Doctor Elizabeth Blackwell Memorial, Asheville

Born in England in 1821, Elizabeth Blackwell went down in history as the first woman in the United States to earn a medical degree. She received it in 1849 from Geneva Medical College in western New York.

Blackwell began her medical studies in Asheville in 1845 under Dr. John Dickson, a former physician, for whom she worked briefly as a music teacher at Dickson Private School for Girls located in what is now known as the Drhumor Building.

Although Blackwell lived in Asheville only for a short period, her impact on medicine and women's history is now duly commemorated. The memorial marker on the side of the Wachovia Bank Building, across the street from the Drhumor Building, was placed in 2019 by Buncombe County Medical Auxiliary and Buncombe County Medical Society.

It features a metal arbor of medicinal herbs housing a bench and the bust of Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell. The medicinal plants represent wild yam, Virginia creeper, sycamore, sweet gum maple, oak sassafras, witch hazel, and tulip poplar. Each of the plants incorporated is native to North Carolina and was used for medicinal purposes. The seats on the bench are made to resemble ginkgo leaves. Also, if you look down, on the pavement, you will see a bronze plaque providing a brief biography of Dr. Blackwell.