Elizabeth Blackwell Essay Research Paper Do you

Elizabeth Blackwell Essay, Research Paper

Do you know who the first woman doctor of the United States

was??? Well if you don t I think you will enjoy the pleasure of learning

about this energetic and hard working woman who made it possible for

the world to look at women a different way. Elizabeth Blackwell made the

goal that many women wanted comes true for the first time.

Elizabeth Blackwell was born in Bristol, England on a brisk night, on

February 3rd, 1821 to the proud parents of Hannah and Samuel Blackwell.

Elizabeth was the third of nine children. When Elizabeth was around the age

of 11 years old her family was kicked out of their home because her father

was unable to pay the prices of taxes. After men started received less pay

and were denied the rights to vote for their rights. For more than 3 days the

men set fires, looted and emphasized their desperation. When Elizabeth s

fathers refinery was burned down. That is in which mainly made it impossible

for Mr.Blackwell to keep up with the taxes and also made it very dangerous

for the family. The Blackwell family immigrated and moved to the United

States.

In 1832 the family accompanied by Eliza Major went

aboard the Cosmo. Her family made their destination to the astonishing state

of New York in seven and a half weeks. At the age of 11 Elizabeth was way

too amused by the site and smells to worry bout any diseases she might

catch. Her family moved into Greenwich Village in the lower half of

Manhattan with six children one on the way, two parents and two servants.

Elizabeth was barely depressed about the moving; in fact she was pretty

relaxed and enjoyed seeing most of the sites.

In 1838 when Elizabeth was at the age of 17 her father

passed away. Her father Samuel was diagnosed with Biliary Fever. He was

given all sorts of medicines but never recovered. Elizabeth had a feeling her

father would never get better but her problems increased more after her

father passed away. Elizabeth was feeling dazed and hardly gather herself

to help with any work around the house. Elizabeth worried herself more

about what should be done about the family s acute financial conditions.

There being very little money left Elizabeth structured a family meeting.

Elizabeth and her two sisters Anna (23) and Marion (21) came to an

agreement that they were to start a school for girls and go into teaching.

Neither one of the sisters liked the idea but it was the only thing left to do

that would raise some money for the household expenses.

Shortly after Elizabeth s close friend Mary

Donaldson died. Before Mary passed away she stated that Elizabeth had

good leisure and health and that Elizabeth should become a doctor because

of her good will in liking to study and help people. . Elizabeth was startled at

her friend s opinion. But then Elizabeth started to think about if what her

dear friend suggesting could really help. Was it that there were actually

women out there that would feel more comfortable having a female doctor

instead of a male doctor? Elizabeth thought and thought, maybe she should

do it. And she decided to do it with her family 100% percent behind her and

of courses her brother Henry adding on extra support. So she had made her

final decision and Elizabeth wasn t going to let anyone! Stop her.

Elizabeth moved to Asheville, North Carolina to stay

with a good friend John Dickson to start studying medical terminology.

Dickson got Elizabeth a job teaching music so that she could earn and save

up for her college tuition. It wasn t until John Dickson suggested that

Elizabeth should move to Charleston South Carolina to stay his brother

Dr.Samuel H. Dickson. Moving to South Carolina helped Elizabeth a great

deal. Samuel had a Medical Library that Elizabeth was welcome to whenever

needed and was again set up with a job in a nice school teaching music. With

her busy schedule you would think she didn t have time to do any thing.

However every morning before breakfast Elizabeth would receive Greek

lessons before breakfast from Dr.Dickson.

Elizabeth applied to 29 different colleges and received a

rejection letter from most of them. It wasn t until 1947 that she received the

first acceptance letter to Geneva Medical College. Even though it became

acceptable for the United States for women to attend college, it was still a

major struggle for Elizabeth to get into a Medical college. And this made

Elizabeth very happy seeing that women in the 1800 s didn t have many

rights at all. They were pretty much just like slaves. A husband had the right

to beat his wife every few weeks or whenever he felt like it to stop his wife

from nagging. Divorces were extremely difficult for a woman if she wanted

the divorce. Women had no rights to sue a man for property because it was

against the law for a woman to own any land, even if her husband or father

dies. Pretty much all a woman was granted was Alimony, if that. When it

came down to children, they were normally sent to with the father. And a

woman couldn t fight or say anything protecting her or children that would

therefore make her improper. So Elizabeth faced many pressures towards

deciding to become a Doctress.

During Elizabeth s start of education at Geneva

Medical College, she received great amounts of criticism from the male

students and females on campus. Everytime Elizabeth walked down the street

she would hear things such as; What kind of female would openly defy

tradition? how could a woman let herself share a classroom with men?

Elizabeth never let the comments bother her. She knew what her purposes at

Geneva were for.

On January 23rd, 1849 Elizabeth Blackwell accepted her

diploma, being top of her class, wearing a black silk dress, trimmed at the

cuffs and a collar with white lace. Not the traditional red gown, giving a short

speech of appreciation and bowing before College president Benjamin Hale.

Henry Blackwell, Elizabeth s younger brother who attended the graduation

wrote a letter to the family saying, Our sis came off with flying colors.

After graduating Elizabeth packed her bags and

went back to Philadelphia, Elizabeth wasn t impressed with her sudden

popularity from a group of females at Geneva College. All of a sudden the

very females that were once criticizing Elizabeth were now waiting her

outside of her Boarding house and calling upon Elizabeth to congratulate her

on her great achievement. Elizabeth continued to be polite. However found it

best to go back to Philadelphia. Thoughts of going back home to Cincinnati

crossed Elizabeth s mind but she couldn t stand the thought of them having

another mouth to feed since her funds were very low.

Elizabeth went back to the Elders in Philadelphia. Searching for

work that involved Medicine, she wrote music for a Christmas Annual. Writing

music isn t what young Elizabeth wanted to do though. After lots of thought

of where she could get some hospital experience, Elizabeth finally came to a

good conclusion. Elizabeth went to Alms Hospital to apply for work. She

spoke to Mr.Gilpin, one of the hospital directors. Mr.Gilpin explained to

Elizabeth that it wasn t so easy him to hire her. She would have to go through

Political Leaders to get accepted. Elizabeth did just that and at last got a

contract stating that she ll be granted to enter the institution and that she

would be assigned a position by the chief resident physician.

The position given was for Elizabeth to work on the third floor in the

Syphilitic ward. Many of the patients would wander about and at times tried

to rid of their curiosity and peep through the key hole of Elizabeth s door but

she kept a table in front of the door so that they couldn t see anything.

The experience in Alms Hospital gave Elizabeth many Firsts. Before

arriving at Alms, Elizabeth had never seen a person bleed before. But when

the time came she had remembered what her professors at Geneva College

had taught her.On one Occasion a woman tied the hospital sheets together

and tried to escape. The young lady fell three stories. Found with some

broken bones. Come to find out she was inpatient and was in labor. Doctors

tried to save the African American infant.

Elizabeth couldn t stand the sites she was seeing. Children and women

were being treated differently than other patients.

In 1853 Elizabeth decided to open a small clinic for poor women and

children. She received help setting up the clinic in Manhattan and was given

furniture. When the clinic opened there was very little clientele. Until one day

Elizabeth open the front door wide open and stood in front of the entrance.

Crowds of women and children passed the front door, glancing up, into the

clinic and looking at Elizabeth. But they never came in.

On day, an aged woman walked by, looked then kept walking,

and then came back. She was shocked to hear that Elizabeth was the doctor

of the clinic. However she was convinced enough. She let Elizabeth work on

her pained arm. The next day Elizabeth came to see crowds of people waiting

for her to open her clinic. Elizabeth helped all that came to her for help.

Elizabeth also made house calls. It wasn t very safe, because the

neighborhood that her clinic was in, wasn t a safe neighborhood after certain

hours. Men would follow her. But Elizabeth kept walking at a fast pace and

never turned around. Her strength and beliefs conquered her fear.

Month s later Elizabeth came to find she would have to close the clinic

or start charging for her services. But most of her patients were poor; all she

could do was close the clinic.

In 1854, Elizabeth s sister Emily came for a visit. Emily had just

graduated from Western Reserve College and would soon be traveling to

England such as Elizabeth to further her education in medicine. Emily figured

that her stay in New York would prepare her for her journey to England.

During Emily s stay, Elizabeth stated to her sister that she was tired of

being alone. Emily s first thought was that her sister was going to plan to get

married. However Elizabeth gave up on getting married years before. No

man could understand her goals and some didn t or wouldn t approve of it.

Elizabeth fastly corrected her sister. She told Emily that she was going to

adopt a child, a little girl from the orphanage.

The very next day, Elizabeth went to get the little girl. Kitty Barry was

her name. She was bright eyed and had long dark hair. The little girl ran to

Elizabeth and greeted her. Elizabeth asked the young girl if she wanted to

come home with her. Kitty was happy as could be. She wanted nothing more

than to go home with Elizabeth and that is what she did.

More thoughts of opening another clinic crossed Elizabeth s mind.

She spoke with her sister about opening a clinic in New York. They spoke on

it for a while and decided that they would do it. Soon after a German woman

by the name of Marie Zakrzewska came to Elizabeth. Marie was a female

wanting to become a doctor from Germany coming to the United States to

find work. She had heard about Elizabeth and found it necessary to meet her.

Fastly Marie was built into the plan of working with Elizabeth and Emily.

They had meetings about how to start the upcoming women s clinic.

Elizabeth once stated that they would need ten thousand dollars to open the

clinic. However Emily and Marie found it impossible to raise so much money

in so little time. How would they do it? With Elizabeth coming straight home

from calls to spend time with Kitty then to Teach Marie, there wasn t much

time left. But as soon as Marie finally became a legal doctor they were to

start working towards the clinic. And that is just what they did. The three

ladies had so much planned. Their only problem was getting approved to

open a Hospital for women and children and raising enough money. Elizabeth

suggested that they buy a house then work to pay it off. A couple of day s

later Elizabeth had found a fine old house. The plan was to pay off the first

years lease then open the hospital. They kept the clinic open to earn money

for the hospital. In a years time they had managed to raise $750.00 from the

women s group they had accomplished to keep going. The trio had also made

a fine amount of money when Elizabeth found it time to help England s

women out educationally. Elizabeth s British friends urged her to come and

visit.

In August of 1858 Elizabeth, along with her daughter Kitty boarded the

Persia. Both ladies suffered of the same illness…. Seasickness. But at age 11,

young kitty found it so amazing. After arriving to England, Elizabeth went to

many of the meetings held by the women in England and also wrote a book

for British publication called the Laws of life .

Elizabeth soon reunited with her great friend Florence Nightingale, who

was a wealthy woman of her own achievement. Florence urged Elizabeth to

stay in England and work with her to start a Nursing school for women. But

Elizabeth had to return to New York make money to build the Infirmary up to

higher standard. However the only thing that made up Elizabeth s mind on

leaving was receiving a letter From Marie Zakrzewska. Marie had received a

letter from Boston College stating to her that they wanted her as a professor.

Marie accepted their offer. Elizabeth expected that Marie would leave after

the two years at the Infirmary. Elizabeth approved of Marie s decision.

In 1868 Elizabeth Blackwell was granted the title of Doctor of

Medicine . But it was useless; she had neither the appropriate amount of

funds nor enough supporters. Until Elizabeth shared this matter with the

towns people is when they donated most of the funds. But the college would

be much more difficult than regular medical colleges. Instead of being

accepted with 10months of medical experience, one would need 3 years. The

Medical College started with seventeen students and eleven professors.

Elizabeth taught Hygiene and her sister Emily a professor in Obstetrics.

Elizabeth made another trip to England in 1969, trying to rebuild her

energy and enlarge her experience of life. But in 1876 Elizabeth suffered

from a condition called biliary colic, a liver ailment. Elizabeth had 13 attacks

from this condition. It caused her to vomit and be left with harsh pain for a

month. Suddenly Elizabeth found it best to take some time of from her

lecturing at London School of Medicine. Hoping to cure her illness she and

daughter Kitty took a trip to Italy. The warm sun helped some, but no major

improvements. In the winter of 1876 Elizabeth wrote another book Under

the olive trees a brief autobiography.

Elizabeth and Kitty moved into a rock house in 1879. They had lived

there for 30 years. In 1906 Kitty and Elizabeth made a summer trip to the

United States. They stayed in a hotel in Scottish Mountain village in Kilmun.

During their stay, Elizabeth fell headfirst down a flight of stairs leaving her

scared for the rest of her life. Elizabeth was left in a dreamlike state of mind,

she never talked much nor did half the things she had used to.

On May 31st, 1910 Elizabeth Blackwell died of a stroke with

her daughter Kitty by her side. She had mentioned wanting to be buried at

Kilmun and she was. Her daughter Kitty made sure that she was left to rest

at Kilmun.

Elizabeth spent all her adult life striving toward a goal that

never left her heart. She made it possible for other women in the world to

work toward having a career.