Item No: #308023 Photograph of Dr. Consuelo Clark Stewart with a Horse-and-Buggy. 19th Century Women Physicians, Herbert A. Clark.
Photograph of Dr. Consuelo Clark Stewart with a Horse-and-Buggy

Signed Photo of Pioneering Black Physician Who Met a Tragic End

Photograph of Dr. Consuelo Clark Stewart with a Horse-and-Buggy

[19th Century Women Physicians] Clark, Herbert A.

Notes: A small homemade cabinet card photograph of the first African American woman physician in Ohio, taken by her brother.

Stewart (1861–1910) graduated from the Boston University School of Medicine in 1884. She practiced medicine in Cincinnati and then Youngstown, Ohio, but not much more is known about her. Her father, Peter H. Clark, was "America's first Black socialist" (according to his biographer); her husband, William R. Stewart, was an attorney and one of the first African Americans elected to the Ohio legislature.

Dr. Stewart died of "pernicious anemia." No modern source that your cataloguer has located, however, mentions the tragic circumstances of her death, in the Massillon State Hospital for the Insane which, despite its name, was a private facility. A short news item in the Jan. 25, 1908 Salem (Ohio) News reported on the unsuccessful efforts of Dr. Stewart's sister, Ernestine Nesbit, to have her released. According to the paper, "Dr. Stewart was adjudged insane because of her repeated statements that her husband, W. R. Stewart, Mahoning County's former negro state representative, had been abusing her." The Pittsburgh Daily Post (24 Jan. 1908) reported that Stewart was committed to the hospital in September 1907, and that Nesbit had visited Pittsburgh to obtain "affidavits from doctors who declare Mrs. Stewart is sane." Too far into the 20th century, women could be committed to insane asylums at the request of their husbands, as long as he was willing to pay the bills.

4-3/4 by 3-3/4 inches (oblong) on a slightly larger stiff card mount. In the photograph, Dr. Stewart stands holding the reins of a horse and buggy.

Edition + Condition: The image is in very good condition. The photograph is somewhat underexposed. It is inscribed on the back (verso) by the photographer and the subject to Dr. Elmira Y. Howard, the first woman licenced to practice medicine in Cincinnati and a colleague of Dr. Stewart and a friend to the Clark family. "To Ella Howard, with the compliments of the amateur photographer [signed] H. A. Clark and his subject [signed] Consuelo Stewart."

Publication: [Cincinnati]: [ca. 1890].

Item No: #308023

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