Brown Bag Book Discussion

Mary Greenan will lead a discussion of Janice Nimura's book The Doctors Blackwell. Participants are encouraged (but not required) to read the book in advance. Ask for a copy at the library’s information desk.

In order to allow for social distancing, seating is limited. Please register to reserve your spot. 

From Kirkus Reviews:

In this riveting dual biography of America’s first female physicians, Nimura chronicles the lives and work of Elizabeth (1821-1910) and Emily (1826-1910) Blackwell, America’s first and third women to earn medical degrees. Nimura deftly weaves together a dramatic true story that reads like a work of historical fiction.

Bright and determined, the sisters received their hard-won medical degrees a few years apart. As different as they were alike, both sisters met seemingly insurmountable obstacles with inspiring displays of fortitude.

Refreshingly, the author does not portray these women as one-dimensional figures of women’s suffrage, which they resolutely were not. Instead, she describes how both sisters often viewed women without admiration or sisterly affection.

For example, she highlights how Elizabeth’s “own sympathies lay, to a surprising extent, with the men who were nonplussed by her presence [at medical school]” rather than the women she treated.

Peppered with appearances from Abraham Lincoln, Florence Nightingale, Susan B. Anthony, and other historic figures, the text is a vibrant landscape that affirms the prominent place of the Blackwell sisters in medical history.

Illustrating how they created and activated rich networks of supporters and sympathizers, both men and women, throughout their professional pursuits, Nimura is careful never to embellish one sister’s character at the expense of the other. As she clearly demonstrates, each possessed characteristic strengths and weaknesses in this compelling and vividly realized biography of triumph and trailblazing.