Despite existing barriers, she fought to gain entry to higher education and graduated in 1879 with the first doctorate in medicine earned by a woman in the Netherlands.

She opened a free clinic to educate poor women about hygiene and child care and in 1882 expanded her services to include distribution of contraception information and devices.

She was successful in her campaign to establish mandatory break laws in retail workers' employment and in attaining the vote for Dutch women in 1919.

[3] A family friend, the hygienist Levy Ali Cohen, encouraged Jacobs to become a pharmacy assistant, after learning in 1869 that a woman had been allowed to take the examination.

[Notes 1][8][9] Learning that a male student who had passed his pharmacy examination was admitted to the university on the basis of his diploma,[10] Jacobs wrote secretly to the chair of the Council of Ministers of the Netherlands, Johan Rudolph Thorbecke.

She requested permission to begin her university studies prior to taking the entrance examination and was granted provisional approval by Thorbecke to attend as a one-year probationary student.

[9] When within months, news reached Jacobs' father that Thorbecke was mortally ill, Abraham insisted that his daughter be allowed to register without probation.

[2] Obtaining her state license to operate as a general practitioner in 1878, she began work on her doctoral thesis,[11] Over localisatie van physiologische en pathologische verschijnselen in de groote hersenen (On the Localization of Physiological and Pathological Symptoms in the Cerebrum).

[9] In developing solutions for these women, Jacobs became convinced that reliable contraception would alleviate suffering and economic hardship resulting from too many children.

[21] Finding the trial was successful, she introduced the method of birth control (still widely known to English speakers as the Dutch Cap) in the Netherlands[2][22] and began counseling women on its use.

[18] In her twice-weekly clinics for the poor, which were well-attended, she provided birth control information and a contraceptive device – Dutch pessary,[23] free of charge.

This practice was widely criticized by other physicians, including Catharine van Tussenbroek, the second Dutch woman to earn a medical degree.

[11] Physicians who argued against contraception maintained that it interfered with the "divine plan",[24] encouraged extramarital sex, and would have a negative impact on fecundity and national growth.

[25] In 1883, as the Parliamentary elections ensued,[26] Jacobs learned from the liberal politician Samuel van Houten that women were not explicitly banned from voting, and she wrote a letter to the mayor and city council of Amsterdam, questioning why she was not included on the voter registration list.

[30][31] In addition to her work in hygiene and contraception, beginning in 1886, Jacobs campaigned for retail establishments to provide employees with benches where they could rest when they were not attending to customers.

[33] Advised by a member of the Supreme Court that she might win a second appeal on women's suffrage, Jacobs initially considered continuing the fight, but in 1885 an amendment to the constitution was proposed by Minister Jan Heemskerk to add the word "man" to the electoral provisions.

[2][35] He strongly supported universal suffrage, compulsory education and social reforms, such as the establishment of minimum wages and maximum working hours.

[35] On 9 September 1893, Jacobs, who retained her own name after marriage, went into labor and delivered a son;[37][38] however, the baby lived only one day because of careless treatment by the midwife during the birth.

[2][9] Though she was one of the founders of the Vereeniging voor Vrouwenkiesrecht (Association for Women's Suffrage) in 1894, she was unable to attend the founding meeting because of surgery following her child's birth.

[38] Jacobs retired from her medical practice in 1903, thereafter devoting her time to women's suffrage,[44] financing her efforts from the sale of her private library.

After recovering from a depression caused by her loss, Jacobs resumed her suffrage work in 1906, touring with Carrie Chapman Catt through the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

She toured from Cape Town to Johannesburg making speeches on suffrage, as well as hygiene, sanitation, prostitution and venereal diseases, while calling for universal sex education.

[1][38] In 1914, shortly after the start of World War I, Jacobs promoted holding the International Women's Congress in The Hague, given the country's neutrality.

[38] Coordinated by Jacobs, Mia Boissevain, and Rosa Manus, the conference, which opened on 28 April 1915,[49] was attended by 1,136 participants from both neutral and non-belligerent nations,[50] and resulted in the establishment of an organization which would become the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF).

Along with MP Henri Marchant, in 1918 Jacobs founded the journal, De opbouw, Democratisch Tijdschrift (The building, Democratic Magazine) in which she wrote several articles between 1918 and 1924.

[38] Thanks to the international reputation she had gained from the suffrage movement, Jacobs' role as a pioneer of contraception was drawn on by birth control activists in the United States, such as Margaret Sanger.

[57] In the Netherlands, there are numerous awards and institutes which bear her name, such as the Aletta Jacobs Prize granted by the University of Groningen and a college in Hoogezand-Sappemeer.

[60] In 1903, when she retired, Jacobs sold her collection of 2,000 books, magazines and pamphlets on women's history to the John Crerar Library in Chicago.

[62] At a time when married women were typically forced to relinquish their names and employment, Jacobs retained her own identity and continued to work outside her home, inspiring others to follow suit.

[51] In assessing her own career, Jacobs wrote a letter to Catt in 1928: I feel happy that I have seen the three great objects of my life come to fulfillment during my life … They were: the opening for women of all opportunities to study and to bring it into practice; to make Motherhood a question of desire, no more a duty; and the political equality for women.On 9 February 2017, Google Doodle celebrated Jacobs's 163rd birthday.