1st Woman Doctor In US Honored At West Village Hospital She Ran

GREENWICH VILLAGE, NY — The first U.S. hospital to be staffed and run by women was recognized on Monday with a small plaque on the Greenwich Village building where it opened 161 years ago.

The New York Infirmary for Women and Children, which opened in 1857 at 58 Bleecker St., was a groundbreaking medical center staffed and run by women that provide healthcare to poor women and children completely free of charge. The Infirmary eventually evolved into the country's first medical college for women.

At the heart of this pioneering work for 19th century women in medicine was Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman to receive a medical degree in the U.S. Blackwell's lifetime of work, which helped pave the way for women physicians after her and provided critical care to the poor women and children of New York City, was recognized by the Greenwich Village Society for Historical Preservation on Monday, which cemented her hospital's legacy with a plaque.

Historians, physicians and even a great, great niece of Blackwell joined the GVSHP to mark her legacy.

"Blackwell transformed medicine, its practice, its standards of education and how it was taught," said Betty Bayer, a professor of women's studies at Hobart and William Smith Colleges. "She was an extraordinary visionary thinker and practitioner. To her, throwing open the door of medicine for women was as much about women entering this world as about bringing the "world of science to woman" - bringing woman into the "wonderful universe around her." That's the story still being worked out today."

Blackwell received her medical degree from Geneva College, which today is Hobart and William Smith Colleges, where she graduated first in her class after being rejected from dozens of medical schools that refused to accept her.

After struggling to find work in New York City hospitals, Blackwell decided to found her own, and bought the brick house at Bleecker and Crosby streets, according to historians. There, she opened the Infirmary, and eventually an accompanying medical school. The Infirmary ultimately became part of the New York-Presbyterian Lower Manhattan Hospital.

"She carved the pathway for our female trainees, our women physician chiefs and chairs and generations of women physicians," Dr. Judy Tung, the chair of the department of medicine at New York-Presbyterian Lower Manhattan Hospital, said in a statement. "She is the reason why I am privileged to be here today. "

The building where Blackwell opened her hospital is today an apartment building and, on the ground floor, home to the Bleecker Street Bar.

Image credit: Courtesy of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation