Elizabeth Blackwell (3 February 1821 – 31 May 1910) was an English-Americanphysician, notable as the first woman to earn a medical degree in the United States, and the first woman on the Medical Register of theGeneral Medical Council for the United Kingdom.[1] Blackwell played an important role in both the United States and the United Kingdom as a social reformer, and was a pioneer in promoting education forwomen in medicine. Her contributions remain celebrated with theElizabeth Blackwell Medal, awarded annually to a woman who has made a significant contribution to the promotion of women in medicine.[1]
Blackwell was not initially interested in a career in medicine.[1] She became a schoolteacher in order to support her family. This occupation was seen as suitable for women during the 1800s; however, she soon found it unsuitable for her. Blackwell's interest in medicine was sparked after a friend fell ill and remarked that, had a female doctor cared for her, she might not have suffered so much.[1] Blackwell began applying to medical schools and immediately began to endure theprejudice against her sex that would persist throughout her career. She was rejected from each medical school she applied to, exceptGeneva Medical College in New York, in which the male students voted in favor of Blackwell's acceptance, albeit as a joke.[2][3] Thus, in 1847, Blackwell became the first woman to attend medical school in the United States.[1]
Blackwell's inauguralthesis ontyphoid fever, published in 1849 in theBuffalo Medical Journal and Monthly Review, shortly after she graduated,[4][5] was the first medical article published by a female student from the United States. It portrayed a strong sense ofempathy and sensitivity to human suffering, as well as strong advocacy for economic andsocial justice.[4] This perspective was deemed by the medical community as feminine.[4]
Plaque at Blackwell's family home inBristol, England, 2010
Elizabeth was born on 3 February 1821, inBristol, England, to Samuel Blackwell, who was asugar refiner, and his wife Hannah (Lane) Blackwell.[7][8] She had two older siblings,Anna and Marian, and would eventually have six younger siblings:Samuel (marriedAntoinette Brown),Henry (marriedLucy Stone),Emily (second woman in the U.S. to get a medical degree),Sarah Ellen (a writer), John and George. She also had four maiden aunts: Barbara, Ann, Lucy, and Mary, who also lived with them.[7]
In 1832, the Blackwell family emigrated from Bristol, England, to New York because Samuel Blackwell had lost their most profitable sugar refinery in a fire.[6] In New York, Elizabeth's father became active inabolitionist work. Therefore, their dinnertime discussions often surrounded issues such as women's rights,slavery, andchild labor. These liberal discussions reflected Hannah and Samuel's attitudes toward child rearing. For example, rather than beating the children for bad behavior, Barbara Blackwell recorded their trespasses in a black book. If the offenses accumulated, the children would be exiled to the attic during dinner. Samuel Blackwell was similarly liberal in his attitude towards the education of his children.[7] Samuel Blackwell was aCongregationalist and exerted a strong influence over the religious and academic education of his children. He believed that each child, including his girls, should be given the opportunity for unlimited development of their talents and gifts. This perspective was rare during that time, as most people believed that the woman's place was in the home or as a schoolteacher. Blackwell had not only agoverness, but private tutors to supplement her intellectual development.[1] As a result, she was rather socially isolated from all but her family as she grew up.[9]
The family moved toCincinnati, Ohio a few years later. When Blackwell was 17, her father died, leaving the family with little money.
The Blackwells' financial situation was unfortunate. Pressed by financial need, the sisters Anna, Marian and Elizabeth started a school,The Cincinnati English and French Academy for Young Ladies, which provided instruction in most, if not all, subjects and charged for tuition and room and board. The school was not innovative in its education methods, but provided a source of income for the Blackwell sisters.[9] Blackwell was less active in her abolitionism during these years, likely due to her responsibilities running the academy.[7]
In December 1838, Blackwell converted toEpiscopalianism, probably due to her sister Anna's influence, becoming an active member of St. Paul's Episcopal Church. However,William Henry Channing's arrival in 1839 to Cincinnati changed her mind. Channing, a charismaticUnitarian minister, introduced the ideas oftranscendentalism to Blackwell, who started attending theUnitarian Church. A conservative backlash from the Cincinnati community ensued, and as a result, the academy lost many pupils and was abandoned in 1842. Blackwell began teaching private pupils.[7]
Channing's arrival renewed Blackwell's interests in education and reform. She worked at intellectual self-improvement: studying art, attending various lectures, writing short stories and attending various religious services in many denominations (Quaker,Millerite,Jewish). In the early 1840s, she began to articulate thoughts about women's rights in her diaries and letters and participated in theHarrison political campaign of 1840.[7]
In 1844, with the help of her sister Anna, Blackwell procured a teaching job that paid $1,000 (~$33,746 in 2024) per year inHenderson, Kentucky. Although she was pleased with her class, she found the accommodations and schoolhouse lacking. What disturbed her most was that this was her first real encounter with the realities of slavery. "Kind as the people were to me personally, the sense of justice was continually outraged; and at the end of the first term of engagement I resigned the situation."[10] She returned to Cincinnati half a year later.[11]
Once again, through her sister Anna, Blackwell procured a job, this time teaching music at an academy inAsheville, North Carolina, with the goal of saving the $3,000 necessary for her medical school expenses. In Asheville, Blackwell lodged with the respected Reverend John Dickson, who had been a physician before he became a clergyman. Dickson approved of Blackwell's career aspirations and allowed her to use the medical books in his library to study. During this time, Blackwell soothed her own doubts about her choice and her loneliness with deep religious contemplation. She also renewed her antislavery interests, starting a slave Sunday school that was ultimately unsuccessful.[7]
Dickson's school closed down soon after opening, and Blackwell moved to the residence of Reverend Dickson's brother,Samuel Henry Dickson, a prominentCharleston physician. In 1846, she began teaching at a boarding school in Charleston run by a Mrs. Du Pré. With the help of Samuel Dickson's brother, Blackwell inquired into the possibility of medical study via letters, with no favorable responses. In 1847, Blackwell left Charleston forPhiladelphia and New York, with the aim of personally investigating the opportunities for medical study. Blackwell's greatest wish was to be accepted into a Philadelphia medical school.[11]
My mind is fully made up. I have not the slightest hesitation on the subject; the thorough study of medicine, I am quite resolved to go through with. The horrors and disgusts I have no doubt of vanquishing. I have overcome stronger distastes than any that now remain, and feel fully equal to the contest. As to the opinion of people, I don't care one straw personally; though I take so much pains, as a matter of policy, to propitiate it, and shall always strive to do so; for I see continually how the highest good is eclipsed by the violent or disagreeable forms which contain it.[10]
Upon reaching Philadelphia, Blackwell boarded with William Elder and studiedanatomy privately with Jonathan M. Allen as she attempted to enroll in any medical school in Philadelphia.[7] She was met with resistance almost everywhere. Most physicians recommended that she either go toParis to study or take up a disguise as a man to study medicine. The main reasons offered for her rejection were that (1) she was a woman and therefore intellectually inferior, and (2) she might actually prove equal to the task, prove to be competition, and that she could not expect them to "furnish [her] with a stick to break our heads with." Out of desperation, she applied to twelve "country schools."
In October 1847, Blackwell was accepted toGeneva Medical College inGeneva, New York. The dean and faculty, usually responsible for evaluating an applicant for matriculation, initially were unable to make a decision due to Blackwell's gender. They put the issue up to a vote by the 150 male students of the class with the stipulation that if one student objected, Blackwell would be turned away. The young men voted unanimously to accept her, whilst simultaneously treating her application as a joke.[13][14]
While at school, Blackwell was looked upon as an oddity by the townspeople of Geneva. She also rejected suitors and friends, preferring to isolate herself. In the summer between her two terms at Geneva, she returned to Philadelphia, stayed with Elder, and applied for medical positions in the area to gain clinical experience. The Guardians of the Poor, the city commission that ranBlockley Almshouse, granted her permission to work there, albeit not without some struggle. Blackwell slowly gained acceptance at Blockley, although some young resident physicians still refused to assist her in diagnosing and treating her patients. During her time there, Blackwell gained valuable clinical experience, but was appalled by thesyphilitic ward and the condition oftyphus patients. Her graduating thesis at Geneva Medical College was on the topic of typhus. The conclusion of this thesis linked physical health with socio-moral stability – a link that foreshadows her later reform work.[7]
On 23 January 1849, Blackwell became the first woman to earn a medical degree in the United States.[15][16][17] The local press reported her graduation favorably, and when the dean, Charles Lee, conferred her degree, he stood up and bowed to her.[18]
In April 1849, Blackwell decided to continue her studies in Europe. She visited a few hospitals in Britain and then went to Paris. In Europe, she was rejected by many hospitals because of her sex. In June, Blackwell enrolled at La Maternité; a "lying-in" hospital,[13] under the condition that she would be treated as a studentmidwife, not a physician. She made the acquaintance ofHippolyte Blot, a young resident physician atLa Maternité. She gained much medical experience through his mentoring and training. By the end of the year, Paul Dubois, the foremostobstetrician in his day, had voiced his opinion that she would make the best obstetrician in the United States, male or female.[11]
On 4 November 1849, when Blackwell was treating an infant withophthalmia neonatorum, she accidentally squirted some contaminated fluid into her own eye and contracted the infection. She lost sight in her left eye, requiring its surgical extraction and leaving her without hope of becoming asurgeon.[11] After a period of recovery, she enrolled atSt Bartholomew's Hospital in London in 1850. She regularly attendedJames Paget's lectures. She made a positive impression there, although she did meet opposition when she tried to observe the wards.[7]
Feeling that the prejudice against women in medicine was not as strong in the United States, Blackwell returned to New York City in 1851 with the hope of establishing her own practice.[7]
In the United States, Blackwell faced sexism, but received support from some media publications, including theNew-York Tribune.[11] Her practice floundered at first, a situation some historians attribute to false accusations that all women doctors wereabortion care providers.[19][20] In 1852, Blackwell began delivering lectures and publishedThe Laws of Life with Special Reference to the Physical Education of Girls, her first work, a volume about the physical and mental development of girls that concerned itself with the preparation of young women for motherhood.[7]
The Woman's Medical College of the New York Infirmary (announcement, 1868–69)
In 1853, Blackwell established a smalldispensary nearTompkins Square. She also began mentoringMarie Zakrzewska, a Polish woman pursuing a medical education, serving as her preceptor in her pre-medical studies. In 1857, Marie Zakrzewska, along with Blackwell and her sister Emily, who had also obtained a medical degree, expanded Blackwell's original dispensary into theNew York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children. Women served on the board of trustees, on the executive committee and as attending physicians. The institution accepted both in- and outpatients and served as a nurse's training facility. The patient load doubled in the second year.[7]
When theAmerican Civil War broke out, the Blackwell sisters aided in nursing efforts on the side of the Union Army.[21] Blackwell sympathized heavily with the North due to her abolitionist roots, and even said she would have left the country if the North had compromised on the subject of slavery.[22] However, Blackwell did meet with some resistance on the part of the male-dominatedUnited States Sanitary Commission (USSC). The male physicians refused to help with the nurse education plan if it involved the Blackwells. In response to the USSC, Blackwell organized with theWoman's Central Relief Association (WCRA). The WCRA worked against the problem of uncoordinated benevolence, but ultimately was absorbed by the USSC.[23] Still, theNew York Infirmary managed to work withDorothea Dix to train nurses for the Union effort.[22]
Blackwell made several trips to Britain to raise funds and to try to establish a parallel infirmary project there. Due to a clause in theMedical Act 1858 that recognised doctors with foreign degrees practicing in Britain before 1858, she became the first woman to have her name entered on the General Medical Council's medical register (1 January 1859).[24] She also became a mentor toElizabeth Garrett Anderson during this time. By 1866, nearly 7,000 patients were being treated per year at the New York Infirmary, and Blackwell was needed back in the United States. The parallel project collapsed, but in 1868, a medical college for women adjunct to the infirmary was established. It incorporated Blackwell's innovative ideas about medical education – a four-year training period with much more extensive clinical training than previously required.[7]
At this point, a rift occurred between Emily and Elizabeth Blackwell. Both were headstrong, and a conflict over the management of the infirmary and medical college ensued.[7] Elizabeth, feeling slightly alienated by the United States women's medical movement, left for Britain to try to establish medical education for women there. In July 1869, she sailed for Britain.[7]
In 1874, Blackwell established a women's medical school inLondon withSophia Jex-Blake, who had been a student at the New York Infirmary years earlier. Blackwell had doubts about Jex-Blake and thought that she was dangerous, belligerent, and tactless.[25] Nonetheless, Blackwell became deeply involved with the school, and it opened in 1874 as theLondon School of Medicine for Women, with the primary goal of preparing women for the licensing exam ofApothecaries Hall. Blackwell vehemently opposed the use ofvivisections in the laboratory of the school.[7]
After the establishment of the school, Blackwell lost much of her authority to Jex-Blake and was elected as a lecturer in midwifery. She resigned this position in 1877, officially retiring from her medical career.[7]
While Blackwell viewed medicine as a means for social and moral reform, her studentMary Putnam Jacobi focused on curing disease. At a deeper level of disagreement, Blackwell felt that women would succeed in medicine because of their humane female values, but Jacobi believed that women should participate as the equals of men in all medical specialties.[26]
After moving to Britain in 1869, Blackwell diversified her interests, and was active both in social reform and authorship. She co-founded theNational Health Society in 1871. She may have perceived herself as a wealthy gentlewoman who had the leisure to dabble in reform and in intellectual activities, being financially supported by the income from her American investments.[7] Her friend,Barbara Bodichon helped introduce Blackwell into her circles. She traveled across Europe many times during these years, in England, France, Wales, Switzerland and Italy.[7]
Blackwell was most active in social reform from 1880 to 1895, after her retirement from medicine. Blackwell was active in a number of reform movements, mainly moral reform, sexual purity, hygiene and medical education, but alsopreventive medicine,sanitation,eugenics,family planning, women's rights,associationism,Christian socialism,medical ethics andantivivisection.[7] She switched back and forth between many different reform organisations, trying to maintain a position of power in each. Blackwell had a lofty and unattainable goal: evangelical moral perfection. All of her reform work was along this thread. She even contributed heavily to the founding of two utopian communities:Starnthwaite andHadleigh in the 1880s.[7]
Blackwell believed that theChristian morality ought to play as large a role as scientific inquiry in medicine and that medical schools ought to instruct students in the subject. She also wasantimaterialist and did not believe invivisections. She did not see the value ofinoculation and thought it dangerous. She believed thatbacteria were not the only important cause of disease and felt their importance was being exaggerated.[27]
Blackwell campaigned heavily against licentiousness,prostitution andcontraceptives, arguing instead for therhythm method of birth control.[28] She campaigned against theContagious Diseases Acts, arguing that it was a pseudo-legalisation of prostitution. Her 1878 bookCounsel to Parents on the Moral Education of their Children argued against the act. Blackwell was conservative in many ways, but believed women to have sexuallibidos equal to those of men, and that men and women were equally responsible for controlling their sexual urges.[29] Others of her time believed women to have little if any sexual passion, and placed the responsibility of moral policing squarely on the shoulders of the woman.
The book was controversial, being rejected by 12 publishers, before being printed byHatchard and Company. Theproofs for the original edition were destroyed by a member of the publisher's board and a change of title was required for a new edition to be printed.
Blackwell was well connected, both in the United States and in the United Kingdom. She exchanged letters withLady Byron about women's rights issues and became very close friends withFlorence Nightingale, with whom she discussed opening and running a hospital. She remained lifelong friends with Barbara Bodichon and metElizabeth Cady Stanton in 1883. She was close with her family and visited her brothers and sisters whenever she could during her travels.[7]
However, Blackwell had a very strong personality and was often quite acerbic in her criticism of others. Blackwell had an argument with Florence Nightingale after Nightingale returned from theCrimean War. Nightingale wanted Blackwell to turn her focus to training nurses and could not see the legitimacy of training female physicians.[22] After that, Blackwell's comments upon Florence Nightingale's publications were often highly critical.[30] She was also critical of many of the women's reform and hospital organisations in which she played no role, calling some of them "quack auspices".[31] Blackwell also had strained relationships with her sisters Anna and Emily, and with the women physicians she mentored after they established themselves (Marie Zakrzewska,Sophia Jex-Blake andElizabeth Garrett Anderson). Among women at least, Blackwell was very assertive and found it difficult to play a subordinate role.[7]
Photograph of an older Elizabeth Blackwell with her adopted daughter Kitty and two dogs, 1905
In 1856, when Blackwell was establishing the New York Infirmary, she adoptedKatherine "Kitty" Barry (1848–1936), an Irish orphan from theHouse of Refuge onRandall's Island. Diary entries at the time indicate that she adopted Barry out of loneliness and a feeling of obligation, as well as out of a utilitarian need fordomestic help.[32] Barry was brought up as a half-servant, half-daughter.[7]
Blackwell provided for Barry's education. She even instructed Barry in gymnastics as a trial for the theories outlined in her publication,The Laws of Life with Special Reference to the Physical Education of Girls.[22] However, Blackwell never permitted Barry to develop her own interest and made no effort to introduce Barry to young men or women her own age. Barry herself was rather shy, awkward and self-conscious about herpartial deafness.[7] Barry followed Blackwell during her many trans-Atlantic moves, during her furious house hunt between 1874 and 1875, during which they moved six times, and finally to Blackwell's final home, Rock House, a small house off of Exmouth Place inHastings, Sussex, in 1879.[7]
Barry stayed with Blackwell all her life. After Blackwell's death, Barry stayed at Rock House before moving toKilmun inArgyllshire, Scotland, where Blackwell was buried in the churchyard ofSt Munn's Parish Church.[33] In 1920, she moved in with the Blackwells and took the Blackwell name. On her deathbed, in 1936, Barry called Blackwell her "true love", and requested that her ashes be buried with those of Elizabeth.[34]
None of the five Blackwell sisters ever married. Elizabeth thought courtship games were foolish early in her life, and prized her independence.[7] When commenting on a young men trying to court her during her time inKentucky, she said: "...do not imagine I am going to make myself a whole just at present; the fact is I cannot find my other half here, but only about a sixth, which would not do."[11] During her time at Geneva Medical College, she also rejected advances from a few suitors.[11]
There was one slight controversy, however, in Blackwell's life related to her relationship withAlfred Sachs, a 26-year-old man fromVirginia. He was very close with both Kitty Barry and Blackwell, and it was widely believed in 1876 that he was a suitor for Barry, who was 29 at the time. The reality was that Blackwell and Sachs were very close, so much so that Barry felt uncomfortable being around the two of them. Sachs was very interested in Blackwell, then 55 years old. Barry was reportedly in love with Sachs and was mildly jealous of Blackwell.[35] Blackwell thought that Sachs lived a life of dissipation and believed that she could reform him. In fact, the majority of her 1878 publicationCounsel to Parents on the Moral Education of the Children was based on her conversations with Sachs. Blackwell stopped correspondence with Sachs after the publication of her book.[7]
In her later life, Blackwell was still relatively active. In 1895, she published herautobiography,Pioneer Work in Opening the Medical Profession to Women. It sold fewer than 500 copies.[7] After this publication, Blackwell gradually retreated from public life and spent more time traveling. She visited the United States in 1906, took her first and last car ride.[7]
In 1907, while holidaying inKilmun, Scotland, Blackwell fell down a flight of stairs, and was left almost completely mentally and physically disabled.[36] On 31 May 1910, she died at her home in Hastings, Sussex, after suffering a stroke that paralyzed half her body. Her ashes were buried in the graveyard ofSt Munn's Parish Church in Kilmun and obituaries honouring her appeared in publications such asThe Lancet[37] andThe British Medical Journal.[38]
The British artistEdith Holden, whose Unitarian family were Blackwell's relatives, was given the middle name "Blackwell" in her honor.[citation needed]
In 1857, Blackwell opened theNew York Infirmary for Women with her younger sister Emily. At the same time, she gave lectures to women in the United States and England about the importance of educating women and the profession of medicine for women.[6] In the audience at one of her lectures in England, was a woman namedElizabeth Garrett Anderson, who later became the first woman doctor in England, in 1865.[6]
Blackwell settled in England in the 1870s and continued working on expanding the profession of medicine for women, influencing as many as 476 women to become registered medical professionals in England alone.[6] Up until her death, Blackwell worked in an active practice inHastings, England, and continued to lecture at the School of Medicine for Women.[6]
The artworkThe Dinner Party features a place setting for Elizabeth Blackwell.[43]
In 2013 theUniversity of Bristol launched the Elizabeth Blackwell Institute for Health Research.[44]
On 3 February 2016, National Women Physicians Day was declared a National Holiday[45] championed byPhysician Moms Group after publishing a study in JAMA exposing that the majority of women physicians report still facing discrimination due to their gender and/or being a mother.[46] The National Holiday pays tribute to Blackwell for the role she has played influencing women physicians in the present-day and their strivings for equity and equality.
On 3 February 2018,Google honoured her as adoodle in recognition of her 197th birth anniversary.[47]
In May 2018, a commemorative plaque was unveiled at the former location of theNew York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children, which Elizabeth Blackwell and her sisterEmily Blackwell founded.[48][49] For the event, Jill Platner, a jewelry designer, designed a Blackwell Collection of jewelry inspired by Elizabeth Blackwell.[48][50]
Poet Jessy Randall's interest in Blackwell was the original inspiration for what became her 2022 collection of poems about women scientists,Mathematics for Ladies.[52][53]
1878Counsel to Parents on the Moral Education of their Children in Relation to Sex (eight editions, republished asThe Moral Education of the Young in Relation to Sex)
^abCurtis, Robert H. (1993).Great Lives: Medicine. New York: Atheneum Books for Young Readers.
^Smith, Stephen. Letter. "The Medical Co-education of the Sexes".New York Church Union. 1892.
^Lemay, Kate Clarke; Goodier, Susan; Tetrault, Lisa; Jones, Martha (2019).Votes for Women: A Portrait of Persistence. 269: Princeton University Press.ISBN9780691191171.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
^abcdElizabeth Blackwell. Blackwell, along with Emily Blackwell and Mary Livermore, played an important role in the development of the United States Sanitary Commission. Letters to Barbara Bodichon. 29 January 1859. 25 November 1860. 5 June 1861 (Elizabeth Blackwell Collection, Special Collections, Columbia University Library).
^Elizabeth Blackwell. Letter to Samuel C. Blackwell. 21 September 1874. (Blackwell Family Papers, Library of Congress).
^Morantz, Regina Markell (1982). "Feminism, Professionalism, and Germs: The Thought of Mary Putnam Jacobi and Elizabeth Blackwell".American Quarterly.34 (5):459–478.doi:10.2307/2712640.JSTOR2712640.PMID11634502.
^Kitty Barry Blackwell. Letter to Alice Stone Blackwell. 24 March 1877. (Blackwell Family Papers, Library of Congress)
^Elizabeth Blackwell. Letter to Emily Blackwell. 23 January 1855. (Blackwell Family Papers, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College)
^Elizabeth Blackwell. Letter to Emily Blackwell. 1 October 1856. (Blackwell Family Papers, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College)
^Wilson, Scott.Resting Places: The Burial Sites of More Than 14,000 Famous Persons, 3d ed.: 2 (Kindle Locations 4078–4079). McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers. Kindle Edition.
^Blackwell, Alice Stone.Tribute to Kitty Barry.Vineyard Gazette. 19 June 1936. (Blackwell Family Papers, Library of Congress)
^Kitty Barry Blackwell. Letter to Alice Stone Blackwell. 24 March 1877. (Blackwell Family Papers, Library of Congress).
^Blackwell, Elizabeth (1871).On the religion of health: a lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society, February 19, 1871. London: Office of "The Examiner".OCLC926090108.
Atwater, Edward C (2016).Women Medical Doctors in the United States before the Civil War: A Biographical Dictionary. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press.ISBN9781580465717.OCLC945359277.
Baker, Rachel (1944).The first woman doctor: the story of Elizabeth Blackwell, M.D. J. Messner, Inc., New York,OCLC 848388
Mesnard, Élise-Marie (1889).Miss E. Blackwell et les femmes médecins [Miss Elizabeth Blackwell and the Women of Medicine] (in French). Bordeaux: Impr. de G. Gounouilhou.OCLC457730279,562432349.
Morantz, Regina Markell (1982). "Feminism, Professionalism, and Germs: The Thought of Mary Putnam Jacobi and Elizabeth Blackwell".American Quarterly.34 (5):459–478.doi:10.2307/2712640.JSTOR2712640.PMID11634502.
Morantz-Sanchez, Regina (1992). "Feminist Theory and Historical Practice: Rereading Elizabeth Blackwell".History and Theory.31 (4):51–69.doi:10.2307/2505415.JSTOR2505415.
Nimura, Janice P. (2021).The Doctors Blackwell: How Two Pioneering Sisters Brought Medicine to Women and Women to Medicine. W. W. Norton & Company.ISBN978-0393635546.
Ross, Ishbel (1944).Child of Destiny. New York: Harper.
Wilson, Dorothy Clarke (1970).Lone woman: the story of Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman doctor. Little Brown, Boston,OCLC 56257
An online biographyArchived 16 May 2008 at theWayback Machine of Elizabeth Blackwell, with links to more articles on Blackwell and others in her famous family, plus links to many resources on the Net
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