The Sisters Blackwell: Formidable Champions for Women’s Health

by Linda Harris Sittig

In many families, siblings may compete with one another.

But in the Blackwell family, Elizabeth and Emily joined forces to become the first (Elizabeth) and third (Emily) college-trained female doctors in the United States.

And although they started out with the goal of being doctors for whoever needed them, their practice evolved to treating female patients.

And aren’t we lucky that they did, because together they began offering help to women and, in turn, set up the first hospital for Indigent Women and Children. Patients whom male doctors had refused to treat. And they did that with a 100% female staff.

To say that the sisters had a rocky start in entering the medical profession would be an understatement.

Born in England in the 1820s, the sisters emigrated to America with their family when they were still quite young. They, along with their other seven siblings, witnessed firsthand the physical demise of their father at a relatively early age. Perhaps that was a catalyst.

Elizabeth tried first. She applied to and was rejected by twenty-nine medical schools before being accepted at one – Geneva Medical College in upstate New York. She was unaware that her acceptance was a joke when the faculty allowed the all-male student body to vote on it. And, apparently, the men did so on a whim. However, she persevered and graduated in the two-year program.

Emily, then four years later, also applied to Geneva, but was denied. She was then accepted at Rush Medical College in Chicago. But when Rush decided to change its rules and NOT admit women, the school did not allow Emily to return for her second and final year.

By 1854, both sisters had graduated with medical degrees, with Emily graduating from Cleveland Medical College. The next problem was to get jobs in the field. The public was skeptical of female doctors, and wealthy patients kept to male physicians.

Also at this time in American history, women with gynecological problems were only treated by male doctors, with trials that literally bordered on brutal procedures (often the only accepted techniques available). Elizabeth and Emily wanted to change that. Unable to receive further training in the U.S., they both studied in England and France before returning to America intent on setting up their own practice.

In 1857, the two sisters, along with Marie Zakrzewska, opened the Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children in New York City. (Now New York-Presbyterian Lower Manhattan Hospital).

At this time in America, neither antibiotics nor antiseptics had been developed. Indeed, thermometers were still in their infancy. And handwashing between patients had not yet been established. At least by male doctors.

Elizabeth and Emily enforced strict handwashing at the Infirmary, and during their first year of operation, they successfully treated almost 1,000 patients.  

And while you might be thinking that Elizabeth and Emily were early feminists or even suffragists, they weren’t. Raised in an abolitionist family, they adhered to those principles, even giving up sugar because all sugar came from the plantations run on slave labor. And during the Civil War, they helped to train nurses for the Union Army.

But when it came to advocating for women’s rights to vote, the two sisters were too consumed with their medical careers to become involved with suffrage. Which honestly strikes me as odd. Their brothers married women who were keenly involved in the suffrage movement, but Elizabeth and Emily focused on their patients.

 And both women were highly skeptical of other women who wished to become doctors but were not enrolled in prestigious colleges.  

Neither sister married, choosing career over matrimony. They lived well into their 80s and died within months of each other in 1910. At the time of their death, approximately 9,000 female doctors were practicing in America, but Elizabeth and Emily had been the trailblazers.

Today, about 39% of all doctors in the United States are female. The two highest specialties are pediatrics and gynecology.  And 50% of all students in medical colleges today are women.

Thank you, Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell.

And thank you to JoAnn Whitener, blog follower from Virginia who clued me in about Elizabeth. It was in researching Elizabeth that I learned about Emily.

If you enjoyed learning about Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell and are not yet a follower of the Strong Women blog, please sign up on the right sidebar. Each month, you will receive another Strong Women story in your email. I am still celebrating that my book, B-52 DOWN, took first place in the 2025 Chanticleer International Book Award for narrative nonfiction.

Now finishing up edits on my newest book, Chasing the Tides.

Author of:

Cut From Strong Cloth, Last Curtain Call, Counting Crows, B-52 DOWN, Opening Closed Doors.

~ Linda