Quote by Elizabeth Blackwell: “The idea of winning a doctor's degree gradually assumed the aspect of a great moral struggle.”

What began as a professional goal became something larger — a confrontation with a system designed to exclude her. Blackwell shows how personal ambition can expand into a fight for principle when institutions make entry into a field a battle against injustice rather than just a challenge of skill.

Blackwell wrote her autobiography Pioneer Work in Opening the Medical Profession to Women in 1895. The American women's suffrage movement was gaining momentum and women were slowly forcing open professions that had been entirely closed to them through formal and informal exclusion.

British-American physician who became the first woman to receive a medical degree in the United States, graduating from Geneva Medical College in 1849. She co-founded the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children and was a pioneering advocate for women in medicine.