Editing Rebecca Cole (section)

==Early life and education==
Cole was born in [[Philadelphia]] on March 16, 1846, one of five children.<ref>{{Cite web|date=2007-11-17|title=Rebecca J. Cole (1846-1922) •|url=https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/cole-rebecca-j-1846-1922/|access-date=2022-02-11|language=en-US}}</ref> Her father was a laborer and her mother was a [[laundress]].<ref name=":0" /> One of her sisters, Sarah Elizabeth Cole, married [[Henry L. Phillips]], a prominent African American [[Episcopal Church (United States)|Episcopal]] priest, {{circa|1876}}.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Archdeacon Henry L. Phillips Ninth Rector (1912-1914) |url=http://www.aecst.org/phillips%209threc.htm |access-date=2023-06-06 |website=www.aecst.org}}</ref>

Cole attended high school at the [[Institute for Colored Youth]] where the curriculum that included Latin, Greek, and mathematics, graduating in 1863.<ref name=":0" />

Cole graduated from the [[Drexel University College of Medicine|Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania]] in 1867, under the supervision of [[Ann Preston]], the first woman dean of the school.<ref name=":0" /> The Women’s Medical College was founded by [[Quakers|Quaker]] [[Abolitionism|abolitionists]] and [[Temperance movement|temperance]] reformers in 1850. Initially named the Female Medical College of Pennsylvania, it was the first school to offer formal medical training to women with the culmination of an [[Doctor of Medicine|M.D]].<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Fee|first1=Elizabeth|last2=Brown|first2=Theodore M.|date=March 2004|title="An Eventful Epoch in the History of Your Lives"|journal=American Journal of Public Health|volume=94|issue=3|pages=367|doi=10.2105/ajph.94.3.367|issn=0090-0036|pmc=1448257|pmid=14998795}}</ref> Cole's graduate [[thesis]] was titled ''The Eye and Its Appendages''.<ref>{{cite web|title=Women Physicians: 1850s - 1970s: The eye and its appendages |url=http://xdl.drexelmed.edu/item.php?object_id=001860&t=womanmd# |publisher=Drexel University College of Medicine |accessdate=2013-02-23}}</ref> In her senior year, Cole lived with fellow medical students [[Odelia Blinn]] and Martha E. Hutchings. Nearly thirty years later, Blinn wrote an article detailing how crossing the '[[Color line (racism)|color line]]'  in Philadelphia nearly derailed Cole's studies at the college and her plans for a medical career.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Odelia Blinn, MD|title=The Color Line in 1867|publisher=[[Chicago Inter Ocean|The Inter Ocean]]|date=May 18, 1896|page=12}}</ref>