"That Girl There is Doctor in Medicine" - America's First Woman Doctor- by Jo-Ann Roberts

In celebration of the 2022 Women's History Month theme, "Providing Healing, Promoting Hope," Elizabeth Blackwell championed the participation of women in the medical profession and ultimately opened her own medical college for women.

The third daughter in a family of five girls and four boys, Elizabeth was born in England and moved to America with her family at age 11.  Her father, who was a social reformer, saw to it that his daughters as well as his sons were well-educated and developed their talents. 

The Blackwell Family 1905

It wasn't an interest in science or anatomy that motivated Elizabeth Blackwell to become the first woman in America to earn a medical degree. Sitting by the bedside of a dying friend suffering from ovarian cancer, the woman said, "If I could have been treated by a lady doctor, my worst suffering would have been spared me." She then went on to encourage Elizabeth to study medicine. At the time, Blackwell was working as a teacher in Kentucky and dismissed the idea.

"I hated everything connected with the body and could not bear the sight of a medical book."       Elizabeth Blackwell

However, within a couple of years after that conversation, Elizabeth began to pursue a medical degree.

After a year of teaching and studying in North Carolina, she moved to Philadelphia, then considered the foremost seat of medical learning in America. Though she applied and was turned down by four medical colleges, a professor at the most prestigious of them told her she could enter if she disguised herself as man. Another professor advised her to go to Paris for training.

"...neither the advice to go to Paris nor the suggestion of disguise tempted me for a moment."      Elizabeth Blackwell

Elizabeth broadened her search to include smaller schools of the northern states---"country schools'--as they were called. When she applied to Geneva Medical College in western New York, the faculty decided to let their students make the call. Assuming the measure could not possibly pass, administrators stipulated that a single "no" vote would end her bid. Some students thought her application was a prank from a rival school, while others were simply amused. Unanimously, they voted "yes".

Blackwell was admitted.

During her two years at Geneva, the male students accepted her and treated her well. But she slowly realized that many women in the small town considered her odd, so she kept to herself.

"I never walked abroad but hastened daily to my college as to a sure refuge...I shut out all unkindly criticism and soon felt perfectly at home amongst my fellow students."     Elizabeth Blackwell

At graduation, Elizabeth found herself at the top of--and respected--by her peers. 

Hobart & William Smith College (formerly Geneva College)

The news of her accomplishment as the first woman doctor in the United States traveled fast and far. The editor of a weekly newspaper in Washington, D.C. wrote a long article about her.

"She is one of those who cannot be hedged up, or turned aside, or defeated...She is a woman, not of words, but deeds; and all those who only want to talk about it, may as well give up."      The National Era Newspaper

    

She continued her training at London and Paris hospitals, though doctors there relegated her to midwifery or nursing. She began to emphasize preventative care and personal hygiene, recognizing that male doctors caused infections by failing to wash their hands between patients. 

Along with her sister, Emily--a doctor in her own right--the two doctors founded the New York Infirmary for Women and Children. And when the Civil War broke out, they trained women nurses for the Union Army, despite meeting resistance from male army doctors. Though Elizabeth left after two years, her sister stayed on to manage the facility for the next 40 years, staffing it with women and caring for more than 7,000 patients per year.

Initially, Elizabeth planned to become a surgeon. But after a medical accident that left her blind in one eye, she was forced to take a different path. Following the Civil War, she launched a women-only medical college in 1868. The Women's Medical College of the New York Infirmary quickly gained a reputation for its rigorous standards and was eventually absorbed by Cornell University.

The Women's Medical College of the New York Infirmary

Though she never married, Elizabeth did adopt a daughter, an Irish orphan named Kitty Barry in 1856. Treating the domestic helper as much as a member of her family, she ensured Kitty was educated. For her part, Kitty stayed by her adopted mother for the remainder of her life.

Elizabeth and Kitty circa 1906

In 1875 she returned permanently to London where 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, Pioner Work in Opening the Medical Profession to Women in 1895.

Elizabeth Blackwell's tenacity and trailblazing achievements helped expand women's success in the medical field in the United States and beyond.

Sources:

https://circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov/2021/03/11/elizabeth-blackwell-that-girl-there-is-doctor-in-medicine-part-i/

https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/elizabeth-blackwell

https://www.nps.gov/people/dr-elizabeth-blackwell.htm

https://www.famousscientists.org/elizabeth-blackwell/

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Earliest Women Doctors in the United States?

Post (c) Doris McCraw/writing as Angela Raines

Hygeia, the Greek goddess of health, carved by Edmonia Lewis c. 1871-1872 for Harriot Hunt's grave, from Wikipedia.org

In studying the women doctors of the 19th century you wonder, where did the idea of women struggling to be accepted start and who were the women whot took up the challenge? A look at early medical societies and education may help.

In 1846 the American Medical Association was formed to bring a higher level of competence from doctors. Prior to the AMAs formation various states’ medical societies fulfilled that purpose. The Massachusetts Medical Society stated it well when it wrote “A person who is engaged in the practice of medicine or surgery in this commonwealth, not being a fellow or licensate of this society, nor a Doctor of Medicine of Harvard University, shall be deemed by the fellows of this society an irregular practitioner, likewise anyone who has been expelled from this society, or who after being permitted to resign his fellowship has been denied his privileges.” As noted, there is no mention of women and in the case of Massachusetts, a graduate of Medicine from Harvard. It wasn’t that women hadn’t attempted to attend medical school. They were simply denied entrance. Things started to change with the admittance of Elizabeth Blackwell to Geneva medical college and her subsequent graduation.

Dr. Blackwell, graduated in 1849 from Geneva Medical College in New York, which made her the first women in the United States to do so. What makes her graduation even more interesting is that Dr. Blackwell at one time found the idea of studying medicine abhorrent. A dear friend, who suffered greatly during her treatments, told Elizabeth that “you are fond of study, have health and leisure; why not study medicine? If I could’ve been treated by a lady doctor, my worst sufferings would have been spared me.” At the time Elizabeth told her it was an impossible suggestion and that she could not stand the sight of a medical book. The idea however began to take root and soon Elizabeth was considering that very thing. She methodically set about finding out all she needed to know to pursue that course of education. Upon finding the costs to attend college would be around $3000 she took a job teaching music at a school in Ashville North Carolina. It was at this school, where the principal, Rev. John Dickinson, was a former medical doctor that she took up a trial study of medicine. When she had accumulated the needed funds she returned to Philadelphia. At this time Philadelphia was considered the major medical learning center. Still Elizabeth was unable to secure admittance to any of the medical schools there. She eventually broadened her search applying to and being accepted at Geneva Medical College after a vote of the student body agreed to admit her. In her autobiography she speaks fondly of classes, the school and the professors, but makes mention of the fact that the women of the town felt she shocked Geneva propriety, that they felt she was either a bad woman, or insane. It after her graduation that she learned her admittance may have been a lark, but she does not give much credence to it being a problem for her.

While Elizabeth Blackwell may have been the first woman to graduate from medical school, she was not the first woman doctor. There were some like Dr. Harriot Kezia Hunt, who practiced in Massachusetts in the 1830s. Although she is noted as the first woman to apply to Harvard Medical School, as a doctor, she was self-taught, having been denied admittance to that institution. Dr. Hunt began her studies when her sister Sarah became ill. Out of desperation for her sister’s health, Harriot had the English couple, Elizabeth and Richard Mott, take on her sister’s treatment. As she says in her autobiography ‘the doubt, uncertainty, and inefficacy of medical practice had been our portion; and the best physicians had given up an only sister!’ She continued studying with and working beside the Mott’s until Richard’s death and Elizabeth’s removal to New York. From that point on Harriot continued to build her practice, focusing on women and children. Hunt also was involved in social reform, specifically abolition of slavery and women’s rights, attending the 1850 women’s rights convention in Massachusetts. Dr. Hunt also corresponded with Dr. Blackwell on at least one occasion. Again from her biography Dr. Hunt states ‘after my experiences with Harvard College, first the professors, then the students who played the same game with different men, it was truly encouraging to hear that Elizabeth Blackwell had graduated at another college, had been to Europe to perfect herself in her profession, and returned to the New York to commence her practice. My soul rejoiced – I poured out my feelings in a letter, and gave her the right hand of fellowship; it was acknowledged in an answer worthy of the writer.’ Later Hunt was awarded an honorary degree from the Female Medical College of Philadelphia in 1853.

 Justin, “Elizabeth Blackwell. The Entry of Women into Medicine in America: Education and

Obstacles 1847-1910.”

Blackwell, Elizabeth. Pioneer Work in Opening the Medical Profession to Women: Autobiographical Sketches. Longmans, Green, and Company, 1895.

Hunt, Harriot Kesia. Glances and Glimpses: Or, Fifty Years Social, Including Twenty Years Professional Life. J. P. Jewett and Company, 1856.

Doris McCraw - writing as Angela Raines 
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