Rebecca Cole — Mothers in Science

Rebecca J. Cole (1846-1922) was an American physician and advocate for healthcare equity and access for marginalised communities, particularly Black Americans. She was the second African-American woman to become a doctor in the US (after Rebecca Lee Crumpler) and a mother to five children.

Cole was born in Philadelphia on March 16, 1846. Although her father was a laborer and her mother was a laundress, Cole and her siblings received an excellent education. She was an outstanding student and even received a $15k award for academic excellence in high school.

During the civil war, Cole enrolled in the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania, the first school in the US to award MD degrees to women. Despite facing racial and gender discrimination, Cole persevered and forged a career in medicine that spanned over 50 years.

Cole was one of the pioneer women doctors in the US to fight against the racist assumption that the proliferation of disease in poor black communities is inevitable. An evidence-based researcher, she questioned the biased data suggesting that lack of hygiene was the cause for the high death rate within these communities. Cole challenged these stereotypes and shed light into the discriminatory housing practices that kept Black people living in overcrowded and unhealthy conditions, thus making them vulnerable to contagious diseases.

Cole’s illustrious career unfortunately was poorly recorded. She established the Women’s Directory Center in 1873 with Charlotte Abbey to provide medical and legal services to destitute women and children. In 1899, she was appointed Superintendent of the Government House for Children and Old Women to give medical and legal aid to the homeless, particularly children. Cole did all of this while raising 5 children, although not much is known about her family life.

Historians recorded a surge in the number of African-American women physicians in the US after the end of the Civil War in 1865, due to the establishment of women-only medical colleges and colleges for African-Americans. However, with the integration in the 1920s many of these colleges shut down, and the number of Black women physicians declined dramatically.

Cole not only broke gender, racial and social barriers by becoming one of the first Black women physicians, but with her community-based approach to medicine practice, she also highlighted that medicine should not be separated from public health.