Widney, J. P. (Joseph Pomeroy), 1841-1938

Joseph Pomeroy Widney was an American physician in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. He served, briefly after he graduated from college, in the Civil War for the Union and sailed to California after he was discharged for frail health. He travelled all throughout the state and was especially interested in the Spanish and Mexican populations. Widney went back to school in 1865 and earned his medical degree in 1866 from Toland Medical College. He moved to Los Angeles in 1868, where he began his medical career. Widney was the second president of the University of Southern California, a founding dean of that university's medical school, and a founder of the Los Angeles County Medical Association. In 1935 he published his book The three Americas: their racial past. He helped establish the journal Southern California practitioner, speculated in land in Los Angeles and was a prolific writer.