Elizabeth Blackwell was perhapse always destined to break the unwirtten laws that kept women in their place. Born into a loving and radiaclly progressive (for the era) family, she was a staunch abolisionist and supporter of the womens' rights movement. She was also comfortably middle-class, living a life of financial security that allowed her to persue her passions as she pleased. She might have lived her whole life in relative ease were it not for the words of a dying friend which set her on an unprecedented trajectory.

At the age of 24 Blackwell became determined to become a liscensed medical doctor. But, it was the year 1845, and the notion of a woman practicing medicine was a presumed impossibility of the era.