Letters: THE FULL STORY OF A PIONEERING BLACK DOCTOR

ON FEB. 4, in

"Black History: Looking Back, Moving Forward,"

Rebecca J. Cole, an African-American female physician who graduated from what today is the now-shuttered Women's Medical College, then called the Female Medical College, was listed as a past public-health hero.

To my dismay, little was mentioned about Dr. Cole's early years before medical college. As one of the few female doctors in the country by mid-19th century, especially a woman of color, more information needs to be made available.

Dr. Rebecca J. Cole was one of three children. Her siblings were well-educated, having graduated from the Institute for Colored Youth. Each taught in the institute for at least five years. Dr. Cole's early training was also at the institute (today Cheyney University) from which she graduated in 1863.

Though she had completed her medical work by 1867, she taught at the Colored Public School at Centre Street and Germantown Avenue until 1870. Her salary was $625 a year. Dr. Cole was a part of a very small group of educated women whose focus was science and medicine. Not only was she a doctor, but she spoke at least three languages: English, German and French.

As the second black woman to graduate from Women's Medical College, she also became the first African- American woman to practice in New York City, primarily because of her ability in German. She was termed a "sanitary worker" (tenement physician) for the New York Infirmary for women and children, recently arrived German immigrants. For many years, she served as the doctor at the Colored Widow and Children's home in Washington. She also practiced for a short time in Columbia, S.C.

Her last days were spent in South Philadelphia. Dr. Cole openly disagreed with W. E. B. DuBois as to the cause of the high black mortality rate. It was not, she argued, due to ignorance of hygiene but the result of the overcrowding and unsanitary conditions created by slumlords.

Dr. Cole authored a Women's Directory, which provided women of all races immediate reference to medical and legal assistance. In 1916, she was a part of Margaret Sanger's campaign that touted birth control for all women as a means to change their lives and thereby their social limitations.

As a final testament to her dedication to women, Dr. Cole became one of the founding members of the Colored Southwest Belmont YWCA at 17th and Christian. Dr. Rebecca J. Cole passed away on March 14, 1922, and is interred in Eden Cemetery.

It should be clearly stated that the Institute for Colored Youth provided the foundation of academic excellence for this doctor of distinction, for "wherever we go, Cheyney goes."

Dr. Shirley Turpin-Parham '62

Faculty Member, Cheyney University