Podbit · Empire: World History
In 1901, Princess Bamba was attending the Women's Medical College in Chicago — one of fewer than 1,000 medical students in all of America and among the very few non-white women in US medicine. She finished her coursework, then Northwestern's trustees declared 'women cannot grasp surgery' and revoked her qualification.
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At 14:00 · chapter starts 12:40
Unable to study in Britain and barred from India by the authorities who feared a Duleep Singh on the loose in Punjab, Bamba's only realistic option was America — the one English-speaking country where a woman could genuinely obtain a medical degree. On 30 January 1900 she boarded the König Albert, a German ocean liner, headed for San Francisco via Japan. American reporters, primed for an exotic Indian royal, got something very different: a small, unsmiling woman who screamed at them to leave her dogs alone — a Great Dane named Leon and a Russian Wolfhound whose name she refused to divulge. [1] — Anita Arundhati "When Princess Bamba arrived in San Francisco in 1900, reporters were waiting for a charming Indian royal. What they got was a small, dark, …" 12:52 In Chicago, she walked to the Women's Medical College daily through unpaved, frozen streets, pelted with snow by locals, and wrote furiously to the press: 'Such things would never be permitted in England.' She was one of very few non-white women in US medicine in 1901, in a country with fewer than 1,000 medical students in total. She endured nearly three years of this. Then, in the summer of 1902, Northwestern University's trustees ruled — with the direct quote Anita cites — that 'women cannot grasp surgery,' and revoked the possibility of female medical qualifications entirely. [2] — Anita Arundhati "In 1901, Princess Bamba was attending the Women's Medical College in Chicago — one of fewer than 1,000 medical students in all of America a…" 14:00 Bamba had completed her coursework. It was taken from her.
When Princess Bamba arrived in San Francisco in 1900, reporters were waiting for a charming Indian royal. What they got was a small, dark, unsmiling woman who screamed at them to leave her dogs alone. She had a Great Dane and a Russian Wolfhound whose name she refused to divulge.
Bamba was among fewer than 1,000 medical students in the entire United States in 1901, and one of very few non-white women in American medicine.
In the summer of 1902, Northwestern University trustees ruled that women could not become doctors, stripping Bamba of her qualification after she completed her coursework.
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