Rebecca Cole

Rebecca J. Cole (March 16, 1846 – August 14, 1922) was an American physician, organization founder and social reformer. In 1867, she became the second African-American woman to become a doctor in the United States, after Rebecca Lee Crumpler three years earlier. Throughout her life she faced racial and gender-based barriers to her medical education, training in all-female institutions which were run by the first generation of graduating female physicians.

Early life and education Cole was born in Philadelphia on March 16, 1846, one of five children. Her father was a laborer and her mother was a laundress.

Cole attended high school at the Institute for Colored Youth where the curriculum that included Latin, Greek, and mathematics, graduating in 1863. Cole's graduate thesis was titled The Eye and Its Appendages. In her senior year, Cole lived with fellow medical students Odelia Blinn and Martha E. Hutchings. Nearly thirty years later, Blinn wrote an article detailing how crossing the 'color line' in Philadelphia nearly derailed Cole's studies at the college and her plans for a medical career.

Career After earning her medical degree, Cole interned at Elizabeth Blackwell's New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children, where she was assigned to teach prenatal care and hygiene to women in tenements. Blackwell described Cole as "an intelligent young colored physician [who] carried on this work with tact and care." The association's 1899 annual report stated that Cole possessed "all the qualities essential to such a position-ability, energy, experience, tact." A subsequent report noted that:

Cole practiced medicine for fifty years. In 2015, she was chosen as an Innovators Walk of Fame honoree by the University City Science Center, Philadelphia.

Death Cole died on August 14, 1922, at the age of 76. She is buried at Eden Cemetery in Collingdale, Pennsylvania. Few records or photos of her have survived.