Background
Mary Bidwell Breed was born on 15 September 1870 in Pittsburgh.
Mary Bidwell Breed was born on 15 September 1870 in Pittsburgh.
She was educated at Bryn Mawr College, where she received three degrees and her Doctor of Philosophy in 1901, and Heidelberg University.
Before finishing her doctorate Breed was head of the science department at Pennsylvania College for Women. Her research focus was on aromatic acids and the atomic weight of palladium. Breed was the dean of women at Indiana University from 1901 to 1906 (the first female dean at the university), a position from which she denounced the segregation of men and women into certain academic fields.
Her work is not well documented after 1906.
Breed died on her 79th birthday in 1949 in Newton, New Jersey. She is buried at Homewood Cemetery in Pittsburgh.