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On this day in history…

Posted by bean | January 23rd, 2004

January 23

1849: (A First) Elizabeth Blackwell graduates from Geneva Medical College, becoming the country’s first female doctor of medicine. After applying (and being rejected from) all of the established medical schools, she applied to several smaller schools (for a total of 29 applications) and received one acceptance letter — from Geneva Medical College in Geneva, NY, where she went on to graduate first in her class.

Soon after graduation, Elizabeth left for England and Paris, hoping to supplement her Geneva education with study at the great hospitals of Europe. Though told that she would be welcomed at the teaching hospitals of Paris, the only opportunity she was offered was at the lying-in hospital, La maternit’. There she found that her medical training gave her no status above that of the uneducated French village girls who were training to become midwives. Nevertheless, she considered the training in women’s and children’s diseases, as well as midwifery, to be excellent. She next studied for several months study at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in London, where she was welcomed by the faculty — except the Professor of Midwifery, who told her that “his neglecting to give me aid, was owning to no disrespect to me as a lady, but to his condemnation of my object!”

Elizabeth returned to the United States in 1851 and settled in New York City, where she hoped to establish a practice. However, patients were slow in coming and she described “a blank wall of social and professional antagonism.” Her career instead took the direction it was to have for the rest of her life: the promotion of hygiene and preventive medicine among both lay persons and professionals and the promotion of medical education and opportunities for women physicians.

Soon after her return to the U.S., Elizabeth opened a free dispensary to provide out-patient treatment to poor women and children, but it was open only a few hours a week and its services were limited. In 1857, she closed the dispensary and opened the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children, a full-scale hospital with beds for medical and surgical patients. It’s purpose was not only to serve the poor, but also to provide positions for women physicians and a training facility for female medical and nursing students. The medical staff at first consisted of Elizabeth and two of her protégés, her sister Emily [Blackwell] and Marie Zakrzewska. This institution still exists as the New York University Downtown Hospital.

Elizabeth believed that women should receive their medical education alongside men in the established medical schools. She was not sympathetic to the women’s medical schools that had opened in Boston, Philadelphia and New York in the 1850s. However, since the women trained in her Infirmary were not able to gain admission to the male medical colleges, she was persuaded to establish her own women’s medical college.

The Woman’s Medical College of the New York Infirmary opened its doors in 1868, with fifteen students and a faculty of nine, including Elizabeth, as Professor of Hygiene, and her younger sister Emily as Professor of Obstetrics and Diseases of Women. The year after the College’s opening, Elizabeth left for England, leaving the College under Emily’s directorship.

She had always planned to return to England to make her career, and in 1869 she left New York to spend the remaining 40 years of her life in Great Britain.

1955: (A First) The U.S. Presbyterian Church votes to accept women as ministers.

1982: Debbie Brill, Canadian athlete who proved that pregnancy and motherhood need not end a woman’s athletic career. Her son was only five months old when she set a new indoor world broad jump record of 6′6-3/8″.

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4 Responses to “On this day in history…”

  1. Ampersand Writes:
    January 23rd, 2004 at 3:17 am

    It’s really neat that Blackwell’s clinic is still operating.

    The entry about Brill confused me a bit - is today her birthday, or is today the date that she set the broad jump record?

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  2. bean Writes:
    January 23rd, 2004 at 3:21 am

    Sorry, tried to clarify that a bit more — it was the day she set the record.

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  3. Raznor Writes:
    January 23rd, 2004 at 2:22 pm

    Sometimes I read these “firsts” and it just shocks me that we live in a society where until recently half the population wasn’t allowed to do really anything. And it seems so arbitrary. Like before 1849 women aren’t allowed to be doctors. What’s up with that?

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  4. Morrigan25 Writes:
    January 23rd, 2004 at 5:00 pm

    Thanks bean, for these entries. I enjoy reading them.

    This comment was written by Morrigan25.
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