In the 1840s, Elizabeth Blackwell was admitted to a U.S. medical school — in part because the male students thought her application was part of an elaborate prank. She persisted and got her degree, becoming the first American woman to do so.
Biographer Janice Nimura tells the sisters’ story in the new book, The Doctors Blackwell. Nimura says Elizabeth was “greeted with everything from rejection to hilarity” during her years at Geneva Medical College (later Hobart-William Smith) in upstate New York.
Learn about her story on the latest edition of Fresh Air on NPR…
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