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Speaker 1: Hey y'all, we're rerunning two episodes today. Enjoy the show. Hi,

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Speaker 1: um Eves, Welcome to This Day in History Class, a

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Speaker 1: show that reveals a little bit more about history day

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Speaker 1: by day. The day was January eighteen forty nine. Elizabeth Blackwell,

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Speaker 1: an English immigrant and former school teacher, became the first

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Speaker 1: woman to get a medical degree from an American medical school.

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Speaker 1: As a person who wants it. She hated quote bodies

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Speaker 1: and everything about them. This was quite a reversal, But okay,

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Speaker 1: the transformation wasn't as black and white as I'm making

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Speaker 1: it seen. She had her reasons for becoming a doctor.

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Speaker 1: Let's start from the beginning in eight one. Elizabeth was

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Speaker 1: born in Bristol, England, to Hannah Lane and Samuel Blackwell.

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Speaker 1: And as it turns out, Alizabeth wasn't the only one

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Speaker 1: in her family who was full of contradictions. Her family

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Speaker 1: was Congregationalist, which is a Protestant faith. They were also

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Speaker 1: super liberal. No, that's not the contradiction. Many congregation lists

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Speaker 1: held socially liberal views. The thing was Elizabeth's family were

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Speaker 1: abolitionists and slave owners. Yep. Her father was a sugar

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Speaker 1: refiner who used slaves for labor. But clearly the irony

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Speaker 1: caught up with them. In thirty two, after the sugar

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Speaker 1: refinery burnt down and Papa Black Will felt the urge

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Speaker 1: to really pursue anti slavery efforts, Elizabeth, her parents, and

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Speaker 1: her four sisters and four brothers packed up and left

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Speaker 1: for the Land of Opportunity, and they really hit the

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Speaker 1: ground running. They moved from New York to Jersey City

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Speaker 1: to Cincinnati, all the while ramping up their abolitionist activities

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Speaker 1: and getting buddy buddy with big names in the movement

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Speaker 1: like William Lloyd Garrison. But their father died not long

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Speaker 1: after they got to Ohio, leaving the family poor. Elizabeth

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Speaker 1: and two of her sisters started a girls school and

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Speaker 1: expanded their activism to education access, while the oldest brothers

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Speaker 1: started working in the mayor's office. Just think about it.

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Speaker 1: In early nineteenth century America, the literacy rate for women

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Speaker 1: was way lower than men. Girls and women had just

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Speaker 1: started being accepted to public high schools and higher education institutions,

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Speaker 1: and non white girls and women were facing all sorts

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Speaker 1: of discrimination and oppression when it came to education. So

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Speaker 1: it makes sense that Elizabeth began advocating for women and

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Speaker 1: girls education too. But years later, after a stint teaching

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Speaker 1: in Kentucky, Elizabeth returned to Cincinnati with an urge to

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Speaker 1: do something different. At first, she was pretty averse to

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Speaker 1: studying medicine. A dying friend of hers was sure she

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Speaker 1: would have suffered a lot less had her doctor been

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Speaker 1: a woman. But even at the request of a dying friend,

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Speaker 1: our girl, Elizabeth said later in her autobiography that quote,

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Speaker 1: the very thought of dwelling on the physical structure of

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Speaker 1: the body and its various elements filled me with discussed. Fortunately,

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Speaker 1: Elizabeth switched up her tune and decided that doctor life

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Speaker 1: was for her. That's because one, she wouldn't have to

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Speaker 1: get married, because being a doctor and being a wife

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Speaker 1: were just two things that didn't work well together. Two,

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Speaker 1: she believes that if more women were doctors, the world

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Speaker 1: would be a better place. And three she could help

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Speaker 1: defy the stigma that female doctors were abortionists. There were

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Speaker 1: just a few tiny, okay big problems. Med school was

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Speaker 1: for dudes, and it cost a ton of money. So

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Speaker 1: while saving money through teaching jobs in North and South Carolina,

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Speaker 1: she studied under a couple of doctors. After she moved

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Speaker 1: to Philadelphia in eighteen forty seven and started applying to

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Speaker 1: medical colleges. People reacted pretty much how you'd expect them

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Speaker 1: to at a time when women weren't accepted in med school.

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Speaker 1: They taunted her, rejected her, and told her she needs

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Speaker 1: to go to Paris or at least Fortis. She was

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Speaker 1: a man. Well, the joke was on them. Elizabeth finally

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Speaker 1: received a pretty warm and welcoming letter of acceptance from

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Speaker 1: Geneva Medical College in New York, so in November eighteen

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Speaker 1: forty seven, she headed to Geneva to start her studies,

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Speaker 1: and when she got there she found out that they

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Speaker 1: thought her application was the joke. But her classmates and

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Speaker 1: teachers treated her pretty well, even though the town spoke

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Speaker 1: in Geneva metaphorically held their breath when she walked by,

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Speaker 1: but Elizabeth was resilient. After her first year at Geneva,

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Speaker 1: she went back to Philadelphia, where she worked with the

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Speaker 1: poor and Irish immigrants. When she went back to New

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Speaker 1: York for year two of her degree, she did her

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Speaker 1: thesis on Typhus, and in eighteen forty nine she became

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Speaker 1: doctor Elizabeth Blackwell. The rest of her years as a

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Speaker 1: doctor were no walk in the park. She studied medicine

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Speaker 1: and Metwifrey in London and Paris, but worked a lot,

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Speaker 1: and her dreams of becoming a surgeon ended when she

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Speaker 1: lost one of her eyes to an infection caused by gnarrhea.

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Speaker 1: She got that infection while you guessed it working, and

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Speaker 1: the idea of a woman doctor was so new and

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Speaker 1: detested by many that she struggled to get patients. But

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Speaker 1: it would be allied to say her challenges and detractors

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Speaker 1: got the upper hand. In eighteen fifty seven, she her sister,

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Speaker 1: Dr Emily Blackwell, and another doctor opened the New York

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Speaker 1: Infirmary for Women and Children. Later, she founded the Women's

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Speaker 1: Central Association and Relief to train women to be nurses

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Speaker 1: in the Civil War, and eventually the infirmary opened to

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Speaker 1: medical college. By the time she died in nineteen ten,

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Speaker 1: Dr Blackwell's work for women in higher education in medicine

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Speaker 1: far transcendent her title as the first woman to get

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Speaker 1: a medical degree in the United States. I'm Eve STEPF Coote,

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Speaker 1: and hopefully you know a little more about history today

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Speaker 1: than you did yesterday. You can subscribe to This Day

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Speaker 1: in History class on Apple Podcasts, the I Heart Radio app,

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Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks to Taylor Mays

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Speaker 1: for all his production help. We'll be back with more

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Speaker 1: history tomorrow. Hello history lovers, I'm and you're listening to

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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class, a show that uncovers history

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Speaker 1: one day at a time. The day was January fifty six.

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Speaker 1: A huge earthquake hit Shanshi Province in northern China. It's

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Speaker 1: believed to be the deadliest earthquake in recorded history. The

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Speaker 1: earthquake struck Shanshi and the neighboring province of Shansi early

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Speaker 1: that morning. The pronunciations of those two provinces are very

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Speaker 1: similar and have slight tonal differences, so I'm probably getting

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Speaker 1: them wrong, but I'm gonna go with it. The earthquake

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Speaker 1: is estimated to have been a magnitude eight on the

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Speaker 1: moment magnitude scale. It's not the strongest earthquake ever recorded,

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Speaker 1: but it caused great destruction in the region. The area

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Speaker 1: where it hit was heavily populated and buildings were not

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Speaker 1: constructed with earthquakes in mind. The quake caused ground fissures, subsidence,

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Speaker 1: and landslides. It destroyed mountains, caused flooding, and caused fires.

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Speaker 1: Villages near the epicenter were completely destroyed. The disaster is

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Speaker 1: believed to have reduced the population of Shanshi and Shanshi

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Speaker 1: by around six The epicenter of the earthquake is recorded

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Speaker 1: as being in the Way River Valley in Shanshi Province,

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Speaker 1: near the cities of Hawassian, Way nine and Hawaiian, but

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Speaker 1: damage was recorded as much as three hundred miles or

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Speaker 1: five hundred kilometers away from the epicenter. In some places,

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Speaker 1: crevices as deep as sixty feet were carved out of

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Speaker 1: the earth, and estimated eight hundred and thirty thousand people

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Speaker 1: died in the disaster. That said this number could be

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Speaker 1: too high or too low. Monuments were also lost in

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Speaker 1: the disaster. The small wild Goose Pagoda, built around seven

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Speaker 1: oh nine, lost a round six feet in height. Many

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Speaker 1: of the artifacts in this steel forest in China were

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Speaker 1: damaged or destroyed, including works from a collection called the

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Speaker 1: Tong Stone Classics. The Tong Stone Classics are a group

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Speaker 1: of Chinese works that were engraved on fourteen stone tablets.

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Speaker 1: Dozens of those tablets were broken in the earthquake. After

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Speaker 1: shocks continued for half a year after the Shanshi earthquake.

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Speaker 1: Many survivors were injured in the disaster or had no shelter.

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Speaker 1: Many people in the region previously lived in Yao dong's,

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Speaker 1: a type of earth shelter carved out of a hillside.

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Speaker 1: Because the y'all dongs were made with soft less soil,

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Speaker 1: the people who lived in these homes were extremely vulnerable

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Speaker 1: to having their homes collapse on them. Because many of

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Speaker 1: those who died were killed by falling buildings, people began

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Speaker 1: to think about what they could do to prevent such

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Speaker 1: destruction from happening again. People considered the risk of earthquakes

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Speaker 1: in construction and used materials like bamboo and wood rather

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Speaker 1: than stone and buildings, and tips on how to act

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Speaker 1: during an earthquake, like staying inside and crouching down were recorded.

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Speaker 1: The fifteen fifty six shan Shei earthquake is ranked as

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Speaker 1: the third deadliest natural disaster ever, behind the nineteen thirty

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Speaker 1: one China floods and the eight seven Yellow River flood.

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Speaker 1: I'm Eve Jeff Coote, and hopefully you know a little

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Speaker 1: more about history today than you did yesterday. If you

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Speaker 1: have any insight on an accident or pronunciation spoken in

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Speaker 1: the show today, you can feel free to send us

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Speaker 1: a kind note on social media at t d I

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Speaker 1: h C Podcast. Our email address is this day at

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Speaker 1: I heart media dot com. Thanks for listening, and I

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Speaker 1: hope you'll be back tomorrow