Fannie M. Kneeland

Francis M. Kneeland (born 1873) was an American physician. She was one of the first African American women doctors working in Memphis, where she had a practice located on Beale Street.

Biography Kneeland was born in 1873 in Memphis, Tennessee. When she was young, she was orphaned, though she continued to live with her family and even helped raise her younger siblings. In 1898, she was an honors graduate of Meharry, a medical school for African Americans. Kneeland also worked with the University of West Tennessee, where she was the head instructor in the nursing program in 1923. Later in life, she moved to Chicago to live with relatives.