Elizabeth Blackwell: The First Woman Doctor in the US

Close your eyes for just a moment. Imagine being a young woman who was just transported back in time to the early 1800s.

You want to be a physician. But medical schools in this country reject your application over and over for the same reason: you’re a woman.

Not fair, is it? Unfortunately, that’s the situation Elizabeth Blackwell faced in the early 1800s. She wanted to become a physician. That was her passion, her goal in life. But at the time, medicine was considered a profession for men. Only men. Women were expected to be mothers or homemakers. Those who worked outside the home held jobs at laundries, or as teachers, seamstresses, governesses, or nurses.

Women were excluded from many other occupations, too. They also couldn’t practice law, run for public office, or even own property. Likewise, women had limited access to education. Most, if not all, medical schools banned them. But even if there was one college that accepted them, women still faced huge challenges. As medical students, they experienced prejudice and discrimination from their colleagues, teachers, or even patients – just because they were women.

Despite all of these obstacles, Blackwell became the first American woman to receive a medical degree.

Pretty impressive. How did she do this? How did she manage to achieve the impossible? Here’s the rest of her story.

Early Days

Blackwell experienced hardship throughout her life. Dealing with difficult experiences typically offers unexpected lessons. These challenges may have taught Blackwell how to bounce back from struggles, overcome problems, and not give up, all of which helped her earn a place in history.

Key Moments:

1821: Blackwell was born near Bristol, England. She was the third of nine children.

1832: Blackwell was 11 years-old when a fire destroyed the family’s sugar refinery. Her father, Samuel, no longer had any income or the ability to support his family. He soon moved his family to New York for a fresh start.

1838: Samuel Blackwell died, leaving his family penniless. During this time in history (antebellum period or pre-Civil War) women had few career options to help support their family. Among them was teaching.

1844: Blackwell accepted a teaching job in Kentucky, a state that supported slavery. After six months of witnessing the cruelty of slavery, she returned home.

1844-1847: During her mid-twenties, Blackwell’s friend died after a long illness. Before passing, she told Blackwell that she wouldn’t have suffered as much had her doctor been a woman. This may have been a turning point in Blackwell’s career.

Impossible Goal

Other women, besides Blackwell, wanted to become doctors. Some worked with physicians as apprentices and became unlicensed physicians.

Would you do that if you were in this situation? Blackwell wouldn’t budge. She was determined to be a licensed physician.

When working as a teacher, Blackwell lived with the families of two southern physicians who mentored her in medicine. In 1847, she traveled to Philadelphia, hoping that her friends could help her get accepted into medical school. But she received rejection after rejection from multiple colleges.

One particular college – Geneva College in rural New York – considered her application ridiculous because she was a woman. The all-male student body voted on whether or not she should be accepted. They voted “yes” and sent her an acceptance letter. But historians believe it was intended as a practical joke. Whether it was or not didn’t matter. Blackwell showed up at the school, eager and ready to learn.

But what she didn’t expect was blatant discrimination by her professors. When attending lectures, she was forced to sit separately from the male students. She was often excluded from labs or hands-on experiences. People who lived in the rural town perceived her as a “bad” woman because she didn’t follow the rules. Remember that women were supposed to be mothers and homemakers, not doctors.

Still, she was a serious student and tolerated the mean comments and nasty looks from practically everyone in the community.

By the time she graduated in 1849, she had earned the respect of her professors and classmates. Not only did she graduate first in her class, but she also became the first woman to graduate from a US medical college as well as the first modern-day woman physician.

Persevere

Blackwell hoped to become a surgeon and continued her training at London and Paris hospitals. She focused on providing care for women and children.

Many of the doctors didn’t treat her as their equal but as a nurse or midwife. Although she still learned from them, she also taught them about preventative care and personal hygiene. She noticed that many of the doctors were causing epidemics because they didn’t wash their hands between examining patients.

While treating an infant, Blackwell developed a disease that left her blind in one eye, which ended her dream of becoming a surgeon.

She returned to New York City in 1851. Still, no hospital or dispensary would hire her. Two years later, she opened a small dispensary that distributed medicine and medical supplies to doctors serving poor people.

Once again, prejudice against women doctors prevented her dispensary from flourishing. In 1853, she opened a clinic called the New York Dispensary for Women and Children. It was the first of its kind to offer poor women and children health care from a woman doctor. Blackwell’s sister, who became a surgeon, joined her at the clinic in 1856.

The following year, the Blackwell sisters added a third partner named Marie Zakrzewska and opened a new clinic called the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children. This new hospital provided poor women and children with quality health care and gave female doctors and medical students a place to learn and practice medicine. It became a huge hit!

Should Women Be Paid?

When the Civil War broke out in 1861, thousands of women volunteered to help by raising money, making supplies, and nursing patients back to health.

That same year, Blackwell founded the Women’s Central Association of Relief to help organize the charity’s efforts, assist the Army with its changing needs, and select and train women as professional nurses who could be hired to work in military hospitals. Unfortunately, many still believed that nursing was what women were expected to do throughout their lives. Since it was a natural part of their domestic responsibilities, many people believed they shouldn’t be paid. The thought of paying nurses was just too radical for the time.

Blackwell was determined to change people’s minds. In 1867, she established the Women’s Medical College at the New York Infirmary. Women could finally receive a complete medical education without the prejudice she had experienced. The New York Infirmary hospital and college operated for more than a century.

Blackwell moved back to England and then retired from medicine in the late 1870s. But she never abandoned fighting for the rights of women in medicine until her death in 1910.

Would you have continued medical school if you were Blackwell? Many women would have stopped trying.

There’s a lot we can learn from Elizabeth Blackwell, whether you’re a man or woman. Never give up on things that really matter or are important to you. You owe it to yourself and your community. You can help change the world.