Sophia Jex-Blake’s Early Education (Part One)

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I'm Tracy from Stuff You Missed in History Class WORK_OF_ART. Are you a small business owner or even someone who dreams of entrepreneurship? Then check out season two of Mind the Business ORG, small business success stories from IHeart podcasts and Intuit QuickBooks PRODUCT. Join hosts Austin Hankwitz and Janice Torres PERSON as they interview entrepreneurs sharing insights around starting and nurturing a small business.You won't want to miss these inspiring stories of entrepreneurship and discovering ways to business differently so you can too.

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Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class WORK_OF_ART, a production of IHeart Radio. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Fry PERSON. And I'm Tracy V. Wilson PERSON. So this quote about Sophia Jex Blake PERSON perfectly sums up why I wanted to do an episode about her. It was written by someone very close to her, and it reads, quote, she was merely a clever young woman with a rather outlandish namewho had conceived the extraordinary desire of obtaining a medical education by hook or by crook. I mean, if that doesn't make a person sound interesting, I don't know what does. So Sophia Jax Blake was a young English woman in the 19th century who, after initially pursuing a career in teaching, fell in love with medicine while she was visiting the United States GPE. And that passion transformed her life, but also because of her actions, the lives of countlessothers as she battled for women's rights in education. And she is someone that is surely familiar to listeners from the UK and particularly in Scotland GPE, but I sure didn't ever hear of her until recently when I just randomly came across her name in a book about women in science. Yeah, when you told me you were doing this episode, I was like, I don't know who that is. Yeah. Spoiler alert, she's pretty great.This is one of those delights where you keep waiting for something horrible to arise about a person. And if it's there, I did not find it, and I read a lot. But here's the thing. She gets talked about a lot in terms of her work in education reform, particularly in opening the schools of Britain GPE to women. But one thing that doesn't get a lot of discussion in most mentions is her early life. And looking at that, one, I found it really, I don't know if endearing is the right word,but I recognize a lot of her life experiences as similar to my own. So I love those. But also, it's really illuminating in who she became as a person. So this is a two-parter because part one is going to cover her early life and her teaching career and when she falls in love with medicine. But then in part two, we will talk about her more well-known aspect of her story, which is her part in the Edinburgh 7, which is a group of women who sought to get medical degrees in Edinburgh in the late 19th century.

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Sophia PERSON Louisa, Jax Blake, whose name you may also hear, Sophia, because that's got

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variations by time and place.

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Yes, I will talk about why we went with Sophia PERSON on this one in the behind-the-scenes.

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Yeah.

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So she was born January 21st, 1840, in Hastings, Sussex, England GPE. Her parents were Mariah, Emily Kubit, Jax Blake, and Thomas Jax Blake PERSON. Thomas was the proctor of Doctors Commons ORG, which was an educational institution of law that specialized in civil law. Sophia was their third child, and she was the baby of the family. She often described her childhood as incredibly happy, although she was a bit more rambunctious than her very religious and quiet parentswere accustomed to and their other children. It's not fully clear where Sophia, whose mother called her Sophie PERSON, learned to write, but she did so quite early before she really had any formal schooling. By the age of seven, she was corresponding regularly with her mother while she was away at school. One of these letters is very sweet, and she writes to Mariah, quote, I wish you would be so kind as to come see me every night in Bedfordshire GPE,at least tonight on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and next Sunday after tomorrow. It's so sweet.

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And I will say reading those letters that she was writing when she was seven, she is way more articulate than most seven-year-olds in her writing. Like, I was still, like, you know, whooping it up with kitties and princesses, and she's having, like, deep thoughts. Sofia also, much to my delight, created an entire imaginary world as a child, known as Saccharmini PERSON.And this was spread out over several islands that she drew and mapped out over a long period of time. And she also carefully and very extensively wrote out all of the laws and rules of succession, basically anything a government would need for this imaginary land.And when I say that, I mean like, pages and pages more than some actual governments have, I think. This is kind of a hint at the way her mind worked, even from an early age. And charmingly, she stitched together all of this documentation into a little book titled The Saccharmini's Pocket Book WORK_OF_ART containing many little accounts of their customs. And she published this book first in 1848, and then she amended it and added to it for the same book, but it becomes its own second edition in 1850.

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I'm imagining published here means she handed it out.

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She wrote it out herself.

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Yeah, published has big old air quotes around it.

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Yeah.

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A close friend and biographer, who we will be talking more about later, described Sophia PERSON in her youth as a, quote, terrible pickle. She was boisterous and had a temper and just seemed to overflow with energy. And this was really a lot for the Jek's Blake household. According to accounts, this household had been very placid before Sophia's birth, even though there were two

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other children in it. She really struggled with efforts at school to make her be ladylike. Notes from

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her earliest educators indicate that she had, quote, the desire to be conspicuous and lacked self-control. She loved it when the family went on holiday to the country so she could shoot a bow and arrow and gather plant specimens. But all this really rambunctious and inquisitive spirit made some of the adults in her life on edge. Letters written about her behavior describe her making people uncomfortable.This became particularly concerning as her mother, Mariah, who was never especially robust, started to decline in health. Mariah needed quiet and rest, and it was hard for Sophia PERSON to live in a house where that was the expectation.

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Still, she remained very, very close to both of her parents. And there appears in their letters a very mutual adoration between them and their youngest child. Her father, for example, would write her jokey little poems in rhyming couplets, encouraging her to behave. One of those reads, my little child, you're very wild. Could you be still and yet not ill? Then little so this I do know you'd be a blessing worth possessing. And her reply to that one was, My dear father, I had rather you'd believed me and relieve me when I say as I may that I'll be good as I should. And the two of them kept this ongoing game of rhyming notes up in theircorrespondence for quite a while. I love that. It's very, very charming. At the same time, though,

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there were dark periods. When Sophia PERSON was away at school, she yearned to be at home. But when she was at home, people thought she was a terror, especially, according to her parents' standards. At one point, around the age of 11, she developed a nebulous health issue that was characterized by poor digestion and weak joints. Sophia's teacher and former governess, who's referenced only as Miss B PERSON, took her to a number of doctors to try to identify the problem. Sophia PERSON was given a lot of leeway behaviorally during this time, and it seems like when shenext went home to see her parents, the whole experience was so awful that after she had returned to school, her mother Mariah wrote to her that, quote, more sad and foolish behavior than yours is difficult to imagine. Your ever being with us again for three weeks at a time is quite out of the question till you have the good sense to understand that to be happy and comfortable and to enable me in my weak state to have you at all, you must be good. Mariah continues in this letter that they will try visits of one week at a time, and if Sophia PERSON behaves, they can extend them longer.She also notes that part of the reason for all this concern and chastisement is that if Sophia PERSON doesn't behave, quote, the medical men will not allow us to be together. But she asked her daughter in her closing lines to tear up this letter. Not long after this, and for no recorded reason, Sophia was removed from her school and put in another boarding school that was near her parents' new home in Brighton.

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This kind of makes me think of when we talked about the letter that Mary Todd Lincoln PERSON wrote Vinnie Reams or not wrote Vinny Reams PERSON, but wrote about Vinny Reams

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and she's, Vinny Ream PERSON. And she's like, destroy this letter. And I'm like, anytime that is how a letter ends, I'm like, you know this was not a cool letter to write. Throughout her teens, Sophia PERSON's strong-willed behavior and her tendency to get excited at things continued to be a source of stress for her parents.They wrote her so many letters that they surely believed were loving, but all of them really seemed to express this hope that she would become a fundamentally different person than she was. In one, her father wrote, quote, do you think, darling, that by divine grace, you are less self-willed day by day? Everybody seems to deprecate your presence as that which will spread

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discomfort all around. Which I can only imagine, that's a heartbreaking thing for a father to write a child. But Sophia PERSON's own writing, evidence is a girl who was keenly aware of other people and their feelings. For example, in one of her diary entries, she notes that a new girl whose father had died recently arrived at school, and that the headmistress went on and on to the entire student body about how fatherless children are in God's special care. And Sophia PERSON saw how uncomfortable this entire thing was making the girl in question,who was named Agnes PERSON, and she wrote in her diary of that teacher, quote, oh, I could have knocked her down. Sophia was asked not to return at the end of the school year. We don't know if that's related or not, but she seemed to be defiant.

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Sophia PERSON was placed back in her previous school, and the same cycle continued. Her mother and sister were both very ill for a time, and when Mariah had recovered a little, wrote to her daughter of an upcoming visit, quote, I look forward with great pleasure to Saturday week, but pray try to be quiet in your joy when I meet you, because I am still weak and soon upset, and people will be very vexed with you if I am the worst. In a surprising twist,when Sophia PERSON finished school and moved back home permanently, her relationship with her mother became really closer than ever, and they didn't seem to have any more issues. When the two of them talked of a potential marriage for Sophia PERSON, Sophia PERSON told her mother that she, quote, did not fancy I should ever marry, for I thought I should require too many qualities to meet in the man I could think for a husband, for it to be likely that I should ever meet such a paragon who could be willing to marry me. that I should ever meet such a paragon who could be willing to marry me.

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In 1858, at the age of 18, Sophia enrolled in Queens College, London. And she loved this entire experience and wrote after arriving, quote, very delicious it is to be here. Oh, if there be an elysium here on earth, it is this, it is this. I am happy as a queen. Work and independence. What can be more charming? Really perfection.In addition to her own coursework, she started tutoring at the school, helping other students with their mathematics studies. She had started assisting other students with their math problems way back in her early days of school, so this was a very natural fit.

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Coming up, we'll learn about her family's reaction to this job. But first, we will pause for a sponsor break. I'm Tracy V. Wilson from stuff you missed in history class. Did you know small businesses make up99.9% of all businesses in the United States GPE? The world is powered by entrepreneurs. And if you're a small business owner or even someone dreaming of starting your own business, then you'll want to check out season two of Mind the Business ORG,small business success stories from Ruby Studio ORG, from IHeartMedia, and Inuit QuickBooks ORG. And every episode hosts Austin, Hankwitz PERSON, and Janice Torres talk to entrepreneurs about how they've grown from the lessons of launching and nurturing a small business and how they have found success being their own boss. From the excitement of first starting out to finding the right tools and resources to processinvoices and payments like QuickBooks Money PRODUCT, you won't want to miss these inspiring stories of entrepreneurship and discovering ways to business differently so you can too. And if you're a small business owner or even someone dreaming of starting your own business, then you'll want to check out season two of Mind the Business ORG, small business success stories from Ruby Studio, from IHeartMedia, and Inuit QuickBooks ORG.Planning your next trip,

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Jex Blake PERSON also started to reveal in her writing that she was more drawn to women than to men. This wasn't cloaked in any kind of coy language. She literally wrote, quote, I believe I love women too much to ever love a man, yet who can tell? During these years, she formed some very intense friendships with women, which may have been romantic in nature. One of her closest friends, Octavia Hill PERSON, ended their friendship abruptly after Sophia PERSON hadmoved in with the Hill family. Safaya PERSON never fully understood why this friendship had ended and just clung to the idea that they would reconcile for years. Friends described this moment as deeply significant for Jek's Blake PERSON, one that bisected her life story into the time before it happened and the time after. Sophia finished the school term, but then immediately left for Brighton.

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Yeah, when we say she held on to hope about this for years and years, I'm talking decades and decades, like a long time she was still writing about Octavia PERSON in her journal. decades, like a long time she was still writing about Octavia PERSON in her journal. Sophia met another young woman at this time in her life named Elizabeth Garrett Anderson PERSON. At that point, she was just Elizabeth Garrett PERSON. Elizabeth was born in Suffolk, England, in 1836, so she was a few years older than Sophia PERSON. And Elizabeth PERSON was very clear in her life's ambition.She wanted to pursue a career in medicine. And understanding and experiencing that that was a field normally barred to women, Elizabeth PERSON found ways to step around the barriers. Her path had started with a surgical nurse position at Middlesex Hospital ORG, and then she tried to enroll in the hospital school's medical program, but she was declined. So she started to study things like anatomy with private instructors and eventually did get a medical license after becoming a member of the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries. That was her way in. It was a loophole that she exploited.

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Sophia met Elizabeth early in this journey and found her inspiring. Jex Blake had, in the meantime, gotten a teaching job in Germany at the Grand Duckel Institution in Mannheim GPE. It was not a great experience for her. She was really good at the actual teaching part of her job, but was not good at dealing with students when they got unruly. She found the period of her contract there overwhelming, and when it was over, she packed up to head home again. After foundering about to find something that felt like a calling to her,Sophia decided to travel to the United States GPE, writing as she planned the trip, quote, I have such a feeling that with the new world, a new life will open.

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On May 27, 1865, Sophia sailed from Liverpool on the ship Africa PRODUCT. The ship landed in Boston on June 8th, and one of the people that Sophia had a contact for in Boston was Dr. Lucy Sewell PERSON. There were actually some problems with this. She had been given the wrong address, and so it took her a couple of days to actually findwhere Dr. Sewell PERSON was, but once she did, the two hit it off. Dr. Sewell worked at the New England Hospital for Women and Children, and she was the resident physician there at the young age of 28.

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Sophia PERSON spent a lot of time with her in her dispensary and watched her care for patients. At the same time, Jacks Blake PERSON was dealing with her own health issues. This caused her energy to really wax and wane from day to day. Suell PERSON prescribed a holiday for her, and she went to the White Mountains in New Hampshire GPE. She marveled in her letters home at the expanse of the woodlands that she saw in the United States. When Sophia returned to Boston, Sewell PERSON included her

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in the social life of the women's hospital and its staff. The team consisted entirely of women, and that made a significant impression on Sophia PERSON. She wrote to her mother, quote, Can't you understand how refreshing it is to slip into the bright life of all these working people,working hard all day, and then so ready for fun when works over. Eventually, Jek's Blake PERSON canceled most of her other North American travel plans, and she moved into the hospital's house for resident doctors. She started helping out around the facility, doing things like working on paperwork and filling prescriptions in the dispensary. She also started reading to patients and reported to her mother that she felt, quote, so exceedingly content that I hardly feel the need of anything beyond. She also wrote in herletters that she had thoughts of, quote, were I not a teacher, I would be a doctor, if I could. She had throughout her life been religious, and she started writing sermons for the hospital and got one of the surgeons to play hymns on an accordion for these services. Those services got really mixed reviews. After a year in Boston GPE,

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Sophia PERSON returned home, ready to discuss the thoughts that she was having about a future in medicine. She and Sewell PERSON had gotten to the point where they had discussed a future together, and Sewell wrote to her after she had returned to England GPE, quote, I really feel quite well satisfied with the increase in my practice. And if it continues to increase for the next two years as well,we shall be able to take a fine house and live in style. I cannot tell you how much pleasure I get out of anticipating our housekeeping. When I am too tired to do anything, I lay on the sofa and plan and plan and think what a good time we are going to have, and I am happy as a cricket. So sweet.

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Jex Blake had returned to Brighton in June of 1866, and on September 1st, she left again to return to the United States GPE. She wrote a book titled A Visit to Some American Colleges and Schools WORK_OF_ART, based on the touring that she had done on her first visit. And when that was done, she turned all of her energies to being essentially a medical student at the women's hospital. During this time, though, she realized that even though she was learning a great deal,she wasn't earning an academic degree. She tried applying to Harvard Medical School ORG and was denied. So she wrote a letter to the president and fellows of Harvard ORG requesting admission to the medical school, and she had that letter published in the Boston Daily ORG advertiser. Her co-signer on the letter was another woman seeking a medical degree named Susan Dimmick PERSON.

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That didn't attain the desired results, but Sophia PERSON made it her business to find ways to be introduced to anyone she could find, who worked at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Harvard Medical School ORG faculty. She made her case to all of them. If you remember our episode on Rebecca Lee Crumpler PERSON, and you're like, wasn't there a New England LOC female medical college? Yes, we don't really know why she seems not to have included that college in her efforts here.

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No, it's a mystery.

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We can talk about that more on Friday as well. We can talk about it more on Friday. But. We can talk about it more on Friday, but since that episode was not long ago, I thought, huh. Some of these folks supported her efforts, including Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes PERSON, who wrote, quote, I should not only be willing, but I should be pleased to lecture to any number of ladies, for whom we can find accommodation in the anatomical lecture roomalways provided that any special subject which seemed not adapted for an audience of both sexes should be delivered to the male students alone. But though Sophia PERSON was certainly happy to have some degree of support,she noted in her personal writing that all of this really amounted to nothing. Because Harvard ORG had made a decision that women would not be admitted, the Massachusetts charitable eye and ear infirmary, which had allowed women to sit in as clinical observers,rescinded that permission. Massachusetts General ORG continued to allow interested women to observe, but that made it abundantly clear that what they had been allowed to learn, even from willing supporters, was very abbreviated because the students were women. They also met with open hostility from some members of the hospital staff, so this just wasn't a good environment.

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Sophia and Lucy Sewell PERSON were still very close. In one of her letters home, she wrote to her parents about Lucy PERSON, quote, the doctor begs me to send her love. I do hope you may know her by this time next year, don't you? The two women went on a number of vacations together when there was time to get away.They would take long driving tours in a carriage, stopping at a new town each night. These were not luxury tours by any means. Sometimes they would stay at inns, but on other occasions they stopped at people's houses and just asked if there was a place to sleep. This was mostly all out in the country, so it wasn't expected that they would be in places with staff to take care of them. In her diary, Sapphire relayed one story in which a widow let them stay at her home, but there was no one else there, so she had to manage their horse by herself in the dark, and she came to appreciate how hard that particular kind of work was.

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Sophia Jax Blake did not give up on trying to get Harvard Medical School ORG to change its mind regarding women as medical students. In January of 1868, she wrote to the school once again, quote, gentlemen, having during the past year been granted access to the clinical advantages of the Massachusetts General Hospital ORG, but finding it impossible anywhere in New England LOC to obtain adequate theoretical instruction in medicine, we now earnestly entreat you to reconsider the subject of admission of women to the lectures at Harvard Medical School ORG.Such admission being, as we understand, forbidden by no past or present statute of the university. We do not wish to enter on the vexed question of the capability of women for the practice of medicine, as we believe that time and experience can only furnish its true answer. This letter goes on to say that the interested women are absolutely willing to submit to the qualifying exams and to provide references and to agree to any rules that the school might wish to set up to make this proposal work.While she waited on a reply to this particular phase of request, any rules that the school might wish to set up to make this proposal work.

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While she waited on a reply to this particular phase of request, a funny thing happened to her and that she adopted, rather by accident, a dog. This dog had belonged to the family of a patient at the women's hospital. When the patient's husband came to pick her up and take her home after treatment, the family dog was with him. And after that, the dog, which Sophia described as possibly being a setter, kept coming back to the hospital by itself. The family came and got it several times, and then one night itshowed up at the resident home. And as it was cold, Jax Blake PERSON let it in, and then she took it home in the morning. The dog was friendly with its owner. It didn't act like it had been mistreated in any way, but it kept trying to go back home with Sophia PERSON every time she tried to leave. So she and the gentleman had a discussion about it, and she ultimately offered him $5 if she could just keep the dog named Turk PERSON, noting, quote, one can't help liking even a dog who so plainly declares elective affinity.

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Coming up, a familiar character to longtime podcast listeners will enter Sophia PERSON's story. But first, we will hear from the sponsors that keep our show going. I'm Tracy V. Wilson from Stuff You Missed in History Class WORK_OF_ART. Did you know small businesses make up 99.9% of all businesses in the United States GPE? The world is powered by entrepreneurs. And if you're a small business owner or even someone dreaming of starting your own business,then you'll want to check out season two of Mind the Business ORG, small business success stories from Ruby Studio, from IHeartMedia, and Inuit QuickBooks ORG. And every episode hosts Austin, Hankwitz, and Janice Torres PERSON talk to entrepreneurs about how they've grown from the lessons of launching and nurturing a small business and how they have found success being their own boss.From the excitement of first starting out to finding the right tools and resources to process invoices and payments like QuickBooks Money PRODUCT, you won't want to miss these inspiring stories of entrepreneurship and discovering ways to business differently so you can too. And if you're a small business owner or even someone dreaming of starting your own business,then you'll want to check out Season 2 of Mind the Business ORG, small business success stories from Ruby Studio, from IHeartMedia, and Intuit QuickBooks ORG. Planning your next trip,

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Choice Hotels ORG has a stay for any traveler you want to be with 22 brands and over 7,400 locations. Whether you're a business traveler, a family road tripper, someone who wants to seek out history and maybe make your own, or just planning a quick getaway. Choice Hotels ORG has a stay for any you.Like a Cambria hotel where you can be a cocktail connoisseur and sip locally inspired craft beverages at downtown locations in the center of it all. This is a fun way to visit cities with a lot of history and a lot fun in mind. Or a Radisson Hotel ORG for all our productivity powerhouses out there. With flexible workspaces and on-site restaurants, you'll get the most out of your work trip. You'll get the coffee, the Wi-Fi, and the work done.And we can't forget about comfort hotels. Imagine you're a family road trip or waking up in your big spacious room and then heading down to a free hot breakfast for the entire family, including waffles. So you'll be well-fed and ready for the day's adventure, even if that's just relaxing. After that, you're spending all afternoon. Relaxing by the pool.You deserve it. What are you waiting for? Join choice privileges and start earning points toward your next day. Find a stay for any you. Book directly at choice hotels.com, where travels come true. If you use paper, you're a human. But if you choose paper, you're a papertarian. Someone who lives a paper-based lifestyle because it has a positive impact on the planet. And also, because it's the easiest choice you'll make all day, seriously.It's as easy as reaching for boxed instead of bottled water. It's as easy as opting for beauty products that come in paper packaging. It's as easy as grabbing eggs in a cardboard container. And that's all in one trip to the grocery store, which, if everyone's being honest, you were planning to go to anyway. But paper isn't just an easy choice.Paperitarians know that it's the smart choice, too. Because paper comes from trees, a renewable and sustainably managed resource. And paper products are designed to be recycled. In fact, when you choose products that come in paper-based packaging, those fibers can go on to be recycled up to seven times. So why wouldn't you go Papertarian? Learn more at howlife unfolds.com slash papertarian.Although she absolutely adored her life in Boston GPE, Sophia was getting frustrated enough with Harvard ORG that she decided to seek out alternate possibilities for a medical education in New York GPE. She left for New York in March of 1868, and there her life intersects with another prior podcast subject, Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell PERSON.Blackwell and her sister Emily took Sophia PERSON under their wings. Dr. Blackwell PERSON was also lobbying for better medical education opportunities for women, so their goals were very closely aligned. Sophia PERSON also managed to get a tiny anatomy class together for women, just her and one other student, so a very tiny class at Bellevue Hospital ORG. After she got one of the administrators there,a Dr. Mosley PERSON, to agree to teach it.

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Sophia's first experience with a dissecting class was thrilling to her. She wrote in her diary on March 28, 1868, quote, began dissecting with Dr. Mosley PERSON. Oh dear, isn't it good to have some real teaching at last? By the by, the Blackwells think they could get us into Bellevue if Harvard ORG refuses.New York for three winters? That's funny to me. Because Massachusetts for three winters was what she was looking at for.

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So she notes just how much she was learning, now that she had actual teaching, both in her

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dissecting lab and under Dr. Blackwell PERSON, compared to the previous observation she'd been allowed to do. She was also writing Lucy Sewell PERSON, long letters, which included, among other things, how to manage the various day-to-day things that Savaya had been handling for her, like how to manage her bookkeeping and how to take care of Turk PERSON.

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It's so cute some of these letters where she's like, okay, there's a ledger book. It looks like this. It's on this shelf. Please don't forget to write down invoices that you send out. Like, it is the funniest most kind of mothering. It's very cute. At the end of April, she sailed back home for a visit, writing in her diary, quote, nearly three years in America GPE. In that time, complete health regained, probably better than ever before. Real strength and power of study. A profession opening calmly and clearly before me, becoming clearer daily. My vocation given upor laid aside, and I quietly learning knowledge chiefly because of its power, hardly yet shaping out any end. But what does come, selfish enough? Professor of anatomy, surgeon, doctor teacher? And she credits all of this hope and new life to LES, meaning Lucy Sewell PERSON.

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And when she got back home to England, she brought Lucy PERSON with her to introduce her to friends and family. Everyone really adored Lucy PERSON. She gave medical advice to sick people in Bristol GPE. She easily won over the entire Jacks Blake PERSON family, inspiring Sophia's parents to want to buy her a new carriage when she returned home to Boston GPE as a memento of their affection for her. Sophia PERSON was very aware that her parents would not be around forever, and it was important to her thatthey understand her new path in life, that they like her dearest friend Lucy PERSON and that they all have a good holiday together. And all of these things happened, Sapphire PERSON wrote in her diary, quote, I think the wheel is beginning to sway upwards again. Please, God.

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It's very sweet that this entire visit is, all of her notes are about how everyone is just as bananas about Lucy PERSON as she is and thinks she's the best thing that ever walked the earth.

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When Sapphire returned to the U.S. GPE after that wonderful visit home, Jax Blake got the news that Harvard ORG had once again said no to her request for admittance to medical school. So she headed to New York in the autumn of 1868, which was timed well to Elizabeth Blackwell PERSON and her sister opening their medical school for women. Sophia took rooms at 222 East 10th Street in the East Village LOC.She noted that once her furniture and food stores were purchased, which included two barrels of potatoes and 30 pounds of butter, which made me cheer a little bit. She was low on money, but also that she knew she could borrow from Dr. Sewell PERSON if she needed to. She also wrote to her mother,quote, Though I have no special friends here, I shall be so busy and cozy that I expect to get on capitally.

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During this period of her life, Sophia PERSON started an interesting practice when writing to her parents. She would write most of her letters with the intent that her mother would pass them on to her father to read, but she also added additional sheets of paper with messages only intended for her mother. In these, she was more frank about any difficulties or challenges that she was working through. Her father's health had become more fragile as he aged.She didn't want to upset or worry him about anything. It's an interesting twist that her mother, who wrote the teenage Sophia PERSON letters, suggesting she was too fragile to deal with her daughter, had now become the one more trusted with potentially stressful news.

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But the stressful news came not from Sophia, but to her in November of 1868. Her sister Carrie PERSON wrote to her of their father, quote, I believe if you could start from New York today, you would have no prospect whatever of seeing him alive. Sophia PERSON immediately left for home on a frantic journey to get there as quickly as possible, only to find that her father, Thomas Jek's Blake, had died 10 days before she even received hersister's message. As it turned out, Mr. Jax Blake PERSON had been keenly aware of the limited time he had left for several months, and he had, without anyone in the family knowing, been making sure that all of his affairs were in order and had also been writing farewell letters to all of his loved ones to be delivered after his death. His last words were reportedly beautiful, beautiful,when a doctor had shifted him slightly in the bed before he passed.

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Her father's death shifted Sophia's feelings about her studies in New York GPE. She stopped working with Blackwell PERSON abruptly and vowed never to be so far from her remaining family again. Lucy Sewell PERSON was, of course, heartbroken that their plans for a future together were ended with no real warning. But she also seemed to understand the logic of it, and she wrote to Sophia PERSON that she knew she would still become a doctor, despite the challenges that she faced in that effort back home. The two of them planned that Lucy would help set up a practice for Sophia PERSON once she had her schooling done and had acquired a medical license.

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And that is where we are going to end part one. And next time we will talk about Jax Blake's PERSON fight for an education in the British Isles and how she became part of a group known as the Edinburgh 7 ORG.

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Do you also have some listener mail for us?

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Of course I do.

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This one is about our recent episode on Margaret Knight PERSON,

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and it is from our listener, Melissa PERSON, who writes,

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When I started listening to your recent episode about Margaret E. Knight PERSON,

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I thought to myself, huh, this story sounds familiar. And then you mentioned her nickname Maddie PERSON, and I was like, oh, right, I have a book about that. Maddie in The Machine by Lynn Ing, Cazon ORG. I don't know if I'm pronouncing that author's name right. I picked it up in a benefit auction.The author wrote a very sweet note in it for my kid, who is an inventor himself. He hasn't read it yet. It's probably more YA than MG, but I did, and I found it pretty enjoyable. It is fictionalized, of course. There's a whole rival love interest side plot that I suspect isn't historical, but as a frequent reader of historical fiction, I was satisfied overall. The author is an engineer, so the amount of detail into the mechanical development of Maddie PERSON's bag folder work is great. My kiddo is way beyond his years in engineering abilities, so I often struggle finding books for him that are engaging reads with sufficiently geeky details.I just thought I'd drop a line for anyone else who would love to spend more time with a brilliant, I'm going to do this thing I'm awesome at, regardless of social opinion, woman from history. Also, that book does not include the mislabeled photo of her, yay, but it does have patent diagrams, which I think she would rather us look at anyway. Okay, this is where we get to what to me is a very thrilling part of this email. Melissa PERSON writes, no pets at present, but attaching a photo of myaforementioned son's latest inventions, a critter-ritter for our vegetable garden. When a motion sensor is tripped, lights and sound will go off to startle away the deer and bunnies that frequent our forested home.Dad helped cut holes in the plastic container, but otherwise the coding writing, et cetera, is all by my nine-year-old. Yes, I do believe he is the heck and coolest. Thanks for the continually excellent podcast. I know it's tough days in the podcast world, so I extra appreciate your commitment to shouldering all the research you doand crafting such approachable stories from it. Okay, this kid is amazing because, one, this is like a great, humane way to keep animals from eating your fruits and vegetables.

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Two, it made me think also of Sophia PERSON a little bit, who was very advanced when she was a kid.

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Although in her case, she was not getting that much encouragement about it.

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So kudos, Melissa PERSON, for having a super bright kid who is also being encouraged to use that brightness.

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If you have an email for us,

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you can send it to History Podcast at iHeartRadio.com ORG. You can also subscribe to the podcast on the IHeartRadio app or anywhere you listen to your favorite shows. Stuff you missed in history class is a production of IHeartRadio.

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For more podcasts from IHeart Radio, visit the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts ORG, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Xfinity has free premium networks for everyone this month,

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