Emily Blackwell

Emily Blackwell (born October 8, 1826, Bristol, England—died September 7, 1910, York Cliffs, Maine, U.S.) was an English-born American physician and educator who, with her elder sister, Elizabeth Blackwell, contributed greatly to the education and acceptance of women medical professionals in the United States.

Like her sister, Emily was well educated by the private tutors afforded her by her affluent and cultivated family. She grew up in New York City, in Jersey City, New Jersey, and in Cincinnati, Ohio, and in 1848, following her sister’s example, she began studying medicine. She was rejected by several medical schools, including the Geneva (New York) Medical College, which had accepted Elizabeth. In 1852–53 Emily attended Rush Medical College in Chicago until outside pressures forced the school to dismiss her. At last she gained admittance to the medical college of Western Reserve University (now Case Western Reserve University, located in Cleveland) in Hudson, Ohio, from which she graduated in March 1854. She subsequently pursued further studies in Edinburgh under Sir James Young Simpson, in London under William Jenner, and in Paris, Berlin, and Dresden, Germany.

In 1856 she settled in New York City and worked in her sister’s dispensary, which the next year became the New York Infirmary for Women and Children. From the beginning of that association, Emily took responsibility for infirmary management and in large part for fundraising. The infirmary grew steadily. In-home medical social work was subsequently undertaken, followed by a program of nurses’ training that began in 1858; the Women’s Medical College, a full medical school, was in operation by 1868.

In 1869, when her sister moved to England, Emily became the sole administrator of the infirmary and school. As dean of the college as well as professor of obstetrics and the diseases of women, she oversaw the growth of the college into a four-year institution in 1893. In this extent of training, the Women’s Medical College was ahead of much of the profession, as it had been in 1876 in instituting a three-year course. By 1899 the college had graduated 364 women. In that year Blackwell transferred her students to Cornell University Medical College, which had begun accepting men and women students on an equal basis. She continued her work with the infirmary until her death.