0:01

Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class,

0:03

a production of iHeartRadio.

0:11

Hello and welcome to the podcast.

0:13

I'm Tracy V.

0:14

Wilson and I'm Holly Frye.

0:16

I accidentally picked an

0:18

episode that has a little bit of a

0:20

connection to George Washington Williams,

0:23

who we just talked about. It

0:26

might not be a direct connection

0:28

though. Today we are talking about Rebecca

0:30

Crumpler, who started attending Twelfth

0:33

Baptist Church in Roxbury, Massachusetts

0:35

in eighteen seventies. This was right

0:37

around the time that George Washington Williams

0:40

was pastor there. I

0:42

did not find confirmation on

0:45

like the exact timeline when

0:47

she started attending this church, so it's

0:49

not totally clear whether they definitely

0:52

were there at the same time, but based

0:55

on this timeline, it is possible. Rebecca

0:58

Crumpler was the first black woman in

1:00

the United States to earn a medical

1:02

degree. She also wrote

1:04

one of the first, if not the first,

1:07

medical texts by a black person

1:09

in the United States. When

1:12

she graduated, the New England

1:14

Female Medical College was conferring

1:16

the degree Doctress of Medicine,

1:20

and that title might seem disparaging

1:23

or belittling today, but it's one that

1:25

she really seems to have embraced

1:27

because to her it signified

1:30

something important about her work,

1:32

which we will be talking about. Rebecca

1:35

Davis was born on February eighth, eighteen

1:37

thirty one, in Christiana, Delaware. Her

1:40

parents were Absolom and Matilda Davis,

1:43

but Rebecca spent a lot of her childhood

1:45

being raised by an aunt in Pennsylvania.

1:48

Christiana is roughly ten miles

1:50

from the Pennsylvania border, so it is possible

1:52

that she was still able to see her parents

1:55

while she was in her aunt's care. We

1:58

don't have much detail about her life,

2:00

though, it's not even clear how long

2:02

her parents lived after she was born

2:05

or why she was raised by an aunt.

2:08

But Delaware was a slave

2:10

state and Pennsylvania had passed

2:12

a gradual Abolition Act in seventeen

2:14

eighty. The number of people

2:16

enslaved in Pennsylvania had declined

2:19

after that, so there were fewer than one

2:21

hundred remaining by the time Rebecca

2:23

was born, so it's possible

2:26

that her family thought that Rebecca would be

2:28

safer in Pennsylvania than in Delaware.

2:31

At the same time, black people were still

2:33

at risk throughout the United States, even

2:36

if they were free. The Fugitive

2:38

Slave Clause in Article four of the US

2:40

Constitution specified that people could

2:43

not free themselves from bondage in

2:45

one state by escaping to another state.

2:48

The Fugitive Slave Act of seventeen ninety

2:50

three created a legal mechanism

2:52

to enforce this clause, and the Fugitive

2:55

Slave Act of eighteen fifty, passed

2:57

when Rebecca was nineteen, expanded

2:59

that earlier act and led to a huge

3:02

increase in free black people being

3:04

kidnapped and enslaved. So

3:07

it's possible that that was part of Rebecca's

3:10

decision to move farther north

3:12

to Massachusetts in the eighteen fifties.

3:15

By eighteen fifty two, she was working in

3:17

Charlestown, which is part of Boston

3:19

now but at the time was a separate city.

3:22

She worked as a nurse, and her initial

3:24

nursing training was informal. As

3:27

Davis would later write, quote, having

3:29

been reared by a kind aunt in

3:31

Pennsylvania, whose usefulness

3:34

with the sick was continually sought, I

3:36

early conceived a liking for and

3:39

sought every opportunity to be in a position

3:41

to relieve the sufferings of others.

3:44

This kind of informal training was not at

3:46

all unusual. Nursing had

3:49

not evolved as a formalized

3:51

profession yet. There were not any

3:53

nursing schools in the US or Europe,

3:56

so most people who were working as nurses

3:58

were learning from a family member or somebody

4:01

else in their community. Rebecca

4:03

got married on April nineteenth, eighteen

4:05

fifty two, to a man named Wyatt Lee.

4:08

We don't know much about Wyatt except that he

4:10

was a laborer born in Prince George

4:12

County, Virginia. He had previously

4:15

been enslaved, and he had a son named

4:17

Albert from an earlier marriage.

4:20

Albert sadly died at the age of eight

4:22

of what may have been some kind of heart

4:24

failure. That was just about a year after

4:26

Rebecca and Wyatt got married. Rebecca

4:29

worked as a nurse in Charlestown for about

4:32

eight years, and in eighteen sixty

4:34

some of the doctors she had worked for gave

4:36

her letters of recommendation that

4:38

she used to apply to the New England

4:40

Female Medical College. This

4:43

medical school had been founded as Boston

4:46

Female Medical College in eighteen forty eight,

4:48

and it was the first institution in the United

4:50

States to formally offer medical

4:53

training to women. Its

4:55

founder, Samuel Gregory was

4:57

the author of a work called man

5:00

Midwhiffery Exposed and Corrected,

5:02

or the employment of men to attend

5:04

women in childbirth and in other delicate

5:07

circumstances, shown to be a modern

5:09

innovation, unnecessary, unnatural,

5:12

and injurious to the physical welfare of

5:14

the community, and pernicious in its

5:16

influence on professional and public morality,

5:19

and the whole proved by numerous facts

5:21

in the testimony of the most eminent physicians

5:24

in Boston, New York, and other places,

5:26

and the education and employment of midwives

5:29

recommended. As is obvious

5:31

from this very long title, he thought it

5:34

was indecent for male doctors

5:36

to attend women who were giving birth, and

5:38

he thought that women should be trained.

5:40

To do it. The Female

5:42

Medical College initially offered a

5:44

basic midwiffery program, and

5:46

in eighteen fifty its curriculum expanded

5:49

to include more comprehensive medical

5:51

training. By that point,

5:53

Gregory had also written letter

5:55

to ladies in favor of female physicians

5:57

for their own sex. This was

6:00

a nearly fifty page letter that started

6:02

quote, it is not a recent or hastily

6:05

formed opinion on the part of the writer that

6:07

there ought to be a class of females

6:10

thoroughly educated and qualified to

6:12

act as medical advisors and professional

6:14

attendance in those departments

6:16

of practice which relate particularly

6:19

to their own sex. The daughter,

6:21

the wife, the mother.

6:23

Rebecca Lee was accepted into this

6:25

program, but she had to put her education on

6:27

hold for a while to care for her husband,

6:30

who had contracted tuberculosis. Wyatt

6:33

died in April of eighteen sixty three,

6:35

and after his death, Rebecca returned to

6:37

school. She graduated on February

6:40

twenty fourth, eighteen sixty four, with

6:42

the degree Doctress of Medicine.

6:46

There was apparently some hesitation

6:48

around allowing her to graduate. Tracy

6:51

wasn't able to find specifics, so we can't

6:53

really say whether she genuinely struggled

6:55

with the coursework, or whether her

6:57

examiner's opinions of her performance were

7:00

influenced by racism or some

7:02

combination of the two. According

7:04

to a transcript of the faculty notes,

7:06

quote, owing to the deficiencies in the academic

7:09

education of missus Lee and the slow progress

7:12

she has made in her professional studies,

7:14

we have hesitated very seriously

7:17

in recommending her certification. The

7:20

school did ultimately allow her to graduate

7:22

out of deference to the Board of Trustees

7:24

and to public feeling. Nothing

7:27

spells out the details of that public

7:30

feeling, but in eighteen sixty four, the

7:33

US was well into the Civil War, Abraham

7:36

Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation,

7:38

and Massachusetts had become a focal point

7:41

in the fight to abolish slavery. Regarding

7:44

the title doctress, eighteen sixty

7:46

four seems to be the first year that the school

7:48

used this title for its graduates,

7:50

but the question of what to call women

7:53

doctors wasn't entirely settled,

7:56

and at least in some years, the school

7:58

conferred the degree as doctor or

8:01

as doctress, depending

8:03

on the preference of the individual

8:05

graduate. Rebecca Lee Crumpler

8:08

later wrote about it in her own book,

8:10

making it clear that she thought doctress was

8:12

the correct title for her quote,

8:14

there can be no more important duties to

8:16

perform in the capacity of housekeeping

8:19

than that of caring for the helpless babe.

8:21

Women. Doctors, or more properly

8:24

speaking, doctresses of medicine,

8:26

although usually treated with less courtesy

8:29

by doctors, are nevertheless

8:32

by them considered to be in their proper

8:34

sphere in the confinement room and

8:36

nursery. While I feel under

8:38

no obligations to them for their charity.

8:41

I must admit their honesty and truthfulness

8:43

in the matter, For surely women

8:45

cannot fill a single position in the

8:48

world so freighted with material

8:50

out of which the moral and physical condition

8:52

of humanity can be affected, either

8:55

for good or evil.

8:57

Graduating from the New England Female

8:59

Medical College made Rebecca Lee the first

9:01

black woman in the US to earn

9:04

an MD. At that point,

9:06

there were about fifty four thousand doctors

9:08

in the United States, and only about three hundred

9:10

of those were women, and only

9:13

one black woman. She

9:15

wasn't the United States first black doctor,

9:18

though that's typically recognized

9:20

as James Durham, who is on my list

9:23

for an episode if I can find enough information.

9:26

Durham didn't have a formal medical degree,

9:29

though he was enslaved from birth

9:31

and learned medicine from the doctors

9:33

who enslaved him. Durham's

9:35

work as a doctor attracted the attention

9:37

of doctor Benjamin Rush, who was so

9:40

impressed with it that he read a paper

9:42

Durham wrote on diphtheria before

9:44

the College of Physicians of Pennsylvania.

9:47

The first black person from the United States

9:49

to earn a medical degree was James McCune

9:51

Smith in eighteen thirty seven, although

9:53

he earned that degree in Scotland

9:56

because US medical schools wouldn't admit

9:58

him because of his race. The

10:01

first black American to earn an MD

10:03

from a US institution was

10:05

David J. Peck, who graduated from

10:08

Rush Medical College, Chicago in

10:10

eighteen forty seven. We will

10:12

talk more about Rebecca Crumpler's

10:14

life after we pause for a sponsor break.

10:26

After graduating from the New England Female

10:28

Medical College as a doctress of medicine,

10:31

Rebecca Lee went to Canada to gain

10:33

some more experience in Saint Johns

10:35

d Brunswick. On May twenty fourth, eighteen

10:37

sixty five, she married Arthur Crumpler.

10:40

Arthur was a blacksmith. He had been

10:43

enslaved in Virginia and had been hired

10:45

out to somebody in that trade. Eventually,

10:48

Arthur had been set up with a shop of his own,

10:50

which of course still belonged to his enslaver,

10:53

but he had escaped at the start of

10:55

the Civil War.

10:57

Arthur initially wound up at Fort Monroe,

10:59

which we have taught talked about on the show before. Fort

11:02

Monroe was the only federal fort in the

11:04

Upper South to remain under the control

11:06

of the United States for the duration of the

11:08

war. It was under the command

11:10

of Major General Benjamin Franklin Butler,

11:13

that is, the person who declared three men who

11:15

had liberated themselves from slavery and

11:18

escaped to the fort in eighteen sixty one

11:20

to be contraband of war.

11:23

The term contraband came to describe

11:25

enslaved people who escaped to US

11:27

territory or were captured by the

11:29

US army, and the United States

11:31

eventually established contraband camps

11:34

all over the territory that it controlled.

11:37

Our episode on these camps was a Saturday

11:39

Classic in February of twenty twenty

11:41

three.

11:42

Eventually, Rebecca and Arthur made their

11:44

way back to Boston, but soon

11:46

after the Civil War ended, Rebecca saw

11:49

a need for her skills in Virginia,

11:51

and her words quote on my return

11:54

after the close of the Confederate War, my

11:56

mind centered upon Richmond, the capital

11:58

city of Virginia, as the proper

12:00

field for real missionary work, and

12:03

one that would present ample opportunities

12:05

to become acquainted with the diseases of women

12:07

and children. During my stay

12:09

there, nearly every hour was

12:11

improved in that sphere of labor. The

12:14

last quarter of the year eighteen sixty six, I

12:16

was enabled, through the agency of the Bureau

12:19

under General Brown, to have access

12:21

each day to a very large number

12:23

of the indigent and others of different classes,

12:26

and a population of over thirty thousand

12:29

colored So that Bureau,

12:31

of course was the Bureau of Refugees,

12:33

Freedmen and Abandoned Lands, better

12:35

known as the Freedman's Bureau.

12:38

In about eighteen sixty nine, Crumpler

12:40

went back to Boston, where she lived

12:42

and practiced medicine on the north slope

12:44

of Beacon Hill, the same neighborhood

12:47

as Kitty Knox, who we talked about on the show

12:49

last year, whose family moved there

12:51

a little more than ten years later. In

12:54

Boston, Crumpler quote entered

12:56

into the work with renewed vigor, practicing

12:58

outside and receiving children

13:01

in the house for treatment. In

13:03

eighteen seventy, Rebecca and Arthur had

13:05

a daughter, Lizzie Sinclair Crumpler,

13:07

but she doesn't appear in later historical

13:10

records, and it's possible that she died in childhood.

13:13

Around this time, New England Female

13:15

Medical College, where she'd graduated, fell

13:18

into financial difficulties. A

13:20

major fire in eighteen seventy two,

13:22

destroyed a huge part of Boston's

13:25

financial district and a number of businesses

13:27

and warehouses. This was financially

13:30

devastating for some of the investors

13:32

who had been keeping the school afloat.

13:35

The school's founder, doctor Samuel Gregory,

13:38

also died of tuberculosis that same

13:40

year. The school started looking

13:42

for options that would allow it to stay

13:44

open, ultimately merging with

13:46

Boston University. BU

13:49

took on the medical college's debts, and the

13:51

medical school started also enrolling

13:53

men, which made this the first accredited

13:56

co educational medical school in the US.

13:59

It is now Austin University Chobanian

14:01

and Avidesian School of Medicine.

14:04

In the eighteen seventies, Crumpler worked

14:06

with an organization of ladies to help care

14:08

for sick women and children in Boston

14:11

and to offer affordable boarding to the children

14:13

of working women. Her medical

14:15

practice also focused on the care and treatment

14:17

of women and children at a time

14:19

when the fields of obstetrics, gynecology,

14:22

and pediatrics were in their infancy

14:24

and largely being dominated by male doctors.

14:28

During these years, the Crumplers also started

14:30

attending Twelfth Baptist Church, and

14:32

they continued to be active and dedicated

14:34

members there, even after moving out

14:36

of the neighborhood years later. Their

14:39

move to another church ultimately followed

14:41

allegations of impropriety involving

14:44

the pastor and an eighteen year old

14:46

member of the church choir. In

14:48

the mid eighteen seventies, Crumpler

14:50

spent some time outside of Boston teaching

14:52

in other communities. When abolitionist

14:55

and politician Charles Sumner died in eighteen

14:58

seventy four, Crumpler was in Woamington,

15:00

Delaware, and she read a poem that she had

15:02

written herself at a service that

15:04

was held in his honor at the city's Bethel

15:06

Methodist Episcopal Church. I

15:09

wish we had this poem. To my knowledge,

15:11

we don't. After returning

15:14

to Boston in eighteen seventy five, Crumpler

15:16

enrolled as a special student in

15:18

mathematics at West Newton English

15:21

and Classical School. There's

15:23

a little bit of confusion here. There are some sources

15:25

that say that Crumpler attended this school

15:28

much earlier, back in the eighteen fifties

15:30

before going to medical school. But

15:33

there's a book of the school's history called

15:35

an Illustrated Biographical Catalog

15:37

of the Principles Teachers and Students

15:39

of the West Newton English and Classical School,

15:42

and that book gives her first year of enrollment

15:44

as eighteen seventy five. It

15:47

is not impossible that this is some kind

15:49

of error and that she really did go to

15:51

the school much earlier. But if that eighteen seventy

15:53

five year is correct, we don't

15:55

really know what led her to wanting

15:58

to make a special study of math at the aige

16:00

of forty four. I'm very curious

16:02

about all of this.

16:03

I mean, I get it sometimes

16:07

you want to learn new stuff. But

16:09

she may have chosen this particular school

16:11

because her husband had become friends

16:13

with its founder, Nathaniel t Allen,

16:15

after arriving in Boston. According

16:18

to one account, Arthur Crumpler was one of several

16:20

so called Condra bands who were hired

16:22

in and around West Newton during the Civil

16:24

War, and Alan taught him

16:27

how to read. That same account

16:29

mentions Rebecca going to the school before

16:31

medical school, and a later interview

16:33

with Arthur Crumpler suggests he didn't know

16:35

how to read until much later. So all

16:38

of this is pretty unclear in terms of its

16:40

timeline accuracy.

16:42

Yeah, it reads like a person's like personal

16:45

recollection of the events as they happened,

16:47

and I don't really know how much it aligns

16:49

with what we can document. In

16:52

eighteen eighty the Crumpler's move from

16:54

Beacon Hill to Hyde Park, which is the neighborhood

16:57

of Boston today but was at the time its

16:59

own operated town several miles

17:01

south of the city. She continued

17:04

to practice medicine, and in eighteen eighty

17:06

three she published a book of medical discourses

17:08

in two parts. We will be talking

17:11

about this book more in just a bit.

17:13

Rebecca Crumpler seems to have continued

17:15

working as a doctor until the end of her life.

17:18

In eighteen ninety four, she and her practice

17:21

were mentioned in an article in the Boston Globe.

17:24

This was sort of a profile of the most

17:26

prominent people in Boston's black community,

17:29

which at that point numbered about ten thousand people.

17:32

This write upset of her quote, Doctor Crumpler

17:34

is the one woman who, as a physician, made

17:36

an enviable place for herself in

17:39

the ranks of the medical fraternity. Doctor

17:41

Crumpler is the author of rather a valuable

17:44

book, Medical Discourses. She

17:46

is a very pleasant and intellectual woman

17:49

and an indefatigable church worker. This

17:52

article also went on to describe her appearance,

17:54

as it did for many of the other women included

17:56

in the article. The Hyde Park Directory

17:58

and Town Register also listed her as

18:01

a physician and her husband as a laborer

18:03

in its eighteen ninety five eighteen ninety

18:05

six edition. Rebecca

18:08

Davis Lee Crumpler died on

18:10

March ninth, eighteen ninety five, at the age

18:12

of sixty four. Her cause

18:14

of death was given as fibroid tumors.

18:17

She was buried in Fairview Cemetery in Hyde

18:19

Park. This cemetery had

18:22

been open for just about two years,

18:24

and a lot of the people who were buried there,

18:26

really in its first couple of decades,

18:28

didn't have their graves marked

18:30

in any way. That was

18:32

true for Crumpler until very recently,

18:35

which is something else that we will be talking about

18:37

in a little bit.

18:38

But first we're going to get into detail

18:40

about her book, and we will do that

18:42

after we pause for a sponsor break.

18:53

Rebecca Crumpler's A Book of Medical

18:55

Discourses in two Parts, published

18:57

in eighteen eighty three, was one of the first medical

19:00

texts by a black person to be published

19:02

in the United States, if not the first,

19:05

and as was the case.

19:06

With Crumpler's work as a doctor. It was really.

19:08

Focused on women and children. Its

19:11

dedication read quote to mothers,

19:13

nurses, and all who may desire to mitigate

19:16

the afflictions of the human race. This

19:18

book is prayerfully offered.

19:21

She went on to say, quote, indeed, I

19:23

desire that my book shall be as a primary

19:25

reader in the hands of every woman,

19:28

and yet nonetheless suited to any who

19:30

may be conversant with all branches of medical

19:32

science. If women are permitted

19:35

to read and reflect for themselves,

19:37

it is hardly possible that they will say it

19:39

is uninteresting to them, or that it should

19:41

only be read by men.

19:44

This book was full of health and

19:46

medical advice, interwoven with Crumpler's

19:48

own experiences and anecdotes

19:51

about things she had experienced and seen

19:53

in her nearly two decades of medical

19:55

practice, and she allowed

19:58

this book to stand on its own me and

20:00

her own knowledge and experience, unlike

20:02

a number of books on other subjects by black

20:05

women that were written in the eighteenth and nineteenth

20:07

centuries, which were introduced by white

20:09

men. She wrote the introduction for

20:11

this book herself. She wrote

20:14

this book at a time when ideas

20:16

around sex and gender and gender roles

20:18

were a lot more binary and rigid

20:20

than they are today. Women were

20:23

expected to have and raise children

20:25

almost without exception, so

20:28

she began with her thoughts on marriage

20:30

as it related to the health of a couple's future

20:32

children. In her opinion,

20:34

girls should get married at about nineteen or twenty,

20:37

because getting married and becoming pregnant

20:39

before their bodies were mature led to weekly

20:42

children. She thought that the same

20:44

was true for women who gave birth and much older

20:47

ages, and she thought that men should

20:49

be between the ages of twenty two and twenty

20:51

five by the time they took on the responsibility

20:54

of having a family. From

20:57

there, she described how in her experience,

21:00

the symptoms of early pregnancy could

21:02

be mistaken for a cold, but the

21:04

treatments for cold symptoms would have no effect

21:06

if they were really being caused by pregnancy.

21:09

She also thought that repeatedly trying

21:11

to treat these symptoms could disregulate

21:14

the body, and she wrote quotes

21:16

suffice it to say that too frequent

21:18

physicking and over indulgence in intoxicating

21:21

liquors and tobacco will cause

21:23

sickly diminutive offspring, to

21:25

say nothing of premature births. A

21:28

big focus of her work and this book

21:30

was the period of confinement after giving

21:32

birth, a period that Crumpler referred.

21:35

To just as the months. This

21:38

included correct methods for bathing newborns.

21:40

She criticized the use of cold water or

21:43

even ice water for stimulating

21:45

newborn circulation, saying that she

21:47

had seen infants get sick or die after

21:49

becoming too cold from this practice, and

21:52

she advised that soaps, even soaps

21:54

that were advertised as pure baby

21:56

soap, were too irritating to use

21:58

on newborn skin. Instead,

22:01

she recommended using clean cloth

22:03

made of soft linen or cotton, dipped

22:05

in sweet oil or melted lard to gently

22:08

clean the baby, wiping them dry

22:10

with clean flannel. She also

22:12

criticized male doctors who

22:15

usually just left as soon as the umbilical

22:17

cord was cut quote for it

22:19

is not at all reasonable to conclude

22:22

that because a woman is the mother of

22:24

many children, she is an expert

22:26

in the matter of washing and dressing the newborn,

22:28

or of relieving the various ailments

22:31

incidents upon child bearing. Crumpler

22:34

had strong opinions on the uselessness

22:37

of so called baby medicines during

22:39

the first month of life, writing quote

22:41

probably the greatest amount of mischief

22:43

arising from the administration of baby teas

22:46

lies in the fact that they are not given with the least

22:48

certainty as to their effect upon the system

22:51

of the child, whether to nourish the

22:53

blood or physic the bowels. She

22:55

went on to say, quote, it would be well to notice

22:58

that children who are dosed during inna infancy

23:00

for every supposed ill, are seldom

23:03

robust. She also deemed

23:05

patent cough syrups to be unsafe,

23:07

as was the practice of giving a quote

23:09

weak toddy, meaning diluted alcohol

23:12

to babies to get them to sleep. She

23:15

offered advice on what could be fed

23:17

to babies if their mothers could not

23:19

produce milk, but she criticized

23:22

the practice of rich women hiring

23:24

wet nurses. Quote A lady

23:26

of wealth may get discouraged and give

23:28

her babe to the care of another, whose babe

23:30

may, in consequence, have to be

23:32

put in some charity house or otherwise to

23:35

board. Her babe may

23:37

thrive and live, while that of her wet nurse

23:39

may soon pine away and die. No

23:42

one could avoid distressing others

23:44

unless he strives to the best of his ability

23:46

to bear his own burdens. Some

23:49

of her writing touched on the ideas of

23:51

public health and disease prevention at

23:53

a time when these fields were just starting to

23:55

develop. For example, quote,

23:58

it is my serious opinion that thoul of

24:00

children die annually in the city of Boston

24:03

under five years of age from diseases

24:05

brought on through the excitement of

24:07

expecting to go to school. Their

24:09

early change the exposures from

24:12

actual compulsory attendance. While

24:14

the system has barely recovered from a lengthy

24:16

prostration and now needing fostering

24:19

at home with regular meals and plenty of

24:21

toys for amusement. Many

24:23

are the little children of three and a half, four

24:26

and a half, and five years that are still

24:28

getting teeth sent out in the streets

24:30

to saunter long in the chill air of our

24:32

hill streets to some schoolhouse. Heaven

24:35

bless our schools, for they are invaluable.

24:38

But may God change the minds of the people

24:40

as to such early exposures being

24:42

best for the credit of our commonwealth.

24:45

She's stressed the need for good

24:47

ventilation, something that came up a

24:50

lot in nineteenth century riding about

24:52

health and disease.

24:53

Quote. Windows can be dropped from

24:55

the top or a swinging pane set in

24:57

the top of the sash. It's a very good w way

25:00

to ventilate or let in fresh air. So

25:02

few people that depend on their bodily strength

25:05

from day to day stop to think that

25:07

pure air is the all essential

25:09

element, and that without light, air

25:12

and sun in their dwellings, the poisonous

25:14

gases cannot leave them, but they

25:16

must sooner or later succumb to them.

25:19

And she acknowledged some of the ways that economic

25:21

factors play a part in all of this, although

25:24

in a way that suggests that she thought people could

25:26

easily resolve these issues just

25:28

by making different choices. She wrote,

25:31

quote, especially, do some of the laboring women

25:33

of my race appear to work under heavy

25:35

disadvantages. If the family

25:37

is small, they are never through with their work.

25:40

If it is large, there is a double excuse

25:42

for having no time to rest. Yet

25:44

many real needful things are left

25:46

undone. I have often wondered

25:48

if such housekeepers, whose own affairs

25:51

are neglected, and in whose homes

25:53

things go to waste, while they take so

25:55

much upon them of other people's work,

25:57

never thought of the story of filling a hod

26:00

at the spigot that had no stopper at the

26:02

bung our thoughts were similar

26:05

when it came to men who had to work too

26:07

hard to make ends meet.

26:08

Quote. So with our men who labor

26:10

hard, they are anxious to keep the wolf

26:13

from the door, and they thoughtlessly rise

26:15

in the morning, go to work, perhaps without

26:17

breakfast, working for hours in

26:19

a condition for odors contagious or

26:21

otherwise to affect the system.

26:23

Thus the liabilities to colds and the vital

26:26

organs, which may go on for years

26:28

gradually undermining the general health,

26:31

or may, as frequently happens, develop

26:33

in lung fever and consequent shattered

26:36

constitution. The laboring men

26:38

of my race, generally speaking, take much

26:40

better care of the horses entrusted to their

26:42

care than they do of their own health. Were

26:45

men just as particular about what they

26:47

themselves eat and drink, and how they dress

26:49

and sleep, the deaths of young men of thirty

26:52

and forty years would not be so common. Those

26:55

who are not careful of their health die

26:57

early in this climate, and their offspring

26:59

die early.

27:01

Crumpler's book was arranged in two parts,

27:03

and the second included more general advice,

27:05

so things like relief for menstruation

27:08

pain recommended warm compresses

27:10

rather than alcohol, or narcotics. She

27:13

had this to say about menopause quote

27:16

avoid overheated rooms or exciting

27:18

scenes. Keep the bowels free

27:20

without severe physic use coarse

27:23

plain food, Drink very little

27:25

of fluids, avoid spices, stimulants,

27:28

and secure cheerful exercise for the

27:30

mind with an abundance of outdoor

27:32

scenery. Cultivate a

27:34

love for the gifts of our heavenly Father.

27:37

Seek to do good for those who are worse

27:39

off than yourself, and all will come out

27:41

right.

27:42

She also offered information on anatomy,

27:45

with suggested treatments for things like rheumatism,

27:48

soft bones, hemorrhoids, colds,

27:50

bronchitis, burns, and sore throats.

27:53

A lot of her advice was just really straightforward

27:56

and no nonsense, like here is her entry

27:58

on some common foot problem.

28:00

Quote.

28:00

Corns or callous whether on the feet

28:02

of children or adults, come from wearing

28:04

shoes that are too short and too wide

28:07

or otherwise ill suited, the friction

28:09

of which, when walking creates festers,

28:11

the matter of which dries and becomes a corn.

28:14

Treatment remove the cause,

28:16

keep the feet clean and comfortably

28:18

clad. And she ended

28:20

the book with a recipe formula

28:23

for making doctor Crumpler's vegetable

28:25

alternative, and here is how

28:27

the recipe goes. Take of

28:29

fresh Indian posy and water pepper

28:31

herbs each one ounce white

28:34

pine bark or tops one half ounce

28:36

pourhound herb one fourth simmer

28:39

in two quarts of water in a covered vessel

28:42

four or five hours. Have

28:44

three pints when strained. Then

28:46

add two and one half pounds of loaf

28:49

sugar. Boil briskly to

28:51

a clear, thick syrup, Pour

28:53

out and stir.

28:54

In while hot. One teaspoon of pulverized

28:57

mandrake root, strain again

28:59

through a fine cloth, and when cold,

29:01

bottle and keep in a cool, dark place.

29:04

If petophill in the concentrated mandrake

29:07

is used, which I prefer, only

29:09

one half teaspoonful is required

29:11

to a quart of syrup. Dose

29:14

for an adult from one half to two

29:16

thirds of a small wineglassful once

29:18

a day while resting. Dose for

29:20

small children in case of bloating worms

29:23

cough from half to a whole teaspoonful

29:26

at bedtime for a short while

29:28

good to remove old colds from continued

29:31

exposure, morbid craving for tobacco,

29:34

alcoholic beverages, or other blood

29:36

poisoning idols, for which the dose

29:39

is one teaspoonful in a glass of cold

29:41

water. At every inclination

29:43

to drink, chew, or smoke.

29:46

After this recipe, she noted, quote,

29:49

perseverance will ensure success.

29:51

No remedy should be continued after relief

29:54

is obtained. Too much physicking

29:56

impoverishes the blood.

29:59

As we said early. Rebecca Crumpler's

30:01

grave at Fairview Cemetery in hyde

30:03

Park was initially unmarked, and

30:05

that was true of many of the other early burials

30:08

in that part of the cemetery, including that

30:10

of her husband, Arthur, who died in nineteen

30:13

ten. But both their grave

30:15

sites were marked in twenty twenty after a fundraising

30:17

effort led by the Friends of the Hyde Park

30:20

Library under president Vicky Gall.

30:23

The podcast Hub History has an episode

30:25

titled doctor Rebecca Crumpler

30:27

Forgotten No Longer that came out in August

30:30

of twenty twenty, and it includes audio

30:32

from the ceremony after these gravestones

30:34

were installed.

30:36

Their markers have their names and the years

30:38

of their births and deaths on the front, and

30:41

Rebecca's also says quote the first black

30:43

woman to earn a medical degree in the US eighteen

30:45

sixty four and then they

30:47

have additional inscriptions on the back.

30:50

Rebecca's reads quote. The community and

30:52

the Commonwealth's four Medical Schools

30:54

honored doctor Rebecca Crumpler for

30:57

her ceaseless courage, pioneering achievements,

30:59

and his historic legacy. Is a physician, author,

31:02

nurse, missionary, an advocate

31:04

for health equity and social justice.

31:07

And Arthur says quote enslaved

31:10

at birth, escaped to freedom, man

31:12

of faith, Boston's oldest

31:14

pupil Boston Globe, April third,

31:16

eighteen ninety eight. That Boston's

31:18

oldest pupil is a reference to an article

31:21

about his taking night classes at the age

31:23

of seventy four. Since he

31:25

had been enslaved from birth, he hadn't

31:27

been taught to read as a child. That was illegal.

31:31

Later on, he'd.

31:31

Tried to teach himself, but he didn't get very

31:34

far, and he struggled with a later effort

31:36

to take classes because he had difficulty

31:38

with his eyesight. Rebecca

31:40

had done most of his reading and writing for him

31:42

during their marriage, but when she died in eighteen

31:45

ninety five, he wanted to learn for himself.

31:48

Also today, Rebecca Crumpler's

31:51

Beacon Hill home is a stop on

31:53

the Boston Women's Heritage Trail.

31:56

It is not currently a stop on the Black

31:58

Heritage Trail, although that trail

32:01

does go directly past it on the

32:03

other side of the street. Also

32:05

is a couple of final notes. There is

32:07

another Rebecca who is sometimes described

32:09

as the first black woman to earn an MD

32:12

in the United States. That is Rebecca

32:14

Cole. She earned her MD from the Women's

32:16

Medical College of Pennsylvania in eighteen

32:18

sixty seven, three years

32:20

after Rebecca Crumpler earned the degree

32:23

of Doctress of Medicine. And

32:25

there are no known pictures

32:28

of Rebecca Crumpler, but there's a

32:30

lot of stuff on the Internet that is accompanied

32:32

by photos that are purportedly of

32:34

her. There are a couple

32:37

of photos that just don't have clear

32:39

documentation of who they depict,

32:41

and it is not impossible that

32:44

they could be of Rebecca Crumpler,

32:46

but we really do not know. The

32:48

vast majority of these photos

32:51

that show up online, though, are of other

32:53

black women whose identities we

32:55

do know. One of the most commonly

32:58

used photos is really Mary Eliza

33:00

Mahoney, who was the first black woman

33:03

known to go through formal training as a nurse

33:05

in the US. She lived

33:07

in Boston and worked at the New England Hospital

33:09

for Women and Children. The hospital

33:12

was founded in eighteen sixty two

33:14

with only women on its full time staff,

33:16

and it eventually opened the first nursing

33:18

school in the US. Mahoney

33:20

graduated from that program in eighteen seventy

33:23

nine.

33:24

Another commonly used photo is

33:26

really of Georgia E. L. Patton Washington,

33:29

who went to Maheri Medical College

33:31

and became the second woman to graduate

33:33

from there. She was the first black

33:36

woman to be licensed as both a doctor

33:38

and a surgeon in the state of Tennessee.

33:41

And lastly, there's an image of a medal

33:43

or a coin stamped with doctor Rebecca

33:46

Lee eighteen thirty three.

33:48

This seems to have come from a set of commemorative

33:51

coins commissioned or created by

33:53

Sun Oil Company as part of an

33:55

award named for doctor Charles Drew, who

33:58

we've covered on.

33:58

The show before. It's likely

34:01

that this illustration is really just meant

34:03

to represent the idea of a black woman

34:05

doctor from the eighteen thirties. It's

34:08

unclear what the year eighteen thirty three is meant

34:10

to signify, since that is not her birth year

34:12

and it is also not the year that she became a doctor.

34:15

So there's some mysteries or perhaps

34:17

just errors in the striking

34:19

of that coin. I had a hard time finding

34:21

like concrete information about

34:24

these, like who else was in the coins?

34:26

I don't know.

34:28

If I had went down

34:30

a deeper rabbit hole on that I might have

34:32

found more about it. But yeah,

34:35

no pictures of her. Do you

34:37

have listener mail? I do have a

34:40

little listener mail. Yes, this

34:42

listener mail is from Thomas and Thomas.

34:44

This is actually from I guess

34:47

not that long ago. I've had it flagged to read

34:49

for a while, but Thomas,

34:51

rot High, Holly and Tracy writing in because

34:53

it felt like the latest Unearthed was full

34:55

of things you put in for me. My

34:58

old University York, England got a mention,

35:00

and someone I remember from the archaeology

35:02

department as well as my hometown

35:04

of Kings Lynn. I get why

35:06

you don't get the fuss about Shakespeare's

35:09

floorboards. Ah, It's

35:12

mainly a tactic to raise the profile of what

35:15

we usually called the guildhall. Our other

35:17

medieval guildhall became the town Hall

35:19

because the floor Shakespeare was

35:21

on gets way more publicity than fifteenth

35:24

century wood floor. He needs

35:26

so much upkeep and is in a town rammed

35:28

with historic buildings, so we need a lot of outside

35:30

help to keep our treasures for the future

35:32

generations. So we will at times

35:35

be a little absurd for attention. It's

35:37

a lovely building. I've been on the stage

35:39

of a few times in concerts, mad

35:42

but delightful in the best way. Although

35:45

today it is again a theater. It

35:47

was rescued by Lady Fermoy. Viewers

35:50

of the Crown will know her as Princess

35:52

Diana's aunt and the Queen

35:55

Mother's lady in waiting. She made our

35:57

town's welfare her cause, and among

35:59

her achievements were getting the Guildhall restored

36:01

in the nineteen fifties. It was a garage,

36:04

starting the town festival and funding

36:06

the mental health hospital, with

36:09

all the royals taking the first subscription to causes.

36:12

She encouraged everyone wanted their

36:14

name up there alongside the royal

36:16

names, as per the seat sponsor

36:18

chart.

36:19

Still in the Guildhall.

36:22

There's a little bit more about Lynn

36:24

which locals don't use. The King's

36:27

part in the name, and

36:30

there's a shout out to the

36:33

Museum of Methodism and John

36:35

Wesley's House and grave in London.

36:39

Since I have no pets to pay pet tax with.

36:42

I include some graves from Pickering

36:44

Church in Yorkshire, England. It was common

36:46

on medieval tombs to include faithful pets

36:48

or lions at people's feet, as

36:50

well as some maybe turn of the last millennium

36:53

gravestones, all on display in a charming

36:55

town church where I spent Christmas. Keep

36:57

up the amazing work. I've been listening for years and the quality

36:59

has remained constant. All the best Thomas

37:02

and yet so these are just

37:05

an assortment of grave sentence, which we

37:07

have said. We love pictures of all kinds of

37:09

things. So I love this. Thank

37:12

you so much for this, and

37:14

for sort of a little behind

37:16

the scenes about that possible Shakespeare

37:19

floor. Holly

37:22

is still so obviously delighted by

37:24

that whole thing. I am, and

37:26

I don't mean to like there's

37:29

no condescension here. I just think it's

37:31

funny. It's like the funniest oddest thing.

37:33

It's like going, this is

37:35

a famous man's shoelace.

37:37

It's just an odd thing

37:39

that still has historical significance.

37:41

But it's such you know, the things we would

37:44

never think about, you know, like when you're

37:46

walking through your house right now, you don't consider

37:48

that like one day someone will be like this

37:51

child was late in nineteen eighty

37:53

five, Like it's just it's a funny

37:56

thing. It's the mundane stuff of

37:58

life that becomes important in that to me

38:00

has its own comedy. Well, thank

38:03

you again for this email, which is from

38:05

fully a month ago and I.

38:06

Have finally read. If you would like

38:08

to send us a note about this or any other podcasts

38:11

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38:13

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38:25

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