Laid the Foundation Black women laid the foundation for the work we will emphasize. Black female physicians in philadelphia in a postworld war ii context. We will lay some of the groundwork first giving you greater context in the ways in which black women in the 19th century had a significant contribution to the development of you lived in medicine. Of the practice of health and healing and medicine more broadly. Most Cancer Prevention programs that were funded, operated and run by black women physicians, largely in philadelphia. One of the first black woman we have to discuss his dr. Rebecca crumpler. In the mid19th century africanamerican women used medical training as a form of racial uplift. We talked about the limitations of racial uplift. In 1864, Rebecca Crumpler was the first africanamerican woman to graduate from the new england medical female college. Crumpler practiced medicine in Richmond Virginia after the civil war, focusing on issues of tuberculosis. Working extensively with the freedmens bureau. Her putative republication is sectioned into two parts and describes not only treating africanamerican patients is a form of social activism, but some of the limitations she faced as a woman physician working in richmond that the time. Rebecca crumpler, although we know a lot about her and how she writes into the issues of africanamericans into medicine, some of the other women we see working notably in this area or women like rebecca called. Both of these women consider forms of Legal Practice as an aspect of social activism and racial uplift. Rebecca completed her medical degree at Womens Medical College in pennsylvania. She had a diverse medical school in terms of issues of race and ethnicity. Cole practiced medicine in philadelphia and religious reform to medicine. Through medicine. Not only was she involved in the womens missionary society, but she was a very significant advocate of trying to promote social activism through womens collaboration. A periodical produced in 1896 highlighted this very specific issue of social activism, and more particularly emphasized rebecca kohls relationship with trying to connect race and health activism. The society of women missionaries was one of the first societies to hear a parliamentary version of w. E. B. Duboiss the philadelphia negro. In some of these meetings, it was suggested the report include not only broader constructions of these structural convictions that africanamericans face, but how those Structural Conditions had Definite Health outcomes. You are looking at a specific location from this womens era article based on these meetings with dubois. Our color people largely forced to live in unsanitary districts . We must urge our men to continue to content for loss regulating the cubic airspace. People cannot be gathered together like cattle while landlords gather their investment. We see very early on that many africanamerican woman doctors are directly connected to using racial uplift as a form of social activism, particularly through the practice of medicine. The solidification of these critiques that call and problem were demonstrating, we see an increase in those in terms of the formation of the National Medical association. The National Medical association was formed to eradicate the color lines in medicine, or be barriers that africanamericans face, because they were not allowed to participate in the American Medical Association. In addition, the nma was formed not only to help practitioners receive full affiliation and hospitals, but also as internship and residency become a requirement, this is one of the major things that the nma begins to fight for, in terms of africanamerican membership. Africanamerican women were a part of the National Medical association, and some of the larger context that i have not mentioned up to this point, but we have discussed in our class, is the conditions that africanamericans were facing in terms of mortality and morbidity in the late 19th and early 20th century. To this end, the National MedicalAssociation Work to try to eradicate some of those conditions through the development of sponsorship of the Black Hospital movement. So how, then, by the time we so how, then, by the time we moved quickly across time, do we get to more africanamerican women practicing medicine . One of the figures we have to talk about by this time in the early 20th century, it is really now around the period of the depression with dr. Virginia alexander. Dr. Virginia alexander was an africanamerican physician, a social activist, a quaker. Alexander was one of seven africanamerican women physicians practicing in philadelphia in 1931. She ran what we call the Aspiranto Health Home. Some of you today are may be familiar with more holistic forms of health homes or birthing cottages. That is kind of what the Health Center was. It did not just focus on Womens Health care, it focused on basic health care needs, particularly in philadelphia. According to dr. Virginia alexander, it was a lying in clinic. She had probably delivered about 20 babies. This is significant only consider the rate of mortality and morbidity for africanamerican women in philadelphia at that time. 1931 to 1933 to 1934, alexander estimated that she had delivered a combination of birth, whether in ranges of ages, at this time there were two Black Hospitals. The Mercy Hospital and the douglas hospital which would later merge into mercy douglas. But by 1933, in the crisis magazine, dr. Alexander is really asking the very pivotal and critical question about medical practice and women in medical practice. She asked essentially can a , colored woman be a physician . In this article, she outlines for us what she is going to do in the Aspiranto Health Home. We know that it is a liein clinic for women, but she also envision the Aspiranto Health Home as a teaching home for maternity patients for , deliveries, and for twoweight postnatal care, where nurses and housekeepers can be in continual attendance, where patients will learn not only how to nurse their babies, but how to schedule rest and food, etc. She also considered this to be a space where black women would not have the dread of medical experimentation, or forced sterilization which we have , talked about extensively in our class. And where husbands could also be a part of the birthing process and the postnatal process by by participating at will. This coverage of the Aspiranto Health Home brought to the media the ways in which black women were working to eradicate some of the conditions that black women were facing around mortality and mobility. Mortality and morbidity. Alexander did not only right in the crisis magazine, she also wrote extensively in the southern workman about the changing opportunities for negro physicians in the north, but also, as an attempt to meet the needs of africanamericans in urban centers like philadelphia. One of the major ways that she was using aspiranto was that she was constantly recruiting, seeking out other black women to come and work with her in this medical practice. Her vision was to try to create a think tank, a thinner, where other black women could be trained, where they could go out into the communities of north philadelphia, and provide health care, mainly obstetric and gynecological care, but also to provide for them a whole range of services that would create a larger level of humanity that africanamericans were not experiencing in some of the other segregated forms of health care, namely forced sterilization. So one of those first position that came to philadelphia to work with virginia alexander was none other than dr. Helen dickens. Now dr. Helen dickens becomes , interested in working at the Aspiranto Health Home because of the personal letter that virginia alexander writes to Helen Dickens. In this letter, she argues that they could be a great team in terms of increasing Health Outcomes for fell africanamericans in philadelphia, and particularly, africanamerican women. Dr. Helen dickens finished her education at the university of Illinois College of medicine. Of medicine in she was the 1933. Third black female graduate. She, for the next two years, sought to gain additional clinical and internship and residency experience at provident hospital, the image of which i showed you at the beginning. It was at Providence Hospital where she meets, and has another atern there with her who is doctor from trinidad. Dickens path to eradicating the disparate conditions of black women were failed with delivering babies in unfathomable circumstances. She was so skilled that she delivered a healthy baby in a home without electricity at night, pulling the bed to the window, and conducting the entire birth by the glare of the streetlight. For the most part, dickens arrived to house calls that required the treatment of at least five people, and she often provided that care for free. In some cases, she may have received three dollars for treating five patients, but it was very rare that she received any compensation for medical treatment. In 1941, she entered graduate medical school as the only black woman in her class. The university required dickens to complete two additional years of residency and internship, and this was a common practice that was done for africanamerican physicians. Often times, they would have already graduated and what have to do additional residencies. This common discriminatory practice was no different for Helen Dickens and her matriculation. After she leaves provident hospital, she goes to harlem hospital, and dickens set the stage to have a career in preventing cancer. So, we are going to shift to talking about how in philadelphia, she becomes really a major force for Cancer Prevention campaigns. Before we talk about that, i want to show you this image , which illustrates how isolating the practice of medicine was for black women in philadelphia. So, you are looking at an image of the Philadelphia Academy of medicine. This particular images from the mid1930s. And you see dr. Dickens right there in the center as kind of the only black woman doctor here in this setting up all men. The Philadelphia Academy of medicine was considered to be one of the Branch Chapters of the National Medical association, although there was a separate chapter in philadelphia. The academy of medicine worked to, again, fight against those internship requirements, and particular the extra requirements for africanamerican physicians. They were also working to dismantle segregated hospital wards, particularly maternity wards, is what Helen Dickens was concerned about. So are there any questions . , any questions . Yes . Student could the establishment or initiatives by the nma be the reason that certain medical schools started pushing for africanamerican only doctors and things of that nature . Prof. Shakir ok. Very good question. It the nma still does exist, and the nma still does exist, and it is still actively involved in what we would call cultural competency, the idea that you should have, in medical schools and in medical practice, people who, in terms of race and ethnicity, mirror the race and ethnicity of patients, but that they are also aware of some of the issues of trying to reduce bias in medical practice. Right . Definitely, yes the nma is , definitely concerned with that. Any other questions, before we Start Talking about metaphors of cancer and how dickens was was trying to work to help Cancer Prevention after the Second World War . Any other questions . Ok. We talked about some of the conditions that africanamericans were facing as a related to health and healing in the 19th century. We have also talked about some of the conditions that africanamerican women physicians were presented with in the late 19th century. We also talked about the collaborations that women like virginia alexander and Helen Dickens were doing to try to create this. Helen dickens, in particular, when she arrives in philadelphia, is immersed into health and healing at aspiranto, working alongside dr. Virginia alexander, who trained her and gave her extra, practical experience that she had not necessarily gained in the hospital setting. But by the time we get to the end of the Second World War, there becomes a lot more emphasis on the ways in which cancer, in particular, is going to become a disease that has to be fought in terms of creating several metaphors to talk about this. When most of us talk about Cancer Prevention, do we think about africanamerican women as a major force for fighting Cancer Prevention . If you do, many of you think that is kind of a contemporary development, but we are actually going to show you how black women like dr. Helen dickens were working to create Cancer Prevention programs directly after the Second World War, and in particular continue that work well into the 1960s, which kind of predates a lot of the Cancer Prevention that many of us may associate with the later period. We know that a lot of historians have acknowledged the contributions of lay and medical women and Cancer Prevention and awareness programs in the 20th century. Many of the strands about many of the strands of that literature had emphasized increasing significance of women as organizers, fundraisers, and administrators for the american cancer society, at least as early as 1944. While there has been a lot written about that, a lot of those models about prevention do not always focus on how race and gender can complicate our understanding of cancer education and prevention in the postworld war ii era. Highlighting those challenges that africanamerican women face becoming medical professionals, of which we talked about some of those. But it really shows us some of the ways of the critical roles of medical education and prevention programs in that post world war ii period. Some of the ways we see this occurring is through some of the metaphors of cancer that are being developed after the Second World War. For instance, in a lot of the newspaper ads and publication literature of the american cancer society, a lot of the wording here, we are using metaphors of war, but also metaphors of cancer. Some are you some that you are looking at from the Philadelphia Tribune includes the slogan fight cancer with knowledge, every three minutes, someone dies with cancer, yes to conquer cancer. These types of newspaper articles often suggested that cancer casualties were more significant amongst africanamericans, and that they were greater than the war casualties of africanamericans. Now a word about cancer. , really up until about the Second World War and after the Second World War, the American Medical Association cannot not association did not really believe that africanamericans suffered more from cancer. There was a lot of debate about whether or not africanamericans actually got cancer. And so, one of the things in black women were doing with their Cancer Prevention programs were first trying to prove that africanamericans did suffer from cancer, and also that africanamerican women did suffer from cancer. Printckens would use her media, specifically newspapers. We are going to look at a lot of different newspaper articles now. In the Philadelphia Tribune, the africanamerican newspaper, to publicize the importance of Cancer Prevention and also the relationship between race and Cancer Prevention. So, the first article that we are looking at here, cancer education, topic of meeting, discussed Helen Dickens presentation of talking about breast cancers at a particular meeting that was specifically targeted to africanamerican women. And this one that we are looking at is at the creek school of beauty culture. Right . These meetingsg in a lot of spaces that we perhaps were not traditionally associate with prevention, although we do associate them more with prevention today. So, through a series of newspaper articles, dickens sought to make the american of philadelphia more inclusive of africanamerican Womens Health concerns. Remember that the acs chapter of philadelphia, founded in 1945, began to work mildly with black physicians during Negro Health Week and Public Health week campaigns, although some of the early emphasis had largely been about infectious diseases. By the tail end of the world war, we see more discussion on Cancer Prevention, though it is limited