Elizabeth Blackwell

Elizabeth Blackwell left England in 1832. She was just 11 years old when she arrived in New York City. The streets were quiet. Few people were around. Most of them were sick. They had cholera. Some even died. Those who were not sick stayed inside. They didn’t want to catch it. Blackwell wanted to help the ill people get well. But she was just a girl.

She never forgot her dream of helping the sick. When she grew up, a friend fell ill. Blackwell nursed her back to health. She told her friend that she wanted to be a doctor. Her friend told her to try.

At that time, few women went to college. None had ever earned a medical degree. Blackwell studied the same books that the medical students did. She paid doctors to teach her. Soon she was ready for medical school. At first no college would let her in. It took her years to convince Geneva Medical College to let her try. Then the teachers and students were mean to her. To please the teachers, Blackwell had to work harder than the other students did. She earned high marks in each class.

In 1849, Blackwell was the first woman in the United States to graduate as a medical doctor. But then no one would hire her. No one would rent her space so that she could have her own office. Yet Blackwell did not give up. She started the Women’s Medical College. There she helped other women to become doctors, too. And in 1857, she opened a hospital. She treated poor women and children. Few could pay her. But Blackwell was happy. She was helping the sick.