Elizabeth Blackwell: Women In The Medical Field

There was a time in history that women had to fight against sexual prejudices in the work place. Sexual prejudice was particularly clear in the field of medicine as there were no women doctors. One of the first women to pioneer the way for other women in the medical field was Elizabeth Blackwell. It was Blackwell that had the courage and the determination to break the boundaries of these prejudices. Elizabeth Blackwell was the first woman to graduate from medical school in the United States and an activist for public health that opened doors for other women, creating a new way of thinking for her and future women’s accomplishments in medicine. Blackwell was born on February 3, 1821 in Bristol, England (“Elizabeth Blackwell”). When Blackwell was young, her parents and siblings moved to the United States and lived in New York, later moving to Cincinnati, OH. Blackwell’s family was very liberal and stressed the importance of education. Blackwell’s father believed that every child should be given an opportunity to develop a talent and strongly encouraged this in his own children. After her father’s death in 1828, Blackwell, her mother, and her two older sisters all worked as educators to help with expenses, starting their own school. When Blackwell was in her 20s, she went to visit a sick friend, who was suffering from
Blackwell saw the role of medical women as integral to the proper and healthy progress of the profession as a whole (Morantz, 465) In 1852, Blackwell decided to return to New York to open her own private practice. She opened a clinic named the New York Dispensary for Poor Women and Children. Five years later, with the help of her sister, Emily Blackwell, who was also a doctor, they opened a hospital together, the New York Infirmary for Women and Children. The hospital also had the first nursing school to be established in the United States. Many sick people were helped