The Virginia Department of Historic Resources has approved a historic marker for the site of the former home of African American scientist and Winchester native Dr. Madison Spencer Briscoe.
Early this year, a committee, assisted by the Stewart Bell Jr. Archives, began to assemble an application packet and supporting documents. With assistance from the City of Winchester and the Winchester-Frederick County Historical Society the application was successful. The text of the marker will read as follows:
Dr. Madison S. Briscoe (1904-1995)
Madison S. Briscoe, biologist, was raised in this house, attended the local Black school, and earned degrees from Storer College and Lincoln, Columbia, and Catholic Universities. He taught at Storer, where he co-founded the pre-medical program, and at the Howard University College of Medicine, where he specialized in public health with a focus on parasitic diseases and tropical medicine. As commanding officer of the U.S. Army’s 16th Malaria Survey Unit, Briscoe helped keep troops healthy during World War II. In the 1950s, his research in Egypt and Central America examined the role of insects and microorganisms in disease transmission. He published widely in scientific and medical journals.
Briscoe was born at the house on S. Kent Street in March 1904. The house has since been demolished. He attended Winchester’s African American school, but because it only ran until ninth grade he had to continue his education at Storer College in Harpers Ferry. Here, Briscoe excelled in academics, athletics, and music.
After graduation, Briscoe pursued further education with a focus on biological and medical science. He became a teacher and eventually returned to Winchester with his wife, Marie, in 1929. She taught at Douglas School in Winchester, while he returned to teach at Storer College, and took on the task of creating a pre-med program in the 1934. The Briscoes were committed to education. Madison Briscoe especially inspired numerous of his students to pursue science careers while teaching at Storer in the 1930s.
Briscoe left Storer in 1941 to teach at Howard University in Washington, D.C., and to complete a Ph.D. in parasitology at Catholic University. During World War II, however, Briscoe found a new role when he joined the U.S. Army Sanitary Corps and began researching ways to combat malaria and other disease among troops fighting in tropical areas.
Briscoe returned to teaching after the war, and he continued to travel widely to study tropical disease. His contributions to scientific literature are still recognized and valued. He is also remembered as an excellent teacher and mentor by his students from Storer and Howard. He retired in 1981 and died in 1995 at the age of ninety-one.
Image Credit: Madison Spencer Briscoe, 1904-1995, date uncertain. Ellsworth Turner Collection, Stewart Bell Jr. Archives, Handley Regional Library and Winchester-Frederick County Historical Society.