Dorothy Mabel Reed Mendenhall (September 22, 1874 – July 31, 1964) was a prominent pediatric physician specializing in cellular pathology.

A child of privilege, Reed lived on a large estate with her parents, brother, sister, aunts, uncles, and several cousins.

By the age of thirteen, Reed had learned the basics of education, such as reading and writing, despite her lack of schooling.

[2] This decision was made, in part, to help her family out of the financial burden they were facing due to overspending.

[3] Mendenhall graduated fourth in her class in 1900 and was awarded a prestigious internship at Johns Hopkins Hospital, serving under William Osler.

[3] After Mendenhall was awarded the internship, Paul Woolley, one of her colleagues, threatened to leave the city if she did not hand it over to him.

[2] Mendenhall and her colleagues were more interested in working in medicine than in spearheading a feminist movement, [6] and her diary reflected this, with some entries discussing how some female students were overly sensitive, for which she had little tolerance.

Mendenhall and her classmates, Margaret Long and Florence Sabin, were viewed as a different kind of female physician—ones who were not especially concerned with the feminist movement.

[2] After declining the extended fellowship, Mendenhall accepted an internship in pediatrics at the Babies Hospital in New York City, part of the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center.

[4] Mendenhall began the second phase of her career in 1914 when she became a lecturer in the Department of Home Economics at the University of Wisconsin.

[3] Later on, Mendenhall visited Denmark to compare Danish infant mortality rates with those in the United States.

Thomas attended and became a professor of history at Yale University, and served as the sixth president of Smith College, his mother's alma mater.

Mendenhall published two books, including Milk: The Indispensable Food for Children[9] and What is Happening to Mothers and Babies in the District of Columbia?

[3] These publications were based on the research Mendenhall conducted oversees, as well as here in the U.S., in regard to child nutrition and health.