Sophia Jex-Blake and the Edinburgh Seven (Part 2)

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly
Frye and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. So this is part
two of our two parter on Sofia Jex Blake, and
in part one we talked about her work in education

(00:24):
and how traveling to Boston led her to meet doctor
Lucy Sewell and thus become interested in medicine, and then
after trying to get into Harvard and meeting rejection after rejection,
she went to New York to study medicine with doctor
Elizabeth Blackwell. But then her father, Thomas's death prompted her
to leave the United States after several years and move

(00:45):
home to be close to her mother. Transitioning back to
life in Brighton in East Sussex was naturally difficult for
Sofia Jax Blake. Her grief was on a delay compared
to the rest of her families. She had learned of
her father's death several weeks after it had actually happened,
so while they were all figuring out how to return

(01:07):
to something like a normal life, she was in the
very early stages of feeling like there would never be
anything like a normal life again. She also started to
realize that her quick decision to leave New York and
her friends in Boston had once again totally changed the
course of her life. There was also a little bit
of culture shock in the mix. I mean, she had

(01:30):
grown up in the UK, but now for several years
she had been living in two of the busiest cities
in the United States, and now she was back in
the seaside resort town, which was a much different place
and a very different way of life. She missed Lucy sewell,
and she felt out of place at home, writing to

(01:50):
Lucy quote, it's hard for me to fit in anywhere,
and of course everybody's feeling more or less sad and
pained doesn't make matters smoother, Oh Lucy, Dear, I do
think it's too bad to be expected to go on
with medicine and not have you to help and interest
me in it. If I didn't believe you would, after
all come and start me in practice. When I do

(02:12):
get through, I don't think I should have any heart
to go on at all. But we will be together
again someday, old lady, won't we, Oh Dear, I am
getting so tired of living and fighting and hoping. As
soon as one hopes one got a little foothold, it
is all knocked away from under me. The first few
weeks were especially rough, but then she went to the

(02:35):
local hospital and asked one of the doctors to read
medical texts with her as a study, which he agreed
to do. It wasn't medical school, but at a time
when she worried she might not ever be able to
return to a true medical education, it was at least something.
Then she got an introduction to activist Josephine Butler, who

(02:58):
was working on a book of essays about women's professions
that was published in eighteen sixty nine under the title
Work in Women's Culture. Sepia contributed one of the essays
to this book, called Medicine as a Profession for Women.
Despite the doldrums of her first weeks back home, jex
Blake had no intention of actually leaving behind her medical studies.

(03:21):
She ran into difficulties finding an opportunity in England to continue,
though both Josephine Butler and Sepia's brother, Thomas William jex
Blake supported her in this. In the case of her brother,
who they called tw this was a little bit of
a turnaround, because he had not always believed in her
plan to go into medicine. There's a lot of writing

(03:43):
in a particular biography of her that makes it sound
like he was a little embarrassed by his rambunctious younger sister,
even once they were both adults, and so for him
to suddenly be supported was a big deal. Through Butler
and her brother, queries were sent to very educators about
Sophia's plans. The responses were often sympathetic, but not all

(04:05):
that encouraging. Cambridge was called out as unlikely to bend
at all and admit her, but the University of London,
it was suggested, might offer a little more hope, but
also was going to be difficult. A professor from the
University of Edinburgh wrote to Josephine Butler that some of
the staff there would be happy to meet miss jex Blake,
but that they weren't confident the school would admit her

(04:27):
or any woman. But several of these responses did suggest
that she try anyway at just about any of the institutions.
And there's a subtext when you're reading these letters that
make it seem like these professionals feel like having women
applicants might at least open a pretty worthy and interesting discussion,
even if she doesn't benefit directly. Henry Sidgwick, who was

(04:49):
a professor of philosophy at Cambridge, wrote to Sophia, quote,
my instinct is to tell you to come, but that
is because I like a fight. My soberer judgment is
the other way. Ultimately, Sophia applied to the University of
London and was denied entry. It was explained to her
that the charter of the school clearly excluded giving women

(05:12):
medical degrees and that it simply could not be changed.
She next turned her sites to the University of Edinburgh,
hoping for a better reception there. Some of the school's
faculty seemed open to the idea, but others, unsurprisingly were not.
One professor flat out told her that he could not
envision quote any decent woman trying to do what she

(05:35):
was doing. In every letter she wrote, Jex Blake made
it clear that she was ready to abide by whatever
terms or conditions had to be set in place to
make a school accept women as students. She was so
polite in all of her dealings with all of these people,
even the ones that were really kind of curt and
unkind to her. I admire and cannot identify with that.

(06:00):
But despite all of this condescending pushback from a few professors,
the odds were still better in Edinburgh than they had
been in London, and Sofia persisted until the university took
action in her favor. David Masson, who was a historian
and academic who was then teaching at the University of Edinburgh,
wrote letters on her behalf to the medical faculty of

(06:21):
the university. We mentioned in Part one the work of
Elizabeth Garrett, who had gotten around the obstacles to a
medical license by first becoming an apothecary. She eventually got
her MD after passing an exam in Paris for it.
And while she and Sepia were at odds regarding how
to advance the position of women in education for medical careers,

(06:42):
jax Blake did not hesitate to use Garrett as an
example in her arguments to the school of a woman
who had become a very successful practicing physician, noting that
among her patients were very happy European royals. It's worth
noting in the midst of all this that Jack's Blake
was well known at the various medical colleges and medical

(07:04):
schools in Paris and Zurich had started admitting women. So
as these efforts were playing out, there was a real
awareness that whatever any school did would probably garner press.
Saphire wrote in her journal quote, if I can be
the first woman to open a British university, then Shirley I,
like Charlotte Bronte, shall have served my heart and eye,

(07:26):
even if I die straight away. There was a vote
at the University of Edinburgh's leadership and the outcome was
that women would be allowed to study medicine there. This
came with the stipulation that such classes would only include women,
though there would be no co ed medical education. Then

(07:48):
another stumbling block. The university decided it couldn't make all
of these arrangements just for one woman. It wasn't reasonable,
and professors bulked at having to double their teaching load
when half of the time they would be lecturing to
a single person. At least one of the professors threatened
to resign, a mister Christison, who became a little bit

(08:08):
of a villain in her story. Sophia found this out
because mister Christensen's wife told her and also conveyed that
she thought that Sophia was not being treated fairly. Additionally,
male students complained at the possibility of a woman getting
personalized instruction. This entire back and forth had been covered
in the press, especially the Scotsman, and Sephia had told

(08:31):
the Scotsman that if there were more women interested in
pursuing a medical degree, things might be different. Several days
later she got a letter. Part of it reads quote,
I should be glad if you renew your application to
join you in doing so, and I believe I know
two or three other ladies who would be willing to
do the same. This was signed by Isabel Thorne. Soon

(08:54):
there was another letter, this one from Edith Petchi, who
wrote quote, before deciding finally to enter the medical profession,
I should like to feel sure of success, not on
my own account, but I feel that failure now would
do harm to the cause. Petty thought that if they
stood a chance, they had to be not equal to
their male peers, but better. Four more women soon made

(09:17):
themselves known to Jex Blake as willing to join her
in applying once again to the University of Edinburgh. They
were Matilda Chaplain, Helen Evans, Mary Anderson, and Emily Buvell.
On October twenty ninth, eighteen sixty nine, the university drew
up a list of regulations regarding women's students which had

(09:38):
to be tipped into the eighteen sixty nine eighteen seventy
school year calendar. Were paraphrasing for brevity, but these rules
stated that one women would be admitted into the university
medical program. Two women would be in women only classes.
Three professors would be allowed to teach separate classes for women.

(09:58):
For women who didn't want to pursue medicine as a
career could still take these classes if the university approved them.
Five classes would cost four guineas unless the class was
too small, and then students could pay more to make
up the gap. That was something they were going to
have to arrange with each individual professor. Six, All women

(10:20):
taking classes were subject to school regulations current and future,
and seven. These new regulations were in effect beginning in
the eighteen sixty nine autumn session. There was also yet
another hurdle in view. To be accepted to the program perspective,
students had to pass a matriculation exam To qualify. This

(10:41):
exam had three mandatory subjects which were math, English and Latin,
and two subjects of the applicants choosing, which had to
be selected from a pool of foreign languages, Advanced math, Logic,
natural philosophy or moral philosophy. They took this exam on
October nineteenth and all of them past, and there were

(11:01):
four of them who placed in the top seven students
overall of all of the applicants. Notes of congratulations from
Sophia as many supporters rolled in, including from Elizabeth Blackwell,
who wrote, quote, it seems to me the grandest success
that women have yet achieved in England. In the fall
of eighteen sixty nine, Sepia jex Blake began her schooling

(11:23):
at the University of Edinburgh along with the other six women.
She and Edith Petchy rented a place together and that
sort of became the hub for the group to meet
and study. But though they had gotten over the hurdle
of admittance and were generally thriving academically and really succeeding
in their studies, there were a lot more obstacles to come.
For example, the students who had the strongest academic performance

(11:46):
in chemistry at the end of the winter session were
given small scholarships. Edith Petchy ranked third in the school.
She was only behind two male upperclassmen who had already
taken the class before, but she did not get the
scholarship which would have entitled her free use of the
school's laboratory. That scholarship went instead to a man who

(12:07):
had not done as well as her. This was in
contradiction to the fact that she was awarded a bronze
medal recognizing that she had placed third, and the logic
of this decision was that the women's students were not
truly considered members of the chemistry class, even though they
were doing the exact same coursework. This incident got a

(12:28):
lot of press and attention, including a write up in
the British Medical Journal that right up is interesting because
the British Medical Journal is like, okay, whether or not
we think that women should even be in medical school,
we can't see that these numbers are screwy. It's kind
of a like out of both sides of their mouth
kind of write up, and a lot of supporters were
encouraging the Edinburgh Seven to fight the decision, but Petchy,

(12:51):
who felt that the award situation was more of a
blunder than a wilful insult wanted to just drop the
whole thing. The other problem was that although the university's
governing body had voted to create medical courses for women,
that didn't mean there were instructors who were willing to
teach those courses, and even if they did, the women

(13:13):
had to pay a higher course fee to get them
to accommodate their small class. On occasions where this happened,
Safaia often paid about a third of the group's total
cost because she knew she had more than many of
her colleagues did, and she also felt this was a
good investment of her resources. Anatomy was particularly problematic in

(13:35):
this regard. Eventually, a teacher from outside the school ended
up agreeing to let the women attend his regular class,
and then the school accepted that as its coursework. Yeah,
they were in this unique position where they were one
having to handle their tuition on their own through side
deals with professors, but then two having to set up

(13:57):
their own curriculum in some cases where other teachers who
weren't affiliated with the university were the only ones willing
to take that money. Yet another problem was about to
arise for the women of the University of Edinburgh. Several
more problems actually, and we will talk about those after
a sponsor break. The next issue for the Edinburgh Seven

(14:25):
was access to the Royal Infirmary. The Royal Infirmary of
Edinburgh was and still is a teaching hospital. To acquire
a medical degree, any student had to study there, essentially
doing clinical rotations to work hands on with actual patients
instead of just learning from books and in the lab.
This was the kind of work that Sophia was already

(14:46):
accustomed to. It was that kind of stuff that made
her fall in love with the medical profession during her
time in Boston. But the Royal Infirmary would not allow
women in, as they had done every other time such
an issue had come up. Seven women students tried to
get the policy changed, but this round got really incendiary
for some reason. In particular, male students at the university

(15:10):
got really mad at the prospect that women who had
been doing the same coursework as them might actually get
medical degrees. They started being openly hostile to Sophia and
her classmates. According to rex Blake's account quote, a certain
proportion of the students with whom we worked became markedly

(15:30):
offensive and insolent, and took every opportunity of practicing the
petty annoyances that occur to thoroughly ill bred lads, such
as shutting doors in our faces, ostentatiously crowding into the
seats we usually occupied, bursting into horse laughs and howls
when we approached, as if a conspiracy had been formed

(15:52):
to make our position as uncomfortable as might be. In
addition to just being jerks in every interaction with their
women classmates, some of the men of the school also
started a petition to get them banned from the Royal Infirmary.
Five hundred students signed it. The agitation of the male
students continued to build, and then one day it reached

(16:14):
its apex. There had been several days of male students
trying to block women students from entering classrooms, but there
weren't a lot of them, and the women were able
to basically brush right past them. But then there was
a day when things escalated. An estimated two hundred students
stood outside the gate leading to Surgeons Hall, which is

(16:34):
the building where the classes were held. This was a
raucous crowd and noisy, including singing. Protest songs. When Jex
Blake and the other women approached a little before four pm,
this crowd started yelling, but the women continued forward as
though they didn't see or hear their detractors. But as
they got to the gate, somebody slammed it before they

(16:56):
could enter. A janitor opened the gate partially so the
women could still pass through. They had been shoved around
and hit with mud, and they still wanted to go
to class. But when they got to their classroom, which
was for an anatomy lecture, the room was full full
beyond capacity, and packed with students who were not part

(17:17):
of the class. The professor, doctor Handyside, ordered the people
that were not there for class to leave, but once
he had gotten them out and class had started, someone
led a sheep into the room, creating a whole new
wave of chaos, and according to Sefaia's journal, when the
women went home at the end of the class, they
were quote escorted by a gallant cavaliers, b police, c

(17:41):
general mob d all boys and girls of the town.
They made it home safe that day, which was a Friday.
On Monday, the women were warned that a more serious
demonstration was planned The Irish brigade was called. This is
a group of students who formed kind of an ad
hoc security group, but the day was rainy, nobody really

(18:02):
showed up to protest. Tuesday the twenty second, there were
enough agitated protesters that the brigade, which is about thirty men,
had to walk the women to the lecture hall and
then home after class. This Surgeon's Hall riot, as it
came to be called, makes it clear that had the
women not had the support of some of their peers,
things could have really escalated. In any case, it was

(18:25):
made very clear to them that a lot of people
did not think they should be studying medicine. Yeah, there
were definitely some of their classmates that were supportive of them.
That is how they got warned that things might get worse,
and that is those are the people that actually were like, hey,
let's get the Irish brigate involved. But had those people
not stood up, there could have been violence. This riot

(18:49):
had significant fallout, and it was probably not the kind
that the instigators had hoped for. It did not magically
fix anything for Sofia or the other women's students, but
it did bring to light the ways that they had
been treated. The withheld scholarship. The anatomy classes problems the
impossibility of completing their degrees due to being barred from
the physical places that they needed to go to complete

(19:11):
those studies. All of this was reported in the press
along with news of the riot, and the public reaction
was largely in favor of the women's students, who had
done all of the same coursework as the men in
far more challenging circumstances. Additionally, all of the women started
receiving hate mail. Friends and families started asking very seriously

(19:33):
if these women were really going to be okay if
they continued in an environment of such hostility. One of
the high notes during this time was a petition signed
by nine hundred and fifty six women of Edinburgh urging
that all medical facilities be opened to the women for
their studies as needed. This was not the only show
of support from the women of the city. A well

(19:55):
respected woman named missus Nickel appeared at a meeting of
school leaders and noted that the women of Scotland were
watching the events at the school to consider what the
next generation of doctors would be, asking how they could
be trusted to work with female patients. Zaphia jax Blake
was booed and pelted with peas, yes, peas at that

(20:17):
same meeting when she rose to speak. She continued to
get supportive letters though from women throughout the UK. Sofia
had noticed during the riot that an assistant to one
of the professors, the doctor Christisen that we mentioned earlier,
was one of the main instigators the day that the
women had gotten the gate slammed on them. She believed

(20:38):
that Christensen's assistant had been an instigator of the entire riot,
and she said so publicly. In response that assistant sued
her for libel because he said that she claimed he
was drunk at the riot. She had not to be
clear done that she had said that someone had told
her that he was drunk. This case went to court

(20:59):
and it took two days there and it was crowded
with spectators throughout. The outcome was not a judgment in
her favor. It was that she had to pay one
farthing quote for her rash and libelous statements. Though everyone
also noted that mister c the man who brought the suit,
had refused to ever deny that he had been part

(21:20):
of the riot. Sofia was also deemed responsible for the
cost of the case. Those costs were more than nine
hundred pounds. Her brother very quickly stepped into pay half
of that, but Sofia's supporters raised more than enough and
his contribution was returned. Jury members were later quoted in
the press as saying that they thought no monetary expense

(21:41):
should have been awarded to the pursuer, even though it
was just a farthing. Lucy Sewell and Sophia, of course,
had been living on two different continents, but they were
still emotionally closed through all of this, and Suwell did
make a visit in eighteen seventy one. This holiday was
a good one, and it made both of them consider
whether they might be able to practice medicine together one day.

(22:04):
But there was about to be yet another obstacle. Even
though the public had grown relatively sympathetic to the difficulties
that the women medical students were dealing with, the university
did not make anything easier for them. Some lecturers had
started allowing the women to attend their regular classes i e.
Not women's specific classes, in an effort to get them

(22:25):
ready to graduate, but the university found out and put
an end to that. Additionally, the women were not going
to be allowed to sit for their final exam, which
would have conferred upon them their MD if they had passed.
In January eighteen seventy two, the university made it abundantly
clear that it just didn't think there was a way

(22:46):
to credential the women's students with medical degrees. Safaia wrote
of their determination quote On January eighth, the university court
declared that they could not make any arrangements to enable
us to pursue our studies with a view to a degree,
but that if we would altogether give up the question
of graduation and be content with certificates of proficiency, they

(23:07):
would try to meet our views. Certificates of proficiency were
not an acceptable compromise. The women sued the school for
a breach of contract. As this legal battle was playing out,
so Fi appenned Medical Women, which contained two essays. The first,
Medicine as a Profession for Women, was what she had

(23:29):
written for Josephine Butler's Anthology. The other was Medical Education
for Women. That writing, which is dedicated to doctor Lucy Sewell,
examines why exactly women hadn't been admitted to the medical community,
and it includes an opening argument quote in the first place,
let us take the testimony of nature in the matter.

(23:49):
If we go back to primeval times and try to
imagine the first sickness or the first injury suffered by humanity,
does one instinctively feel that it must have been the
man's business to seek the means of healing, to try
the virtues of various herbs, or to apply such rude
remedies as might occur to one unused to the strange

(24:09):
spectacle of human suffering. I think that few would maintain
that such ministry would come most naturally to the man,
and be instinctively avoided by the woman. Indeed, I fancy
that the presumption would be rather in the other direction.
And what is such ministration but the germ of the
future profession of medicine. There were also, at this time

(24:34):
some women who were going really hard in the opposite
direction of the status quo, and suggesting that men were
the ones who should not be allowed to become doctors,
because they were not as inherently nurturing as women. But
Sophia stated plainly that she thought this was not a
good position either, writing quote in my own experience as
a medical student, I have had far too much reason

(24:55):
to acknowledge the honor and delicacy of feeling habitually shown
by the general of the medical profession, not to protest
warmly against any such injurious imputation. I am very sure
that in the vast majority of cases, the motives and
conduct of medical men in this respect are altogether above question,
and that every physician who is also a gentleman is

(25:16):
thoroughly able, when consulted by a patient in any case whatever,
to remember only the human suffering brought before him, and
the scientific bearing of its details. But she does also
kind of throw women under the bus a little bit
later in that paragraph, writing quote, the medical man is
only one of the parties concerned, and that it is

(25:37):
possible that a difficulty which may be of no importance
from his scientific perspective, may yet be very formidable, indeed
to the far more sensitive and delicately organized feelings of
his patient, who has no such armor of proof as
his own, and whose very condition of suffering may entail
an even exaggerated condition of nervous susceptibility on such points.

(25:59):
This issue ended up in Scotland's Court of Session, and
things did not go well there. For Sofia and her
women colleagues. Not only was the school deemed able to
refuse medical degrees to women if it so chose, it
was also ruled that the school should never have started
taking women as medical students at all. Jax Blake and

(26:20):
her fellow litigants appealed the decision to Parliament. We're going
to talk about how things played out there after we
hear from the sponsors who keep the show going. When
the issue of women's university education moved to London, so

(26:44):
did Sofia, so that she could continue to work for
educational equity there. As the legal babble over women in
medical schools was waged in eighteen seventy four, jax Blake
made a path around the problem for the women who
followed her. She helped found the London's School of Medicine
for women. The professors, though, were still men. Jex Blake

(27:05):
worked on this project with Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, and the
two women were so very different. As you'll recall, Elizabeth
Garrett had found the way around getting her practicing license
by becoming an apothecary, and though these two women were
very close friends and collaborators, according to reports, there were
a lot of arguments between them about how to go
about things setting up the school. Though they didn't succeed

(27:27):
in getting their medical degrees from Edinburgh, the battle had
gained a lot of attention and sympathizers, and as a result,
in eighteen seventy six, the Medical Act was passed, also
known as the Russell Gurney Enabling Act. This didn't open
the doors of medical schools to women. It just created
a law that said that universities could do that if

(27:48):
they wanted to. More importantly, the Act established that women
doctors who had trained in other countries could become registered
to practice medicine in Britain. Yeah, for clarity, the reason
why there had to be a law that said you
can take women if you want is that a lot
of these schools had charters that specified men, and if
they had changed their admission policies, that charter would then

(28:12):
come into question and could be litigated. That was why
that was such a weird and strange but necessary step.
As a consequence of all of this, Safia, Jex Blake
and Edith Pecchi were able to get their graduations from
a medical school in Switzerland and then they sat for
their exams in Dublin at the College of Physicians there
to get their mds and their license. Starting in eighteen

(28:34):
seventy eight, she was finally able to practice medicine in
a practice that she set up in Edinburgh. That practice
was active until eighteen ninety nine, and during her time
in that practice she also founded the Edinburgh Women's Hospital
in eighteen eighty five in the Edinburgh School of Medicine
for Women in eighteen eighty six. Sephia also experienced two

(28:56):
significant losses in the middle of her triumphant career in Scotland. First,
her mother died in July of eighteen eighty one. This
is one of the few events in her life which
she wrote very little about in her journal. The other
is that while Sepia and Lucy Sewell had often fantasized

(29:16):
about starting a practice together and living together, probably as
a couple, each of them was so strongly tied to
their own communities that this never happened. Lucy Sewell died
in February of eighteen ninety which was a huge blow
to Sephia. It is a little bit unclear precisely when

(29:36):
Sefiah met Margaret Todd. Todd was born in eighteen fifty nine,
so she was nineteen years younger than Sefaia jex Blake,
and she had enrolled in the Edinburgh School of Medicine
for Women almost as soon as it was founded. She
was one of its first students, so presumably the two
of them met around that time. Margaret was also a writer.

(29:56):
She wrote several novels under the name Graham Travers, and
her work in literature meant that she took a longer
time than usual to complete her medical degree took her
eight years. After sitting for a medical examine Brussels in
eighteen ninety four, she became assistant medical officer at Edinburgh
Hospital and Dispensary for Women and Children, but her medical

(30:16):
career lasted just five years, most likely because of her
relationship with Sophia. When Sophia retired in eighteen ninety nine,
in part because she had developed issues with her heart,
Margaret retired too and left Edinburgh with her. Sofia had
decided she wanted to try farming in retirement on an
estate named Wendadeine in East Sussex, and she did. She

(30:40):
planted figs, peaches, apricots and other fruits and had a
small dairy. She threw big dinners full of fresh food.
Her door was always open to any of the women
she knew through her work in medicine and education, and
some that she didn't know but were students of the
school that she would just let come and visit, which
I love. Sophia died at Wendeddine on January seventh, nineteen twelve.

(31:04):
Following her death, Margaret Todd wrote a biography of her
titled The Life of Doctor Sephia jax Blake. This was
published in nineteen eighteen. Todd seemed to have access to
pretty much all of jax Blake's personal papers, right down
to drawings she had made as a child and poetry
she'd written in her early years. The portrait of jax

(31:26):
Blake in the biography is a very loving one, although
Margaret did not mention herself in it even once. Nope.
It's it's very sweet because she does acknowledge various faults
in her character, but it's always like yes, but she
was also amazing. It's really a sweet biography. One of
Sephia's favorite sayings, according to Todd's biography, was not me

(31:47):
but us, meaning that she believed in people working together
for each other and the other women of the Edinburgh
Seven went on, like Sophia, to practice medicine, although all
in very different ways. Edith pet She worked in England
before leaving for Bombay, where she worked at the Kamma
Hospital for Women and Children. Isabel Thorne did not pursue

(32:08):
her MD, but became the Honorary Secretary for the London
School of Medicine for Women. Emily Bubble worked in London's
New Hospital for Women before moving to Nice and working
on tuberculosis research. Matilda Chaplin founded a school for midwiffery
in Tokyo, then returned to Britain and had a private practice.

(32:29):
Helen Evans took time away for medicine to raise a family,
then joined the Edinburgh School of Medicine for Women's executive committee.
And Mary Anderson worked with Emily Bubble at the New
Hospital for Women until eighteen ninety five, when she retired
for health reasons. In twenty nineteen, the Edinburgh Seven finally
received their posthumous degrees from the University of Edinburgh. Yeah.

(32:54):
That's Safia Jex Blake, who I adore. Yeah, she's one
of my favorites that I have research to the time.
I have two pieces of listener mail, in fact cool
one is very short, which is about something that I
said on the podcast in a behind the scenes MANI.
It is from our listener Chad, who writes y'all suggested

(33:15):
that instead of the brutal capitalism of monopoly, it would
be nice to play a game where the person who
adopts the most cats wins. There is such a game.
I played it with my niece once. It's called Here
Kitty Kitty, and it comes with a bunch of cute
little black, gray, white, and orange cat figurines. Chad, Thank you, Chad.
I'm gonna be looking for that one. There's another that
someone else mentioned. Yeah, I couldn't find that one. I'm

(33:36):
absolutely willing to bet that there are many game And
the reason I've come to this conclusion is that a
friend of mine recently asked my spouse what was that
game we were playing where we were trying to grab
little sushies out of a bowl with chopsticks? And I
went to try to find the answer and found at
least six different games by different publishers that were all

(33:57):
about grabbing little sushi bits out of a bowl with
I love it. Listen many people can have the same
great idea. Yes. My next one is from our listener
rose Mary, who writes, Hi, Holly and Tracy. I'm a
longtime listener and I love to play your podcast while
working on my cosplays, sewing for craft fares and crocheting.
I've always wanted to write in and finally I have something.

(34:20):
I was listening to the Spring twenty twenty four on
Earthed episodes and you mentioned ancient lipstick from Iran. Recently,
I saw instagrammer Aaron Parsons recreate this very lipstick on
her page and it was such a pretty reddish brown.
Here's the link if you want to check it out.
I wanted to read this because I also follow Aaron Parsons,
who does a lot of historical makeup deep dives like

(34:40):
she does. Do you follow her? No, but a friend
of mine sent me the same video. She does like
stuff where she will. At one point she kind of
cold called the person who used to do Marilyn Monroe's
makeup to get information on what exact products she used
on some of her classic looks like she very respectfully
she had a contact that gave her that info. She

(35:02):
didn't just like call out of the Blue and she
does things like this. She's a really really interesting makeup
artist who also is just obsessed with the history of makeups.
Going back to this email, Rosemary writes, I also was
listening to Behind the Scenes and Holly was talking about
how she cried during the bobs Burgers episode of Louise
doing a shadow puppet presentation on Amelia Earhart. I just

(35:23):
want to let you know you were not alone. I
cried too. I'm so glad it was such a moving episode.
I tear up just writing about it. Just talking about
this brings me to tears. It's such a good show.
I attached the mandatory pet tax. These are my three cats,
Fry who is black, doctor Pants a tuxi, and Tina,
Gray forever Kitten. Yes, they are named after my favorite shows.

(35:43):
Fry is our oldest and most stoic, Doctor Pants is
the friendliest an FIP survivor, and Tina is the silliest
epitome of a gray cat. Here's what I want to know, Rosemary,
is doctor Pants named after mister Pants from Home Movies,
which is all so created by the same person that
does Bob's Burgers. So I feel like the DNA of
your taste is all in here. His name is mister Pants.

(36:07):
He's a kitty catman. I had a cat I used
to call mister Pants. That was not his actual name,
but I called him that anyway. These cats are adorable
and she caught them all in one picture where they
look like a gang that's coming to get you in
the best way possible. They are so cute, little cuddle monkeys.
The sweetest, sweetest, sweetest Rosemary, thank you for this email.

(36:28):
It was so sweet. You feel like a kindred spirit.
If you would like to write to us and maybe
make me cry by mentioning Bob's Burger's episodes that are
very moving, you can do that at History Podcast at
iHeartRadio dot com. If you have not yet subscribed to
the show, it is so easy. You can do that
on the iHeartRadio app, or anywhere you listen to your
favorite shows. Stuff you Missed in History Class is a

(36:54):
production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
iHeartRadio app podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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Tracy V. Wilson

Holly Frey

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Sophia Jex-Blake and the Edinburgh Seven (Part 2)