Our episode on
Speaker 1: these camps was a Saturday Classic in February of twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three.
Speaker 2: Eventually, Rebecca and Arthur made their way back to Boston,
Speaker 2: but soon after the Civil War ended, Rebecca saw a
Speaker 2: need for her skills in Virginia, and her words quote
Speaker 2: on my return after the close of the Confederate War,
Speaker 2: my mind centered upon Richmond, the capital city of Virginia,
Speaker 2: as the proper field for real missionary work, and one
Speaker 2: that would present ample opportunities to become acquainted with the
Speaker 2: diseases of women and children. During my stay there, nearly
Speaker 2: every hour was improved in that sphere of labor. The
Speaker 2: last quarter of the year eighteen sixty six, I was enabled,
Speaker 2: through the agency of the Bureau under General Brown, to
Speaker 2: have access each day to a very large number of
Speaker 2: the indigent and others of different classes, and a population
Speaker 2: of over thirty thousand colored So that Bureau, of course
Speaker 2: was the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands, better
Speaker 2: known as the Freedman's Bureau.
Speaker 1: In about eighteen sixty nine, Crumpler went back to Boston,
Speaker 1: where she lived and practiced medicine on the north slope
Speaker 1: of Beacon Hill, the same neighborhood as Kitty Knox, who
Speaker 1: we talked about on the show last year, whose family
Speaker 1: moved there a little more than ten years later. In Boston,
Speaker 1: Crumpler quote entered into the work with renewed vigor, practicing
Speaker 1: outside and receiving children in the house for treatment. In
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy, Rebecca and Arthur had a daughter, Lizzie Sinclair Crumpler,
Speaker 1: but she doesn't appear in later historical records, and it's
Speaker 1: possible that she died in childhood.
Speaker 2: Around this time, New England Female Medical College, where she'd graduated,
Speaker 2: fell into financial difficulties. A major fire in eighteen seventy two,
Speaker 2: destroyed a huge part of Boston's financial district and a
Speaker 2: number of businesses and warehouses. This was financially devastating for
Speaker 2: some of the investors who had been keeping the school afloat.
Speaker 2: The school's founder, doctor Samuel Gregory, also died of tuberculosis
Speaker 2: that same year. The school started looking for options that
Speaker 2: would allow it to stay open, ultimately merging with Boston University.
Speaker 2: BU took on the medical college's debts, and the medical
Speaker 2: school started also enrolling men, which made this the first
Speaker 2: accredited co educational medical school in the US. It is
Speaker 2: now Austin University Chobanian and Avidesian School of Medicine. In
Speaker 2: the eighteen seventies, Crumpler worked with an organization of ladies
Speaker 2: to help care for sick women and children in Boston
Speaker 2: and to offer affordable boarding to the children of working women.
Speaker 2: Her medical practice also focused on the care and treatment
Speaker 2: of women and children at a time when the fields
Speaker 2: of obstetrics, gynecology, and pediatrics were in their infancy and
Speaker 2: largely being dominated by male doctors. During these years, the
Speaker 2: Crumplers also started attending Twelfth Baptist Church, and they continued
Speaker 2: to be active and dedicated members there, even after moving
Speaker 2: out of the neighborhood years later. Their move to another
Speaker 2: church ultimately followed allegations of impropriety involving the pastor and
Speaker 2: an eighteen year old member of the church choir. In
Speaker 2: the mid eighteen seventies, Crumpler spent some time outside of
Speaker 2: Boston teaching in other communities. When abolitionist and politician Charles
Speaker 2: Sumner died in eighteen seventy four, Crumpler was in Woamington, Delaware,
Speaker 2: and she read a poem that she had written herself
Speaker 2: at a service that was held in his honor at
Speaker 2: the city's Bethel Methodist Episcopal Church. I wish we had
Speaker 2: this poem. To my knowledge, we don't. After returning to
Speaker 2: Boston in eighteen seventy five, Crumpler enrolled as a special
Speaker 2: student in mathematics at West Newton English and Classical School.
Speaker 2: There's a little bit of confusion here. There are some
Speaker 2: sources that say that Crumpler attended this school much earlier,
Speaker 2: back in the eighteen fifties before going to medical school.
Speaker 2: But there's a book of the school's history called an
Speaker 2: Illustrated Biographical Catalog of the Principles Teachers and Students of
Speaker 2: the West Newton English and Classical School, and that book
Speaker 2: gives her first year of enrollment as eighteen seventy five.
Speaker 2: It is not impossible that this is some kind of
Speaker 2: error and that she really did go to the school
Speaker 2: much earlier. But if that eighteen seventy five year is correct,
Speaker 2: we don't really know what led her to wanting to
Speaker 2: make a special study of math at the aige of
Speaker 2: forty four. I'm very curious about all of this.
Speaker 1: I mean, I get it sometimes you want to learn
Speaker 1: new stuff. But she may have chosen this particular school
Speaker 1: because her husband had become friends with its founder, Nathaniel
Speaker 1: t Allen, after arriving in Boston. According to one account,
Speaker 1: Arthur Crumpler was one of several so called Condra bands
Speaker 1: who were hired in and around West Newton during the
Speaker 1: Civil War, and Alan taught him how to read. That
Speaker 1: same account mentions Rebecca going to the school before medical school,
Speaker 1: and a later interview with Arthur Crumpler suggests he didn't
Speaker 1: know how to read until much later. So all of
Speaker 1: this is pretty unclear in terms of its timeline accuracy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it reads like a person's like personal recollection of
Speaker 2: the events as they happened, and I don't really know
Speaker 2: how much it aligns with what we can document. In
Speaker 2: eighteen eighty the Crumpler's move from Beacon Hill to Hyde Park,
Speaker 2: which is the neighborhood of Boston today but was at
Speaker 2: the time its own operated town several miles south of
Speaker 2: the city. She continued to practice medicine, and in eighteen
Speaker 2: eighty three she published a book of medical discourses in
Speaker 2: two parts. We will be talking about this book more
Speaker 2: in just a bit. Rebecca Crumpler seems to have continued
Speaker 2: working as a doctor until the end of her life.
Speaker 2: In eighteen ninety four, she and her practice were mentioned
Speaker 2: in an article in the Boston Globe. This was sort
Speaker 2: of a profile of the most prominent people in Boston's
Speaker 2: black community, which at that point numbered about ten thousand people.
Speaker 2: This write upset of her quote, Doctor Crumpler is the
Speaker 2: one woman who, as a physician, made an enviable place
Speaker 2: for herself in the ranks of the medical fraternity. Doctor
Speaker 2: Crumpler is the author of rather a valuable book, Medical Discourses.
Speaker 2: She is a very pleasant and intellectual woman and an
Speaker 2: indefatigable church worker. This article also went on to describe
Speaker 2: her appearance, as it did for many of the other
Speaker 2: women included in the article. The Hyde Park Directory and
Speaker 2: Town Register also listed her as a physician and her
Speaker 2: husband as a laborer in its eighteen ninety five eighteen
Speaker 2: ninety six edition. Rebecca Davis Lee Crumpler died on March ninth,
Speaker 2: eighteen ninety five, at the age of sixty four. Her
Speaker 2: cause of death was given as fibroid tumors. She was
Speaker 2: buried in Fairview Cemetery in Hyde Park. This cemetery had
Speaker 2: been open for just about two years, and a lot
Speaker 2: of the people who were buried there, really in its
Speaker 2: first couple of decades, didn't have their graves marked in
Speaker 2: any way. That was true for Crumpler until very recently,
Speaker 2: which is something else that we will be talking about
Speaker 2: in a little bit.
Speaker 1: But first we're going to get into detail about her book,
Speaker 1: and we will do that after we pause for a
Speaker 1: sponsor break.
Speaker 2: Rebecca Crumpler's A Book of Medical Discourses in two Parts,
Speaker 2: published in eighteen eighty three, was one of the first
Speaker 2: medical texts by a black person to be published in
Speaker 2: the United States, if not the first, and as was
Speaker 2: the case.
Speaker 1: With Crumpler's work as a doctor. It was really.
Speaker 2: Focused on women and children. Its dedication read quote to mothers, nurses,
Speaker 2: and all who may desire to mitigate the afflictions of
Speaker 2: the human race. This book is prayerfully offered.
Speaker 1: She went on to say, quote, indeed, I desire that
Speaker 1: my book shall be as a primary reader in the
Speaker 1: hands of every woman, and yet nonetheless suited to any
Speaker 1: who may be conversant with all branches of medical science.
Speaker 1: If women are permitted to read and reflect for themselves,
Speaker 1: it is hardly possible that they will say it is
Speaker 1: uninteresting to them, or that it should only be read
Speaker 1: by men.
Speaker 2: This book was full of health and medical advice, interwoven
Speaker 2: with Crumpler's own experiences and anecdotes about things she had
Speaker 2: experienced and seen in her nearly two decades of medical practice,
Speaker 2: and she allowed this book to stand on its own
Speaker 2: me and her own knowledge and experience, unlike a number
Speaker 2: of books on other subjects by black women that were
Speaker 2: written in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, which were introduced
Speaker 2: by white men. She wrote the introduction for this book herself.
Speaker 2: She wrote this book at a time when ideas around
Speaker 2: sex and gender and gender roles were a lot more
Speaker 2: binary and rigid than they are today. Women were expected
Speaker 2: to have and raise children almost without exception, so she
Speaker 2: began with her thoughts on marriage as it related to
Speaker 2: the health of a couple's future children. In her opinion,
Speaker 2: girls should get married at about nineteen or twenty, because
Speaker 2: getting married and becoming pregnant before their bodies were mature
Speaker 2: led to weekly children. She thought that the same was
Speaker 2: true for women who gave birth and much older ages,
Speaker 2: and she thought that men should be between the ages
Speaker 2: of twenty two and twenty five by the time they
Speaker 2: took on the responsibility of having a family. From there,
Speaker 2: she described how in her experience, the symptoms of early
Speaker 2: pregnancy could be mistaken for a cold, but the treatments
Speaker 2: for cold symptoms would have no effect if they were
Speaker 2: really being caused by pregnancy. She also thought that repeatedly
Speaker 2: trying to treat these symptoms could disregulate the body, and
Speaker 2: she wrote quotes suffice it to say that too frequent
Speaker 2: physicking and over indulgence in intoxicating liquors and tobacco will
Speaker 2: cause sickly diminutive offspring, to say nothing of premature births.
Speaker 2: A big focus of her work and this book was
Speaker 2: the period of confinement after giving birth, a period that
Speaker 2: Crumpler referred.
Speaker 1: To just as the months. This included correct methods for
Speaker 1: bathing newborns. She criticized the use of cold water or
Speaker 1: even ice water for stimulating newborn circulation, saying that she
Speaker 1: had seen infants get sick or die after becoming too
Speaker 1: cold from this practice, and she advised that soaps, even
Speaker 1: soaps that were advertised as pure baby soap, were too
Speaker 1: irritating to use on newborn skin. Instead, she recommended using
Speaker 1: clean cloth made of soft linen or cotton, dipped in
Speaker 1: sweet oil or melted lard to gently clean the baby,
Speaker 1: wiping them dry with clean flannel. She also criticized male
Speaker 1: doctors who usually just left as soon as the umbilical
Speaker 1: cord was cut quote for it is not at all
Speaker 1: reasonable to conclude that because a woman is the mother
Speaker 1: of many children, she is an expert in the matter
Speaker 1: of washing and dressing the newborn, or of relieving the
Speaker 1: various ailments incidents upon child bearing. Crumpler had strong opinions
Speaker 1: on the uselessness of so called baby medicines during the
Speaker 1: first month of life, writing quote probably the greatest amount
Speaker 1: of mischief arising from the administration of baby teas lies
Speaker 1: in the fact that they are not given with the
Speaker 1: least certainty as to their effect upon the system of
Speaker 1: the child, whether to nourish the blood or physic the bowels.
Speaker 1: She went on to say, quote, it would be well
Speaker 1: to notice that children who are dosed during inna infancy
Speaker 1: for every supposed ill, are seldom robust. She also deemed
Speaker 1: patent cough syrups to be unsafe, as was the practice
Speaker 1: of giving a quote weak toddy, meaning diluted alcohol to
Speaker 1: babies to get them to sleep. She offered advice on
Speaker 1: what could be fed to babies if their mothers could
Speaker 1: not produce milk, but she criticized the practice of rich
Speaker 1: women hiring wet nurses. Quote A lady of wealth may
Speaker 1: get discouraged and give her babe to the care of another,
Speaker 1: whose babe may, in consequence, have to be put in
Speaker 1: some charity house or otherwise to board. Her babe may
Speaker 1: thrive and live, while that of her wet nurse may
Speaker 1: soon pine away and die. No one could avoid distressing
Speaker 1: others unless he strives to the best of his ability
Speaker 1: to bear his own burdens. Some of her writing touched
Speaker 1: on the ideas of public health and disease prevention at
Speaker 1: a time when these fields were just starting to develop.
Speaker 1: For example, quote, it is my serious opinion that thoul
Speaker 1: of children die annually in the city of Boston under
Speaker 1: five years of age from diseases brought on through the
Speaker 1: excitement of expecting to go to school. Their early change
Speaker 1: the exposures from actual compulsory attendance. While the system has
Speaker 1: barely recovered from a lengthy prostration and now needing fostering
Speaker 1: at home with regular meals and plenty of toys for amusement.
Speaker 1: Many are the little children of three and a half,
Speaker 1: four and a half, and five years that are still
Speaker 1: getting teeth sent out in the streets to saunter long
Speaker 1: in the chill air of our hill streets to some schoolhouse.
Speaker 1: Heaven bless our schools, for they are invaluable. But may
Speaker 1: God change the minds of the people as to such
Speaker 1: early exposures being best for the credit of our commonwealth.
Speaker 1: She's stressed the need for good ventilation, something that came
Speaker 1: up a lot in nineteenth century riding about health and disease.
Speaker 2: Quote. Windows can be dropped from the top or a
Speaker 2: swinging pane set in the top of the sash. It's
Speaker 2: a very good w way to ventilate or let in
Speaker 2: fresh air. So few people that depend on their bodily
Speaker 2: strength from day to day stop to think that pure
Speaker 2: air is the all essential element, and that without light,
Speaker 2: air and sun in their dwellings, the poisonous gases cannot
Speaker 2: leave them, but they must sooner or later succumb to them.
Speaker 1: And she acknowledged some of the ways that economic factors
Speaker 1: play a part in all of this, although in a
Speaker 1: way that suggests that she thought people could easily resolve
Speaker 1: these issues just by making different choices. She wrote, quote, especially,
Speaker 1: do some of the laboring women of my race appear
Speaker 1: to work under heavy disadvantages. If the family is small,
Speaker 1: they are never through with their work. If it is large,
Speaker 1: there is a double excuse for having no time to rest.
Speaker 1: Yet many real needful things are left undone. I have
Speaker 1: often wondered if such housekeepers, whose own affairs are neglected,
Speaker 1: and in whose homes things go to waste, while they
Speaker 1: take so much upon them of other people's work, never
Speaker 1: thought of the story of filling a hod at the
Speaker 1: spigot that had no stopper at the bung our thoughts
Speaker 1: were similar when it came to men who had to
Speaker 1: work too hard to make ends meet.
Speaker 2: Quote. So with our men who labor hard, they are
Speaker 2: anxious to keep the wolf from the door, and they
Speaker 2: thoughtlessly rise in the morning, go to work, perhaps without breakfast,
Speaker 2: working for hours in a condition for odors contagious or
Speaker 2: otherwise to affect the system. Thus the liabilities to colds
Speaker 2: and the vital organs, which may go on for years
Speaker 2: gradually undermining the general health, or may, as frequently happens,
Speaker 2: develop in lung fever and consequent shattered constitution. The laboring
Speaker 2: men of my race, generally speaking, take much better care
Speaker 2: of the horses entrusted to their care than they do
Speaker 2: of their own health. Were men just as particular about
Speaker 2: what they themselves eat and drink, and how they dress
Speaker 2: and sleep, the deaths of young men of thirty and
Speaker 2: forty years would not be so common. Those who are
Speaker 2: not careful of their health die early in this climate,
Speaker 2: and their offspring die early.
Speaker 1: Crumpler's book was arranged in two parts, and the second
Speaker 1: included more general advice, so things like relief for menstruation
Speaker 1: pain recommended warm compresses rather than alcohol, or narcotics. She
Speaker 1: had this to say about menopause quote avoid overheated rooms
Speaker 1: or exciting scenes. Keep the bowels free without severe physic
Speaker 1: use coarse plain food, Drink very little of fluids, avoid spices, stimulants,
Speaker 1: and secure cheerful exercise for the mind with an abundance
Speaker 1: of outdoor scenery. Cultivate a love for the gifts of
Speaker 1: our heavenly Father. Seek to do good for those who
Speaker 1: are worse off than yourself, and all will come out right.
Speaker 2: She also offered information on anatomy, with suggested treatments for
Speaker 2: things like rheumatism, soft bones, hemorrhoids, colds, bronchitis, burns, and
Speaker 2: sore throats. A lot of her advice was just really
Speaker 2: straightforward and no nonsense, like here is her entry on
Speaker 2: some common foot problem.
Speaker 1: Quote.
Speaker 2: Corns or callous whether on the feet of children or adults,
Speaker 2: come from wearing shoes that are too short and too
Speaker 2: wide or otherwise ill suited, the friction of which, when
Speaker 2: walking creates festers, the matter of which dries and becomes
Speaker 2: a corn. Treatment remove the cause, keep the feet clean
Speaker 2: and comfortably clad. And she ended the book with a
Speaker 2: recipe formula for making doctor Crumpler's vegetable alternative, and here
Speaker 2: is how the recipe goes. Take of fresh Indian posy
Speaker 2: and water pepper herbs each one ounce white pine bark
Speaker 2: or tops one half ounce pourhound herb one fourth simmer
Speaker 2: in two quarts of water in a covered vessel four
Speaker 2: or five hours. Have three pints when strained. Then add
Speaker 2: two and one half pounds of loaf sugar. Boil briskly
Speaker 2: to a clear, thick syrup, Pour out and stir.
Speaker 1: In while hot. One teaspoon of pulverized mandrake root, strain
Speaker 1: again through a fine cloth, and when cold, bottle and
Speaker 1: keep in a cool, dark place. If petophill in the
Speaker 1: concentrated mandrake is used, which I prefer, only one half
Speaker 1: teaspoonful is required to a quart of syrup. Dose for
Speaker 1: an adult from one half to two thirds of a
Speaker 1: small wineglassful once a day while resting. Dose for small
Speaker 1: children in case of bloating worms cough from half to
Speaker 1: a whole teaspoonful at bedtime for a short while good
Speaker 1: to remove old colds from continued exposure, morbid craving for tobacco,
Speaker 1: alcoholic beverages, or other blood poisoning idols, for which the
Speaker 1: dose is one teaspoonful in a glass of cold water.
Speaker 1: At every inclination to drink, chew, or smoke.
Speaker 2: After this recipe, she noted, quote, perseverance will ensure success.
Speaker 2: No remedy should be continued after relief is obtained. Too
Speaker 2: much physicking impoverishes the blood.
Speaker 1: As we said early. Rebecca Crumpler's grave at Fairview Cemetery
Speaker 1: in hyde Park was initially unmarked, and that was true
Speaker 1: of many of the other early burials in that part
Speaker 1: of the cemetery, including that of her husband, Arthur, who
Speaker 1: died in nineteen ten. But both their grave sites were
Speaker 1: marked in twenty twenty after a fundraising effort led by
Speaker 1: the Friends of the Hyde Park Library under president Vicky Gall.
Speaker 1: The podcast Hub History has an episode titled doctor Rebecca
Speaker 1: Crumpler Forgotten No Longer that came out in August of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, and it includes audio from the ceremony after
Speaker 1: these gravestones were installed.
Speaker 2: Their markers have their names and the years of their
Speaker 2: births and deaths on the front, and Rebecca's also says
Speaker 2: quote the first black woman to earn a medical degree
Speaker 2: in the US eighteen sixty four and then they have
Speaker 2: additional inscriptions on the back. Rebecca's reads quote. The community
Speaker 2: and the Commonwealth's four Medical Schools honored doctor Rebecca Crumpler
Speaker 2: for her ceaseless courage, pioneering achievements, and his historic legacy.
Speaker 2: Is a physician, author, nurse, missionary, an advocate for health
Speaker 2: equity and social justice. And Arthur says quote enslaved at birth,
Speaker 2: escaped to freedom, man of faith, Boston's oldest pupil Boston Globe,
Speaker 2: April third, eighteen ninety eight. That Boston's oldest pupil is
Speaker 2: a reference to an article about his taking night classes
Speaker 2: at the age of seventy four. Since he had been
Speaker 2: enslaved from birth, he hadn't been taught to read as
Speaker 2: a child. That was illegal. Later on, he'd.
Speaker 1: Tried to teach himself, but he didn't get very far,
Speaker 1: and he struggled with a later effort to take classes
Speaker 1: because he had difficulty with his eyesight. Rebecca had done
Speaker 1: most of his reading and writing for him during their marriage,
Speaker 1: but when she died in eighteen ninety five, he wanted
Speaker 1: to learn for himself. Also today, Rebecca Crumpler's Beacon Hill
Speaker 1: home is a stop on the Boston Women's Heritage Trail.
Speaker 1: It is not currently a stop on the Black Heritage Trail,
Speaker 1: although that trail does go directly past it on the
Speaker 1: other side of the street. Also is a couple of
Speaker 1: final notes. There is another Rebecca who is sometimes described
Speaker 1: as the first black woman to earn an MD in
Speaker 1: the United States. That is Rebecca Cole. She earned her
Speaker 1: MD from the Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania in eighteen
Speaker 1: sixty seven, three years after Rebecca Crumpler earned the degree
Speaker 1: of Doctress of Medicine. And there are no known pictures
Speaker 1: of Rebecca Crumpler, but there's a lot of stuff on
Speaker 1: the Internet that is accompanied by photos that are purportedly
Speaker 1: of her. There are a couple of photos that just
Speaker 1: don't have clear documentation of who they depict, and it
Speaker 1: is not impossible that they could be of Rebecca Crumpler,
Speaker 1: but we really do not know. The vast majority of
Speaker 1: these photos that show up online, though, are of other
Speaker 1: black women whose identities we do know. One of the
Speaker 1: most commonly used photos is really Mary Eliza Mahoney, who
Speaker 1: was the first black woman known to go through formal
Speaker 1: training as a nurse in the US. She lived in
Speaker 1: Boston and worked at the New England Hospital for Women
Speaker 1: and Children. The hospital was founded in eighteen sixty two
Speaker 1: with only women on its full time staff, and it
Speaker 1: eventually opened the first nursing school in the US. Mahoney
Speaker 1: graduated from that program in eighteen seventy nine.
Speaker 2: Another commonly used photo is really of Georgia E. L.
Speaker 2: Patton Washington, who went to Maheri Medical College and became
Speaker 2: the second woman to graduate from there. She was the
Speaker 2: first black woman to be licensed as both a doctor
Speaker 2: and a surgeon in the state of Tennessee. And lastly,
Speaker 2: there's an image of a medal or a coin stamped
Speaker 2: with doctor Rebecca Lee eighteen thirty three. This seems to
Speaker 2: have come from a set of commemorative coins commissioned or
Speaker 2: created by Sun Oil Company as part of an award
Speaker 2: named for doctor Charles Drew, who we've covered on.
Speaker 1: The show before. It's likely that this illustration is really
Speaker 1: just meant to represent the idea of a black woman
Speaker 1: doctor from the eighteen thirties. It's unclear what the year
Speaker 1: eighteen thirty three is meant to signify, since that is
Speaker 1: not her birth year and it is also not the
Speaker 1: year that she became a doctor. So there's some mysteries
Speaker 1: or perhaps just errors in the striking of that coin.
Speaker 1: I had a hard time finding like concrete information about these,
Speaker 1: like who else was in the coins? I don't know.
Speaker 2: If I had went down a deeper rabbit hole on
Speaker 2: that I might have found more about it. But yeah,
Speaker 2: no pictures of her. Do you have listener mail? I
Speaker 2: do have a little listener mail. Yes, this listener mail
Speaker 2: is from Thomas and Thomas. This is actually from I
Speaker 2: guess not that long ago. I've had it flagged to
Speaker 2: read for a while, but Thomas, rot High, Holly and
Speaker 2: Tracy writing in because it felt like the latest Unearthed
Speaker 2: was full of things you put in for me. My
Speaker 2: old University York, England got a mention, and someone I
Speaker 2: remember from the archaeology department as well as my hometown
Speaker 2: of Kings Lynn. I get why you don't get the
Speaker 2: fuss about Shakespeare's floorboards. Ah, It's mainly a tactic to
Speaker 2: raise the profile of what we usually called the guildhall.
Speaker 2: Our other medieval guildhall became the town Hall because the
Speaker 2: floor Shakespeare was on gets way more publicity than fifteenth
Speaker 2: century wood floor. He needs so much upkeep and is
Speaker 2: in a town rammed with historic buildings, so we need
Speaker 2: a lot of outside help to keep our treasures for
Speaker 2: the future generations. So we will at times be a
Speaker 2: little absurd for attention. It's a lovely building. I've been
Speaker 2: on the stage of a few times in concerts, mad
Speaker 2: but delightful in the best way. Although today it is
Speaker 2: again a theater. It was rescued by Lady Fermoy. Viewers
Speaker 2: of the Crown will know her as Princess Diana's aunt
Speaker 2: and the Queen Mother's lady in waiting. She made our
Speaker 2: town's welfare her cause, and among her achievements were getting
Speaker 2: the Guildhall restored in the nineteen fifties. It was a garage,
Speaker 2: starting the town festival and funding the mental health hospital,
Speaker 2: with all the royals taking the first subscription to causes.
Speaker 2: She encouraged everyone wanted their name up there alongside the
Speaker 2: royal names, as per the seat sponsor chart.
Speaker 1: Still in the Guildhall.
Speaker 2: There's a little bit more about Lynn which locals don't use.
Speaker 2: The King's part in the name, and there's a shout
Speaker 2: out to the Museum of Methodism and John Wesley's House
Speaker 2: and grave in London. Since I have no pets to
Speaker 2: pay pet tax with. I include some graves from Pickering
Speaker 2: Church in Yorkshire, England. It was common on medieval tombs
Speaker 2: to include faithful pets or lions at people's feet, as
Speaker 2: well as some maybe turn of the last millennium gravestones,
Speaker 2: all on display in a charming town church where I
Speaker 2: spent Christmas. Keep up the amazing work. I've been listening
Speaker 2: for years and the quality has remained constant. All the
Speaker 2: best Thomas and yet so these are just an assortment
Speaker 2: of grave sentence, which we have said. We love pictures
Speaker 2: of all kinds of things. So I love this. Thank
Speaker 2: you so much for this, and for sort of a
Speaker 2: little behind the scenes about that possible Shakespeare floor. Holly
Speaker 2: is still so obviously delighted by that whole thing. I am,
Speaker 2: and I don't mean to like there's no condescension here.
Speaker 2: I just think it's funny. It's like the funniest oddest thing.
Speaker 2: It's like going, this is a famous man's shoelace.
Speaker 1: It's just an odd thing that still has historical significance.
Speaker 1: But it's such you know, the things we would never
Speaker 1: think about, you know, like when you're walking through your
Speaker 1: house right now, you don't consider that like one day
Speaker 1: someone will be like this child was late in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty five, Like it's just it's a funny thing. It's
Speaker 1: the mundane stuff of life that becomes important in that
Speaker 1: to me has its own comedy. Well, thank you again
Speaker 1: for this email, which is from fully a month ago
Speaker 1: and I.
Speaker 2: Have finally read. If you would like to send us
Speaker 2: a note about this or any other podcasts or at
Speaker 2: history podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com. We're on social media
Speaker 2: various places at miss in History, including Facebook, Instagram, and
Speaker 2: x is still a weird name to me to say,
Speaker 2: And you can subscribe to our show on the iHeartRadio
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Speaker 2: Stuff You Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.
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