Almah Jane Frisby
West Bend–born physician; UW professor and Ladies’ Hall principal; first woman UW Regent and first woman on the State Board of Control
Net worth
$2,000
1905
About
Almah Jane Frisby was a West Bend–born physician who became one of Wisconsin’s early women in public authority: professor of hygiene at the University of Wisconsin, principal of Ladies’ Hall, the first woman on the Board of Regents, and the first woman on the State Board of Control that oversaw prisons, reformatories, and hospitals.
She argued that women’s judgment belonged in the rooms where women and girls were confined.
She was born in West Bend on July 8, 1857, the daughter of lawyer Leander F. Frisby—later Wisconsin’s attorney general—and Frances E. Rooker Frisby. At the University of Wisconsin commencement in 1878 she and her sister Alice both spoke, a shared milestone that marked the family’s push into higher education. She earned a medical degree from Boston University in 1883, opened a Milwaukee practice, ran the Women’s Homeopathic Hospital in Philadelphia for a winter, and in 1887 read a paper on uterine disease to the state homeopathic association. From 1889 to 1895 Wisconsin hired her as professor of hygiene and sanitary science and as principal of Ladies’ Hall.
Governor Robert M. La Follette put her on the Board of Regents from 1901 to 1906, then on the State Board of Control from 1905 to 1912. An 1897 USDA bulletin on losses in boiling vegetables and the composition and digestibility of potatoes and eggs carries her name with Harry Snyder and Arthur Peyton Bryant. Her cousin was Judge Franklin L. Gilson; a railroad station at Marshfield was named Frisby. She died in Santa Barbara, California, on November 12, 1931, and is buried at Forest Home Cemetery in Milwaukee. Practice and later life took her through Milwaukee, Madison, and California; the start was West Bend, where her father’s law practice rooted the family.
Notable facts
Born in West Bend on July 8, 1857; UW class of 1878 (she and sister Alice both spoke at commencement); Boston University medical degree in 1883.
Professor of hygiene and sanitary science and principal of Ladies’ Hall at Wisconsin, 1889–1895; first woman UW Regent (1901–1906) and first woman on the State Board of Control (1905–1912).
Died in Santa Barbara, California, on November 12, 1931; buried at Forest Home Cemetery in Milwaukee.
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- What makes Almah Jane Frisby notable?
- Almah Jane Frisby was a West Bend–born physician who became one of Wisconsin’s early women in public authority: professor of hygiene at the University of Wisconsin, principal of Ladies’ Hall, the first woman on the Board of Regents, and the first woman on the State Board of Control that oversaw prisons,…
- What is Almah Jane Frisby's estimated net worth?
- Almah Jane Frisby's estimated net worth is $2,000 as of 1905.