Civil War Women Blog

Annie Burton

2012-02-23T18:36:00.000-05:00

Black History Month Biography

From Slave to Businesswoman in the Civil War Era

Annie Louise Burton was born a slave in Clayton, Alabama in 1858. She was the daughter of a woman named Nancy, the cook of Mr. and Mrs. William Farrin whose plantation was near Clayton. Annie's father, a white man born in Liverpool, England, owned a plantation that was a long walk from the Farrin plantation. Annie grew up during the Civil War and remembered fondly her early days on the plantation.

Excerpt, Memories of Childhood's Slavery Days:

On the plantation there were ten white children and fourteen colored children. Our days were spent roaming about from plantation to plantation, not knowing or caring what things were going on in the great world outside our little realm. Planting time and harvest time were happy days for us. How often at the harvest time the planters discovered cornstalks missing from the ends of the rows, and blamed the crows! We were called the "little fairy devils." To the sweet potatoes and peanuts and sugar cane we also helped ourselves.

Annie's mother ran away, after which Annie was raised by her mistress.
Excerpt, Memories of Childhood's Slavery Days:

My mother and my mistress were children together, and grew up to be mothers together. My mother was the cook in my mistress's household. One morning when master had gone to Eufaula, my mother and my mistress got into an argument, the consequence of which was that my mother was whipped, for the first time in her life. Whereupon, my mother refused to do any more work, and ran away from the plantation.

Annie was a teenager when Union troops liberated her and her siblings.
Excerpt, Memories of Childhood's Slavery Days:

One morning in April 1865, my master got the news that the Yankees had left Mobile Bay and crossed the Confederate lines, and that the Emancipation Proclamation had been signed by President Lincoln. Mistress suggested that the slaves should not be told of their freedom; but master said he would tell them, because they would soon find it out, even if he did not tell them. Mistress, however, said she could keep my mother's three children, for my mother had now been gone so long.

Annie's mother returned for her children after the Civil War was over.
Excerpt, Memories of Childhood's Slavery Days:

My mother came for us at the end of the year 1865, and demanded that her children be given up to her. This, mistress refused to do, and threatened to set the dogs on my mother if she did not at once leave the place. My mother went away, and remained with some of the neighbors until supper time. Then she got a boy to tell Caroline [Annie's sister] to come down to the fence. When she came, my mother told her to go back and get Henry and myself and bring us down to the gap in the fence as quick as she could.

Then my mother took Henry in her arms, and my sister carried me on her back. We climbed fences and crossed fields, and after several hours came to a little hut which my mother had secured on a plantation. We had no more than reached the place, and made a little fire, when master's two sons rode up and demanded that the children be returned. My mother refused to give us up. Upon her offering to go with them to the Yankee headquarters to find out if it were really true that all Negroes had been made free, the young men left, and troubled us no more.

The times changed from slavery days to freedom's days. As young as I was, my thoughts were mystified to see such wonderful changes; yet I did not know the meaning of these changing days. But days glided by, and in my mystified way I could see and hear many strange things. I would see my master and mistress in close conversation and they seemed anxious about something that I, a child, could not know the meaning of. But as weeks went by, I began to understand.

I saw all the slaves one by one disappearing from the plantation (for night and day they kept going) until there was not one to be seen. All around the plantation was left barren. Day after day I could run down to the gate and see down the road troops and troops of Garrison's Brigade, and in the midst of them gangs and gangs of Negro slaves who joined with the soldiers, shouting, dancing and clapping their hands.

The war was ended, and from Mobile Bay to Clayton, Alabama, all along the road, on all the plantations, the slaves thought that if they joined the Yankee soldiers they would be perfectly safe. As I looked on these I did not know what it meant, for I had never seen such a circus. The Yankee soldiers found that they had such an army of men and women and children, that they had to build tents and feed them to keep them from starving.

Annie was hired as a nanny by Mrs. E. M. Williams.
Excerpt, Memories of Childhood's Slavery Days:

In 1866, another man hired the plantation on which our hut stood, and we moved into Clayton, to a little house my mother secured there. A rich lady came to our house one day, looking for some one to take care of her little daughter. I was taken, and adopted into this family. This rich lady was Mrs. E. M. Williams, a music teacher, the wife of a lawyer. We called her "Mis' Mary."

Some rich people in Clayton who had owned slaves, opened the Methodist church on Sundays, and began the work of teaching the Negroes. My new mistress sent me to Sunday school every Sunday morning, and I soon got so that I could read. Mis' Mary taught me every day at her knee. I soon could read nicely, and went through Sterling's Second Reader, and then into McGuthrie's Third Reader.

After this Mis' Mary kept on with my studies, and taught me to write. As I grew older, she taught me to cook and how to do housework. During this time Mis' Mary had given my mother one dollar a month in return for my services; now as I grew up to young womanhood, I thought I would like a little money of my own. Accordingly, Mis' Mary began to pay me four dollars a month, besides giving me my board and clothes. For two summers she "let me out" while she was away, and I got five dollars a month.

I owe a great deal to Mis' Mary for her good training of me, in honesty, uprightness and truthfulness. She told me that when I went out into the world all white folks would not treat me as she had, but that I must not feel bad about it, but just do what I was employed to do, and if I wasn't satisfied, to go elsewhere; but always to carry an honest name.

In 1879 Annie moved to Boston, Massachusetts where she supported herself as a domestic servant (cook, maid, housekeeper and laundress). Excerpt, Memories of Childhood's Slavery Days:

One day...I chanced to pick up a newspaper, and read the advertisement of a Northern family for a cook to go to Boston. I went at once to the address given, and made agreement to take the place, but told the people that I could not leave my present position until Mr. Inman [her employer] returned home. Mr. and Mrs. Inman did not want to let me go, but I made up my mind to go North. About the 15th of June 1879, I arrived at the Old Colony Station in Boston, and had my first glimpse of the country I had heard so much about.

In fall 1884, Annie returned South after her sister died, leaving behind a son who would have become an orphan were it not for his aunt Annie.
Excerpt, Memories of Childhood's Slavery Days:

On the 6th of July [1884] I received word that my sister Caroline had died in June. This was a great blow to me... I wrote home to Georgia, to the white people who owned the house in which Caroline had lived, asking them to take care of her boy Lawrence until I should come in October.

Mrs. Reed [Annie's current employer] wanted me to stay with her, and promised to help pay for the care of the boy in Georgia. Of course, she said, I could not expect to find positions if I had a child with me. As an inducement to remain in my present place and leave the boy in Georgia, I was promised provision for my future days, as long as I should live.

It did not take me long to decide what I should do. The last time I had seen my sister, a little over a year before she died, she had said, when I was leaving, "I don't expect ever to see you again, but if I die I shall rest peacefully in my grave, because I know you will take care of my child."

...I took a carriage and drove at once to the house where Lawrence was being taken care of. He was playing in the yard, and when he saw me leave the carriage he ran and threw his arms around my neck and cried for joy.

After leaving Georgia, Annie decided to go to Jacksonville, Florida, thinking the northern winter would be too severe for Lawrence.
Excerpt, Memories of Childhood's Slavery Days:

The next morning we got into Jacksonville. My idea was to get a place as chambermaid at Green Cove Springs, Florida, through the influence of the head waiter at a hotel there, whom I knew. After I got into Jacksonville I changed my plans. I did not see how I could move my things any farther, and we went to a hotel for colored people, hired a room for two dollars, and boarded ourselves on the food which had been given us in Macon. This food lasted about two weeks. Then I had to buy, and my money was going every day, and none coming in. I did not know what to do.

One night the idea of keeping a restaurant came to me, and I decided to get a little home for the three of us [her younger sister was there, as well], and then see what I could do in this line of business. After a long and hard search, I found a little house of two rooms where we could live, and the next day I found a place to start my restaurant.

Trade at the restaurant was very good, and we got along nicely. My sister got a position as nurse for fifteen dollars a month. One day the cook from a shipwrecked vessel came to my restaurant, and in return for his board and a bed in the place, agreed to do my cooking.

After trade became good, I changed my residence to a house of four rooms, and put three cheap cots in each of two of the rooms, and let the cots at a dollar a week apiece to colored men who worked nearby in hotels. Lawrence and I did the chamber work at night, after the day's work in the restaurant.

I introduced "Boston baked beans" into my restaurant, much to the amusement of the people at first; but after they had once eaten them it was hard to meet the demand for beans. Lawrence, who was now about eleven years old, was a great help to me. He took out dinners to the cigarmakers in a factory nearby.

At the end of the season, about four months, it had grown so hot that we could stay in Jacksonville no longer. From my restaurant and my lodgers I cleared one hundred and seventy-five dollars...

Annie boasted that she was able to support her nephew Lawrence all the way through his studies at Hampton Institute in Virginia. She was able to do this largely because of her success as a restaurateur, first in Jacksonville, Florida, and later in Boston.

In 1888, Annie married Samuel Burton.
Excerpt, Memories of Childhood's Slavery Days:

After my marriage, Mr. Burton got a place in Braintree [Massachusetts] as valet to an old gentleman who was slightly demented, and he could not be satisfied until I joined him. So I put our things into storage and went to Braintree. I remained there ten months, and then came back to Boston. Then I got a position as head matron in the help's dining-room in a hotel at Watch Hill, RI. My husband was also there as waiter. At the end of the season we both came home, and rented a lodging-house, and lost money on it.

Always intent on bettering herself, in 1900 Annie Burton began taking classes at the Franklin Evening School, where she studied for six years. The headmaster, Frank Guild, suggested that each of the students write their life story.

Soon thereafter Annie began work on the two essays that make up the bulk of her autobiography, Memories of Childhood's Slavery Days, which was published in 1909. The book also contains a short biography of Abraham Lincoln, along with Burton's favorite poems and hymns.

SOURCES
Annie Louise Burton
African American Women Writers of the 19th Century
Documenting the American South: Memories of Childhood's Slavery Days

Cynthia Ann Parker

2012-02-16T08:05:00.000-05:00

Indian Captive in the Civil War Era

Cynthia Ann Parker (circa 1825-1870) was an American woman who was kidnapped and adopted by the Comanche at the age of nine, and lived with them for 24 years. She married chief Peta Nocona and had three children with him, including Quanah Parker, the last free roaming chief of the Comanches. She was "rescued" at age 34, by the Texas Rangers, and spent the remaining years of her life refusing to adjust to life in white society. Heartbroken over the loss of her family, she stopped eating and died in 1870.

Cynthia Ann Parker after being
returned to the Parker family

Childhood
Cynthia Ann Parker was born circa 1825 to Lucy (Duty) and Silas Parker in Crawford County, Illinois. When she was nine years old, her paternal grandfather John Parker was recruited to settle his family in north-central Texas; he was to establish a fortified settlement against Comanche raids which had been devastating to the colonization of Texas and northern Mexico for generations.

As protection from the Native Americans of the area, the new settlers built a log fort with 12 foot walls around their community on the headwaters of the Navasota River. It was completed in March 1834, and became known as Fort Parker. Blockhouses were placed on two corners, and six cabins were attached to the inside walls. Most of the residents of the fort were part of the extended family of John and Sarah Parker.

On May 19, 1836, Fort Parker was attacked by several hundred Comanche, Caddo and Kiowa warriors, who killed men, women and children caught in the open and on the roads. The Indians attacked the fort and quickly overpowered the outnumbered defenders. Cynthia watched as the women were raped and killed, the babies smashed onto rocks, the adolescent boys murdered and the men tortured and killed.

During the raid the Comanches seized five captives, including Cynthia Ann Parker. Texans quickly mounted a rescue force. During their pursuit of the Indians one of the captives escaped. Within six years, the other captives had been returned to their white families, but Cynthia Ann remained with the Comanches for twenty-four years.

Although she was beaten and abused at first, she was soon integrated into the tribe. She was given to a Tenowish Comanche couple who raised her like their own daughter, and was totally devoted to her adopted parents. She was trained in Comanche ways, took the name Naduah (she carries herself with grace), and became fully integrated into Comanche society.

Cynthia Ann married Peta Nocona, a young chief who gained fame for his many violent raids on white settlements in the territory. While it was customary for prominent Comanche warriors to take several wives, Peta took no wife except Cynthia Ann - a mark of extraordinary devotion and honor. They had three children: sons Quanah and Pecos and daughter Topsannah.

Cynthia Ann Parker became the most famous white captive in the history of the Western frontier. Sightings of her over the years tantalized the public and kept alive relatives' hopes she might one day be rescued. Indian agent Leonard Williams saw Cynthia Ann in 1846 and offered 12 mules and two mule loads of merchandise for her but stated the Indians "say they will die rather than give her up."

Indian commissioners Pierce M. Butler and M.G. Lewis reported that either "from the influence of her husband or from her own inclination, she is unwilling to leave the people with whom she associates," and that "she would run off and hide herself to avoid those who went to ransom her."

But while Cynthia Ann may have been contented with her new life and family, the very thought she could happily exist as a Comanche "squaw" rankled white settlers on the Texas frontier. The fact the Indians could take a white woman and force her into "a fate worse than death," and that she would not care to return to white society was incredible to them.

On November 27, 1860 Cynthia Ann, Chief Peta Nocona and his warriors entered Parker County, Texas, which was named after Cynthia Ann's family. Almost everyone in Comanche society, including women and children, participated in the accompanying ceremonial dances. Women also helped manage the camps and carry away spoils.

Chief Nocona and his warriors carried out several raids on local white settlements, but it is not clear if Cynthia Ann knew the land belonged to her relatives. They attacked three ranches, stole over 300 horses and violated several women. When they were finished, Nocona and his band hid in a bluff near the Pease River.

Captain Lawrence Sullivan Ross of the Texas Rangers organized a posse of over 140 volunteers seeking revenge. On December 18, 1860, they tracked the natives to their hideout, surprised them and dominated them in the ensuing fight. There were few warriors left in the camp, and Cynthia Ann's two sons escaped unharmed.

Cynthia Ann was trying to escape on horseback with her daughter Topsannah, but Ross captured her. It was a shock to discover that the woman dressed in deerskin and moccasins had blue eyes. The Rangers took their two captives to Camp Cooper, where Cynthia Ann tried to communicate with her captors using Comanche and some English.

This gave credence to the theory that she could be the Silas Parker's daughter who had been kidnapped more than two decades ago. Captain Ross sent for her uncle, Isaac Parker, to see if he could identify her. When Cynthia overheard her name being used in the conversation, she patted herself on the chest and said, "Me Cincee Ann." That admission clinched her fate.

For Cynthia Ann it was not a triumphal return. She pleaded to be allowed to return to her Comanche family, but her Uncle Isaac wanted to take her to live with his family at Birdsville. She agreed to go with her uncle on the condition that military interpreter Horace Jones would send along her sons if they were found.

While traveling through Fort Worth Cynthia Ann was photographed with her daughter Topsannah (Prairie Flower). In the picture Cynthia Ann's hair was cut short - the Comanche sign of mourning. She thought that her husband Peta Nocona was dead and feared that she would never see her two sons again.

Cynthia Ann became a celebrity, but the fuss and ceremony only frightened her, and she had difficulty understanding the iconic status the nation had thrust upon her. There were many newspaper accounts of her return, all of which were obsessed with the idea that a white girl from a devout Baptist family had been transformed into a pagan savage.

A sympathetic Texas Legislature tried to compensate for her loss with a pension of $100 a year for five years and a league (about seven square miles) of land, but nothing could appease the grief she felt for leaving her husband and sons behind. She had been kidnapped and forced to live among people not of her choosing for the second time in her life.

Cynthia Ann's brother took responsibility for his sister and niece, moving them into his house, where Cynthia Ann eventually had to be locked up to prevent her from escaping. They stayed there until the Civil War began and he left to join the Confederate Army.

They then went to live with her sister, where Cynthia Ann led a productive life, learning to weave, spin wool and sew. Neighbors brought hides for her to tan, and she created home remedies from local plants and herbs. She learned to speak English again and was beginning to become literate.

However, Cynthia Ann was never fully reconciled to living in white society and never saw her Comanche family again. The time and place of Chief Peta Nocona's death is in dispute, but she never saw her husband again. In 1863, she received word that her son Pecos had died of small pox. One year later, Topsannah died of pneumonia.

Cynthia Ann became desperate to be reunited with her son Quanah, but the Parker family refused to allow it. At least once she escaped, but was caught and brought back to Texas. This seemed to be the final blow for Cynthia Ann. She fell into a deep depression. Her despondency isolated her and she often refused to eat.

Cynthia Ann Parker Nocona died in 1870, and was buried in Fosterville Cemetery in Anderson County, Texas.

Comanche Chief Quanah Parker
Last Comanche chief and son of
Indian captive Cynthia Ann Parker

Cynthia Ann died never knowing that her oldest son, who called himself Quanah Parker, had become a chief of the Comanche tribe. Unusually tall and athletic for the usually diminutive Comanche, Quanah earned his reputation in a number of daring raids. His greatest victory came in 1871 when he outwitted a government force of 600 soldiers, successfully attacking their camp at night while leading an entire village to safety.

But by the mid-1870s life was becoming impossible for the nomadic Comanche, and in 1875 Quanah Parker, the last free roaming Comanche chief, surrendered at Fort Sill and was told that his mother had died five years earlier.

In his remaining years he enjoyed a certain celebrity and became a successful cattle rancher as the remains of the once proud Comanche empire collapsed around him.

In 1910 Quanah Parker moved his mother's body to the Post Oak Cemetery near Cache, Oklahoma. When he died in 1911 he was buried next to his mother. Cynthia Ann and Quanah Parker's remains were moved in 1957 to the Fort Sill Post Cemetery at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.

SOURCES
Cynthia Ann Parker
Wikipedia: Cynthia Ann Parker
Forgotten Newsmakers: Cynthia Ann Parker
Nocona's Raid and Cynthia Ann Parker's Recapture

Emily Blackwell

2012-02-07T17:16:00.000-05:00

Female Doctor and Educator in the Civil War Era

Emily Blackwell (1826–1910), physician and educator, was the second woman to earn a medical degree at what is now Case Western Reserve University, and the third woman to earn a medical degree in the United States. Dr. Blackwell, with her sister Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell and their colleague Dr. Marie Zakrzewska, established the New York Infirmary for Women and Children, the first hospital for women and children in the United States.

Childhood
Emily Blackwell was born on October 8, 1826, the sixth of nine surviving children born to Samuel and Hannah Lane Blackwell in the seaport of Bristol, England. There Samuel prospered as the owner of a sugar refinery, which provided a comfortable existence for his large, close-knit family.

Both Samuel and his wife had fairly liberal views toward education. During an era when girls were expected to master only the subjects that prepared them to be good wives and mothers, the Blackwells saw to it that their daughters as well as their sons studied mathematics, science, literature and foreign languages.

Emily especially liked to roam the fields around Bristol, observing plant and animal life. This provided the foundation for her subsequent passion for botany and ornithology. Emily became an amateur expert on the subject of birds and flowers, mostly through extensive reading and observations made near the family home.

In 1832, an economic downturn in England all but destroyed Samuel's business. He and Hannah decided to make a fresh start in the United States. The family at first lived in New York City, where Samuel opened a sugar refinery. Within a year or so they moved across the Hudson River to Jersey City, New Jersey.

There they quickly became involved in the growing antislavery movement. Over the years family members developed close friendships with some of the country's most prominent abolitionists, including journalist and reformer William Lloyd Garrison, clergyman Lyman Beecher, his son Henry Ward Beecher and his daughter Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin.

Fire destroyed Samuel's sugar refinery in 1836, leaving the Blackwells deeply in debt. Two years later, Samuel moved his family to Cincinnati, Ohio, where he hoped to start a refinery operation that made use of sugar beets instead of cane sugar. But his health worsened, and he died in August 1838.

Once again, the Blackwells found themselves in dire straits. But by 1845, they had paid off most of their debts, freeing Elizabeth to pursue her goal of becoming a doctor. After applying to and receiving rejections from 28 different medical schools, she was finally accepted by Geneva Medical College in Geneva, New York in 1847.

Meanwhile, Emily was struggling to find her own way in life. Bookish and painfully shy, she led a quiet, solitary existence of work and study that masked her growing sense of frustration and unhappiness. She desperately wanted to follow in her sister's footsteps and enter the medical field but was plagued by self-doubt.

Instead, she tried teaching and found that she thoroughly detested it. As she confided to her diary around this time, according to writer Ishbel Ross in the book Child of Destiny:

I long with such an intense longing for freedom, action, for life and truth. I feel as though a mountain were on me, as though I were bound with invisible fetters. I am full of furious bitterness at the constraint and littleness of the life that I must lead...

Elizabeth Blackwell graduated from medical school at the head of her class in 1849, the first woman to earn a medical degree in the U.S. or Europe. After some additional study in Europe, she returned to the United States in 1851 and established a private clinic in New York City. A hard act to follow, but Emily was more determined than ever to become a doctor too.

Medical School
The fact that her famous sister had forged a path into medicine before her did not make Emily's entry into the profession any easier. Her application for admission was eventually rejected by twelve medical schools simply because she was a woman - including Geneva Medical College, her sister's alma mater.

However, Emily Blackwell was not deterred. In 1852 she was finally accepted at Rush Medical College in Chicago. During the summer before classes began, she lived with Elizabeth in Jersey City and obtained visiting privileges at Bellevue Hospital in New York City, where she was able to gain valuable experience just walking the wards.

However, when the trustees at Rush came under pressure by the Illinois state medical board to expel Emily because of her gender, they discontinued her studies at the end of her first year. But she persevered and was finally accepted at the Western Reserve University medical school in Cleveland, Ohio, where she earned her medical degree in 1854, becoming the second woman to earn an M.D. degree at that school and the third woman to earn a medical degree in the United States.

At Western Reserve, the medical education of women had begun at the urging of Dean John Delamater, who was backed by the Ohio Female Medical Education Society, formed in 1852 to provide moral and financial support for women medical students. Despite their efforts, the Western Reserve faculty voted to put an end to Delamater's policies in 1856, finding it "inexpedient" to continue admitting women.

After graduating with the highest honors, Emily went to Europe for two years to do postgraduate work in England, France and Germany. First, she went to Edinburgh, Scotland, to study obstetrics and gynecology for a year with Sir James Young Simpson. She so impressed him that he recommended her to several of Europe's most important clinics. Simpson noted in a letter that he had rarely met a young physician as well versed in literature, science and medical practice.

Medical Career
In 1856 Dr. Emily Blackwell returned to New York City where her sister Elizabeth was still fighting to gain acceptance among her fellow physicians and potential patients, most of whom looked upon female doctors with a great deal of suspicion, if not outright hostility.

Elizabeth had established a dispensary to treat poor women and children, but her ultimate dream was to expand it into a full-fledged hospital where women could consult a doctor of their own sex about female health problems and where training was available for women interested in becoming doctors.

In 1857 the Blackwell sisters, along with another Western Reserve graduate Dr. Marie Zakrzewska, established the New York Infirmary for Women and Children in a poor neighborhood that was home to a large immigrant population of Germans, Italians and Slavs. It was the first hospital dedicated to serving women and children in the United States and the first hospital staffed entirely by women.

The doctors worked diligently to maintain the highest medical standards while quietly overcoming the prejudices and fears of those they had vowed to serve as well as those who were keeping a close eye on their project. Before long, other women with an interest in medicine were coming to the infirmary to work as interns, nurses and pharmacists.

While Elizabeth served as the director and Dr. Zakrzewska was the resident physician, Emily devoted herself entirely to patient care. By all accounts, she was an excellent physician and surgeon. Emily also performed surgery, because her sister's vision had been badly damaged by an eye infection. Patients were charged according to their ability to pay; four dollars a week if they could afford it, less if they could not. The most destitute paid nothing at all.

Emily also proved to be an able administrator and fundraiser. In 1858, the elder Dr. Blackwell went to Europe for a year and Zakrzewska moved to Boston, leaving Emily to run the Infirmary. During this time she was successful in getting state funding for their hospital, and the number of patients increased to the point where the operation had to move to larger quarters in 1860.

After Elizabeth's return, the sisters also expanded the scope of their efforts by launching the first in-home medical social work program in the United States, visiting the poor where they lived to offer basic health care and lessons in proper sanitation.

In 1859, after a brief tour in England to campaign for the medical education of women, Blackwell raised $50,000 toward starting a medical school. In 1860 the Infirmary began to train a few young women as assistant physicians. Since established hospitals would not allow female doctors onto the wards, the Infirmary was almost the only place female physicians in training could get any practical experience.

And when the Civil War erupted in 1861, Dr. Emily Blackwell helped organize the Women's Central Association of Relief, which recruited and trained women who had volunteered to serve as nurses for the Union army. She and Mary Livermore also played an important role in the development of the United States Sanitary Commission.

After the war ended, the Blackwells attempted to convince medical schools to admit women who had had some training at the Infirmary. In 1868, when it became clear that would not happen, the Blackwell sisters established the Women's Medical College for the education of female physicians in New York City. Elizabeth was professor of hygiene, while Emily taught obstetrics and women's diseases.

In 1869, Elizabeth moved back to England permanently to continue the work she had begun there a decade earlier. Emily then took charge of both the infirmary and the school, serving not only as a physician but also as dean of the college for the next thirty years. In 1871, she accepted membership in the New York County Medical Society.

During the 1870s, having finally gained confidence in her abilities as both a physician and a hospital administrator, Dr. Blackwell became more visibly active in the growing social reform movement. In that role, she tackled issues such as prostitution, sex education and alcohol abuse.

During that time, Dr. Blackwell also managed the infirmary - overseeing surgery, nursing and bookkeeping. She traveled to the state capital of Albany to convince the legislature to provide the hospital with funds that would ensure long-term financial stability. She transformed an institution housed in a rented, sixteen-room house into a fully fledged hospital. By 1874 the infirmary was serving over 7,000 patients annually.

The Women's Medical College quickly rose to the front rank of America's medical institutions. Known for its exceptionally high standards among medical schools in general, the college expanded from a two-year program to a three-year institution in 1876, and Dr. Blackwell moved the school into more spacious quarters.

In 1893 it became the first four-year medical program in the nation. Many male medical schools at the time were still offering only two years of study. A year later, a comprehensive training course for nurses was established.

In 1899, after Cornell University Medical College began accepting female students on an equal basis with men, Dr. Blackwell arranged for the transfer of her students to Cornell. During its thirty-one year existence, the Women's Medical College trained 364 women doctors.

Later Years
Dr. Emily Blackwell then retired from the college and practice of medicine and left the New York Infirmary for Women and Children in the hands of its very capable staff. Some 150 years after its founding, the facility continues to operate as the NYU Downtown Hospital.

Since 1883, Dr. Blackwell had been living with her partner Dr. Elizabeth Cushier, another doctor at the Infirmary. In 1900 at the age of 74, Blackwell traveled with Cushier in Europe for eighteen months. Blackwell then divided her time between her winter home in Montclair, New Jersey, and a summer cottage in York Cliffs, Maine, both of which she shared with Dr. Cushier.

Emily saw her sister Elizabeth one last time during the summer of 1906 when Elizabeth visited the United States. The following year, the elder Blackwell fell down a flight of stairs while vacationing in Scotland; she never fully recovered from the accident and suffered a stroke in May 1910.

Emily Blackwell survived only a few months longer, dying of enterocolitis (inflammation of the small and large intestines) on September 7, 1910 at her summer home in York Cliffs, Maine.

By carrying on the work she and her sister Elizabeth had begun together, Dr. Emily Blackwell helped pave the way for countless other women who were interested in pursuing careers in medicine. Those who knew her described her as a superb practitioner and an inspirational teacher. The high standards Blackwell set for herself and her students were in large part responsible for opening the medical field to women and convincing a skeptical public to accept female physicians.

SOURCES
Wikipedia: Emily Blackwell
Gale Encyclopedia of Biography: Emily Blackwell
Changing the Face of Medicine: Dr. Emily Blackwell