1896

Women in Earth Science

Florence Bascom (1862–1945)

The pursuit of modern science has been a male-dominated field for millennia. Academically as well as socially, women were discouraged from pursuing careers in scientific or technical fields, were actively prohibited from admission to leading academic institutions, and were barred from membership in and even recognition by leading scientific societies. While there are rare exceptions documented throughout history, for the most part science has been a boys’ club for most of its history.

In the earth sciences, at least, this situation began to slowly change in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The British fossil collector Mary Anning (1799–1847), for example, made important contributions to paleontology in the early nineteenth century despite receiving no formal education in the field and little formal academic recognition at the time. As another example, geologist and paleontologist Mary Holmes (1850–1906) became the first American woman to be awarded a PhD in an Earth science field, in 1888.

Another pioneering late-nineteenth-century earth scientist who significantly advanced the cause of women in science was Florence Bascom, an American geologist who was the second woman to receive a PhD in the field (in 1893), and the first woman to be hired by the United States Geologic Survey, in 1896. Bascom’s area of research was the composition and origin of volcanic rocks near current and former continental margins. She was an expert in mineralogy, crystallography, and petrology (the study of the formation of rocks), and, like many modern geologists, she combined field and laboratory observations. She developed and tested novel hypotheses for the origin and evolution of the Appalachian piedmont (foothills) region along the US eastern seaboard. While continuing to work for the USGS, she founded Bryn Mawr College’s Department of Geology in 1901, teaching and advising students there until 1928.

While still facing numerous sexist obstacles and inadequate recognition during their careers, Anning, Holmes, Bascom, and a handful of others began slowly to open the academic doors for women. Those doors are still not fully open today, however: women now earn 50 percent of science PhDs, but account for less than 25 percent of university science faculty positions. As science educator Bill Nye “The Science Guy” says, “Half the world are women and girls, so let’s have half the scientists and engineers be women and girls.”

Undated Smith College archive photo of geologist Florence Bascom, holding her geologic compass.