Bodley was named after her maternal grandmother, Rachel Littler Talbott; she was raised Presbyterian, as were her two older brothers and two younger sisters.

[1] In 1860, she began studying advanced chemistry and physics at the Polytechnic College of Pennsylvania, then the country's foremost institution of the applied sciences.

She made extensive effort in the organization and arrangement of an herbarium which had been donated to the Seminary by the heirs of Joseph Clark (1823–1858), a resident of Cincinnati.

[1] She later studied many strange plants including Venus flytrap, Lily of the valley, Snowdrops, dwarf hose chestnut, and Alpine sandwort.

[1] During her tenure at the Seminary, Bodley continued private study in higher mathematics, microscopy, phonography, elocution, music, French, German, and drawing.

In 1865, she left the Cincinnati Female Seminary to become the chair of chemistry and toxicology at the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania, where she would spend the rest of her career.

Bodley stressed attention to detail and use of facts, logic, and solid arguments to her students rather than intuition, "womanliness", and emotion, the latter of which was common in medical instruction at the time.

[2] This helped to refute the claims of opponents of female medical education, who maintaintained that women would simply give up the practice once they married.

[2] She presided over the graduation of Anandi Gopal Joshi, the second Hindu woman to obtain a degree in Western medicine (the first being Kadambini Ganguly).

As early as 1864, Rachel Bodley was being recognized nationally for her contribution to science and literature when the State Historical Society of Wisconsin made her a corresponding member.

[1] Bodley maintained a passion for botany after her work on the herbarium, and always brought equipment for collecting and preparing plant specimens with her during summer trips to scenic and historic locations.

[1] Bodley devoted her free time and skills to maintaining and advancing the goals of the Women's College, for which she received high praise.