Lydia Folger Fowler

Lydia Folger Fowler (May 5, 1823 – January 26, 1879) was a pioneering American medical doctor, professor of medicine, and activist. She was the second American woman to earn a medical degree (after Elizabeth Blackwell) and one of the first American women in medicine and a prominent woman in science. She married a phrenologist and her daughter, Jessie Allen Fowler, continued their ideas.

Family life Lydia Folger was born in Nantucket, Massachusetts, in 1823, Through them she was the first cousin four times removed of Benjamin Franklin. Other notable family members included her extended cousins Lucretia Coffin Mott and Maria Mitchell She met Lorenzo at the house of her paternal uncle, Walter Folger, Jr., an "eccentric and famous astronomer-navigator in Nantucket". Lorenzo and his brother, Orson Squire Fowler, were well-known phrenologists; the New York Times noted in his obituary that "Prof. Fowler examined the heads of many distinguished men, among them Charles Dickens, Edgar Allan Poe, William Cullen Bryant, Baron Rothschild, Li Hung Chang, and Sir Henry Irving."

Lydia and Lorenzo Fowler had three daughters: In 1896, Jessie accompanied her father when he returned to America, and she became the editor of the Fowler's Phrenological Journal. Jessie inherited the company of Fowler and Wells after her father and aunt died in 1896 and 1901. She continued to write and died in 1932. Lydia gave many presentations where she would direct teachers and parents on how to teach their children to know themselves, as she believed children could work towards self-improvement with guidance.

She became an appointed professor of obstetrics and diseases of women and children at Central Medical College. Central Medical College then dissolved in 1852. Lydia Folger Fowler graduated as only the second woman in America to earn a medical degree, following Elizabeth Blackwell in 1849.

Career and professional involvement She then went on to practice medicine in New York from 1852 to 1860, Lydia practiced medicine with the outlook that science could improve female roles as children's caretakers.

The Fowlers moved to London in 1863, and Fowler became active in the British Women's Temperance Association, as well as continuing her work practicing medicine and teaching women about health, education, and parenting.