Edith Houghton Hooker (December 29, 1879 – October 23, 1948) was an American suffragist and social worker. She was a leader of the suffrage movement in Maryland in the early twentieth century and was posthumously inducted into the Maryland Women's Hall of Fame. She was a maternal aunt of actress Katharine Hepburn.
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Early years and education
Edith Houghton was born in 1879 in Buffalo, New York. A member of the Houghton family, her parents were Caroline Garlinghouse and Alfred Augustus Houghton, and her sister Katharine, was a prominent feminist. Alfred A. Houghton, Edith's father, died in 1892 of suicide. Her mother, Caroline, supported the advancement of education for women. Before Caroline's death in 1894 from stomach cancer, she provided instructions regarding the education of her daughters.
Close relatives preferred the girls attend a traditional finishing school. After a family conflict Edith and Katharine were permitted to engage in higher education and both applied to Bryn Mawr College. She attended Bryn Mawr College, graduating in 1901, before moving to Baltimore to enroll at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine as one of the medical school's first female students.