Blackwell procured a teaching job

In 1844, with the help of her sister Anna, Blackwell procured a teaching job that paid $1,000 per year in Henderson, Kentucky. Although she was pleased with her class, she found the accommodations and schoolhouse lacking. What disturbed her most was that this was her first real encounter with the realities of slavery. "Kind as the people were to me personally, the sense of justice was continually outraged; and at the end of the first term of engagement I resigned the situation." She returned to Cincinnati only half a year later, resolved to find a more stimulating way to spend her life.