Marie Elisabeth Zakrzewska (6 September 1829 – 12 May 1902) was a Polish-American physician who made her name as a pioneering female doctor in the United States. As a Berlin native, she found great interest in medicine after assisting her mother, who worked as a midwife. Best known for the establishment of the New England Hospital for Women and Children, she opened doors to many women who were interested in the medical field and provided them with hands-on learning opportunities. Within the New England Hospital, she established the first general training school for nurses in America. Her drive and perseverance made the idea of women in medicine less daunting. She also initiated the creation of the first sand gardens for children in America.

Early life

thumb|Painting of Maria E. Zakrzewska

During the 1795 final Third Partition of Poland Ludwig Martin Zakrzewski and his wife, Caroline Fredericke Wilhelmina Urban, fled to Berlin, Germany, after losing much of his land to Russia. After settling into their new life in Germany, Marie Elizabeth was born on September 6, 1829. She was the eldest of six children. Marie Zakrzewska was a bright child and excelled during grade school. Here she exhibited traits that portrayed her as an exceptional student. Her teachers would applaud her for her great successes in school. However, her father did not plan on allowing her to continue in school past the years of acquiring basic skills. Zakrzewska left school at the age thirteen. Regardless of the obstacles that came in her way, she outperformed her fellow classmates and graduated from the program in 1851. No one wanted to share an apartment with a female doctor, so Blackwell arranged for temporary housing at the home of Caroline Severance. The men on campus welcomed her with disgust and hostility. They petitioned the institution to refuse to enroll the women after the winter term.

Zakrzewska traveled to Boston as her desire for a greater challenge grew. She fell in love with the city and was offered an appointment as Professor of Obstetrics and Diseases of Women and Children.

Zakrzewska lived a successful life, breaking barriers that hindered women in practicing medicine in the United States, founded hospitals for women, and pioneered the movement that opened the nursing profession to black women with the first black nurse in America graduating from the school in 1879. As a feminist and abolitionist, she became friends with William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips and Karl Heinzen. inspired by the German sand gardens she observed while visiting Berlin in the summer of 1885.

Notes

Further reading

  • Frances E. Willard; Mary A. Livermore (eds) Maria Elizabeth Zakrzewska, Woman of the Century 1893
  • Graves, Mary H. "Marie Elizabeth Zakrzewska", Representative Women of New England. 1904
  • "Zakrzewska, Marie." In Encyclopedia of Women Social Reformers, by Helen Rappaport. ABC-CLIO, 2001.
  • Jamaica Plain Historical Society