She attended the University of Pennsylvania from 1884 to 1886; as the first woman to complete the two-year course in biology, she received a Certificate of Proficiency in Biology.[2] (This institution did not grant degrees to women at the time.[3]) After working as an assistant in the herbarium at Bryn Mawr College for a year, she attended the University of Leipzig for two years, studying chemistry with Friedrich Stohmann and plant physiology with Wilhelm Pfeffer.[4] She did her doctoral work at the University of Zurich, studying with Arnold Dodel-Port (de). In 1890, on completion of her dissertation, titled Über Protoplasma-Strömung im Pflanzenreich (On Protoplasmic Flow in the Plant Kingdom), she received a PhD degree.[5]
Ida had a brother, Harry Frederick Keller, who was educated as a chemist and also taught in Philadelphia public schools.[1]
Career
After receiving her doctorate, Ida Keller returned to Bryn Mawr as lecturer in botany for two years.[4] In 1893, she became a teacher of chemistry at the Philadelphia High School for Girls, where she herself had attended. She became head of the chemistry and biology departments there in 1898.[1] For 32 years, she continued to teach and chair a department until her retirement in 1930.[6] She served as vice president of the Association of Colleges and Preparatory Schools of the Middle States in 1895.[7] From 1911 to 1912, she was the first president of the Botanical Club of the Higher Schools of Philadelphia.[8]
In the years leading up to passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, Keller was active in the movement for women's suffrage, serving as vice president of a ward-level organization.[8]
Keller, Ida A. (1910). Insects of Philadelphia and Vicinity, with Especial Reference to the More Common and Conspicuous Forms and Also to Those of Economic Importance. Philadelphia, PA.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
Creese, Mary R. S. (1998). Ladies in the Laboratory? American and British Women in Science, 1800-1900: A Survey of Their Contributions to Research. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press. ISBN0-8108-3287-9.
Leonard, John William, ed. (1914), "Keller, Ida Augusta", Woman's Who's Who of America: A Biographical Dictionary of Contemporary Women of the United States and Canada, 1914-1915, New York, NY: The American Commonwealth Company, p. 448. Reprinted by Gale Research Company, Detroit, MI, 1976.