Dr Elizabeth Blackwell - Infinite Women

Born: 3 February 1821, United Kingdom
Died: 31 May 1910
Country most active: United States
Also known as: NA

This biography is reprinted in full with permission from the National Women’s History Museum (United States of America). It was edited by Debra Michals, PhD (2015). NWHM biographies are generously supported by Susan D. Whiting. All rights reserved.

The first woman in America to receive a medical degree, Elizabeth Blackwell championed the participation of women in the medical profession and ultimately opened her own medical college for women.
Born near Bristol, England on February 3, 1821, Blackwell was the third of nine children of Hannah Lane and Samuel Blackwell, a sugar refiner, Quaker, and anti-slavery activist. Blackwell’s famous relatives included brother Henry, a well-known abolitionist and women’s suffrage supporter who married women’s rights activist Lucy Stone; Emily Blackwell, who followed her sister into medicine; and sister-in-law Antoinette Brown Blackwell, the first ordained female minister in a mainstream Protestant denomination.
In 1832, the Blackwell family moved to America, settling in Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1838, Samuel Blackwell died, leaving the family penniless during a national financial crisis. Elizabeth, her mother, and two older sisters worked in the predominantly female profession of teaching.
Blackwell was inspired to pursue medicine by a dying friend who said her ordeal would have been better had she had a female physician. Most male physicians trained as apprentices to experienced doctors; there were few medical colleges and none that accepted women, though a few women also apprenticed and became unlicensed physicians.
While teaching, Blackwell boarded with the families of two southern physicians who mentored her. In 1847, she returned to Philadelphia, hoping that Quaker friends could assist her entrance into medical school. Rejected everywhere she applied, she was ultimately admitted to Geneva College in rural New York, however, her acceptance letter was intended as a practical joke.
Blackwell faced discrimination and obstacles in college: professors forced her to sit separately at lectures and often excluded her from labs; local townspeople shunned her as a “bad” woman for defying her gender role. Blackwell eventually earned the respect of professors and classmates, graduating first in her class in 1849. She continued her training at London and Paris hospitals, though doctors there relegated her to midwifery or nursing. She began to emphasize preventative care and personal hygiene, recognizing that male doctors often caused epidemics by failing to wash their hands between patients.
In 1851, Dr. Blackwell returned to New York City, where discrimination against female physicians meant few patients and difficulty practicing in hospitals and clinics. With help from Quaker friends, Blackwell opened a small clinic to treat poor women; in 1857, she opened the New York Infirmary for Women and Children with her sister Dr. Emily Blackwell and colleague Dr. Marie Zakrzewska. Its mission included providing positions for women physicians. During the Civil War, the Blackwell sisters trained nurses for Union hospitals.
In 1868, Blackwell opened a medical college in New York City. A year later, she placed her sister in charge and returned permanently to London, where in 1875, she became a professor of gynecology at the new London School of Medicine for Women. She also helped found the National Health Society and published several books, including an autobiography, Pioneer Work in Opening the Medical Profession to Women (1895).

The following is republished from the Library of Congress. This piece falls under under public domain, as copyright does not apply to “any work of the U.S. Government” where “a work prepared by an officer or employee of the U.S. Government as part of that person’s official duties” (See, 17 U.S.C. §§ 101, 105).

1821, Feb. 3 Born, Bristol, England
1832 Emigrated with her family to the United States
1849 M.D., Geneva College Medical Institution, Geneva, N.Y.
1849-1850 Continued medical studies in France and England
1851 Returned to New York to practice medicine
1854 Adopted Kitty Barry Blackwell
1857 Founded the New York Infirmary for Women and Children with her sister, Emily Blackwell, and Marie E. Zakrzewska
1869 Settled permanently in England
1875-1907 Professor of gynecology, London School of Medicine for Women, London, England
1910, May 3 Died, Hastings, England

The following is excerpted from A Cyclopædia of Female Biography, published 1857 by Groomsbridge and Sons and edited by Henry Gardiner Adams.

BLACKWELL, ELIZABETH, Deserves to have her name recorded for the earnest efforts she is making to prepare herself for a physician for her own sex. The reform of the practice which has confined all medical and even physiological science to men is, we trust, approaching. The example of this young heroic woman has already had a salutary effect. We give her history, as written by one well qualified to judge of her character, and the fitness of the pursuit she has chosen. Having been a physician, he knows and feels that some branches of medical practice ought to be exclusively in the hands of women.

The public, through the newspapers, have been pretty generally informed that Elizabeth Blackwell was a regular student of Geneva Medical College, and received the diploma of that institution at its commencement in 1849. As she is the first Medical Doctor of her sex in the United States, the case is, naturally enough, one of those questionable matters upon which there must be a great variety of opinions; and the public sentiment is, besides, influenced by the partial and inaccurate statements of facts and conjectures, which usually supply the place of correct information.

Elizabeth Blackwell was born about 1820, in the city of Bristol. Her father settled with his family in New York when she was about eleven years old. After a residence there of five or six years, he failed in business, and removed to Cincinnati. A few weeks after his arrival there, he died, leaving his widow and nine children in very embarrassed circumstances. Elizabeth, the third daughter, was then seventeen years of age. During the ensuing seven years, she engaged, with two of her sisters, in teaching a young ladies’ seminary. By the joint efforts of the elder children, the younger members of the family were supported and educated, and a comfortable homestead on Walnut Hill was secured for the family. The property which, in the midst of their first difficulties, they had the forecast to purchase, has already quadrupled the price which it cost them. I give this fact for the illustration of character which it affords.

It was in 1843 that Miss Blackwell first entertained the idea of devoting herself to the study of medicine. Having taken the resolution, she went vigorously to work to effect it. She commenced the study of Greek, and persevered until she could read it satisfactorily, and revived her Latin by devoting three or four hours a day to it, until she had both sufficiently for all ordinary and professional purposes. French she had taught, and studied German to gratify her fondness for its modern literature. The former she speaks with fluency, and translates the latter elegantly, and can manage to read Italian prose pretty well.

Early in the spring of 1845, for the purpose of making the most money in the shortest time, she set out for North Carolina, and, after some months teaching French and music, and reading medicine with Dr. John Dickson, at Asheville, she removed to Charleston. Here she taught music alone, and read industriously under the direction of Dr. Samuel H. Dickson, then a resident of Charleston, and now Professor of Practice in the University of New York. In 1847, she went to Philadelphia, for the purpose of pursuing the study. That summer. Dr. J. M. Allen, Professor of Anatomy, afforded her excellent opportunities for dissection in his private anatomical rooms. The winter following, she attended her first full course of lectures at Geneva, N. Y. The next summer, she resided at the Blockley Hospital, Philadelphia, where she had the kindest attentions from Dr. Benedict, the Principal Physician, and the very large range for observation which its great variety and number of cases afford. The succeeding winter, she attended her second course at Geneva, and graduated regularly at the close of the session. Her thesis was upon Ship Fever, which she had ample opportunities for observing at Blockley. It was so ably written, that the Faculty of Geneva determined to give it publication.

It is in keeping with my idea of this story to add, that the proceeds of her own industry have been adequate to the entire expense of medical education—about eight hundred dollars.

My purpose in detailing these particulars is, to give the fullest notion of her enterprise and object. She gave the best summary of it that can be put into words in her reply to the President of the Geneva College, when he presented her diploma. Departing from the usual form, he rose and addressed her in a manner so emphatic and unusual, that she was surprised into a response. “With the help of the Most High, it shall be the study of my life to shed honour on this diploma.”

Her settled sentiment was perhaps unconsciously disclosed in this brief speech. She had fought her way into the profession, openly, without disguise, evasion, or any indirection, steadily refusing all compromises and expediencies, and under better impulses and with higher aims than personal ambition or the distinction of singularity. Her object was not the honour that a medical degree could confer upon her, but the honour that she resolved to bestow upon it; and that she will nobly redeem this pledge is, to all who know her, rather more certain than almost any other unarrived event.

Miss Blackwell sailed for Europe on the 18th. of April, 1849. She spent a couple of weeks in London, Dudley, and Birmingham. In Birmingham, (near which her uncle and cousins, large iron manufacturers, reside, one of her cousins now being Government Geologist for Wales,) she was freely admitted to all the hospitals and, other privileges of medical visitors. They called her in England, “The Lady Surgeon.” Provided with letters to London, she made the acquaintance of the best known medical men there; among others, Dr. Carpenter, author of a standard work on Physiology, much in use in the United States, gave her a soiré, where she met the faculty of the highest rank generally. When she visited St. Bartholomew’s hospital (it is the largest In England, and its annual income is £30,000,) the Senior Surgeon met her, and said that, hearing she would visit the hospital that day, though it was not his day for attending, he thought it due to her that he should do the honours of the establishment, and accordingly he lectured to the classes (clinical lectures) in her presence.

Moreover, early in the spring of 1850, the dean of the faculty of St. Bartholomew’s hospital, London, tendered to Miss Dr. Blackwell the privileges of their institution, on the ground that it was due to her, and added that he doubted not all the other schools of the city would do the same.

In Paris, she resided as an elève at the Hospital Maternitè, in Rue du Port Royal. It Is, as its name indicates, a maternity Hospital, and offers great opportunities in that department, as well as in the diseases of women and children.

None of the French physicians seem to have extended any particular courtesy towards Miss Blackwell, except M, Blot, of the Maternitè—and his was characteristic of French delicacy, where they hide every thing which ought to be thrown open, and display just what they ought to conceal.

In England no difficulty was made or felt about Miss Blackwell’s presence at the hospitals and before the classes. In Paris, M. Blot proposed to her to assume male attire—then she might visit these places! Her indignant reply was that she would not thus dishonour her womanhood, nor seek her object by any indirect means, for all the advantages which such means would afford her.

In personal appearance Miss Blackwell is rather below the middle size, lady-like In manners, and very quiet, almost reserved in company. That her example is destined to work out a great and beneficial change in the medical practice of America, we confidently hope; and that England will soon follow this change, we will not doubt. Is it not repugnant to reason, as well as shocking to delicacy, that men should act the part of midwives? Who believes this is necesary? that woman could not acquire all the requisite physiological and medical knowledge, and by her sympathy for the sufferer, which man cannot feel, become a far more congenial helper?

Works cited by NWHM
“Letter, Elizabeth Blackwell to Baroness Anne Isabella Milbanke Byron concerning women’s rights and the education of women physicians, 4 March 1851.” Library of Congress. Accessed October 10, 2014.
Hobart and William Smith College. “Elizabeth Blackwell.” Accessed October 10, 2014.
NIH, U.S. National Library of Medicine. “’That Girl There is Doctor in Medicine’: Elizabeth Blackwell, America’s First Woman M.D.” Accessed October 10, 2014.
Thomson, Elizabeth H. “Elizabeth Blackwell” in James, Edward T., Janet Wilson James, Paul S. Boyer, eds. Notable American Women: 1607-1950, A Biographical Dictionary. Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1971.
U.S. National Library of Medicine. “Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, Biography.” Accessed October 10, 2014.
Weatherford, Doris. American Women’s History: An A to Z of People, Organizations, Issues, and Events. New York: Macmillan General Reference, 1994.

Photo credit: Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2005679734/