The following version of this book was used to create this study guide: Nimura, Janice P. The Doctors Blackwell. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2021.

Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell were born in Bristol England in the 1820s. Their parents were abolitionists, and their father owned a sugar refinery. After the refinery business collapsed, the family moved to Ohio. Unfortunately, their father died soon thereafter. Elizabeth and Emily moved to the American South to work as schoolteachers. Elizabeth eventually took an interest in studying medicine, partially because the subject matter interested her, and partially because she wanted to enter a profession that no woman in the country had entered before.

Elizabeth applied to several medical colleges but was repeatedly denied admission due to her gender. She eventually gained admission to Geneva Medical College in Geneva, New York. She excelled as a student and became the first woman in the United States to receive a medical degree. She then traveled to England and France to continue her medical education, but she was denied admission to nearly every medical institution. She eventually gained admission to La Maternité, and institution specializing in medicine of pregnancy and birth. While working there, she contracted an infection and lost sight in one eye.

Elizabeth eventually returned to the United States and moved to New York City to open a medical practice. Meanwhile, Emily began studying medicine at Rush Medical College. Unfortunately, when she was about halfway through her studies there, the school expelled her due to her gender. She transferred to Cleveland Medical College and finished her studies there. She then continued her medical education in Scotland and France before going to New York to work alongside her sister.

Elizabeth and Emily eventually opened an infirmary, and they hired Dr. Marie Zakrzewska—one of the first women in Europe to receive a medical degree—as a partner. The infirmary grew gradually but steadily. Marie eventually left after accepting a professorship in Boston. Elizabeth and Emily decided to expand their infirmary into a medical school and teaching hospital for female medical students and physicians. The school offered a top-rate education, and it gradually gained general respect and approval.

Elizabeth eventually left the country to move to England. There, she focused less on the actual practice of medicine and more on consulting work for women’s medical education programs. Meanwhile, Emily remained in New York, where she oversaw the infirmary and medical school for the next 30 years. She eventually closed down the school after many of the previously established medical schools began accepting female students. Elizabeth and Emily eventually died at the ages of 89 and 83 respectively.