Elizabeth Blackwell was an amazing woman in history. She opened up educational opportunities for women in the medical field which were unavailable at the time and went against American tradition to reach for her dream. Throughout her early years, adulthood, the Civil War, and old age, she worked hard and didn’t let anything stand in her way. She did not even retire until she was eighty-six years old!
Elizabeth Blackwell was born in Bristol, England on February 3rd, 1821. Her parents were Samuel and Hannah Blackwell. Elizabeth and her siblings were denied public schooling because their father refused to accept the authority of the Church. As a result, private tutors were hired to educate the children. Tradition was broken when the girls in the family were taught the same subjects as boys (Elizabeth Blackwell Biography). Hoping for a new start, the family moved to the United States in 1832 and Samuel died in 1838, soon after moving to Ohio. He left his family without any financial support (Lewis). The three oldest girls in the family then established a boarding school to support themselves for several years (Elizabeth Blackwell Biography).
When Blackwell was 21, she accepted a teaching job in Henderson, Kentucky. Because she was an abolitionist, the intense racism towards African Americans disgusted her. As a result, she resigned at the end of the year. Upon her return home to Cincinnati, Ohio, she heard from a friend about how uncomfortable it was having her gynecological ailment treated by a male doctor. She stated how she would have been saved from such an embarrassing ordeal if a woman had treated her instead. This inspired Elizabeth to become a doctor (Elizabeth Blackwell Biography).
Elizabeth’s search for a medical education began. She attempted to enroll in every medical school in Philadelphia and New York City and was flat out rejected by all twenty-nine colleges. Blackwell was a smart woman; she was only rejected because of her gender. She then enrolled in several small, northern schools. Blackwell was admitted to Geneva Medical College in New York in 1847. Later she found out that the school administration had left the decision up to the students whether a woman was to be allowed an education at Geneva or not. The young men thought this was a practical joke and said yes (Dangel 128).
Never once had a woman made any attempt to enroll in an American medical school, let alone get accepted. Blackwell was viewed as immoral and insane. She wasn’t allowed to attend classroom demonstrations and operation viewings in the beginning of her medical education (Elizabeth Blackwell Biography). Although she was treated this way, Elizabeth was eventually accepted by her peers and teachers for her quiet and studious behavior. Elizabeth Blackwell then became the first American woman to graduate from medical school. “I thank you, good Sir. It shall be the effort of my life, by God’s blessing, to shed honor on this diploma,” she stated upon accepting her first diploma in 1849 (Sherr 308). This graduation became widely known throughout America.
Blackwell then moved to London, England to work at La Maternité hospital for further study and hands on experience. During this period she contracted purulent ophthalmia, an eye infection, while working with children and young patients. She was syringing the eye of a baby boy with this disease, when water from the child’s eye spurted into Blackwell’s. The infection caused the removal and replacement of her eye with a glass one (The My Hero Project), leading to the downfall of her dream to become a surgeon (Changing the Face of Medicine). She returned to New York City in 1851.
Back in the States, Blackwell was still not accepted among the medical community. Yet again, she was rejected from several more physician positions because she was a woman. Elizabeth did not let that stand in her way, though. She rented out a small room and started her own private practice. Her sister, Dr. Emily Blackwell, and a woman by the name of Dr. Marie Zakrzewska soon joined her (Pillai). The three of them then formally opened the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children in 1857. The infirmary only charged four dollars a week per patient and didn’t require money if it wasn’t affordable. This left it in constant financial issues. Many thought women weren’t fit to be doctors, and used this idea to blame these women for the deaths of some patients. Elizabeth travelled for a few years after the practice closed down, only to be reopened during the Civil War (The My Hero Project).
When the Civil War started, 3000 women, including Blackwell formed the Women’s Central Association for Relief, which also known as the WCAR. The organizations provided Union soldiers food, medical supplies, and clothes (Pillai). Blackwell contributed by training and organizing a unit of female field doctors (Elizabeth Blackwell Biography).
After starting the first women’s medical college, The Woman’s Medical College of the New York Infirmary, in New York City, Elizabeth Blackwell moved back to England. Blackwell, with the help of her sister Emily Blackwell, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, Sophia Jex Blake and Thomas Henry Huxley founded the London School of Medicine (Pillai). From 1875-1907, she was the professor of gynecology at the school. Throughout this time, she wrote many books and papers on health, hygiene, and preventative medicine (The My Hero Project). An unknown accident forced Blackwell to retire in 1907.
On May 31st, 1910, Blackwell died in her home in Hastings, England. She was 89 years old and her cause of death is unknown (Elizabeth Blackwell Timeline). Though she died in Europe, her affect on America was phenomenal. By the time of her death, there were over 7000 female physicians in the United States of America (Pillai). Elizabeth Blackwell changed the face of the American medical profession and even America itself forever; for she showed that a woman is capable of jobs once deemed unfit for them.
