Elizabeth Blackwell Research Paper

Elizabeth Blackwell was a major pioneer for women’s rights in the medical field. She was an extraordinary influence on the women of her time as well as the women of today. Elizabeth Blackwell had an extremely challenging lifetime, but throughout her trials and long education, she had immense help from many different people as her interest in medicine grew; this led her to become a leader in the field of medicine. Elizabeth Blackwell’s life was full of countless hardships but she continued to persevere. She was born and raised in England, but her family was forced to move when her father’s sugar refineries burned (President of Harvard University, 2015). Immediately after their move to America, Elizabeth’s parents enrolled the children in school because learning was important to their family (Somervill, 2009). Later in her life, she worked in a hospital in France called La Maternité where doctors delivered …show more content…
She grew up with private tutors in her home, teaching her and her siblings the same topics each day (Somervill, 2009). She applied to many medical schools across the country but was only accepted by two. She decided to begin school at Geneva Medical College; the reason she was accepted to an all men’s school was because the authority over the school let the men vote if she should enter or not. They expected the men to vote no, but they voted yes as a joke, so Elizabeth was accepted (Lindberg, 2013). After completing her work at Geneva, she began her search for an occupation. She found a place in Paris called La Maternité, where women birthed babies. She apprenticed there for a few months but when her eye was infected, she was forced to quit. About a year after the challenge with her eye, she was invited by a hospital in London to study there. As she studied, she became more interested in finding new ways to treat illness and disease (Binns,