Remarkable Stories of American Black Surgeons in the 19th and Early 20th Centuries

Date: Thursday, February 13, 2025

Time: 5:00 P.M.

Location: Holsti-Anderson Family Assembly Room, Room 153 Rubenstein Library

Contact: Rachel Ingold, rachel.ingold@duke.edu, (919)684-8549

Please join us for our next Trent History of Medicine Event, a symposium celebrating Remarkable Stories of American Black Surgeons in the 19th and Early 20th Centuries.

Speakers include:

Jill L. Newmark, “Without Concealment, Without Compromise: Black Civil War Surgeons”

Margaret Humphreys, “Searching for Dr. Harris”

Todd L. Savitt, “Entering a ‘White’ Profession: African American Physicians in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries”

Jill L. Newmark is an independent historian and former Curator and Exhibition Specialist at the National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health. She has curated numerous exhibitions and written several articles on African American medical personnel who served during the American Civil War.

Margaret Humphreys is the Josiah Charles Trent Distinguished Professor of the History of Medicine in the School of Medicine at Duke University, as well as Professor of History, Professor of Medicine, and affiliate with the Duke Global Health Institute. A specialist in the history of science and medicine, she has focused her research and publications primarily on infectious disease in the U.S. and the American south, as well as the history of medicine during the American Civil War.

Todd L. Savitt is an historian of medicine with a particular interest in African-American medical history. He is professor in the Department of Bioethics and Interdisciplinary Studies in the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University.

There is no registration required. The event will be recorded.

Sponsored by Duke University History Department, the Trent Center for Bioethics, Humanities & History of Medicine, and the History of Medicine Collections in the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library.