her sister, Emily, that:Carlyle's name has never even been distantly echoed here; Emerson is a perfect stranger; and Channing, I presume, would produce a universal fainting fit.Another issue that presented her with difficulties in her teaching job was that of slavery and abolitionism. She had been raised a block away from Harriet Beecher Stowe and had heard stories from Harriet Tubman, so she was appalled at even the minor slavery practiced by the Kentuckians. In her journal, shortly after her arrival, she wroteBut to live in the midst of beings drudging on from earliest morning to latest night, cuffed about by everyone, scolded all day long, blamed unjustly, and without spirit enough to reply, with no consideration in any way for their feelings, with no hope for their future, smelling horribly, and as ugly as Satan--to live in their midst, utterly unable to help them, is to me dreadful and what I would not do long for any consideration.Her abolitionist leanings made her unpopular in her new community, as did her extreme stands on women's rights. She was very vocal about what she felt about women, saying in a speech once "if society will not admit of women's free development, then society must be remodeled." After a couple of years in Kentucky, she was more than ready for a change.That change came as a suggestion from the lips of a woman dying of cancer. Mary Donaldson, a long-time friend of Elizabeth Blackwell, suggested that a female doctor would have eased her pain and torment during her battle with cancer. Elizabeth took this suggestion to heart, and actively began a rebellion against unjust societal prejudices. The challenges of her new task fascinated her, as did the eventual opportunities of the medical field to escape societies sexual restrictions. With a single-minded determinedness, she clamped down on her dislike of ugly things to study medicine to improve the conditions for women in the future. In order to achieve...
