1853, she opened a dispensary for the poor in New York’s slums. With the outbreak of the Civil War, she trained nurses for the Union Army, which had none at the time. Following the Emancipation Proclamation of September 1862, many whites feared freed slaves would take their jobs, and riots broke out in New York City in July 1863. Buildings close to the infirmary were burnt down and white patients demanded the discharge of several black expectant mothers, but the doctors refused. After the war she opened the Women’s Medical College at the Infirmary in 1868. One of its graduates was Rebecca Cole, the first black woman to become a doctor.