The daughter of George Palmer Putnam and Victorine Haven Putnam, she was born in London, UK where her father had been living since 1841 while establishing a branch office for his New York City publishing company, Wiley & Putnam.
Mary Putnam's parents returned to the United States in 1848 and she spent her childhood and adolescence in New York city. She graduated from the New York College of Pharmacy in 1863 and with her M.D. from the Female (later Women's) Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1864. She did further studies in Paris, France where she applied and was admitted to the "École de Médecine." After returning to the United States, she set up a medical practice in New York City. In 1872 she organized the Association for the Advancement of the Medical Education of Women, serving as its president from 1874 to 1903.
In 1873, Mary Putnam married Dr. Abraham Jacobi who is often referred to as the "father of American pediatrics."
She died in New York city in 1906, considered the foremost female physician of her era.
References
Bittel, Carla Jean (2005). "Science, suffrage, and experimentation: Mary Putnam Jacobi and the controversy over vivisection in late nineteenth-century America". Bulletin of the history of medicine79 (4): 664–94. doi:10.1353/bhm.2005.0138. PMID 16327083.
Gartner, C B (May 1996). "Fussell's folly: academic standards and the case of Mary Putnam Jacobi". Academic medicine : journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges71 (5): 470–7. PMID 9125974.
Harvey, J (1994). "La Visite: Mary Putnam Jacobi and the Paris Medical Clinics". Clio medica (Amsterdam, Netherlands)25: 350–71. PMID 7517812.
Ross, M M (1992). "Women's struggles to enter medicine: two nineteenth-century women physicians in America". The Pharos of Alpha Omega Alpha-Honor Medical Society. Alpha Omega Alpha55 (1): 33–6. PMID 1565681.
Farley, F (1984). "Two generations of women physicians: the New York Infirmary, 1870-1899". Journal of the American Medical Women's Association (1972)39 (6): 189–91. PMID 6392396.
Davis, P J (November 1965). "Mary Putnam Jacobi". N. Engl. J. Med.273 (19): 1037–8. PMID 5320889.