the doctors blackwell by janice p nimura

Instead, they emerge as spiky, complicated human beings, who strove and stumbled toward an extraordinary achievement, and then had to learn what to do with it.” “ richly detailed and propulsive biography….Nimura doesn’t strain to fit the sisters into the narrow shape allowed to feminist pioneers, as either virtuous role models or “badass” rebels against society. –Jennifer Szalai, New York Times( read full review) The Doctors Blackwell also opens up a sense of possibility - you don’t always have to mean well on all fronts in order to do a lot of good.” “Enthralling…Nimura, by digging into deeds and their lives, finds those discrepancies and idiosyncrasies that yield a memorable portrait. As Elizabeth predicted, “a hundred years hence, women will not be what they are now.” Reviews

This major new biography celebrates two complicated pioneers who exploded the limits of possibility. They prevailed against fierce resistance from the male establishment, moving among Britain, France, and America during a tumultuous time of scientific discovery and civil war.

Together they founded the first hospital staffed entirely by women, in New York City.īoth sisters were tenacious and visionary, but their convictions did not always align with the emergence of women’s rights―or with each other. Her achievement made her an icon―“I am convinced that a new & nobler era is dawning, for Medicine,” she wrote―but her sister Emily, eternally eclipsed, was the more brilliant physician. The world recoiled at the notion of a woman doctor, yet Elizabeth Blackwell persisted―in 1849, she became the first woman in America to receive an MD. Nimura has resurrected Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell in all their feisty, thrilling, trailblazing splendor.”―Stacy Schiff

The doctors blackwell by janice p nimura