thumb|Plaque in [[Asheville, North Carolina|Asheville, NC , commemorating Elizabeth Blackwell and her achievements.]]

Elizabeth Blackwell (3 February 182131 May 1910) was an English-American physician, notable as the first woman to earn a medical degree in the United States, and the first woman on the Medical Register of the General Medical Council for the United Kingdom. She became a schoolteacher in order to support her family. This occupation was seen as suitable for women during the 1800s; however, she soon found it unsuitable for her. Blackwell's interest in medicine was sparked after a friend fell ill and remarked that, had a female doctor cared for her, she might not have suffered so much. Thus, in 1847, Blackwell became the first woman to attend medical school in the United States.

Blackwell's inaugural thesis on typhoid fever, published in 1849 in the Buffalo Medical Journal and Monthly Review, shortly after she graduated, She played a significant role during the American Civil War by organizing nurses, and the Infirmary developed a medical school program for women, providing substantial work with patients (clinical education). Returning to England, she helped found the London School of Medicine for Women in 1874.

Early life

thumb|Plaque at Blackwell's family home in [[Bristol, England, 2010]]

Elizabeth was born on 3 February 1821, in Bristol, England, to Samuel Blackwell, who was a sugar refiner, and his wife Hannah (Lane) Blackwell. She had two older siblings, Anna and Marian, and six younger siblings: Samuel (married Antoinette Brown), Henry (married Lucy Stone), Emily (second woman in the U.S. to get a medical degree), Sarah Ellen (a writer), John and George. She also had four maiden aunts: Barbara, Ann, Lucy, and Mary, who also lived with them., which provided instruction in most, if not all, subjects and charged for tuition and room and board. The school was not innovative in its education methods, but provided a source of income for the Blackwell sisters. Blackwell was less active in her abolitionism during these years, likely due to her responsibilities running the academy.

In December 1838, Blackwell converted to Episcopalianism, probably due to her sister Anna's influence, becoming an active member of St. Paul's Episcopal Church. However, William Henry Channing's arrival in 1839 to Cincinnati changed her mind. Channing, a charismatic Unitarian minister, introduced the ideas of transcendentalism to Blackwell, who started attending the Unitarian Church. A conservative backlash from the Cincinnati community ensued, and as a result, the academy lost many pupils and was abandoned in 1842. Blackwell began teaching private pupils. She returned to Cincinnati half a year later.

Education

Pursuit of medical education

thumb|A plaque commemorating Blackwell's medical studies in [[Asheville, North Carolina]]

thumb|Portrait of Elizabeth Blackwell by [[Joseph S. Kozlowski|Joseph Stanley Kozlowski, 1963. Collection of SUNY Upstate Medical University.]]Once again, through her sister Anna, Blackwell procured a job, this time teaching music at an academy in Asheville, North Carolina, with the goal of saving the $3,000 necessary for her medical school expenses. In Asheville, Blackwell lodged with the respected Reverend John Dickson, who had been a physician before he became a clergyman. Dickson approved of Blackwell's career aspirations and allowed her to use the medical books in his library to study. During this time, Blackwell soothed her own doubts about her choice and her loneliness with deep religious contemplation. She also renewed her antislavery interests, starting a slave Sunday school that was ultimately unsuccessful.

thumb|Portrait of Elizabeth Blackwell, 1850–1860

While at school, Blackwell was looked upon as an oddity by the townspeople of Geneva. She also rejected suitors and friends, preferring to isolate herself. In the summer between her two terms at Geneva, she returned to Philadelphia, stayed with Elder, and applied for medical positions in the area to gain clinical experience. The Guardians of the Poor, the city commission that ran Blockley Almshouse, granted her permission to work there, albeit not without some struggle. Blackwell slowly gained acceptance at Blockley, although some young resident physicians still refused to assist her in diagnosing and treating her patients. During her time there, Blackwell gained valuable clinical experience, but was appalled by the syphilitic ward and the condition of typhus patients. Her graduating thesis at Geneva Medical College was on the topic of typhus. The conclusion of this thesis linked physical health with socio-moral stability – a link that foreshadows her later reform work. The local press reported her graduation favorably, and when the dean, Charles Lee, conferred her degree, he stood up and bowed to her.

Medical education in Europe

In April 1849, Blackwell decided to continue her studies in Europe. She visited a few hospitals in Britain and then went to Paris. In Europe, she was rejected by many hospitals because of her sex. In June, Blackwell enrolled at La Maternité; a "lying-in" hospital, In 1852, Blackwell began delivering lectures and published The Laws of Life with Special Reference to the Physical Education of Girls, her first work, a volume about the physical and mental development of girls that concerned itself with the preparation of young women for motherhood. Blackwell sympathized heavily with the North due to her abolitionist roots, and even said she would have left the country if the North had compromised on the subject of slavery. However, Blackwell did meet with some resistance on the part of the male-dominated United States Sanitary Commission (USSC). The male physicians refused to help with the nurse education plan if it involved the Blackwells. In response to the USSC, Blackwell organized with the Woman's Central Relief Association (WCRA). The WCRA worked against the problem of uncoordinated benevolence, but ultimately was absorbed by the USSC. Still, the New York Infirmary managed to work with Dorothea Dix to train nurses for the Union effort. She also became a mentor to Elizabeth Garrett Anderson during this time. By 1866, nearly 7,000 patients were being treated per year at the New York Infirmary, and Blackwell was needed back in the United States. The parallel project collapsed, but in 1868, a medical college for women adjunct to the infirmary was established. It incorporated Blackwell's innovative ideas about medical education – a four-year training period with much more extensive clinical training than previously required. Nonetheless, Blackwell became deeply involved with the school, and it opened in 1874 as the London School of Medicine for Women, with the primary goal of preparing women for the licensing exam of Apothecaries Hall. Blackwell vehemently opposed the use of vivisections in the laboratory of the school.

Time in Europe – social and moral reform

thumb|right|Blackwell was commemorated on a U.S. postage stamp in 1974, designed by [[Joseph S. Kozlowski|Joseph Stanley Kozlowski. Syracuse University Medical School collection.]]

After moving to Britain in 1869, Blackwell diversified her interests, and was active both in social reform and authorship. She co-founded the National Health Society in 1871. She may have perceived herself as a wealthy gentlewoman who had the leisure to dabble in reform and in intellectual activities, being financially supported by the income from her American investments.

Blackwell campaigned heavily against licentiousness, prostitution and contraceptives, arguing instead for the rhythm method of birth control. She campaigned against the Contagious Diseases Acts, arguing that it was a pseudo-legalisation of prostitution. Her 1878 book Counsel to Parents on the Moral Education of their Children argued against the act. Blackwell was conservative in many ways, but believed women to have sexual libidos equal to those of men, and that men and women were equally responsible for controlling their sexual urges. Others of her time believed women to have little if any sexual passion, and placed the responsibility of moral policing squarely on the shoulders of the woman.

The book was controversial, being rejected by 12 publishers, before being printed by Hatchard and Company. The proofs for the original edition were destroyed by a member of the publisher's board and a change of title was required for a new edition to be printed.

Personal life

Friends and family

Blackwell was well connected, both in the United States and in the United Kingdom. She exchanged letters with Lady Byron about women's rights issues and became very close friends with Florence Nightingale, with whom she discussed opening and running a hospital. She remained lifelong friends with Barbara Bodichon and met Elizabeth Cady Stanton in 1883. She was close with her family and visited her brothers and sisters whenever she could during her travels. She was also critical of many of the women's reform and hospital organisations in which she played no role, calling some of them "quack auspices". Blackwell also had strained relationships with her sisters Anna and Emily, and with the women physicians she mentored after they established themselves (Marie Zakrzewska, Sophia Jex-Blake and Elizabeth Garrett Anderson). Among women at least, Blackwell was very assertive and found it difficult to play a subordinate role. Barry was brought up as a half-servant, half-daughter. In 1920, she moved in with the Blackwells and took the Blackwell name. On her deathbed, in 1936, Barry called Blackwell her "true love", and requested that her ashes be buried with those of Elizabeth.

Private life

thumb|right|Blackwell's headstone at [[Kilmun Parish Church and Argyll Mausoleum|St Munn's Parish Church, Kilmun, Scotland]]

None of the five Blackwell sisters ever married. Elizabeth thought courtship games were foolish early in her life, and prized her independence. Blackwell thought that Sachs lived a life of dissipation and believed that she could reform him. In fact, the majority of her 1878 publication Counsel to Parents on the Moral Education of the Children was based on her conversations with Sachs. Blackwell stopped correspondence with Sachs after the publication of her book.. It sold fewer than 500 copies. On 31 May 1910, she died at her home in Hastings, Sussex, after suffering a stroke that paralyzed half her body. Her ashes were buried in the graveyard of St Munn's Parish Church in Kilmun and obituaries honouring her appeared in publications such as The Lancet and The British Medical Journal.

Legacy

The British artist Edith Holden, whose Unitarian family were Blackwell's relatives, was given the middle name "Blackwell" in her honor.

Influence

After Blackwell graduated in 1849, her thesis on typhoid fever was published in the Buffalo Medical Journal and Monthly Review'.

In 1857, Blackwell opened the New York Infirmary for Women with her younger sister Emily. At the same time, she gave lectures to women in the United States and England about the importance of educating women and the profession of medicine for women.

Since 1949, the American Medical Women's Association has awarded the Elizabeth Blackwell Medal annually to a female physician. Hobart and William Smith Colleges awards an annual Elizabeth Blackwell Award to women who have demonstrated "outstanding service to humankind."

In 1973, Elizabeth Blackwell was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.

The artwork The Dinner Party features a place setting for Elizabeth Blackwell.

In 2013 the University of Bristol launched the Elizabeth Blackwell Institute for Health Research.

On 3 February 2016, National Women Physicians Day was declared a National Holiday championed by Physician Moms Group after publishing a study in JAMA exposing that the majority of women physicians report still facing discrimination due to their gender and/or being a mother. The National Holiday pays tribute to Blackwell for the role she has played influencing women physicians in the present-day and their strivings for equity and equality.

On 3 February 2018, Google honoured her as a doodle in recognition of her 197th birth anniversary.

In May 2018, a commemorative plaque was unveiled at the former location of the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children, which Elizabeth Blackwell and her sister Emily Blackwell founded. For the event, Jill Platner, a jewelry designer, designed a Blackwell Collection of jewelry inspired by Elizabeth Blackwell.

Hobart and William Smith Colleges erected a statue on their campus honoring Blackwell.

Poet Jessy Randall's interest in Blackwell was the original inspiration for what became her 2022 collection of poems about women scientists, Mathematics for Ladies.

In 2025, SUNY Upstate Medical University erected a statue of Elizabeth Blackwell on its campus to celebrate her trailblazing career.

Works

  • 1849 The Causes and Treatment of Typhus, or Shipfever (thesis)
  • 1852 The Laws of Life with Special Reference to the Physical Education of Girls (brochure, compilation of lecture series) pub. by George Putnam
  • 1856 An appeal in behalf of the medical education of women
  • 1860 Medicine as a Profession for Women (lecture published by the trustees of the New York Infirmary for Women)
  • 1864 Address on the Medical Education of Women
  • 1878 Counsel to Parents on the Moral Education of their Children in Relation to Sex (eight editions, republished as The Moral Education of the Young in Relation to Sex)
  • 1881 "Medicine and Morality" (published in Modern Review)
  • 1887 Purchase of Women: the Great Economic Blunder
  • 1871 The Religion of Health (compilation of lecture series to the Sunday Lecture Society, three editions)
  • 1883 Wrong and Right Methods of Dealing with Social Evil, as shown by English Parliamentary Evidence
  • 1888 On the Decay of Municipal Representative Government – A Chapter of Personal Experience (Moral Reform League)
  • 1890 The Influence of Women in the Profession of Medicine
  • 1891 Erroneous Method in Medical Education etc. (Women's Printing Society)
  • 1892 Why Hygienic Congresses Fail
  • 1895 Pioneer Work in Opening the Medical Profession to Women – Autobiographical Sketches (Longmans, reprinted New York: Schocken Books, 1977)
  • 1898 Scientific Method in Biology
  • 1902 Essays in Medical Sociology, 2 vols (Ernest Bell)

See also

  • Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, first woman to gain a medical qualification in Britain
  • James Barry, possibly the first female bodied doctor (assigned female at birth but living as a man)
  • List of first female physicians by country
  • Rebecca Lee Crumpler, first African American female physician
  • State University of New York Upstate Medical University

References

Further reading

  • Baker, Rachel (1944). The first woman doctor: the story of Elizabeth Blackwell, M.D. J. Messner, Inc., New York, OCLC 848388
  • Howard, Carol (2018). "Elizabeth Blackwell" Dictionary of Unitarian Universalist Biography.
  • Ross, Ishbel (1944). Child of Destiny. New York: Harper.
  • Wilson, Dorothy Clarke (1970). Lone woman: the story of Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman doctor. Little Brown, Boston, OCLC 56257
  • Wright, Mary, Elizabeth Blackwell of Bristol: The First Woman Doctor (Bristol Historical Association pamphlets, no. 87, 1995)
  • Elizabeth Blackwell Collection on New York Heritage Digital Collections
  • Women in Science
  • An online history at the National Institutes of Health, including copies of historical documents
  • An online biography of Elizabeth Blackwell, with links to more articles on Blackwell and others in her famous family, plus links to many resources on the Net
  • Biography from the National Institute of Health
  • Elizabeth Blackwell at the Hobart and William Smith Colleges Archives
  • Elizabeth Blackwell Resources Available in Hobart and William Smith Colleges Archives
  • "Chronological Bibliography of Selected Scholarly Works by Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell", Hobart and William Smith Colleges Archives
  • Elizabeth Blackwell at winningthevote.org
  • Papers, 1835–1960. Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.
  • Michals, Debra. "Elizabeth Blackwell". National Women's History Museum. 2015.
  • Finding aid to Elizabeth Blackwell letters at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library.