Elizabeth Blackwell - Representative of The Period of Women's Revolution

During the first half of the 1800’s women began participating in revolutionizing the world whether it came in the form of protests, strikes, or receiving a higher education. Dealing with having to overcome plenty of obstacles and discrimination from their peers and foe’s always managed to find the solution to a better present and future.

The woman from the 1800’s who faced barriers, but created opportunities for women who were not allowed or unable to get educated was Elizabeth Blackwell. Inspired by her dying friend who said “her ordeal would have been better had she had a female physician.” Few medical colleges available and none whom accepted women but that didn’t stop her either because she boarded with families of two southern physicians who mentored her.

Question that might be confusing is how did she get into college if schools didn’t want women to join? Well, from the regular way anybody would find out, through an acceptance letter but Geneva college thought they were being comedians because they sent it to Blackwell as a practical joke and they ended up looking like clowns in the end. After getting “accepted” Elizabeth faced discrimination and plenty of obstacles. For example, “professors forced her to sit separately at lectures and often excluded her from labs; local townspeople shunned her as a “bad” woman for defying her gender role”.

Regardless of all the controversy Blackwell carried on and graduated first in her class in 1849 and gained the respect of those around her. Continuing her education she would point out issues with male doctors that were causing epidemics. Facing more discrimination because if you were a female physician that meant that she wouldn’t get as much patients as a male physician so Elizabeth returned to New York City in 1857 not in despair but with more strenght because with the help of her Quaker friends she opened a small clinic that treated poor women. Later opening a New York infirmary for Women and children that consisted of providing positions for women physicians and training nurses for union hospitals to later opening a medical college in 1868 and finding the National Health Society.

To conclude, during the first half of the 1800’s women were very limited on what they could and could not do, but when becoming tired of balls and chains of injustices they found a way to escape those gender norms and achieve rights not just for themselves in the present but for everyone around and generations to come.