American physician
Emma Wakefield-Paillet (November 21, 1868 – August 26, 1946) was an American physician. Wakefield-Paillet was the first African-American woman to graduate from medical school and to practice medicine in Louisiana.[1]
Biography
Wakefield-Paillet was born on November 21, 1868, in New Iberia, Louisiana,[2] the fourth child of Samuel Wakefield and his wife, Amelia Valentine Wakefield.[1] Her father was a state senator from 1877 to 1879, and an older brother, Adolph J. Wakefield, served as Clerk of Court for Iberia Parish between 1884 and 1888.[3][4] The family fled New Iberia not long after her younger brother was lynched and the family home was terrorized by a mob of angry white citizens.[5] They settled in New Orleans.[5]
Wakefield-Paillet graduated from Flint Medical College in 1879, becoming the first black woman to graduate from medical school in Louisiana.[6][3] She earned her license from the Louisiana state medical board that same year.[7] Later, she became the first African American woman in the state to work as a physician, when she opened her own medical practice in New Orleans by 1898.[8] In 1900, she moved to San Francisco, where she was married to Joseph Oscar Paillet.[2] She was licensed to practice medicine in California in 1901.[2] She remained in California for the rest of her life, dying there in 1946.[1]
A play about her life, The Forgotten Healer, by Ed Verdin, was performed in 2018.[9] Also in 2018, a historical marker describing her significance was erected by historian Phebe Hayes and the Iberia African American Historical Society (IAAHS).[2][10][11]
References