In 1901 a young African-American doctor wrote Susan B. Anthony asking for help. She had come down with influenza and was in danger of losing her practice.
Dr. Eliza Ann Grier (1864-1905) was born a slave. Freed by the 13th Amendment, Eliza, at first, set out to become a teacher. She studied at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, graduating in 1890. To pay her way she alternated attending college and picking cotton. She taught for a year at Haines Normal and Industrial Institute, and then decided to become a doctor. She was quoted in the North American Medical Review (1898) as saying, “When I saw a colored woman doing all the work in cases of accouchement, and all the fee going to a white doctor who merely looked on, I asked myself, should I not get the fee myself?”
With that goal in mind, in 1890, she wrote to the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania. “I have no money and no source from which to get it, only as I work for every dollar. Do you know any way that might be provided for an emancipated slave to receive any help into this lofty profession? If you cannot do otherwise, then give me a chance, a fair chance.”
According to the Moveable Archives of Drexel University which the Women’s Medical College merged with in 2002, she was accepted and some assistance was provided, but it wasn’t enough. So, Eliza Grier continued her pattern of attending school one year and picking cotton in the next.
It took her seven years to graduate. The Dean of Women’s Medical College, Dr. Clara Marshall wrote in 1897 that “Eliza Grier had been constantly harassed by want of active support during her Women’s Medical College career.”
After graduation, Eliza Grier applied and was granted a license to practice medicine in Georgia, the first black woman to do so. She wrote, “I went to Philadelphia, studied medicine hard, procured my degree, and have come back to Atlanta where I have lived all my life, to practice my profession. Some of the best white doctors in the city have welcomed me and say that they will give me an even chance in the profession. That is all I ask.”
Later she practiced in Greenville, South Carolina and Albany, Georgia, and maintained ties to the Hospital and Training School for Nurses in Charleston, South Carolina while she struggled to establish a private practice, specializing in women and children of all races.
In 1901, she became severely ill with influenza. This is when she wrote Anthony asking for help. The original letter she wrote can be found at Doctor or Doctress?
Anthony in turn asked Women’s Medial College to assist. There is no record that they did.
To the President of the Womens’ Medical College, Philadelphia, PA
Dear Madam:
I send you the enclosed letter because Miss Grier claims to have graduated from your college, and because I think you can help her better than anybody else. She has undertaken a herculean task in that little old town of Greenville. If she is a woman of thrift and management, she ought to have help to get started, about her getting the grippe is certainly bad. My sympathies are very strong for all these women, but my purse is not equal to helping them financially. Cannot you suggest some way out of her trouble?
Very sincerely yours, Susan B. Anthony.
Eliza Grier died of a stroke in 1905 at age forty. The Times-Enterprise described her as a much-loved figure in town, known for her fine solo voice as well as her medical expertise.
Learn more about Dr. Eliza Grier
Chenault, Wesley. “Eliza Ann Grier.” New Georgia Encyclopedia, last modified Jul 17, 2020. https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/science-medicine/eliza-ann-grier-1864-1902/
Dr. Eliza Grier Moveable Archives Drexel Medical
Eliza Ann Grier Doctor or Doctress
Grier, Eliza Ann Black Past
Times Enterprise article and excerpt from the film “Changing the Face of Medicine” exhibition (NLM, 2006)
For more on 19th century women physicians, see the book:
Send Us a Lady Physician: Women Doctors in America 1835 to 1920 by Ruth Jane Abram, ed.
“If you cannot do otherwise, then give me a chance, a fair chance.”
~ Eliza Ann Grier ~