The Crumplers

Gabriellebirchak/ February 25, 2021/ Modern History

PODCAST TRANSCRIPTS

Many of us would not be alive today if it were not for the altru­is­tic work of all of our health­care work­ers. This Feb­ru­ary, my pod­cast is a spe­cial trib­ute to Black His­to­ry Month, to love, to African-Amer­i­can men and women, and to all of those who have worked tire­less­ly on the front lines fight­ing the dead­ly dis­ease that is Coro­n­avirus. You are our heroes, our sheroes, our rock, our strength, and every­thing we need­ed this year. Thank you.

It was my inten­tion to do a pod­cast about one of the ear­li­est black women in med­i­cine. How­ev­er, our his­to­ry appears to be void of the valu­able African-Amer­i­can lives that have made a dif­fer­ence in sci­ence today. Fur­ther­more, our his­to­ry is void of the African-Amer­i­can rela­tion­ships that move our hearts and inspire us to let love guide us through dif­fi­cult times. This next sto­ry has remained hid­den for over a cen­tu­ry and it is one of the most awe-inspir­ing, heart-mov­ing sto­ries that I have researched in a while.

In 1864, Rebec­ca became the very first African Amer­i­can woman to become a med­ical doc­tor in the Unit­ed States and pos­si­bly in the world. Rebec­ca was born on Feb­ru­ary 8, 1831, In Delaware. How­ev­er, she grew up in Penn­syl­va­nia and was raised by an aunt who took care of sick towns­peo­ple. Watch­ing her aunt take care of oth­ers inspired Rebec­ca to become a nurse. In 1852, at the age of 21, Rebec­ca moved to Charlestown, Massachusetts. 

There she stud­ied at West New­ton Eng­lish and Clas­si­cal School. While attend­ing school, she worked tire­less­ly as a nurse. The 1895 edi­tion of The Illus­trat­ed Bio­graph­i­cal Cat­a­log of the Prin­ci­pals, Teach­ers, and Stu­dents of the West New­ton Eng­lish and Clas­si­cal School described Rebec­ca as a “spe­cial stu­dent in math­e­mat­ics.”[i] In oth­er words, she was brilliant. 

On April 19, 1852, Rebec­ca mar­ried Wyatt Lee, a for­mer slave and for­mer­ly mar­ried. Wyatt had a six-year-old son named Albert, who also became part of the fam­i­ly. And so, Rebec­ca attend­ed school and helped raise their son. Sad­ly, a year after their mar­riage, Albert died at the age of seven. 

While work­ing as a nurse, sev­er­al of the physi­cians she worked with encour­aged and urged her to apply to a new ground­break­ing med­ical school called the New Eng­land Female Med­ical Col­lege (NEFMC). At their urg­ing, Rebec­ca, empow­ered with sev­er­al let­ters of rec­om­men­da­tion from the doc­tors she worked with, applied, and was accept­ed into NEFMC in 1860.[ii] This med­ical col­lege was ground­break­ing because it was a new med­ical col­lege that trained and taught only women. This is sig­nif­i­cant con­sid­er­ing in 1860, there were only 54,000 doc­tors in the Unit­ed States, and only 300 of them were women. Among those women, Rebec­ca was the only African Amer­i­can stu­dent.[iii]

Her first year was suc­cess­ful. How­ev­er, the fol­low­ing year she had to relo­cate to Rich­mond, Vir­ginia for a year. This was 1861 and the begin­ning of the Civ­il War. Med­ical work­ers were need­ed, and she was ready to serve. 

How­ev­er, after that first year when she moved back to Boston, the school with­drew her schol­ar­ship. This did not stop her. She applied for the Ben­jamin Wade Schol­ar­ship and won.[iv] This helped her to fund the rest of her studies.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, after her sec­ond full year back at NEFMC, she encoun­tered anoth­er obsta­cle. On April 18, 1863, her hus­band Wyatt died from tuber­cu­lo­sis.[v]

On Feb­ru­ary 24, 1864, after three years of edu­ca­tion, writ­ing her the­sis, and pay­ing her dues, Rebec­ca, along with two of her white class­mates, Mary Lock­wood Allen and Eliz­a­beth Kim­ball, stood before the fac­ul­ty and car­ried out their final exam­i­na­tions. She had shown NEFMC and the med­ical com­mu­ni­ty that she was a resilient woman who tru­ly want­ed to com­mit her life to the med­ical field. 

After her oral pre­sen­ta­tion, the fac­ul­ty then rec­om­mend­ed Rebec­ca and the oth­er two stu­dents to the board of trustees. How­ev­er, some of the fac­ul­ty had reser­va­tions about rec­om­mend­ing her the­sis to the board. They not­ed that she had defi­cien­cies in her edu­ca­tion and indi­cat­ed, “some of us have hes­i­tat­ed very seri­ous­ly in rec­om­mend­ing her.”

Pos­si­bly, some of the pre­vi­ous physi­cians that she had worked with in Charlestown had reached out to the trustees of the med­ical school and had put pres­sure on the school’s fac­ul­ty to award her with a med­ical degree because, on March 1, 1864, Rebec­ca con­ferred. She earned her med­ical degree, which not­ed that “Mrs. Rebec­ca Lee, Negress,” was now a Doc­tress of Medicine.

Accord­ing to sta­tis­tics, at this time, only 35% of the women who attend­ed this med­ical school com­plet­ed the pro­gram and received a med­ical degree. These sta­tis­tics high­light Rebecca’s capa­bil­i­ties, for­ti­tude, resilience, and bril­liance. Her hard work paid off. Rebec­ca was the very first black woman in the Unit­ed States, and pos­si­bly the world, to receive a med­ical degree. 

Mean­while, anoth­er sto­ry was unfold­ing. Let us go back a few decades to 1835, when a female slave gave birth to a lit­tle baby named Arthur. Arthur’s moth­er was a slave on the Robert Adams estate in Southamp­ton Coun­ty, Vir­ginia, now known as Court­land, Vir­ginia. Arthur’s bio­log­i­cal father, Samuel, was also a slave but on a neigh­bor­ing prop­er­ty owned by Ben­jamin Crum­pler. Thus, Arthur took the last name of Crumpler. 

When Arthur was nine-years-old, his mas­ter Robert Adams died unex­pect­ed­ly. As a result, Robert Adams’s prop­er­ty had to be dis­trib­uted among his fam­i­ly. This “prop­er­ty” includ­ed his slaves. How­ev­er, Arthur liked liv­ing on the Adams’ estate and knew that a dif­fer­ent slave own­er would treat him poor­ly. He did not want to leave. As a result, he approached Robert Adams’s old­est son, John, and told him, “John, I can wres­tle you down!”[vi]

Adams was a grown man. This nine-year-old boy was taunt­ing him, and he could not believe it. So, he took him on. How­ev­er, Arthur man­aged to wres­tle and pin down Adams. As a result, Adams came to appre­ci­ate this young man. So, when all slaves were sold in the estate sale, Adams decid­ed to have Arthur stay with him on the estate. 

Around 1844 or 1845, Adams took Arthur with him to Smith­field, Vir­ginia. They stayed there for a year. Adams thought it would prof­it him to loan Arthur out to oth­er slave own­ers. As a result, Arthur became a slave of anoth­er own­er for about four years but then was returned back to Adams. At this time, Adams had mar­ried. His wife’s par­ents need­ed help on their prop­er­ty, and so Adams loaned Arthur out to them.

While work­ing on the prop­er­ty of Adams’s in-laws, Arthur worked at har­vest­ing and pro­cess­ing the apples. He was a smart man. While pro­cess­ing the apples, Arthur real­ized that he could improve the apple-par­ing machine to expe­dite the work. One day Adams came by his in-laws’ prop­er­ty and met up with Arthur, who showed him what he did with the mech­a­nism to speed up the pro­cess­ing of the apples. Adams was so impressed that he decid­ed to take Arthur back to his prop­er­ty. There are mul­ti­ple rea­sons why Adams did this. Pos­si­bly, there was no patent for this mech­a­nism, and Adams want­ed to prof­it off of it. Per­haps, he real­ized the val­ue in hav­ing Arthur on his prop­er­ty and real­ized that he could make mon­ey from Arthur’s intel­li­gence and skills. And so, he took Arthur back to work on his own property.

Back on Adams’ prop­er­ty, Adams pre­sent­ed Arthur with the oppor­tu­ni­ty to learn a trade of his choice. Arthur want­ed to learn black­smithing. As a result, with this skill, Arthur earned approx­i­mate­ly $250 per year. But more than like­ly, Adams was pock­et­ing the money. 

By 1858, slav­ery had been abol­ished in 17 states. And for the states that had not formed yet in the north­ern Mid­west to the west­ern coast, they were free territories.

The African Amer­i­cans in the slave states knew that they had rights, and they knew that they could live a bet­ter life. Adams knew this as well as he watched his own slaves run away from his estate. His estate was in Vir­ginia, which bor­dered the free north­ern states. As a result, to keep Arthur from run­ning away, Adams set Arthur up with his own black­smithing shop on the property. 

Then, on April 12, 1861, Con­fed­er­ate Gen­er­al Beau­re­gard bom­bard­ed Fort Sumter, which start­ed the Civ­il War. Dur­ing the chaos, many slaves, includ­ing Arthur, saw their oppor­tu­ni­ty and ran from their mas­ters to escape slav­ery. Many went straight to the Nor­folk Navy Yard, where they took refuge on the USS Cumberland. 

After they embarked, the boat sailed to Fort Mon­roe, where Arthur took work as a black­smith mak­ing horse­shoes. His skill-set was rec­og­nized and appre­ci­at­ed so much that even­tu­al­ly, he went on to work for the Union, specif­i­cal­ly Gen­er­al McClel­lan, on the Vir­ginia penin­su­la. A year after the Civ­il War start­ed, Arthur decid­ed to end his ser­vices and move on. The Union Army had promised him $160 for his work. How­ev­er, when he was to leave, the quar­ter­mas­ter informed him that they could not pay him that amount. Instead, they could only pay him $40. The Army coerced him into sign­ing an agree­ment that he would accept $40 as pay­ment. Arthur described his expe­ri­ence as fol­lows, “they took hold of my hand and held it while I made an X to something.”

Frus­trat­ed, Arthur trav­eled to Boston, where he could set­tle and live with oth­er for­mer slaves. In an arti­cle writ­ten sev­er­al decades lat­er, Arthur stat­ed that he promised him­self that he “would nev­er make an X again beside my name writ­ten by some­body else, and I have kept that word. I have learned to write.”

When Arthur arrived in Boston, he found relief and refuge on prop­er­ty owned by Nathaniel Topliff Allen. Allen let Arthur sleep in the barn and do chores to earn his keep. Though Allen faced scruti­ny from the com­mu­ni­ty for tak­ing in for­mer slaves, his prop­er­ty was nev­er destroyed, unlike some of his neigh­bors. Allen cham­pi­oned for Arthur and want­ed to help him become a free man who could con­tribute to the country’s well-being. Thus, in 1863, Allen advo­cat­ed for Arthur to vote in the Unit­ed States elec­tion, which Arthur did. 

Allen, the prop­er­ty own­er, was a bril­liant indi­vid­ual who believed that every­one should receive a pub­lic edu­ca­tion. Less than ten years before meet­ing Arthur and let­ting him stay on his prop­er­ty, Allen start­ed a school called the West New­ton Eng­lish and Clas­si­cal School. If the name does not sound famil­iar, Rebec­ca Davis Lee attend­ed this same school back in 1852, before she entered med­ical school. Pos­si­bly, Allen intro­duced Arthur Crum­pler to Rebec­ca Davis Lee. 

Thus, on May 24, 1865, a year after Rebec­ca grad­u­at­ed, she and Arthur mar­ried. Then Rebec­ca set up a med­ical prac­tice in Boston to pro­vide med­ical ser­vices to under­priv­i­leged women and their chil­dren. How­ev­er, this was not enough. Rebec­ca want­ed to have a more sig­nif­i­cant impact on more impov­er­ished areas. So she and Arthur moved to Rich­mond, Vir­ginia. She believed that Rich­mond would be “a prop­er field for real mis­sion­ary work, and one that would present ample oppor­tu­ni­ties to become acquaint­ed with the dis­eases of women and chil­dren.”[vii]

In Rich­mond, she worked for the Bureau of Refugees, Freed­men, and Aban­doned Lands, also known as the Freedmen’s Bureau. This gov­ern­ment agency pro­vid­ed cloth­ing, fuel, shel­ter, and ser­vices to refugees, for­mer slaves, their wives, and their children. 

Rebec­ca states, “Dur­ing my stay there near­ly every hour was improved in that sphere of labor. The last quar­ter of the year 1866, I was enabled…to have access each day to a very large num­ber of the indi­gent, and oth­ers of dif­fer­ent class­es, and a pop­u­la­tion of over 30,000 col­ored.”[viii]

The patients that Rebec­ca saw had been denied care by white physi­cians. In addi­tion, even though she was a respect­ed med­ical doc­tor, she was still sub­ject­ed to racism from the admin­is­tra­tion and oth­er physi­cians. She had chal­lenges try­ing to get pre­scrip­tions filled and was often ignored by male physi­cians. Addi­tion­al­ly, many peo­ple taunt­ed her, stat­ing that the M.D. behind her name stood for Mule Dri­ver.[ix]

Nev­er­the­less, her desire to serve a char­i­ta­ble role in med­i­cine inspired her to per­se­vere. She stayed in Rich­mond for three more years. In 1869 she and Arthur moved back to Boston, where she felt she would be more welcome. 

Rebec­ca and Arthur moved to 67 Joy Street in Boston. Rebec­ca stat­ed, “I returned to my for­mer home, Boston, where I entered into the work with renewed vig­or, prac­tic­ing out­side, and receiv­ing chil­dren in the home for treat­ment; regard­less, in a mea­sure, of remu­ner­a­tion.”[x] In oth­er words, Rebec­ca want­ed to treat impov­er­ished moth­ers and chil­dren. She had no inten­tion to receive pay­ment for her services.

In 1880, she and Arthur moved to Hyde Park, Mass­a­chu­setts, where she stopped prac­tic­ing med­i­cine. How­ev­er, that did not stop her. She wrote a book titled A Book of Med­ical Dis­cours­es in Two Parts. The first part of the book pro­vid­ed infor­ma­tion. It explained caus­es and ways to pre­vent stom­ach and bow­el infec­tions in chil­dren from infan­cy to five years old. The sec­ond part of the book con­tains “Mis­cel­la­neous infor­ma­tion con­cern­ing the life and growth of beings; The begin­ning of Wom­an­hood; Also, the cause, pre­ven­tion, and cure of many of the most dis­tress­ing com­plaints of women, and use of both sex­es.”[xi] Rebec­ca had writ­ten a thor­ough book that served as the per­fect resource for new moth­ers. It was, in a way, the pre­cur­sor to the most infa­mous book that every moth­er in the Unit­ed States is famil­iar with, called What to Expect When You Are Expect­ing. 

For many of us moms, What to Expect When You Are Expect­ing was our bible. We have Doc­tor Rebec­ca Davis Lee Crum­pler to thank for that.

Rebec­ca and Arthur remained in Hyde Park and became devout mem­bers of the Twelfth Bap­tist Church on Phillips Street. Arthur was so inspired by his bril­liant wife that he went back to school and became deter­mined to read and write and serve the com­mu­ni­ty as much as she helped the com­mu­ni­ty. As a result, he served on the Board of Trustees for the church. They had a suc­cess­ful mar­riage that rep­re­sent­ed the resilience that they both endured before they met. 

On March 9, 1895, Rebec­ca Crum­pler passed away bat­tling fibroid tumors. Arthur out­lived his wife by 15 years. He passed away in May 1910.[xii] They com­mit­ted so much to the com­mu­ni­ty, to the church, and to the well-being of the mar­gin­al­ized. How­ev­er, they were buried in graves that were unmarked for 125 years. On July 16, 2020, Vic­to­ria Gall, the pres­i­dent of The Friends of the Hyde Park Branch Library, spear­head­ed a coun­try-wide fundrais­er to erect two grave­stones in hon­or of Rebec­ca and her hus­band, Arthur.[xiii] 

You can find pho­tos of these gor­geous grave­stones at https://hplibraryfriends.wordpress.com/2020/07/25/7–16-2020-photographs-dedication-of-gravestones-for-dr-rebecca-crumpler-and-for-arthur-crumpler/

Rebec­ca and Arthur lived a life of deter­mi­na­tion. For Arthur, he sought a bet­ter life and found free­dom, civ­il rights, and true love. For Rebec­ca, she fought the stereo­types and found suc­cess as an altru­is­tic med­ical doc­tor who healed not just hun­dreds of for­mer slaves, but thou­sands of them.

Arthur served the com­mu­ni­ty, he empow­ered his wife, he was inspired by his wife, and he was deter­mined to become edu­cat­ed. He is an inspi­ra­tion to the black men in this coun­try who mat­ter, whose voic­es mat­ter, whose con­tri­bu­tions mat­ter, and whose lives matter.

Rebec­ca served the poor, helped the under-rep­re­sent­ed, and altru­is­ti­cal­ly took care of the mar­gin­al­ized and oppressed. She addressed health inequities among peo­ple of col­or. She start­ed a trail of suc­cess that, over time, became a paved road for black women in med­i­cine. Rebec­ca Crum­pler cre­at­ed that path. And Arthur was there for Rebec­ca every step of the way.

Togeth­er, they persevered. 

Togeth­er, Rebec­ca and Arthur cre­at­ed a part­ner­ship that allowed Rebec­ca to achieve what no oth­er African Amer­i­can woman in her time had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to do, which was serve as an inspi­ra­tion for so many oth­er black women in med­i­cine. Their love for each oth­er empow­ered them both to make a dif­fer­ence in the world. Arthur’s life sto­ry serves as a reminder that Black Lives Mat­ter, and that black men mat­ter. And through all the women that Rebec­ca inspired, her lega­cy forged a high­way of suc­cess and achieve­ments for all black women in medicine.

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[i] Faye, Eugene F. An Illus­trat­ed Bio­graph­i­cal Cat­a­logue of the Prin­ci­pals, Teach­ers, and Stu­dents of the West New­ton Eng­lish and Clas­si­cal School, West New­ton, Mass., 1854–1893: Includ­ing an Account of the Reunions Novem­ber 15, 1871, and June 21, 1893. Boston: R. Avery Sup­ply, 1895. e‑book, 23. https://archive.org/details/illustratedbiogr00faye/mode/2up.

[ii] “Dr. Rebec­ca Crum­pler — The Resilient Sis­ter­hood Project.” The Resilient Sis­ter­hood Project. Accessed Feb­ru­ary 24, 2021. https://rsphealth.org/dr-rebecca-crumpler.

[iii] Markel, Howard. “Cel­e­brat­ing Rebec­ca Lee Crum­pler, First African-Amer­i­can Woman Physi­cian.” PBS New­sHour. Last mod­i­fied March 9, 2016. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/celebrating-rebecca-lee-crumpler-first-african-american-physician.

[iv] “Rebec­ca Lee’s Med­ical Train­ing.” Friends of Hyde Park Branch Library Blog. Last mod­i­fied March 1, 2020. https://hplibraryfriends.wordpress.com/2020/03/01/rebecca-lees-medical-training/.

[v] Wyatt Lee, reg­is­tered April 18, 1863, death April 17, 1863”, Deaths in Boston, Town and City Clerks of Mass­a­chu­setts. Mass­a­chu­setts Vital and Town Records., 1863

[vi] “Boston’s Old­est Pupil,” The Boston Globe, April 3, 1898, 25.

[vii] Crum­pler, Rebec­ca. A Book of Med­ical Dis­cours­es. Boston: Cash­man, Keat­ing & Co. Print­ers, 1883. https://collections.nlm.nih.gov/bookviewer?PID=nlm:nlmuid-67521160R-bk#page/4/mode/2up.

[viii] Crum­pler, Rebec­ca. A Book of Med­ical Dis­cours­es. Boston: Cash­man, Keat­ing & Co. Print­ers, 1883. https://collections.nlm.nih.gov/bookviewer?PID=nlm:nlmuid-67521160R-bk#page/4/mode/2up.

[ix] Jr., Hen­ry L., and Eve­lyn B. Hig­gin­both­am. African Amer­i­can Lives. New York: Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty Press, 2004, 199–200.

[x] Crum­pler, Rebec­ca. A Book of Med­ical Dis­cours­es. Boston: Cash­man, Keat­ing & Co. Print­ers, 1883. https://collections.nlm.nih.gov/bookviewer?PID=nlm:nlmuid-67521160R-bk#page/4/mode/2up.

[xi] Crum­pler, Rebec­ca. A Book of Med­ical Dis­cours­es. Boston: Cash­man, Keat­ing & Co. Print­ers, 1883. https://collections.nlm.nih.gov/bookviewer?PID=nlm:nlmuid-67521160R-bk#page/4/mode/2up.

[xii] The Boston Globe (Boston). “Ex-Slave Laid to Rest.” May 11, 1910, 4.

[xiii] Bri­an Mac­Quar­rie, “Grave­stone ded­i­cat­ed to the first Black female med­ical doc­tor in the US,” Boston Globe, July 17, 2020.