WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH SPOTLIGHT 2022
Dr. Caroline Still Anderson
On November 1, 1848, a baby girl was born to Letitia and William Still. They named their baby girl, who would be the eldest of four, Caroline. Both parents were leaders in the American abolitionist movement. Mr. Still led the Philadelphia branch of the Underground Railroad, which began shortly after Caroline’s birth. Additionally, Mr. Still acquired a very rewarding career in the coal industry. During the nineteenth century, Philadelphia had little regard for blacks nevertheless, some families prospered and flourished both socially and economically. Because of minimal financial constraints, Mr. Still was afforded the opportunity to provide a quality but costly education for his daughter. As a child, Caroline attended the very prestigious Mrs. Gordon’s Private School, The Friends’ Raspberry Alley School, and the Institute for Colored Youth (now Cheyney University of Pennsylvania). Fortunately, Mr. Still strongly valued the importance of education which influenced Caroline greatly. In 1864 Caroline completed her primary and secondary education at age fifteen. After graduation, she attended Oberlin College as the only black student in her class. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in 1868 at the age of nineteen and immediately was selected the first black president of the Ladies Literary Society
of Oberlin.
Caroline married her first husband Edward A Wiley on December 28, 1869. Unfortunately, in 1873, her husband unexpectantly died. Several years following her husband’s death, Caroline continued her studies. She enrolled at the Howard University College of Medicine in 1875, and in 1876 transferred to the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania where she acquired a Doctor of Medicine degree. Caroline graduated in 1878 being one of two blacks in a class of seventeen. After graduation and meeting the normal requirements, Dr. Still applied for an internship, which was rejected by the racist board of Boston’s New England Hospital for Women and Children. Upon appealing and requesting a in person meeting, the board was impressed, reversed their decision and unanimously agreed to approve her internship. Upon completion of her internship, she relocated to her hometown where she met and married her second husband Rev. Matthew Anderson in 1880. The couple opened a dispensary in their church and founded a private medical facility. Additionally, she practiced medicine at Quaker institutions in Philadelphia until health challenges required her to end her career.
In her later years, Dr. Anderson worked with several causes which supported racial equality and inclusivity. She supported the Temperance Movement (a social movement denouncing the consumption of alcoholic beverages and the atrociousness’ that accompanied it). Additionally, she organized Black YMCAs in Philadelphia, and was a board member of the Home for the Aged and Infirmed Colored People of Philadelphia. Dr. Anderson’s work for the black community of Philadelphia was praised by W.E.B. Du Bois. Dr. Anderson is celebrated as one of the first black women to become a Physician in the United States, she died at the age of seventy in 1919.
