T
 

Dr. EHzabeth Blackwell on
Florence Nightingale

THOAIAS P. FLEiVIING
 

■ NjHE Columbia University Libraries are in possession of
an important collection of 149 autographed letters writ¬
ten by Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, 1821-1910, to .Madame
Barbara Bodichon, 18 2 7-1891. The collection is enhanced by three
autographed letters to Dr. Blackwell from her sister. Dr. Emily
Blackwell, and one autographed letter from A'liss Bessie Parkes to
AJadame Bodichon relating to Elizabeth. The letters range in date
from 1850 to 1884.

Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell was born in Bristol, F'.ngland, emigrated
to New York in 183 2, and studied medicine in Geneva, New York,
from 1847 to 1849, where she received the first doctorate in medi¬
cine awarded to a woman. After continuing her studies in F.ngland
and on the continent, she came back to New York City wJiere she
established a dispensary in 1851. She went to London and the
continent in 1858, but in the following year returned to New York
where she established a woman's hospital and medical school,
staffed entirely by women. She completed her professional career
in England where she started her medical practice in 1869.

AJadame Bodiclion, nee Barbara Leigh Smith, an F'nglish edu¬
cationalist and feminist, was a close friend of both Elizabeth and
Emily Blackwell and was one of those who helped finance Dr.
Blackwell's work in America. The letters deal with Eizabeth's
career, her personal and financial struggles, her thoughts on medi¬
cal education and nursing, and comments on books and on per¬
sonalities of the day, particularly Florence Nightingale. Since she
was present in New York during the period of the ^^'ar between
the States, her comments on the progress of the war, the abolition-