Two nights after the interview, thanks to the Tribune’s reporting, the assembled graduates and guests at the thirtieth commencement exercises were not as shocked as they might have been at the announcement that the Woman’s Medical College of the New York Infirmary would close. The truth was, Cornell had already been luring students away. “The graduates think they inspire more confidence in the public, and can more quickly procure a practice, if they can show that they have attended the same lectures and passed the same examinations in all things as the men,” the Tribune explained. Which was precisely the logic Elizabeth and Emily had used fifty years earlier.
The graduates sat on the platform, dignified in black academic caps and gowns over white skirts and shirtwaists, as their venerable dean, Dr. Emily Blackwell, took the stage to address them. The news of the college’s closing was sudden, it was true, but the decision had been carefully considered, and she had faith that even those who doubted it would come to understand its wisdom. The Woman’s Medical College “had held open the door for women until broader gates had swung wide for their admission,” she told the audience. And the ranks of women in medicine were growing: “In every city, and almost every town, and scattered throughout the country, they are making their way.” Of the eighteen women receiving degrees that evening, five would continue to work at the infirmary as interns and sanitary visitors, four more were headed to New England hospitals, two were planning to work in China, and another in Constantinople.
In the years since the Blackwells had received their own diplomas, most women who pursued medicine had done so at women’s colleges. Now the lecture halls from which they had been barred were opening to them at last, a triumph but also a new challenge. “You will be brought in contact with the working ways of men,” Emily told them. “Get from this new companionship all that is good, but do not lose in it a particle of what is truly and desirably your own.” There was no one who could speak those words with more authority. Emily had wrested a medical degree from institutions that had tried to withhold it from her; she had studied with male mentors who learned to see her as a doctor first. She had felt doubt and learned to transcend it, and she had overseen the growth of an institution that would endure, even without its college. And where her sister had come to see women as a special category of physician, uniquely equipped to teach, Emily placed medical skill over sex. “It is for us to do our part,” she concluded, “that hereafter the old and time-honored profession may be proud of her daughters as of her sons.”
There was another reason to close the Woman’s Medical College without delay. Emily was seventy-three years old. It was past time for her to lay down her professional responsibilities, but—with the exception of Elizabeth Cushier, who she hoped would retire with her—she had never found a woman she respected enough to name as her successor. “I am glad to feel that I stood at my post until the victory was gained,” she told Elizabeth, “and did not have to leave the work to be carried on by uncertain hands.”
On January 25, 1911, hundreds of well-dressed New Yorkers—most of them women or physicians, many of them both—filled every seat of stately Hosack Hall, the elegant auditorium of the New York Academy of Medicine on West Forty-third Street. Here at the heart of the city’s medical establishment, they gathered to celebrate the lives of Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell, who had died within months of each other the previous year, Elizabeth at eighty-nine, at the end of a long decline in Hastings, and Emily a month short of eighty-four, after a sudden illness at her summer home in Maine.
A procession of notables eulogized Elizabeth with respect but also with distance, the inevitable result of her forty years absence. Of Emily they spoke with more personal warmth. “I remember how I trembled with awe before that very kind and harmless lady, Dr. Elizabeth,” said Alice Stone Blackwell, now the editor of the Woman’s Journal, the suffragist paper founded forty years earlier by her parents. Elizabeth, she remembered, had always seemed taller than her actual height. “I was not quite so much afraid of Dr. Emily—she used to give me chocolate drops.”
ELIZABETH.
COURTESY SCHLESINGER LIBRARY, RADCLIFFE INSTITUTE, HARVARD UNIVERSITY
EMILY.
COURTESY NEW YORK ACADEMY OF MEDICINE
Elizabeth, having fallen in love with Scotland on holiday travels, was buried there in the tiny lochside village of Kilmun, under a tall Celtic cross that announces her achievements as the first woman to earn a medical degree and to be placed on the British Medical Register. “It is only when we have learned to recognize that law for the human body is as sacred as—nay, is one with—God’s law for the human soul, that we shall begin to understand the religion of health,” reads one inscription, quoting Elizabeth’s own writing. “Love seeketh not her own,” reads another. “The pure in heart shall see God.” It is a fitting monument to a woman who never doubted her understanding of God’s intentions, or that it was her duty to explain them to the world. After her death, Kitty returned to America and her beloved Alice. She died in 1936, nearly ninety herself, and requested that her ashes be buried in Scotland, with Elizabeth.
Emily’s grave is on Martha’s Vineyard, close to the windswept, wave-battered coastline where the Blackwell family continued to summer for generations after her death. Her headstone is sturdy and square, inscribed with her name and dates, and otherwise unadorned.
In 1910, when the Blackwell sisters died, there were more than nine thousand women doctors in the United States, about six percent of all physicians. Today thirty-five percent of physicians—and slightly more than half of all medical students—are female.
* In 1981 the infirmary merged with Beekman Downtown Hospital to create the first community hospital in Manhattan’s Financial District, on William Street. Downtown Hospital is now part of New York–Presbyterian and is known as Lower Manhattan Hospital.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
It seems fitting that a book about pioneering women should have many godmothers. Cornelia Small let me tag along to the Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College, where I first encountered Emily Blackwell. Julie Quain appeared like the answer to a wish I hadn’t yet made, opening doors and joining me on treasure hunts. Jane Carey Blackwell Bloomfield welcomed me into the story of her family. Mary Wright gave me two unforgettable days in Bristol, as well as her friendship, which will last much longer. Jill Platner invited me inside her home at the corner of Bleecker and Crosby to spend time with the ghosts. Darcy Fryer brought her brilliance as a reader and a historian to every page and made me think harder, as the best teachers do.
Profound thanks to the archivists and guardians who let me in and helped me out: Jane Kamensky, Sarah M. Hutcheon, and Diana Carey, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study; Arlene Shaner, New York Academy of Medicine; Alan Hawk, National Museum of Health and Medicine; Patrick Kerwin, Library of Congress; Nina Couzin and Jeremy Tavaré, Elizabeth Blackwell Institute, University of Bristol; Jacqueline Cahiff, Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh; Kate Jarman and Amanda Engineer, St. Bartholomew’s Hospital Archive, London; Gillian Murphy, Women’s Library, London School of Economics; Father Franck Derville and Patricia Tailhades, La Maternité, Paris; Glenn Horowitz and Hayley Setear, Dobkin Family Collection of Feminism; Harry Bubbins and Ariel Kates, Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation; Lisa Mix and Elizabeth Shepard, Weill-Cornell Medical Center Archives; Kim Turchin and Connie Wu, New York–Presbyterian Lower Manhattan Hospital; Tommy Rodecki, Green-Wood Cemetery; Frances Rosenfeld and Emily Chapin, Museum of the City of New York; Tricia McEldowney and Brandon Moblo, Hobart and William Smith College Archive; Martin Dornbaum, Health Professions Education Center, Hunter-Bellevue School of Nursing; and Carolyn Waters, Catherine McGowan, Barbara Bieck, and the entire staff of the New York Society Library, my second home.
For close reading, and close friendship: Elisabeth Gitter, Jessica Francis Kane, Gail Marcus, Caroline Rodoni, and Zanthe Taylor.
For good medicine, in so many forms: Fredi Pomerance, Leslie and E
ric Slocum, Stacy Schiff, Megan Marshall, Ellen Feldman, Dr. Abigail Ford Winkel, Toby Cox, Yuko Uchikawa, Karina Yan Glaser, Daniel Clarke, Elise Cappella, Elisha Cooper, Peggy Sturdivant, Dr. Flavia Golden, Dr. Ana Alzaga Fernandez, Matthew Warnes, Maryann Parker, Linda Schapiro, J.C. Hallman, Samuel B. Jones, Jr., Betty Bayer, Steve O’Malley, Ted Aub, and the sisterhood of Women Writing Women’s Lives.
In 2017 I was honored to receive a Public Scholar grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this book do not necessarily reflect those of the NEH.
I am privileged to work with the best book people imaginable. Few editors are as incisive and farseeing as Alane Salierno Mason: thank you for pushing me further. I could not do this work at all without Rob McQuilkin’s warmth and faith. Michael Taeckens and Whitney Peeling are gifted at telling the story of a book; I am lucky this book is one of their stories. At W. W. Norton, I’m grateful for Mo Crist, Janet Biehl, Yang Kim, Chris Welch, Michelle Waters, and Erin Lovett.
Last and first, to Yoji, Clare, and David Nimura, who make everything possible.
NOTES
PROLOGUE
2 “This institution”: “New York Infirmary for Women and Children,” New York Daily Herald, May 13, 1857, 3.
2 “The full thorough education”: Ibid.
3 “There are none less able”: Ibid.; “Opening of the New-York Infirmary for Women and Children,” New-York Tribune, May 13, 1857, 4; “Infirmary for Women and Children,” New-York Times, May 13, 1857, 8.
3 “There is certainly nothing”: Emily to Elizabeth, 1852 or 1853, Folder 163, Collection MC411, SL.
CHAPTER 1: BRISTOL—NEW YORK—CINCINNATI
5 “There lived as my story says”: Elizabeth, undated notebook, Reel 45, LC.
6 “Little Shy”: Anna, “Early Life of the Blackwells,” 169, Reel 72, LC.
6 “I was fitted”: Hannah, dictated to Henry, Reel 75, LC.
7 “sky parlour . . . parapet”: Anna, “Early Life of the Blackwells,” 129, Reel 72, LC.
8 “Anna, Bessy, & Polly!”: Ibid., 130.
8 “There was a dreadful scene”: Ibid., 113.
8 “The pretty baby”: Ibid., 12.
8 “shabbily dressed”: Ibid., 151.
9 “poor starveling aunts”: Ibid., 57.
9 “natural lady”: Ibid., 55–56.
9 “very small . . . Greek”: Ibid., 57.
9 “very well-meaning”: Ibid., 50.
9 “disagreeable . . . broomstick”: Ibid., 50.
9 “putting forth . . . Grandpapa”: Ibid., 23.
10 “We children”: Ibid., 134.
10 “great feathers”: Ibid., 135.
11 eventually committed: Ibid., 52.
10 Bristol shipping firm: Joelle Million, “Samuel Blackwell: Sugar Refiner and Abolitionist,” New York History Review, June 14, 2017.
12 “active dollar-getting”: Samuel Sr., “Two Years in New York,” 1835, Folder 3, Collection A145, SL.
12 “If people will”: Elizabeth’s journal, June 30, 1837, Reel 39, LC.
13 “How gay”: Ibid., March 17, 1837.
13 “I fear”: Ibid., March 6, 1837.
13 “The Greek oration”: Ibid., October 3, 1837.
13 “How I do long”: Ibid., March 14, 1838.
13 abstinence pledge: Ibid., February 27, 1838.
13 “I wish”: Ibid., January 31, 1838.
13 “poor, foolish”: Anna, “Early Life of the Blackwells,” 48, Reel 72, LC.
13 “Just as I was getting”: Elizabeth’s journal, April 4, 1837, Reel 39, LC.
14 “into partnership”: Ibid., May 2, 1837.
14 “I wonder”: Ibid., September 16, 1837.
14 “Mamma, Anna, Marian”: Sam’s journal, January 1, 1836, Folder 88v, Collection A77, SL.
15 “the bumpy science”: Elizabeth’s journal, January 28, 1837, Reel 39, LC.
15 “Not disposed to trifle”: Elizabeth, notes on phrenology, January 28, 1837, Folder 61, Collection MC411, SL.
16 “to plead the cause”: Proceedings of the Anti-Slavery Convention, 9.
16 “very ill advised”: Elizabeth’s journal, May 11, 1837, Reel 39, LC.
16 “The spirit of Slavery”: Samuel Sr. to Kenyon, September 27, 1836, Folder 5, Collection MC411, SL.
16 “A colored man”: Elizabeth’s journal, December 29, 1837, Reel 39, LC.
17 “What a dearth”: Ibid., July 18, 1837.
17 “How ardently”: Ibid., July 24, 1837.
17 “I hope Papa”: Ibid., February 6, 1837.
17 “make some experiments”: Sam’s journal, March 25, 1837, Folder 88v, Collection A77, SL.
18 “Tell dear Washy”: Samuel Sr. to Hannah, March 5, 1838, Folder 5, Collection MC411, SL.
18 “I suppose”: Elizabeth’s journal, May 12, 1838, Reel 39, LC.
18 Fanny Trollope: Trollope, Domestic Manners, 51.
18 “I saw some very”: Elizabeth’s journal, May 13, 1838, Reel 39, LC.
19 “If we cannot”: Marian to Elizabeth, June 16, 1838, Folder 32, Collection MC411, SL.
19 “He is just the color”: Elizabeth’s journal, August 6, 1838, Reel 39, LC.
20 “I put my hand”: Ibid., August 7, 1838.
20 “Reading, Writing”: School prospectus, Folder 82, Collection MC411, SL.
20 “Aunt Mary”: Elizabeth’s journal, September 30, 1838, Reel 39, LC.
21 “They don’t know”: Ibid., October 1, 1838.
21 “After school”: Ibid., March 20, 1839.
21 “I have cut”: Emily to Henry, June 14, 1841, Reel 74, LC.
22 “I well remember”: Blackwell, Pioneer Work, 13.
22 “I’m sorry to say”: Sam to Henry, January 14, 1841, Reel 76, LC.
CHAPTER 2: BETWEENITY
23 “Madam . . . fire screen”: Elizabeth to Blackwell family, March 5, 1844, Reel 42, LC.
23 “I give as far”: Elizabeth to Marian, March 19, 1844, Reel 76, LC.
24 “Carlyle’s name”: Elizabeth to Marian, April 4, 1844, Folder 61, Collection MC411, SL.
24 “I had many offers”: Elizabeth to Hannah, 1844, Reel 42, LC.
24 “To live . . . whisper”: Elizabeth to Marian, April 4, 1844, Folder 61, Collection MC411, SL.
24 “I feel independent”: Elizabeth to Marian, 1844, Reel 76, LC.
24 St. Ann’s Hall: “St. Ann’s Hall, Flushing, Long Island, New-York,” Southern Literary Messenger, February 1843, 127–28.
25 “very fond . . . my hand”: Emily to Elizabeth, 1844, Reel 74, LC.
25 “Go by all means”: Elizabeth to Emily, June 1844, Folder 45, Collection MC411, SL.
25 “ ‘crack’ Greek pupil”: Anna to Elizabeth, May 11, 1845, Reel 71, LC.
25 “Alas!”: Sam’s journal, November 10, 1844, Folder 89v, Collection A77, SL.
25 “pretty busily”: Emily to Henry, May 11, 1845, Reel 71, LC.
25 “Her progress”: Anna to Sam, March 9, 1845, DF.
26 “the manifold uncomfortablenesses”: Anna to Elizabeth, May 11, 1845, Reel 71, LC.
26 inaugural Annual: Christmas Annual 1844, Reel 50, LC.
26 “a lady friend”: Blackwell, Pioneer Work, 27.
26 “gross perversion”: Ibid., 30.
27 “My favourite studies”: Ibid., 28.
27 “I think women need”: Fuller, Woman in the Nineteenth Century, 159.
28 “I believe that”: Ibid., 158.
28 “If I had some noble”: Sam’s journal, November 3, 1844, Folder 89v, Collection A77, SL.
28 “Eliz. is thinking”: Ibid., May 3, 1845.
28 “common malady . . . heart”: Blackwell, Pioneer Work, 28.
29 “highly useful”: Ibid., 31.
30 “The idea of winning”: Ibid, 76.
30 “drunken drivers”: Elizabeth to Emily, July 2, 1845, Folder 45, Collection MC411, SL.
30 “Miss Student . . . puns”: Ibid.
31 “goblin groans”: Sam’s journal
, June 16, 1845, Folder 89v, Collection A77, SL.
31 “Shall I say”: Elizabeth to Emily, July 2, 1845, Folder 45, Collection MC411, SL.
31 “country boobies . . . hospitality”: Elizabeth to Marian, June 29, 1845, Reel 76, LC.
31 “I had many causes”: Elizabeth to Henry, April 12, 46, Folder 61, Collection MC411, SL.
32 “I knew that”: Blackwell, Pioneer Work, 35.
32 “my first professional cure”: Elizabeth to Hannah, July 27, 1845, Reel 42, LC.
32 “a great treat . . . known”: Elizabeth to Marian, December 4, 1845, Reel 76, LC.
32 “determined . . . principles”: Elizabeth to Hannah, July 27, 1845, Reel 42, LC.
33 “strong electric . . . alone”: Elizabeth to Henry, August 17, 1845, Reel 50, LC.
33 “I feel very wakeful”: Elizabeth to Hannah, July 27, 1845, Reel 42, LC.
33 “It is so painful”: Anna to Sam, July 27, 1845, DF.
33 “I assure you”: Emily to Sam, July 27, 1845, DF.
33 “A most unscrupulous”: Henry’s journal, August 12, 1845, Reel 50, LC.
34 “He thrust his hand”: Paul Trapier, A Narrative of Facts Which Led to the Presentment of the Rt. Rev. Benj. T. Onderdonk, Bishop of New-York (New York: Stanford & Swords, 1845), 51.
The Doctors Blackwell Page 30