#elizabeth blackwell
Elizabeth Blackwell is rightly celebrated as the first woman doctor in the United States. But her admission to Geneva Medical College in 1847 happened as a joke. The faculty opposed admitting a woman but unable to turn the otherwise qualified student down, they turned the decision over to the students who took the request as a gag. The students voted unanimously to admit her. Much to their surprise, Blackwell arrived for classes a few weeks later. Many mainstream medical schools refused to admit women until the 20th century so most of the first generations of female doctors came out of alternative medicine.
Learn more in Marketplace of the Marvelous by Erika Janik.
Elizabeth Blackwell is 29. The year is 1736. Her husband is in debtor’s prison, she has a small child to feed, and so she turns desperation into inspiration, she learns botany, and she paints a pioneering encyclopedia of medicinal plants – including (for International Coffee Day today) coffee, as well as the tomato, then known as “love apple.” See them all here.
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