Epidemics and Prejudice on the Medical Frontline: Rebecca Lee Crumpler

The doors to professional medicine in -century America were sealed by race and gender. Against overwhelming odds and systemic hostility, Rebecca Lee Crumpler decided to pry them open. In 1864, she achieved the impossible, becoming the first African American woman in the United States to earn a medical degree—a revolutionary act. But her work had only just begun. Driven by moral conviction, Dr. Crumpler immediately moved to Reconstruction-era Richmond, Virginia, serving the newly emancipated on the frontlines of deadly epidemics like smallpox and cholera. She defied hostility from white physicians and authorities, demonstrating an unflinching commitment to health equity. Epidemics and Prejudice on the Medical Frontline restores Dr. Crumpler's forgotten narrative, following her from her humble origins and wartime medical studies to her defining service in the South and the eventual publication of her landmark text, A Book of Medical Discourses (1883). More than just the story of a "first," this comprehensive biography is a powerful testament to resilience, revealing how one pioneer laid the foundation for modern healthcare justice and inspired generations. Approx.155 pages, 31300 word count