Maria Zakrzewska (1829-1902), a Polish physician, was born in Berlin to Ludwig Martin Zakrzewski and Caroline Fredericke Wilhelmina Urban. Her father was from a noble Polish family who lost their wealth and property to the Russians, so he worked as a civil servant. Her grandmother was a veterinary surgeon, and her mother worked as a midwife.

In 1862, Zakrzewska founded the New England Hospital for Women and Children, the first hospital in Boston and the second hospital in America to be run by women physicians and surgeons.

She also broke barriers that hindered women in practicing medicine in the United States, founded hospitals for women, and pioneered the movement that opened the nursing profession to black women.