Women Doctors and the Union Army

 Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell

     In the mid-nineteenth century, sex discrimination prevented women from pursuing medicine, and those few who did were often obstructed by their male colleagues.  The University of Pennsylvania, established the first medical school in the country, and set the pattern of barring women from obtaining medical degrees.  It was not until January 23, 1849 that Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman to receive a medical degree in America.

     Blackwell received her medical degree despite the odds.  She started her quest in 1847, applying to every medical school of which she knew, and was rejected by all nineteen schools.  In the end a small school in upstate New York, Geneva Medical College, accepted Blackwell.  The male students thought her admission a hilarious joke, but later learned to respect her brains and talent. Blackwell later wrote,

 

“I had not the slightest idea of the commotion created by my appearance as a medical student in the little town. Very slowly I perceived that a doctor's wife at the table avoided any communication with me, and that as I walked backwards and forwards to college the ladies stopped to stare at me, as at a curious animal. I afterwards found that I had so shocked Geneva propriety that the theory was fully established either that I was a bad woman, whose designs would gradually become evident, or that, being insane, an outbreak of insanity would soon be apparent. Feeling the unfriendliness of the people, though quite unaware of all this gossip, I never walked abroad, but hastening daily to my college as to a sure refuge, I knew when I shut the great doors behind me that I shut out all unkindly criticism, and I soon felt perfectly at home amongst my fellow students...”

 

     Elizabeth Blackwell graduated first in her class.  Blackwell’s sister, Emily, soon followed her older sister into the field of medicine.  She faced the same obstacles that her sister had faced.  Emily Blackwell’s applications for admission were rejected by twelve medical schools, including Geneva Medical College, her sister's alma mater, which had re-thought the whole notion of women doctors.  Emily Blackwell was eventually accepted at the Western Reserve University medical school in Cleveland, Ohio, where she earned her medical degree in 1854, becoming the third woman to earn a medical degree in the United States.  The obstacles encountered by the Blackwell sisters were common for women seeking a medical education in the decades prior to the Civil War. 

     When the Civil War broke out, Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell helped organize the Women’s Central Association of Relief in New York City, which collected and distributed life-saving food and medical supplies.  Blackwell also joined with several other physicians in New York City to offer a training course for 100 women who wanted to be nurses for the army. This was the first formal training for women nurses ever to have been offered in America.

     In 1861 there were only some 250 women doctors in the entire United States.  Some of these pioneering women would serve in the war directly supporting the Union army.