It Happened Here -- The Physicians wore Petticoats

In the Fall semester of 1847 the faculty of the Geneva Medical School was confronted with a situation that had them in an uproar. A prestigious Philadelphia physician, Dr. Joseph Warrington   had recommended a candidate for admission to the medical college. Normally, such a recommendation would have been greeted with a sanguinary acceptance, both as it held forth the promise of gaining an excellent student, and because it flattered the college that it, as a small, upstate medical school should merit the confidence of an such an important physician.  But there was a problem--the candidate was a woman!  No woman in modern times had become a physician. Victorian morality generally frowned upon gentlewomen working outside the home, and in polite society, people were scandalized by the notion of a women studying the human body, examining patients and treating diseases. It would not be until the Civil War with its horrific medical demands, that women would  be commonly recruited even for nursing duties, outside of the home.

The faculty were loathe to offend Dr. Warrington by rejecting his candidate but could not imagine a woman at their institution, so touting the virtues of "republicanism" they offered to accept Elizabeth Blackwell as a student if the entire 129 all-male student body voted to accept her. When the vote was proposed to them, the "boys" treated the proposition with hilarity. Many thought it was a hoax, dreamt up by a rival medical school; others realized it for what it was, a ploy to shift responsibility for rejecting the candidate, because she was a woman, from the faculty to the student body.  So, whether in an act of high spirits to go along with the "joke", or in an act of the defiance, refusing to do the faculty's dirty work, the students unanimously voted to accept Miss Blackwell.*

Park Place, Geneva

Gradually with studied seriousness, modesty, tremendous determination, and a keen intellect, the newest student won the respect of her fellow students.  The school itself was transformed as the ribald humor and general disorderliness in lectures was curtailed in the presence of this young women.  Even the physician-faculty were inspired to greater professionalism.  At the end of two years Elizabeth Blackwell was awarded her degree, passing every course with honors and finishing at the head of her class.**

Elizabeth would continue to be challenged by a skeptical profession that was reluctant to employ her and by an incredulous public that was reluctant to accept her. To complete her residency she was forced to seek employment in Paris at La Maternite, a hospital that normally trained midwives. It was there that an accident intervened to prevent Elizabeth from pursuing her goal to become a surgeon. While treating a child with an infected eye some of the infected material splashed into her own eye. Her eye became so inflamed she lost sight in it and eventually had to have it removed. Later she worked in London before returning to the United States to establish her own practice. With her sister Emily (the 3d woman in the U.S. to receive a medical degree) and Dr. Marie Zakrzewka, a German woman physician,  she opened the New York Infirmary for Women and Children. Within a decade it also had become a medical college offering training and medical clinical experience for women doctors and nurses entering the profession.

Church Street, Cortland

A few years after Elizabeth Blackwell received her degree in Geneva, NY,  Lydia Strowbridge received a medical degree in Cortland.  Unlike Dr. Blackwell who traveled to London and Paris and established her practice in New York City,  Dr. Strowbridge worked doggedly to establish herself in her own community, serving women and children.  In later years she became an outspoken advocate of a women's right to vote, traveling to conferences at Seneca Falls and heading the Women's Rights movement in Cortland.



*A lone student attempted to reject her but was forcefully prevailed upon by the others to change his vote.

**Even then, some of the faculty questioned if they needed to confer a degree upon her, but other faculty members came to her defense, reminding them she had paid her tuition, and completed all the required coursework with honors, and threatened that if they refused to matriculate her they would go to the medical journals and report their colleagues duplicity.

Marker of the Week -- 

With its quaint nickname, this little
stone cottage along along the
Hudson (Rte 9G, Clermont) looks
like it could have stepped out
of the pages of Knickerbocker's 
History of New York from the
Beginning of the World to the End
 of the Dutch Dynasty, ostensibly
 written by Washington Irving                   

Wait-- do I see old Deidrich K. skulking
around back there among the trees?