“Sisters of a Darker Race”: African American Graduates of the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania, 1867–1925

summary:

During its first seventy-five years (1850–1925), the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania (WMCP) graduated eighteen Black women—more than any other predominantly white medical school. This article examines the lives and careers of these “sisters of a darker race” as they sought a foothold in medicine. Its exclusive focus on WMCP allows historical examination of the experiences of Black medical professionals in a “white space.” This perspective helps illuminate the racism that Black women encountered from their white colleagues. WMCP itself maintained a racially exclusionary internship policy that barred Black women and contributed to a racial divide in the female medical world, making plain its educational objective to prepare African Americans for medical careers in Black medical spaces. Nonetheless, WMCP did prepare this pioneering group of Black women physicians with the education and skills to make significant contributions to medicine and Black communities in the United States and Africa.