Elizabeth Blackwell
by Eric Bazzell 8-1Elizabeth was born on February 3 1821 in England. A private tutor taught Elizabeth when she was young. Samuel Blackwell, her father, moved the family to the United States in 1832. While in the U.S. Samuel became involved in social reform. His involvement with abolitionism led to a friend ship with William Lloyd Garrison. Samuel moved the family from New York, to Jersey City, and then to Cincinnati. When Elizabeth was seven her family was kicked out of their house because their father refused to pay taxes. Samuel died at a young death when Elizabeth was only seventeen. Elizabeth, her two older sisters, and their mother opened a private school in Cincinnati to support the family. Elizabeth became interested in the topic of medicine and particularly in the idea of becoming a woman physician. As Elizabeth grew up she became more and more interested in the topic of medicine.
Elizabeth applied to nineteen different colleges before she was finally accepted to the Geneva Medical College in upstate New York. Elizabeth graduated at the top of her class in 1849. When Elizabeth was a young doctor she had to clean a baby’s badly infected eye. Some of the water from the baby’s infected eye splashed into her own. After many weeks of bandages and treatments still nothing could save Elizabeth’s eye. Three months later Elizabeth’s eye was removed, and replaced with a glass one. Elizabeth’s eye and career were taken away from her at a very young age.
When Elizabeth was thirty-five she had raised five thousand dollars with the help of friends. She later opened a clinic in one of the worst places in Manhattan. It was for women and children. Elizabeth charged the women four dollars a week to stay at the clinic. The women who could not afford it were not charged. This policy pushed the clinic into debt. Elizabeth also taught at several schools. Elizabeth taught young women, like herself the basics of medicine.
Later on in the Civil War many women like Elizabeth, and even some she taught herself participated as nurses in the Civil War. As Elizabeth grew older she became unable to participate in the teaching area. Elizabeth retired in a country cottage, and began to write an autobiography. The autobiography was never finished. Elizabeth died in 1910 at the age of 89.
BIBILIOGRAPHY
www.womenhistory.about.com, Elizabeth Blackwell, 5/3/2000
www.women.org/blkwele.htm, Elizabeth Blackwell, 5/5/2000
www.sandals.freeserve.com/blackwell.htm, Elizabeth Blackwell, 5/5/2000
Wilson, Dorothy Clarke, I Will Be a Doctor, Boston, Abingdon Press, 1983.