Elizabeth Blackwell

Elizabeth Blackwell
born February 3, 1821, Counterslip, Bristol, Gloucestershire, England
died May 31, 1910, Hastings, Sussex


Elizabeth Blackwell
Anglo-American physician who is considered the first woman doctor of medicine in modern times.

Elizabeth Blackwell was of a large, prosperous, and cultured family and was well educated by private tutors. Financial reverses and the family's liberal social and religious views prompted them to immigrate to the United States in the summer of 1832. Soon after taking up residence in New York, her father, Samuel Blackwell, became active in abolitionist activities. The Blackwells moved to Jersey City, New Jersey, in 1835 and to Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1838. Soon afterward Samuel Blackwell's death left the family in poverty, and Elizabeth and two sisters opened a private school. Later Elizabeth taught school in Henderson, Kentucky, and in 1845–47 in North and South Carolina.

Blackwell had no idea how to become a physician, so she consulted with several physicians known by her family. They told her it was a fine idea, but impossible; it was too expensive, and such education was not available to women. Yet Blackwell reasoned that if the idea were a good one, there must be some way to do it, and she was attracted by the challenge. She convinced two physician friends to let her read medicine with them for a year, and applied to all the medical schools in New York and Philadelphia. She also applied to twelve more schools in the northeast states and was accepted by Geneva Medical College in western New York state in 1847. The faculty, assuming that the all-male student body would never agree to a woman joining their ranks, allowed them to vote on her admission. As a joke, they voted "yes," and she gained admittance, despite the reluctance of most students and faculty.

Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell established a practice in New York City, but had few patients and few opportunities for intellectual exchange with other physicians and "the means of increasing medical knowledge which dispensary practice affords." She applied for a job as physician at the women's department of a large city dispensary, but was refused. In 1853, with the help of friends, she opened her own dispensary in a single rented room, seeing patients three afternoons a week. The dispensary was incorporated in 1854 and moved to a small house she bought on 15th Street. Her sister, Dr. Emily Blackwell, joined her in 1856 and, together with Dr. Marie Zakrzewska, they opened the New York Infirmary for Women and Children at 64 Bleecker Street in 1857. This institution and its medical college for women (opened 1867) provided training and experience for women doctors and medical care for the poor.

As her health declined, Blackwell gave up the practice of medicine in the late 1870s, though she still campaigned for reform.

Read more about her here, here and here.