Elizabeth Cushier and Emily Blackwell
This letter from Dr. Elizabeth Cushier (1837-1931) to her partner, Dr. Emily Blackwell (1826-1910), is not filled with flowery declarations of true love. However, it does offer insight into the domestic life of two women in a deeply affectionate, established relationship. Blackwell and Cushier moved into a home in Manhattan together in 1882, about twelve years after they first met. They would continue to live together until Emily Blackwell’s death twenty-eight years later (Cushier, 1933).
According to her autobiography, Elizabeth Cushier was frustrated by how limited the opportunities were for women to receive a good medical education (1933, p 87). She was delighted to discover the New York Infirmary's Woman's Medical College, which was directed by Dr. Emily Blackwell, and enrolled in 1869 (1933, pp 87-88). Dr. Emily Blackwell had cofounded the College with her older sister, Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell. Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell were famous for being respectively recipients of the first and third American medical degrees awarded to women (Radcliffe Institute, 2016). The sisters faced significant opposition in their struggles to obtain these degrees, and they wanted to use their expertise to train and support a new generation of female doctors (Radcliffe Institute, 2016). Dr. Elizabeth Cushier was part of that generation, and after graduating she worked alongside the younger Dr. Blackwell as a respected obstetrician/gynecologist (Cushier, 1933, p 90).
The exact nature of Cushier and Blackwell’s relationship was unclear to their contemporaries, and remains unclear to researchers today.
Prominent LGBTQ+ historian Lillian Faderman asserts in her book To Believe in Women: What Lesbians have done for America that Blackwell and Cushier were in a lesbian relationship, but it is important to note that Faderman’s definition of “lesbian” in a historical context comes with caveats (1999). She acknowledges that:
“As the postmodernists claim, it is impossible –especially when dealing with historical figures –to make safe statements about identities, which are so slippery in their subjectivity and mutability. However, if enough material that reveals what people do and say is available, we can surely make apt observations about their behavior… I use the term “lesbian” as an adjective that describes intense woman-to-woman relating and commitment. (Faderman, 1999, p.3)
That is the perspective that informs this couple’s inclusion in our archive. When you dive into archival research, there are not always easy signposts providing clear facts about your research subjects’ lives. Sometimes you have to look at the available evidence and then use your best judgement, supported by secondary source scholarship, to make inferences. Today the Blackwell family’s extensive papers are held by Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, which has digitized them and made them freely available to the public. The Institute is more circumspect than Faderman, referring to Cushier as Blackwell’s “domestic partner” and “companion” (Radcliffe Institute, 2016). These labels are not inaccurate, and perhaps the two doctors would have thought about their relationship in similar terms. At the same time, however, these labels are not designed to alert readers or casual researchers interested in LGBTQ+ history who are browsing through the Blackwell family papers.
Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell expressed her confusion about Emily’s private life in a letter to their brother, asking him to:
Pray tell me, confidentially, whether you think it/well that she should go [to?] California with Dr Cushier if her health is seriously impaired. What is the connexion, exactly, with Cushier? Does Emily pay her expenses, and give her a salary, as companion? for Cushier’s not in independent circumstances and has a family of her own to help.
It is possible that the elder Dr. Blackwell’s mystification is simply due to the fact that she was living in England at the time. However, her inability to easily classify her sister and Cushier’s relationship could also be a piece of evidence that the two women were more than friends or companions. Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell implies that Cushier is strangely invested in Emily’s health and wellbeing for a friend. She assumes that the level of devotion Cushier displays is taking time and resources away from Cushier’s duties to her actual (biological) family, and concludes that the situation would make more sense if Cushier were being paid.
However, nothing in Cushier’s brief autobiography or in this letter suggests that her care for Emily was motivated by anything but affection.
In this particular letter, which we have transcribed as fully as possible (Cushier’s handwriting is very difficult to read!), Cushier addresses Blackwell as “dearest” and “my own, dear doctor.” Emily appears to be returning from a trip, and Elizabeth writes with updates about several patients, one of whom has a bad prognosis. She also goes into detail about the struggles she is having with superintending some of their home renovations. Cushier complains about workmen getting the house dirty, and promises that Emily’s office will be ready for her when she arrives. Cushier writes about how much she is looking forward to having Emily home, and ends the letter by assuring her partner to “believe me as ever dear dear doctor with love from EMC.”
Cushier’s sentiments could be interpreted as a close friendship—but they sound more like words of romantic affection. The two women created a life together that seems to have been very similar to a marriage—they owned a summer home in Maine where they enjoyed spending time, and went on several lengthy vacations to Europe (Cushier, 1933). In fact, although Cushier loved her surgical work, she took a year off in order to make the most of her time with her older partner and go on a wonderful trip to Europe (1933, p 92). Cushier describes Emily Blackwell’s death in 1910 as “making an irreparable break in my life” (1933, p 92). The women were companions, but not the kind of companion Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell was thinking of. Elizabeth Cushier and Emily Blackwell were life partners who made sacrifices for each other, prioritized each other’s wellbeing, and treasured each other's company.