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Elizabeth M. Cushier
(November 25, 1837 - November 25, 1931) U.S.A.

Elizabeth Cushier

Physician

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Elizabeth M. Cushier was born one of the eleven children. Her education included a combination of public and private schools and self-exploration. English literature, the French language, and mathematics were of particular interest to her. Besides living in New York, the Cushier family also lived in New Jersey during her childhood.

In 1872, Elizabeth Cushier graduated from the Woman's Medical College of the New York Infirmary for Women and Children and completed a year and a half of further studies at the University of Zurich researching pathological and normal histology, since this field of research was not open to women in the United States at that time. Elizabeth was employed by the Infirmary as a gynecologist and surgeon, becoming known for her expertise in both fields.

She wrote articles for medical journals and was a faculty member at the Women's Medical College, and was associated with Emily Blackwell, a pioneer of medical education among women. "She is [...] a remarkable lovely woman, spirited, unselfish, generous and intelligent. I do not know what Dr. Emily would do without her. She absolutely basks in her presence; and seems as if she had been waiting for her for a lifetime." (Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi to Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, 1888)

Elizabeth ran a private medical practice in New York City. Among her patients, there were American educator, suffragist, linguist, and second President of Bryn Mawr College, M. Carey Thomas, and the latter partner, Mary Garrett, American suffragist and philanthropist. During World War I she volunteered for Red Cross and performed relief work in Belgium and France.

From 1882, Elizabeth lived with Emily Blackwell and their adopted daugther Nanni in New York City. Emily and Elizabeth retired at the turn of the century. After traveling abroad for a year and a half, they spent the next summers near York Cliffs, Maine, where they acquired a summer home, and winters at their home at 17 Plymouth Street, Montclair, New Jersey The Montclair's house was shared with Elizabeth Mercelis, who was Elizabeth's niece and was to became the treasurer of the Montclair group. The Group supported Edith Wharton in her effort to help women and children during the World War I in France and for this reason Mercelis was in contact with Wharton.

Emily Blackwell died in September 1910, after which Elizabeth said that it made "an irreparable break in my life." Elizabeth died in 1931 in York Cliffs, Maine, and is buried at Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn. Elizabeth Burr Thelberg, a student of Elizabeth Cushier, curated the Autobiography of Dr. Elizabeth Cushier shortly before her own death in 1933.

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Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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