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On 25 January 1849, in upstate New York, Elizabeth Blackwell became the first modern woman to earn a degree from a recognised medical college on exactly the same basis as a man. For an immigrant Englishwoman with neither money nor connections, this was no small achievement.
After several years in Europe, she returned to New York to open the first hospital to be entirely staffed by female doctors. Later, she played an important role in launching the women’s medical movement in England and was directly responsible for inspiring Britain’s female physician, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, to enter medicine.
Medicine, however, was by no means the only dimension to her life. She numbered among her friends famous contemporaries on both sides of the Atlantic and was caught up in many of the great issues of her time from slavery to women’s rights, along with evolution and socialism.
There is increasing interest in women like Elizabeth Blackwell whose ideas and actions so fundamentally changed the status of their sex. Several biographies of her exist but none of them explore in depth the last forty years of her life in England or, for instance, her complicated relationship with Florence Nightingale. Elizabeth Blackwell had a fascinating, colourful life which it is hoped will make this book a lively and gripping read.
book reviews
The New England Journal of Medicine
“One can only hope that this excellent biography of an excellent doctor will help garner Blackwell the renown she has always deserved.”
The Lancet
"...a rich account of Blackwell in her social and intellectual milieu...well turned history that should speak to the historian, the physician, and the intelligent lay reader."
Piers Brendon, Literary Review
"...this excellent biography...vividly evokes the many aspects of nineteenth-century life ...a compassionate portrait of an important pioneer..."
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