In 1849 Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman in the United States — and in the modern world — to earn a medical degree. Her sister Emily received her M.D. in 1854, and the two women lobbied for women's hospitals and greater access to professional medical education for women. In an 1864 address Elizabeth Blackwell describes the opposition she met in her ques to practice medicine and reflects on the progress women have made in the field since then:

Let us then take up the main question, and that we may realize that the practice or medicine by women is a growing influence, and cannot be overlooked, allow me to state a few facts drawn from personal experience.

In 1845 when I resolved to become a physician, six eminent physicians, in different parts of the country were written to] for advice They all united dissuading me, stating...