Summary

In the book’s brief prologue, the author narrates the dedication of a New York City building to Elizabeth Blackwell, the first female medical doctor in the United States. The dedication took place in May of 2018. Elizabeth became a doctor in 1849. In 1857, in the same building that was dedicated, Elizabeth and her younger sister Emily (who became a doctor in 1954) opened a school dedicated to training women to be doctors. The author notes that Elizabeth first chose medicine as a career path because she wanted to prove that women could do anything as well as men.

Chapter 1 is entitled “Bristol—New York—Cincinnati.” Elizabeth Blackwell was born in 1821 and raised in Bristol England, alongside multiple brothers and sisters. Her parents—Samuel and Hannah—were staunch idealists in various ways, such as being vocal antislavery activists. Ironically, Samuel made his living in the sugar...