Nimura has written “The Doctors Blackwell: How Two Pioneering Sisters Brought Medicine to Women – and Women to Medicine” (Norton, 336 pp., ★★★ out of four), a fascinating dual biography that restores the two sisters to their rightful place in U.S. Over the next two decades the two women would go on to establish the first hospital run for and by women, and the first women’s medical college with training as rigorous as that received by men.ĭespite all these firsts, the remarkable story of Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell isn’t particularly well known. Five years later, her younger sister Emily would earn one of her own. As Elizabeth herself predicted, "a hundred years hence, women will not be what they are now.On a dreary Monday morning in the fall of 1847, 26-year-old Elizabeth Blackwell showed up for class at Geneva Medical College in upstate New York, en route to becoming the first woman in America to receive a medical degree. From Bristol, Paris, and Edinburgh to the rising cities of antebellum America, this richly researched new biography celebrates two complicated pioneers who exploded the limits of possibility for women in medicine. Both sisters were tenacious and visionary, but their convictions did not always align with the emergence of women's rights-or with each other. Together, the Blackwells founded the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children, the first hospital staffed entirely by women. Nimura presents a story of trial and triumph. As Elizabeth herself predicted, "a hundred years hence, women will not be what they are now."Įxploring the sisters' allies, enemies, and enduring partnership, Janice P.
She was soon joined in her iconic achievement by her younger sister, Emily, who was actually the more brilliant physician.Įxploring the sisters' allies, enemies, and enduring partnership, Janice P. In 1849, she became the first woman in America to receive an M.D. Though the world at first recoiled at the notion of a woman studying medicine, her intelligence and intensity ultimately won her the acceptance of the male medical establishment. Nimura has resurrected Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell in all their feisty, thrilling, trailblazing splendor." -Stacy SchiffĮlizabeth Blackwell believed from an early age that she was destined for a mission beyond the scope of "ordinary" womanhood. Finalist for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in Biography
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