“Gregoria Foster Goins: A Worthy Subject in Her Own Right" at the Davenport Public Library's Fairmount Branch --March 8.
Wednesday, March 8, 6:30 p.m.
Davenport Public Library Fairmount Branch, 3000 North Fairmount Street, Davenport IA
Sarah Marinda Loguen Fraser was one of the first female African-American physicians in the United States. Yet at the Davenport Public Library's Fairmount Branch, Fraser's lesser-known yet intensely significant daughter will be the subject of a March 8 presentation in Gregoria Foster Goins: A Worthy Subject in Her Own Right, a fascinating lecture by Augustana College's associate professor of history Dr. Lauren Hammond-Ford, Ph.D.
Born in 1850, native New Yorker Fraser was admitted to Syracuse University School of Medicine, now known as State University of New York Upstate Medical University, at age 23. Her 1873 enrollment in medical school was celebrated by a local Syracuse newspaper which wrote: "This is women’s rights in the right direction, and we cordially wish the estimable young lady every success in the pursuit of the profession of her choice. In 1876, she became the first woman to gain an M.D. from the institution, and is believed to be only the fourth African-American woman to become a licensed physician in the United States, the second in New York, and the first to graduate from a coeducational medical school. In the fall of 1876, Fraser began interning in pediatrics and obstetrics at the Woman's Hospital of Philadelphia, then continued on to the New England Hospital for Women and Children to complete her internship in 1878. This second hospital was unique in its use of all-women staffing, and it was here that Fraser gained a passion for obstetrics and midwifery.
Yet on March 8, Dr. Hammond-Ford's Davenport Library program will provide insight into the compelling life of Gregoria Fraser Goins, an Afro-Dominican woman on the margins of African-American history. Born to a West Indian apothecary and an African-American doctor in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic in 1883, Goins and her mother relocated to the United States following her father’s untimely death. Goins lived most of her life amongst well-to-do African Americans in Washington, D.C. As a result, she most often appears in the footnotes of African-American history as the biographer of her mother, one of the first black female doctors; as a member of the National Association of Negro Musicians; or as supplying pictures of black American life. Despite these Washington ties, however, she consistently visited her homeland of the Dominican Republic. Believing Goins’s life is a worthy subject in its own right, just as worthy as her mother’s, this talk is an effort to move her from the margins to the nexus of African-American and Latin American History.
In line with her Gregoria Foster Goins: A Worthy Subject in Her Own Right presentation, Dr. Lauren Hammond-Ford's current work examines African American diplomatic and intellectual engagement with the island of Hispaniola and its peoples as part of a global search for racial democracy for black people. In the community, she focuses on racial equity and racial reconciliation with the church.
Gregoria Foster Goins: A Worthy Subject in Her Own Right will be presented at the Davenport Public Library's Fairmount Street branch on March 8, participation in the 6:30 p.m. program is free, and more information is available by calling (563)326-7832 and visiting DavenportLibrary.com.
