Emily Blackwell

Emily Blackwell was born on October 8, 1826 in Bristol, England.  Her family immigrated to America when she was five settling with friends in Cincinnati.  Emily was inspired by her older sister Elizabeth, one of the first women to receive a medical degree in the U.S. and she decided to follow in her footsteps and pursue a degree in medicine.  To earn money for her education she took a teaching position but confided in her diary: “Oh, for life instead of stagnation. I long with such an intense longing for freedom, action, for life, and truth.”

Emily was rejected by eleven medical schools, including her sister’s alma mater in Geneva, New York.  In 1852 she was finally accepted at Chicago’s Rush Medical College, but the state medical society censured Rush for admitting a woman and she was asked to leave at the end of her first year. She joined her sister at her charity dispensary in New York City and gained as much practical experience as she could.  Finally she was accepted at the medical college of Western Reserve University in Cleveland.

Upon graduation with honors, she went to Scotland for further study with Sir James Simpson, a pioneer in the use of chloroform during childbirth.  When she returned to America she rejoined her sister, who had recently established the New York Infirmary for Women and Children as a teaching clinic for women doctors and a place where women could consult physicians of their own gender.  In 1858 Emily was left in control of the infirmary when Elizabeth went abroad for a year for further study.

In 1860 the infirmary moved to larger quarters. The sisters established an on-site nursing school and medical college.  For thirty years Emily served as dean of the medical school and professor of obstetrics and gynecology.  In 1898 the sisters felt that their school was no longer needed as Cornell had begun to accept women students.  During its thirty one years of operation the Woman’s Medical College had graduated 364 women doctors.

The New York Infirmary for Woman and Children is still in operation today.  One of Emily’s former pupils reminisced: “She inspired us all with the vital feeling that we are still on trial and that, for women who meant to be physicians, no educational standards could be too high.  I think not many of us realized that we were going out into the world as test cases, but Dr. Blackwell did.”