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CLARA BARTON AND ELIZABETH BLACKWELL
Pioneers Of Women In Medicine
Women In the Medical Profession
"For what is done or learned by one class of women becomes, by virtue of their common womanhood, the property of all women."
- Elizabeth Blackwell
Reforms in Women's Healthcare - Elizabeth Blackwell
"Blackwell selected medicine as her career in the face of almost universal certainty that being a physician was neither an appropriate career for a woman nor even an attainable one. She was rejected by 29 medical schools before she was admitted to Geneva Medical College in 1847."
- Hobart and William Smith College
"Blackwell refused a professor’s suggestion that she disguise herself as a male to gain admission. “It was to my mind a moral crusade,” she wrote at the time. “It must be pursued in the light of day, and with public sanction, in order to accomplish its end.”
- Weiner Stacy, Senior Staff Writer of AAMC
Elizabeth Blackwell studied medicine privately for a few years before applying to Geneva Medical College in New York. The faculty of that institution had been largely opposed to her application for admission, and submitted the question to the male student body and pledged to abide by their decision. The young men of the school voted for her application to be accepted, believing it to be a joke that a woman had applied. Blackwell seized the opportunity with determination in 1847, becoming the first female student.
"The idea of winning a doctor's degree gradually assumed the aspect of a great moral struggle, and the moral fight possessed immense attraction for me."
- Elizabeth Blackwell, 'Pioneer Work In Opening The Medical Profession To Women', 1895.
She graduated two years later, on January 23, 1849. She graduated at the head of her class. A contemporary letter, describing the exercises, claims Blackwell received her diploma from the hands of President Benjamin Hale.
"“Sir, by the help of the Most High, it shall be the effort of my life to shed honor on this diploma."
- Elizabeth Blackwell
(View of Geneva Medical College, Health Sciences Library at SUNY Upstate Medical University)
"In 1849, Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman in America to earn the M.D. degree. She supported medical education for women and helped many other women's careers. By establishing the New York Infirmary in 1857, she offered a practical solution to one of the problems facing women who were rejected from internships elsewhere but determined to expand their skills as physicians.”
- Changing the Face of Medicine, USA Gov
The New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children opened May 12, 1857, before Blackwells’ graduation from Geneva. Its purpose was to supply physician positions for women who faced similar struggles to Blackwell. It served to educate women in medicine and provide a foundation for women looking to join healthcare fields.
Opening the Medical Field to Women
"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."
- Womens History Museum
"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)."
- Womens History Museum
She published several important books on the pressing issue of women in medicine. Some of her works include Medicine as a Profession For Women in 1860, and Address on the Medical Education of Women in 1864.
Blackwells’ Medical college helped provide an education to women who were seeking to join the medical field. Her medical college was of great importance to modern history, as it brought women to medicine. Blackwell's life work increased both the number of women physicians and their acceptance by the public, and resulted in a marked improvement in medical education for women.
(New York Infirmary and Women's Medical College, New York Presbyterian)
(The anatomy lecture room at the Woman's Medical College of New York Infirmary (National Library of Congress))
(Pioneer Work in Opening the Medical Profession to Women: Autobiographical Sketches
By Elizabeth Blackwell, 1821-1910.
London and New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1895.)