Marie Elizabeth Zakrzewska
9-6-1829 to 5-12-1902
A pioneering physician, Zakrzewska was
born in Berlin, Germany, the oldest of the five daughters and one son
of Martin Ludwig Zakrzewska and his wife, Frederika C. W. Urban
Marie's father, of a Polish landed family, was a Prussian army
pensioner, having been dismissed for his liberal views; her mother
counted among her immediate ancestors gypsies of the Lombardi tribe.
At the age of eight, after three years in primary school, Marie
Zakrzewska (pronounced Zak-shef-ska)was enrolled in the school
for young girls. A good student, but lonely and unpopular, she left
after six years, had her father's insistence, toward house work like
other German girls.
Marie now spent most her time reading medical works. Several years
before, her mother, to help support the growing family, had entered
the school for midwives at the Charité hospital in Berlin; for
several months Marie had lived with her at the hospital, developing a
keen interest in medicine. Soon she was assisting her mother, and at
age 18 she applied for admission to the midwives' school. Though
refused at first as too young,she came under the favorable notice of
a professor, Dr. Joseph HermannSchmidt, who two years later secured
her edition, took her as his private pupil, and during her second
year made her his teaching assistant. She graduated in 1851; in May
of the following year Dr. Schmidt, though ailing and despite
strenuous opposition, succeeded in having her installed as chief
midwife and professor in the hospital's school for midwives,only a
few hours before his death. Miss Zakrzewska was a successful teacher
and midwife, but opposition and intrigue against her proved to
strong, and after six months she resigned. A year later she emigrated
with a younger sister to the United States, having heard of the new
Female Medical College in Philadelphia and expecting to find in
America greater freedom for women to practice medicine.
the two girls arrived in New York in May, and were joined by third
sister in September For nearly a year they lived on the proceeds of a
small knitting enterprise. Then, in May 1854, Marie was introduced to
Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, who was immediately impressed by her
visitor's character and potentialities and took her on as a pupil.
Dr. Blackwell persuaded Marie that she must learn English and get an
M.D. degree, and gained admission for her to the medical department
of Western Reserve College (commonly known as the Cleveland Medical
College), from which Emily Blackwell had recently graduated One of
four women in a class of about tw0 hundred, Miss Zakrzewska
matriculated in October 1854. She was welcomed on her arrival in
Cleveland by Mrs. Caroline M. Severance, who assisted her financially
and became a lifelong friend, in she was cordially received by the
dean, Dr. John J. Delamater. Other students in most towns people,
however, treated her coldly. In March 1856 she received her M.D.
degree. Returning to New York, she could not even rents rooms, so
great was the prejudice against women physicians. She finally opened
an office that April in Elizabeth Blackwell's back parlor.
Dr. Blackwell and Dr. Zakrzewska were both eager to start a small
hospital where women doctors in students might have the opportunity
to practice and learn denied them elsewhere To this project Dr.
Zakrzewska now devoted herself, seeking funds in Boston,
Philadelphia, and New York, wherever advanced ideas were discussed.
On May 1, 1857, the New York Infirmary for Women and Children opened,
the country's first hospital staffed by women. For two years
Zakrzewska served as resident physician and general manager, sharing
with the Blackwell sisters the care of a growing number of dispensary
and bed patients By 1859 the institution seemed firmly established,
its success in no small measure owing to the solid practical ability
and hard work of Dr. Zakrzewska.
In that year she accepted an offer from the New England Female
Medical College of Boston to be professor of obstetrics and diseases
of women and children and resident physician of a projected new
hospital. Samuel Gregory, a would-be medical reformer who considered
"man-midwives" an affront to decency, had founded the college in
1848, primarily to train female practitioners who could give
parturient women skilled attendance. Gregory's pamphlets were
insulting to regular physicians, he knew nothing about medical
education, and his school had a weak faculty of dubious backgrounds.
Dr. Zakrzewska's inaugural address strongly urged the importance of
good general education and the role of science in medicine. Her views
were well above the American average; Gregory were below. Inevitably
the two quarreled, and in 1862, increasingly dissatisfied with the
school's low standards and its perpetual state of financial crisis
under Gregory's control, she resigned.
With the advice and support of a board of lady managers Dr.
Zakrzewskahad built up the clinical department of the New England
Female Medical College into a small hospital and dispensary for
women. When Gregory closed this hospital and disbanded its board upon
her departure, many of these women and several of the college
trustees backed Dr. Zakrzewska in founding a new institution, the New
England Hospital for Women and Children. Opened July 1, 1862, it was
incorporated in March 1863. Its three stated purposes were: to
provide women with medical aid from competent physicians of their own
sex; to provide educated women with an opportunity for practical
study in medicine; and to train nurses. With Dr. Zakrzewska freed of
the association with Gregory, a few of Boston's leaders in medicine
gave consistent encouragement. Most of her support, however, came
from outside the profession, particularly from those active in the
woman's rights movement. Though not without struggles, the ten- bed
hospital grew steadily. In 1864 it moved to larger quarters and in
1872, after a successful fund-raising campaign, to a new site in
Roxbury, where the original main building, later named in honor of
Dr. Zakrzewska, still stands.
The job of resident physician, initially handled by Dr. Zakrzewska,
was soon taken over by Dr. Lucy Sewall and later by other younger
women doctors. Dr. Zakrzewska was attending physician until 1887, and
then advisory physician. Though ably supported by Board of Directors
including Lucy Goddard, Edna D. Cheney, and Samuel E. Sewall, she
played the leading role in guiding hospital's development. Because of
the prevailing prejudice, Dr. Zakrzewska fell to all the more
necessary to give women physicians the best possible training,
including hospital experience. This in her opinion was the New
England Hospital's most important program. She limited the staff to
women, not because she was against coeducation in medicine but
because almost no other hospitals admitted women physiciansthe.
Herself well-trained and dedicated to her profession, she perceived
that neither sentimental sympathy nor a desire for status was an
adequate motive for a woman to enter it, but only a talent to
practice combined with an interest in scientific investigation. At
first some women without degrees studied medicine at the hospital,
but after 1881 all resident students were required to be M. D.'s.
Many of the ablest women doctors of the time completed their training
with an internship at the New England Hospital for Women and
Children, where Marie Zakrzewska inspired them with an intense
loyalty to her and to the institution. To her more than to any other
person, in the opinion of Edna D. Cheney, was due the success of
women in medicine in America.
Intelligent, persuasive, an persevering, if somewhat opinionated and
quick-tempered, Dr. Zakrzewska had deep human sympathies and a
special understanding of the problems of the poor. In her early days
in Boston she took on a heavy burden of charity cases, both out of
principal and from a desire to establish herself professionally. At
first she made her calls on foot, often too distant parts of the
city, but in 1865 she acquired a horse and buggy "to uphold the
professional etiquette and dignity of a woman physician" (quoted in
Marie Elizabeth Zakrzewskathe, Page 17). In time she acquired a
substantial private practice. She was plain of appearance, with a
generous mouth and prominent nose, but advancing years softened her
features and lent dignity to her bearing.
Though most of her energies were devoted to her hospital and medical
practice, Marie Zakrzewska was from time to time drawn into other
reforms, including the antislavery crusade. While still a student she
had met Theodore Parker, William Lloyd Garrison, and Wendell
Phillips, who later became her close friends. She supported woman
suffrage and was one of the first members of the New England Women's
club, were she gave a number of lectures on hygiene and related
topics. For many years, until his death in 1880, the German radical
journalist Carl Heinzen and his wife lived with her in Roxbury. Later
she shared her home with Julia A. Sprague, a devoted friend.
Essentially a freethinker in religion, Dr. Zakrzewska in her early
years had "the bitter contempt for the church and professed
Christians" (C. Annette Buckel in Woman's Journal, Nov. 8,
1902). More tolerant as she grew older, she still explicitly denied
any belief in an after life. She retired in 1899, having suffered for
several years from arteriosclerosis and heart disease, and died three
years later of apoplexy at her home in Jamaica Plain, Boston. In lieu
of a conventional funeral service, friends gathered at the chapel of
Forest Hills Cemetery, where her ashes were interred, to hear a paper
she had written for the occasion.
Article ©1971"Notable American Women"
Contributed by John B. Blake
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