PositiveColumbia MagazineOne part of the Blackwell story that’s well established is that Elizabeth was rejected from twenty-nine medical schools before she was accepted ... trading hagiography for historical fact is always a worthwhile enterprise, and Nimura’s impressively researched book, which makes liberal use of the subjects’ letters and journals, renders these nineteenth-century groundbreakers as complex, contradictory human beings ... Nimura fleshes out this oft-cited description of Blackwell’s struggle to get into med school with a story about how the acceptance nearly didn’t happen ... When it comes to Elizabeth’s legacy as a Victorian feminist, Nimura doesn’t gloss over her subject’s contradictory views.
