In 1886, Anandibai Joshee graduated from the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania to become the first Indian woman to earn her M.D. She died at the age of 21 on this day (February 26) in 1887.

Born in Poona in 1865, Joshee was married at the age of 9 to a man almost twenty years her senior. At the age of 14 Anandi gave birth to a boy, but her son survived only 10 days because the necessary medical care was unavailable. Joshee then made it her life's mission to become a medical doctor. She applied to one of the only places in the world at the time where a woman could earn her M.D., the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. She was accepted and in 1886 graduated from the college. She returned to India to begin practice as a doctor, but sadly died in 1887 just months after returning. Her ashes were sent to Poughkeepsie, NY, where they were buried.

• See more materials about Anandibai Joshee in SAADA: here
• Listen to a piece on PRI's 'The World' about Joshee: here

Photograph courtesy of Drexel University, College of Medicine, Archives & Special Collections.