Carl Tolman was born in 1897 to American parents in the Northwest Territories of Canada and served with the Canadian Expeditionary Force in World War I. Serving on the Western Front, he was badly injured, taken prisoner by Germany in 1917, and not repatriated until after the war.
When he finally returned home he earned a bachelor"s degree in geology from the University of British Columbia and a master"s degree in science and a Doctor of Philosophy in geology, both from Yale University.
In 1927 as assistant professor at Washington University in Saint Louis of geology, he was involved in geological explorations, detailed geographical mapping, and mineral deposit explorations with the Geological Survey of Canada. During World World War II, he took a leave of absence from Washington University in Saint Louis to serve as a mineral specialist with the Foreign Economic Administration in Washington, District of Columbia During his one-year stewardship as chancellor before mandatory retirement, he steered the course through a time of transition and along the way reduced the university"s debt from $1.5 million to $30,000. After retiring from Washington University, he took a position with the United States. State Department as science attaché to Tokyo and later managed a program to train mining engineers in the Philippines and helped establish a graduate program in economic geology at the University of the Philippines.
He died in Saint Louis in 1995 at age 97.
Washington University Chancellor William H. Danforth said at the time of Tolman"s death, "Carl Tolman was for 68 years one of the great people at Washington University. As a friend, as a faculty member, and as an academic leader, he was always farsighted and wise and kind and gentle.".
