Dr. Ruth Smith Lloyd was the first African American woman in the United States to obtain a doctorate in Anatomy. She earned her degree at Howard University in Washington, D.C. in 1941. Ruth Smith Lloyd was born on January 17, 1917, in Washington, D.C. Her mother, Mary Morris Smith, was a white clerk at the Treasury Department, and her father, Bradley Smith, was a Black Pullman porter. In her youth, she attended the local public schools and graduated from Dunbar High School. Smith then attended Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts where she majored in zoology, graduating Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1937. From 1937 to 1938, Smith studied for a Master’s in zoology at Howard University, supported by a fellowship from the Rosenwald Fund. On December 30, 1939, Smith married Sterling Morrison Lloyd, a physician and fellow Howard University graduate. They had three children: Marilyn, Sterling Jr., and David. Lloyd then spent the next two years in doctoral studies at Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. Lloyd began to specialize her studies in the fertility of female Macaque monkeys, and upon graduation in 1941, she became the first African-American woman to earn a Ph.D. in anatomy. Dr. Lloyd returned briefly to Washington, D.C., before … Continue reading Ruth Smith Lloyd (1917-1995)