Born on December 7, 1831 in Cincinnati, Ohio, Rachel L. Bodley was the eldest daughter of Anthony Bodley and Rebecca Talbot Bodley. She graduated with a B.A. from Wesleyan Female College in 1849 and was subsequently offered an instructor position. From 1860 to 1861 she attended the Polytechnic College in Philadelphia to study chemistry and physics. In 1862, she returned to Wesleyan as an instructor of natural sciences. She moved to Philadelphia in 1865 to begin her career at Women's Medical College.

Throughout her professional life, Rachel L. Bodley collected and classified plant specimens, and in 1865 published a book containing a complete catalogue of plants in Joseph Clark's “herbarium”.

Rachel L. Bodley was elected to membership in the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia in 1871 and the New York Academy of Sciences in 1876. Soon after becoming a member of the Franklin Institute in 1880, Prof. Bodley gave a series of six lectures on “household chemistry” at the Institute, becoming the first woman invited to do so. She was also very interested in educational issues; she was elected twice as director of the 29th school section of Philadelphia.

In 1876, she was elected a charter member of the American Chemical Society, largely because of her work on the centennial celebration in honor of Joseph Priestley's discovery of oxygen. She later resigned her membership in the ACS in protest after an 1880 dinner in Boston where women were barred from participation and “Chemistryfestivities” afterwards included performance of anti-female songs and poems.

Rachel L. Bodley received an honorary A.M. degree from her alma mater, Wesleyan Female College, and an honorary M.D. degree from the Woman's Medical College.

Rachel L. Bodley died of a heart attack on June 15, 1888 in Philadelphia.

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