Elizabeth Blackwell was born in 1821 in Bristol, England, and emigrated with her family to the United States as a child. She began her career as a teacher, but a decisive moment came when a dying friend told her she would have suffered less under the care of a female doctor, prompting Blackwell to apply to medical school despite rejection from more than twenty colleges simply because she was a woman.
In 1847, Blackwell was admitted to Geneva Medical College in New York, after the male students, believing her application was a joke, voted to accept her, only to be surprised by her seriousness and excellence. She graduated in 1849 at the top of her class, becoming the first woman in American history to hold an official medical degree, amid astonished press coverage and resistance from much of the medical establishment.
A Legacy in Medical Education for Women
Blackwell founded the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children in 1857 with the help of her sister Emily, who also became a physician, and later established a medical college to train new women doctors. She returned to England and helped found the London School of Medicine for Women, leaving a legacy that opened medicine to women on both sides of the Atlantic.
