Elizabeth Blackwell
After her father's business was destroyed by a fire, he moved his family to America to start over. Elizabeth was eleven years old. They soon moved to Cincinnati, where her father died, leaving his family with no income. Elizabeth and two of her sisters opened a private school to support the family.
In 1845, at age 24, Elizabeth visited a friend who was suffering from terminal cancer. The friend said that her suffering would be much easier if she had a female doctor. Elizabeth thought this might be just the challenge she was looking for, but medical school was expensive.
Elizabeth traveled to Kentucky, North Carolina, and South Carolina as a teacher, trying to make enough money to pay for medical school. In Charleston, she boarded at the home of a doctor, who allowed her to spend every free moment in his medical library.
She then moved to Philadelphia, where her friends were mostly Quaker liberals, abolitionists, and other reformers. She also had some affairs with men, and feared that her romantic tendencies would lead her to marriage, but her determination to become a doctor soon became an obsession.
In 1847, she began to look for a medical school, knowing that no woman had ever been permitted to study medicine. Her application was rejected by nineteen schools. At tiny Geneva Medical College in western New York state, the faculty left it up to the students--all males, of course--to accept or reject Elizabeth's application. The students thought it was a joke and voted to admit her.
The conservative population of the small town treated her badly. Doctor's wives refused to speak to her; the citizens thought she was insane. They couldn't understand why she would put herself in that situation, when marriage and motherhood were much better goals for a woman.
Elizabeth graduated in 1849 at the head of her class, becoming the first woman in the world to receive a medical degree from an accredited school. Reacting to the outrage of the medical profession, Geneva Medical College again closed its doors to women.
Elizabeth was prepared to begin her career as a doctor. Little did she know that her fight had only just begun.
In 1849, Dr. Blackwell traveled to Europe and began her residency at La Maternite in Paris, specifically to study midwifery and obstetrics. In 1849 and 1850, she received instruction at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in London.
She returned to America in 1851, but was unable to practice medicine for several years, because no institution would hire her. She was snubbed, socially and professionally. Because no one would rent office space to Dr. Blackwell, she purchased a house in a seedy area of New York City, and opened a one-room dispensary in 1853.
From that humble beginning, she established the New York Infirmary for Women and Children in 1857. Poor women came from all boroughs of New York to this first medical charity in the United States staffed by female physicians. Dr. Blackwell set up programs of social work and nurses’ training, and the care of pediatric, obstetric, and gynecological patients. Her interest in social causes grew, especially the educational status of women.
Having decided not to marry, Dr. Blackwell, at the age of 33, adopted a seven-year-old American orphan, Kitty, who became her lifelong companion.
During the Civil War, she organized relief efforts, promoted the importance of good hygiene, and trained nurses to serve in the Union army.
In 1868 her dream of establishing a women’s medical college was finally realized, when she opened the Medical College of the New York Infirmary. Elizabeth returned to England the following year, leaving the administration of the college in the capable hands of her sister, Emily, who was also a doctor.
Elizabeth headed the gynecology department at the London School of Medicine from 1875 until she retired in 1907, at age 86. She died in 1910 at her home, Rock House, in Hastings, England.
Copyright © 2006 Maggie MacLean
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