While studying medicine in Edinburgh, Sophia Jex-Blake became both the public face and the secret architect behind the 1870s campaign for women doctors. As opponents sought to remove women students and prevent the rise of lady doctors, Jex-Blake's anonymous journalism became her most powerful weapon. She deliberately encouraged readers to assume that her articles had been composed by male allies - a belief that endured for over 150 years - and anonymously cited her own work to bolster her authority. Drawing on Sarah Ghasedi's archival discovery that Jex-Blake secretly worked as a paid journalist for the Scotsman throughout the campaign, this book is the first to tell the full story of a woman whose real impact was obscured for generations by gendered criticism and misrepresentation.

Offers new insights into Jex-Blake's campaign for women to be allowed to study medicine in Britain First book-length treatment of Jex-Blake's anonymous journalism based on exciting archival discoveries Explores periodical print culture and feminist textual strategies in the nineteenth century

Autorentext

Sarah J. Ghasedi is a researcher and Assistant Professor of English at Bellevue College, USA.

Klappentext

This book provides the first detailed account of Sophia Jex-Blake's previously unknown anonymous writing onher 1870s campaign for female doctors in Britain. Building upon the author's recent archival discovery that Jex-Blake secretly worked as a paid journalist for the Scotsman and authored many of their anonymous leading articles on her campaign, it provides a new look at an important and in many ways misunderstood character.

Sarah Ghasedi is a researcher and Assistant Professor of English at Bellevue College, USA.

Inhalt

1. Introduction: A Reassessment of Sophia Jex-Blake.- 2. Sophia Jex-Blake in Context.- 3. "Just One Lady": Sophia Jex-Blake Arrives in Edinburgh.- 4. "The Battle at Edinburgh": Sophia Jex-Blake's Secret Journalism.- 5. The Writing of Medical Women: A Thesis and a History (1886).- 6. Sophia Jex-Blake's Anonymous Self-Citation in Medical Women.- 7. Epilogue.