“E” is for Evans, Matilda Arabella [1872-1935]. Physician. A native of Aiken, Evans attended Schofield Normal and Industrial School, Oberlin College’s preparatory school, and the Women’s Medical College in Philadelphia. Aware of the inadequate health care available for black Carolinians, she decided to improve medical care and sanitation in her home state. Evans became the first female physician in Columbia. She treated both black and white patients in her home. By 1901 she had become superintendent of the Taylor Lane Hospital and Training School for Nurses, Columbia’s first black hospital. Patients came from as far away as Georgia and North Carolina. Focusing on preventive medicine, Evans established the Negro Health Care Association of South Carolina with a goal of placing a black nurse in each county. Matilda Arabella Evans’s walk-in clinics and hospital were the first available for many blacks in the Deep South.
Dr. Walter Edgar has two programs on South Carolina Public Radio: Walter Edgar's Journal, and South Carolina from A to Z. Dr. Edgar received his B.A. degree from Davidson College in 1965 and his Ph.D. from the University of South Carolina in 1969. After two years in the army (including a tour of duty in Vietnam), he returned to USC as a post-doctoral fellow of the National Archives, assigned to the Papers of Henry Laurens.