The Doctors Blackwell by Janice P. Nimura

Improbably, the success of this eminently serious-minded pair could be said to begin with a joke. As Elizabeth herself predicted, 'a hundred years hence, women will not be what they are now.According to the relentlessly moralistic Elizabeth, women's inferior standing was owing to the deficiencies of women themselves, who are 'so often careless mothers, weak wives, poor housekeepers, ignorant nurses, and frivolous human beings.' From Bristol, Paris, and Edinburgh to the rising cities of antebellum America, this richly researched new biography celebrates two complicated pioneers who exploded the limits of possibility for women in medicine. Both sisters were tenacious and visionary, but their convictions did not always align with the emergence of women's rights-or with each other. Together, the Blackwells founded the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children, the first hospital staffed entirely by women.

Nimura presents a story of trial and triumph. As Elizabeth herself predicted, 'a hundred years hence, women will not be what they are now.'Įxploring the sisters' allies, enemies, and enduring partnership, Janice P.

She was soon joined in her iconic achievement by her younger sister, Emily, who was actually the more brilliant physician.Įxploring the sisters' allies, enemies, and enduring partnership, Janice P. In 1849, she became the first woman in America to receive an M.D.

Though the world at first recoiled at the notion of a woman studying medicine, her intelligence and intensity ultimately won her the acceptance of the male medical establishment. Nimura has resurrected Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell in all their feisty, thrilling, trailblazing splendor.' -Stacy SchiffĮlizabeth Blackwell believed from an early age that she was destined for a mission beyond the scope of 'ordinary' womanhood. Finalist for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in Biography

The Doctors Blackwell by Janice P. Nimura