It was the idea of a woman becoming a doctor that appealed to her. Nimura has done her research well, and I learned a lot about Blackwell that the kid biographies leave out-mainly that she really wasn't that drawn to medicine and didn't practice it that much. I first read about Elizabeth Blackwell in one of those reverent old fashioned kids biographies, long ago, so I was fascinated to read Blackwell's real story. As Elizabeth herself predicted, 'a hundred years hence, women will not be what they are now.'

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. 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. Elizabeth Blackwell believed from an early age that she was destined for a mission beyond the scope of 'ordinary' womanhood.

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