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[Identification of item], in the Lydia Folger Fowler M.D. Papers, MC003, Marion B. Gebbie Archives and Special Collections, Wallace Library, Wheaton College, Norton MA, U.S.A.
Processed by: Ashley Kuhn, November 2008
Encoded using Archivist Toolkit by: Hanna Juergens, September 2012
Encoding edited by: Megan Wheaton-Book, September 2012
Gift of M.F. Allen. The reproduction porcelain phrenological head was purchased.
Lydia was born on the Island of Nantucket on May 5, 1822, the daughter of Gideon and Eunice Macy Folger. She attended Wheaton Female Seminary in 1838 and taught there from 1842 to 1844. She received her M.D. degree from Central Medical College of New York in 1850, making her the second woman in the country and the first American-born woman to earn a medical degree. She was the first female professor in an American medical college.
Lydia married Lorenzo Niles Fowler in 1844. They had three daughters: Jessie Allen, Amelia and Lydia. Lorenzo, his brother Orson Squire Fowler, and Samuel Wells were all proponents of phrenology and produced books on this and other subjects at the NY publishing firm of Fowler and Wells.
Between 1852 and 1860 Lydia practiced medicine in New York City and spent part of the time teaching women as a volunteer at the Metropolitan College. Lydia traveled to Europe in 1860 to address women on physiology and she spent the winter of 1860-61 studying in Paris. In London she was in charge of all obstetric cases at Marylebone Road Hospital before joining her husband to lecture on phrenology and other subjects across Britain. She praised women as mothers, but also taught that education was something which they owed to themselves and to their children.
When Eliza Baylies Chapin Wheaton and her husband Laban Morey Wheaton, founders of Wheaton Seminary, visited London in the spring and summer of 1862, they were visited by Lydia, and attended a lecture with her. They apparently counted upon her to help them navigate London and find fellow American visitors.In 1863 the Fowlers opened a London office where Lorenzo practiced phrenology and where Lydia assisted, lectured, wrote and was also active in the British Women’s Temperance Society. Lydia’s publications include: Familiar Lessons on Phrenology (for Young Readers), 1847; Familiar Lessons on Astronomy, 1848; Pet of the Household; and Woman and her Destiny.
Lydia died in London on January 30, 1879 from blood poisoning contracted while caring for the poor.
Lydia Folger Fowler's papers include: several biographies written about Lydia; a letter (original and transcription) to Mrs. Wheaton from Lydia’s sister, M. F. Allen, concerning the donation of “In Memoriam” card (1879); correspondence between John T. Miller and the College Librarian about Lydia (1939-1940); and a copy of The Daisy: a Journal of Pure Literature, which features a portrait of, and an article/obituary on, Lydia.
The following terms suggest topics interspersed through the entire collection.
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