Business Daily, August 10, 1999 By Laura Diggs Joyner Elizabeth
Blackwell had been accepted to Geneva (N.Y.) Medical College ,
or so she thought. Male students turned their backs on her. The
assistant professor of anatomy wouldn’t allow her in class. She
couldn’t find living space, because apartment managers refused
to rent to her, believing in 1847 that only a "mad or bad" woman
would try to become a doctor. Blackwell (1821-1910) refused to
get discouraged. Ever since she’d visited a fatally ill friend
of her mother several years earlier, she’s been determined to
become a doctor. "(The woman) said to me that she knew a woman
doctor would have known what to do to save her," Blackwell said
later. "That gave me pause. Becoming a doctor wasn’t exactly
what I had in mind. After watching her suffer so badly, I knew
someone must step forward and make a difference." But how would
Blackwell become a doctor? No woman had ever been admitted to
medical school anywhere. If she were admitted, how could she
afford to take