America’s First Woman Doctor

Elizabeth Blackwell (inset) organised medical relief for Union Army soldiers in the Civil War. Her work led to the US Sanitary Commission which ran 30 centres like this one in Alexandria, Virginia, in 1863

by Ray Setterfield

February 3, 1821 — Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman in the United States to receive a medical degree and the first woman on the British medical register, was born on this day.

Ironically, as a young person she was repulsed by the idea of entering the medical profession. She wrote: “I hated everything connected with the body and could not bear the sight of a medical book.”

A significant event that helped change her mind involved a friend dying of cancer who told her: “If I could have been treated by a lady doctor my worst sufferings would have been spared me.”

Blackwell was urged by her friend to study medicine and devote herself to the service of suffering women. After considering the suggestion, she later wrote in her diary: “The idea of winning a doctor’s degree gradually assumed the aspect of a great moral struggle, and the moral fight possessed an immense attraction for me.”

English by birth, Elizabeth came from the city of Bristol where she was the third of nine children. In 1832, when she was eleven, the family moved to America, settling in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Her Quaker father, Samuel, a sugar refiner, believed his children should be well educated so that they could realise their full potential, and the family was very active in causes to abolish slavery and enfranchise women.

Another factor that drove Elizabeth along the medical profession path was her awareness, while travelling in the US, of the term “female physician” being applied to abortionists.

Passionately opposed to abortion, she wrote in another diary entry: “The gross perversion and destruction of motherhood by the abortionist filled me with indignation, and awakened active antagonism.

“That the honorable term ‘female physician’ should be exclusively applied to those women who carried on this shocking trade seemed to me a horror. It was an utter degradation of what might and should become a noble position for women. I finally determined to do what I could do ‘to redeem the hells,’ and especially the one form of hell thus forced upon my notice.”

Elizabeth’s father died in 1838 leaving the family penniless, and so she, her mother, and two older sisters began earning a living as teachers. While doing so, Elizabeth clung to the hope of becoming a doctor, spurred on by her awareness that many thought her medical education was an impossible dream.

Blackwell studied privately with several physician friends before applying for admission to every medical college in Philadelphia and New York City — 29 in all — and being rejected by all but one because of her sex. The exception was Geneva Medical College (now Hobart College) in New York.

Here, according to reports, the dean and faculty could not make a decision, so the issue was put to a vote, the 150 male students being told that if only one objected, Blackwell would not be admitted. The students, thinking the idea of her being admitted to the college was so ridiculous it had to be a joke, unanimously voted positively for her.

Apparently they believed it would be a great practical joke to send her a letter of acceptance. But it was no joke to the determined Elizabeth Blackwell who took up the offer when she received it and in October 1847 joined Geneva Medical College.

The student “joke” had backfired on them but she faced problems from the start, being made to sit apart from the male students at lectures and often excluded from laboratories by professors.

But she worked on doggedly, overcame the odds and graduated first in her class in 1849, becoming, at 28, the first woman in the United States to receive a medical degree.

Armed with her cherished qualification, Blackwell returned to Europe to further her studies and training in London and Paris.

On returning to the United States in 1851 she again met with little respect as a physician – and a lack of work. She was turned away from hospitals and clinics, and found great difficulty renting premises to set up a practice.

But it seems that nothing could hold back this determined person and she did manage to open a small clinic where she treated women of limited means. This would eventually grow into the New York Infirmary for Women and Children – the first American hospital staffed by women, providing medical training and experience for women doctors as well as care for the poor.

And having laid the foundation of that enterprise Blackwell went back to England where she helped establish the London School of Medicine for Women where she taught gynaecology.

She retired from the medical profession in 1877 but carried on working as a social and moral reformer both in America and in the UK. She was involved in several reform movements including those supporting women’s rights, hygiene and family planning.

Blackwell never married nor had children. In 1907, she fell down a flight of stairs, disabling her both physically and mentally. She died in May, 1910 after a paralytic stroke, aged 89.

To this day, the issue of abortion, which was so important to Elizabeth Blackwell, remains a highly contentious issue in the United States, with fierce arguments put by both sides.

By the 1870s, almost every state in America had made abortion a criminal act. But a century later, those laws were swept aside by the Supreme Court under what became known as the 1973 Roe v Wade judgment, after which abortion became widely available across the country.

If Blackwell were alive today she would probably be horrified to learn that official statistics show the number of reported abortions in the United States since 1973 stands at over 60 million.

Published: January 22, 2022
Updated: January 28, 2022