Dorothea Rhodes Lummis Moore was an American physician, writer, and social reformer active during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Born Dorothea Rhodes in 1857, she initially pursued music at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. However, she soon pivoted to medicine, enrolling at Boston University's medical school in 1881 and graduating with honors in 1884. Following her marriage to Charles Fletcher Lummis in 1880, she relocated to Los Angeles, California, in 1885, where she established her medical practice.
Alongside her medical career, Moore was an active writer and editor. She served as a dramatic and musical editor and critic for the Los Angeles Times. Her writing spanned various genres, and she contributed regularly to notable national and regional publications of her day, including Puck, Judge, Life, Women's Cycle, the San Francisco Argonaut, and The Californian, as well as several American medical journals. Through her literary and social circles, she became a close confidante of feminist author Charlotte Perkins Gilman and maintained a lifelong friendship with writer Mary Austin.
Moore's medical practice deeply informed her social activism. Witnessing the neglect and harsh conditions faced by impoverished and Mexican children in Los Angeles, she became a key figure in establishing a local humane society. Her advocacy for vulnerable youth also played a pivotal role in the creation of California's juvenile court system. After divorcing Lummis in 1891, she married Dr. Ernest Carroll Moore in 1896, continuing her civic and intellectual pursuits until her death in 1942.
