Now more than ever is a great time to be reminded of the powerful work of Margaret Morgan Lawrence (1914-2019) & honor her extraordinary legacy. Decades before "social determinants of health" was coined, she spoke of "nature, nurture and noxia" 🧵 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margare... #BlackHistoryMonth - ThreadSky

hildabast.bsky.social • 31 days ago

Now more than ever is a great time to be reminded of the powerful work of Margaret Morgan Lawrence (1914-2019) & honor her extraordinary legacy.

Decades before "social determinants of health" was coined, she spoke of "nature, nurture and noxia"

🧵
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Morgan_Lawrence
#BlackHistoryMonth

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hildabast.bsky.social•31 days ago

...Nature, nurture, noxia was a chapter in her 1975 study, Young inner city families: development of ego strength under stress. A quote:

hildabast.bsky.social•31 days ago

...Margaret Morgan Lawrence grew up in Mississippi, the only living child of a couple grieving for the son they lost before her. The sadness shadowed the household: Her mother suffered through bouts of depression.

From early on, she wanted to be a doctor...
https://healthmatters.nyp.org/happened-dr-margaret-morgan-lawrence/

hildabast.bsky.social•31 days ago

...Margaret moved to Harlem at age 14 to get access to better education. She excelled.

In 1932, she was the only Black undergrad at Cornell, & wasn't allowed to live in the dormitories. She lived in a white family's attic & worked as a maid, serving meals to faculty members between lectures....

hildabast.bsky.social•31 days ago

...With her academic record, Lawrence expected to enter medical school at Cornell. When she was rejected because of race, "pain cut right to her soul."

She got into med school at what is now Columbia Uni. Rejected from pediatric internship because of race & marriage, she joined Harlem Hospital...

hildabast.bsky.social•31 days ago

...To be a doctor, she learned, was to fight against her patients' oppression. She got a Master of Science in 1943. Lawrence moved to Tennessee with her sociologist husband, & taught at Meharry.

Back in New York a few years later, she became a pediatrician & psychiatrist. Here she is in 1949....

hildabast.bsky.social•31 days ago

...Lawrence became the first African-American psychoanalyst. Decades of exceptional scholarship on resilience in children in the US and Africa followed, along with leadership, awards, and civil rights & peace activism.

The discrimination continued, too...

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