Exposé Elisabeth Blackwell

Her Life :

Elizabeth Blackwell is a physician doctor and an editor of medical works.  She was born on  February 3, 1821 in Counterslip, Bristol, Gloucestershire, England and she died on  May 31, 1910 in Hastings, Sussex, England.  

Her mother is Hanna Lane Blackwell and her father is Samuel Blackwell also she had eight brothers and sisters and they followed a religious education.

Her father Samuel Blackwell decides to move the family to the United States in 1832 but he died in the same year and Elizabeth became a teacher to help her mother financiarly.

 Moreover, faithful to her father's ideas, Elizabeth fights with conviction in anti-slavery movements.

In her fight, she is accompanied by two of her brothers, Henry and Samuel who are married to women's feminist's activists.

  In 1845, Elizabeth leaves for North Carolina. She moves to a doctor, Dr. Dickson, and tries to enter a medical school. She enrolled at the Geneva Medical College where, at a student vote, she obtained the right to follow the student curriculum.

She also  adopts Katharine "Kitty" Blackwell in 1854.

Her success :

Elizabeth Blackwell is very successful :
On the 23 of January 1849, she was the first of her class and becames the first female doctor in the United States.
In 1857, with her sister Emily and Marie Zakrzewska, she founded the first women's dispensary in the United States, the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children.
In 1861, when the Civil War broke out, Elizabeth crossed the ocean to fight alongside the American Union. She plays a leading role since it receives as a function, that of war medicine instructor in charge of teaching many women, the first aid to give to the wounded.
With the help of Florence Nightingale, Elizabeth Blackwell concretized in 1869 her project for a school of medicine for women, the London School of Medicine for Women.
In 1873 she opened the first nursing school in the United States.
Shortly before retiring, she received the title of Professor of Gynecological Pathology in 1875 at the London School of Medicine for Children.
In addition to her career as a doctor, she has published a guide on sex education and an autobiography.

Her difficulties :

However, throughout her career, Elizabeth Blackwell encountered some difficulties:
She did a lot of odd jobs to pay for her medical studies, but they that didn't pay her much.
Before joining Geneva Medical College, she was refused 19 times because she was a woman.
After graduating in 1849, she was refused by American hospitals because they didn't want a woman doctor.
In 1850, when Elizabeth left the United States to go to Paris, she found work in a Maternity but being in contact with babies, purulent conjunctivitis gravely affected her and made her lose an eye. She keeps an ocular prosthesis for the rest of her life.
Despite all her difficulties, she never gave up and she always defended her values.

Her integration :

We don't know much about her integration but we know that she was always rejected because she was a woman and at this time, a woman doesn't have her place in medicine.

But we also know that in 1847, after many rejections from faculties in the United States, Elizabeth Blackwell applied to the Geneva Medical College which allowed her male students to vote on the admission of Elizabeth Blackwell assuming that they would never let a woman enter their camps.

Nevertheless, she was accepted by the male students, so, she was able to follow medical studies.
Today, there is a statue of Elizabeth Blackwell in front of the Geneva Medical College.

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