The calendar has flipped from February to March. Gone is Black History Month replaced with Women’s History Month.
My March 2024 calendar from the National Museum of African American History & Culture (NMAAHC) celebrates an image of six African American nurses, staff at St. Luke Hospital in Columbia South Carolina. They learned their skills at a hospital established sometime after 1907 by Dr. Matilda Evans.
LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT HER WOMEN’S HISTORY
Born 1866 in Aiken, South Carolina, as the oldest of three children, Dr. Evans is remembered for her healing as a successful OB/GYN, surgeon and children’s health care advocate within and beyond her home community.
In 1892, after graduating from Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio, Matilda Evans entered Women’s Medical College of Philadelphia. During the 19th and early 20th Century, the medical field for African American women limited them to training at either in Canada or Europe, unless fortunate enough for acceptance at a northern school or a Historical Black College or University (HBCU).
Prior to Dr. Evans entering Philadelphia Medical College, male peers disrespected Black and white women, believing all women were “ . . . too delicate to endure the physical requirements of clinical practice”. But in 1892, Ann Preston, the first woman graduate from the College’s medical school, founded Women’s Hospital of Philadelphia, creating an environment for women to thrive in the medical field.
After earning her M.D. in 1897, Dr. Evans considered becoming a missionary doctor in Africa; but as it was not in her future; instead, she returned to South Carolina and became the first licensed African American woman doctor specializing in obstetrics, gynecology, and surgery. Her clients were wealthy white women from which the money earned provided the freedom for her to treat poor Black women and children.
In 1901 she founded Taylor Lane Hospital and Training School for Nurses—the first Black hospital in the city of Columbia available for her to treat African Americans. Then a few years later, she established St. Luke’s Hospital, also in Columbia, the image on my calendar. The fourteen room-twenty bed facility, under her operation until 1918, would become the fourth hospital in the country for training nurses.
She advocated for Black children’s health care in schools, promoted vaccinations as well as cleanliness and manners. She believed health care should be a citizenship right and a governmental responsibility. Over the years she adopted seven children and fostered nearly an additional two dozen. She was known for her visits to the sick patients riding bicycles, horses, or buggies.
Dr. Matilda Evans created the Negro Health Association of South Carolina, volunteered in the Medical Service Corps of the United States Army during World War I, and founded a weekly newspaper: The Negro Health Journal of South Carolina.
Evans loved to swim and dance, was a knitter and played the piano. Her legacy includes an honor in her name from the Richland Memorial Hospital in Columbia. She died at the age of 69 on November 17, 1935.
Thank you, Wikipedia, your page fulfilled my curiosity to discover more about Dr. Matilda Evans, a woman who enriched the lives of a marginalized community through healing and teaching.
The Bucks Underground Railroad 