Birth: July 14, 1862
Death: June 18, 1945
Specialty: Geology
Major Contributions:
First woman hired by USGS
First woman to receive Ph.D. in geology from an American university
First woman allowed to present paper at The Geological Society of Washington
Growing up the daughter of a college professor and a suffragette, Florence Bascom was encouraged to follow her passion for learning. She earned a bachelor’s degree of arts and of letters in 1882 and a Bachelor of Science two years later all from the University of Wisconsin where she stayed to earned her master’s of science in 1887.
Spending a few years teaching, she wanted more challenging work and to gain a better understanding of the natural world around her. Desiring to continue her education by working with a particular professor at Johns Hopkins University, she applied to the school and was told she could attend but wouldn’t officially be enrolled as a student and her admission would be considered a “secret admission.” She was allowed to take classes but only sitting in a corner behind a screen as to not be a distraction for the male students and she was also prohibited from doing any fieldwork.
Thanks to a professor that also worked for the US Geological Services she was able to do the field work necessary to complete her dissertation on the re-identification of certain rocks using cutting-edge petrographic techniques that are still considered highly influential to the field of geology. Her conclusions about the geologic origins of the Appalachian Mountains based on these techniques were published as a USGS bulletin.
She returned to teaching after earning her doctorate first at Ohio State and then as a member of the faculty at Bryn Mawr. She was able to balance being an instructor with her continued research.
Part of this research was as an assistant geologist for the U.S. Geological Survey and in 1909 she was promoted to geologist and assigned to the Mid-Atlantic Piedmont region of the U.S. Most of her work involved the crystalline rocks and geomorphology of this region. She created U.S. Geological Survey folios on Philadelphia, Trenton, Elkton-Wilmington, Quakertown-Doylestown, and Honeybrook-Phoenixville.
In the first edition of American Men of Science she was give 4 stars, a very high honor for a scientist of any gender. The second woman elected to the Geological Society of America; she would go on to hold leadership positions in the group. During her time at Bryn Mawr, she founded the school’s department of geology and a graduate program that would train many of the first women geologists of the 20th century. Retiring from teaching in 1928, she continued working at the USGS until 1936.
Written by Angela Goad
Sources:
USGS: Florence Bascom, Trailblazer of the U.S. Geological Survey
Rock Stars: A Life of Firsts: Florence Bascom
The Stone Lady, Florence Bascom
See Also:
Florence Bascom Geoscience Center