Ellen Culver Potter

Ellen Culver Potter (August 5, 1871 – February 9, 1958) was an American physician and public health official.

Early life Potter was born in New London, Connecticut, the daughter of Thomas Wells Potter and Ellen Harris Culver Potter. She studied art as a young woman in Boston and New York City, and Europe. She worked at a settlement house in Chinatown, and started a settlement house in Norwich, Connecticut.

Potter graduated from the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1903, and was an officer in the school's alumnae association.

Career Potter taught gynecology courses at the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania, Potter was appointed Pennsylvania's Secretary of Welfare in 1923, by governor Gifford Pinchot, and was the first American woman to hold a secretary position in a state governor's cabinet. Her department oversaw public childcare, state hospitals, county jails, and other institutions. She served in this position until 1927. and deputy welfare commissioner from 1946 to 1949. She was also superintendent of the Woman’s Reformatory and State Home for Girls. She was president of the New Jersey Welfare Council. She consulted for the Wickersham Commission on prisons and parole. She was a fellow of the American College of Physicians, the American Public Health Association. She was active in the League of Women Voters and the YWCA. and on medical staff shortages in 1941.

In 1936, Potter received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Rutgers College. Her papers are the archives of the Drexel University College of Medicine.