Doris Marie Bender

Doris Marie Bender (November 29, 1911 – November 15, 1991) was an Alabama social worker. Her programs to help the elderly and disabled adults, developed in Mobile County, became models for later state-wide efforts to protect these groups of people. Bender was inducted into the Alabama Women's Hall of Fame in 1994.

Biography Bender was the oldest of four children and born in Mobile, Alabama to Mary Frances McCafferty Bender and Theodore Jackson Bender. She helped raise her younger siblings after the death of her mother. She would work as the director there until she retired in 1976. She broke down gender barriers, becoming the first woman to be elected to the Board of Directors of First Southern Federal Savings and Loan Association, the first woman to serve on the Board of Trustees of Spring Hill College, and Miss the first woman selected from outside the University of South Alabama staff to serve on the Admissions Committee of the USA School of Medicine.