Gwendolyn Wilson Fowler

Gwendolyn Wilson Fowler (December 8, 1907 – November 19, 1997) was an African-American pharmacist, the first black woman licensed in Iowa. She also became the first African-American woman from Iowa to serve in the United States Foreign Service, when she was posted to Vietnam in the 1950s. She was inducted into the Iowa Women's Hall of Fame in 1987.

Biography Gwendolyn Mary Wilson was born on December 8, 1907, in Dardanelle, Arkansas, to Fannie (née Robinson) and Dr. Cornelius Wilson, who moved his family and medical practice to Des Moines, Iowa, in 1913. Wilson attended Bryant Elementary School and then West High School of Des Moines, before going to a high school preparatory training school on the campus of Rust College, in Holly Springs, Mississippi. Graduating with honors in 1926, Wilson returned to Iowa and enrolled in pharmacy at the University of Iowa, in Iowa City. After a year, she transferred to the Des Moines College of Pharmacy, which later became the Drake College of Pharmacy, earning her degree in chemistry and pharmaceuticals in 1930, the first African-American woman in Iowa to attain a pharmacy degree. Upon officially registering as a pharmacist in Iowa in 1931, she became the first registered black pharmacist in the state. In 1957, she returned for a brief visit from Viet Nam, where she was serving as a program analyst and training officer. In 1959, Fowler was posted to Korea, and then returned to the Iowa Department of Agriculture laboratory after completion of her foreign service. In 1962, she began working as a staff pharmacist

Fowler died on November 19, 1997, and her papers were posthumously donated to the Iowa Women's Archives Collection at the University of Iowa Libraries in Iowa City, Iowa.