Background

She was born on July 14, 1862 in Williamstown, Massachussets, the youngest of the three surviving children (two daughters and a son) of John Bascom, philosopher and college president, and Emma (Curtiss) Bascom, a former schoolteacher. Both parents were of seventeenth-century New England stock. John Bascom's intellectuality and fair-mindedness and the reform interests of both parents - temperance and woman suffrage - deeply influenced the intelligent and earnest young girl. In 1874, when she was twelve, her father left the Williams College faculty to accept the presidency of the University of Wisconsin.

Education

Enrolling at the university when she was sixteen, Florence studied hard and ranged widely in her courses, graduating in 1882 with both the A. B. and B. L. degrees. As she continued her studies at Wisconsin, her interests turned increasingly to geology, under the influence of Prof. Charles R. Van Hise, a great teacher and the leading structural geologist of his time. Roland D. Irving, also on the Wisconsin faculty, greatly encouraged her; she received a B. S. degree in 1884 and an A. M. degree in 1887.

She received her Ph. D. from Johns Hopkins in 1893 - the first woman to win this degree at Hopkins, and the first in America to earn a doctorate in geology.

Career

For two years (1889 - 91) Bascom taught natural science at Rockford Seminary in Illinois. At about this time the new science of petrography, which originated in Germany, was brought to the United States by George Huntington Williams of Johns Hopkins University, then the leading graduate school in America. Bascom's truly pioneering career now began. Although field geology was a highly unusual occupation for a lady in those Victorian times, she embarked upon it, and under Williams began to study the complicated terrain of the Piedmont area of Maryland, and later of Pennsylvania.

For the next two years Bascom was an instructor and associate professor of geology at Ohio State University. She moved in 1895 to Bryn Mawr College, which under President M. Carey Thomas included a strong group of feminists intent on establishing the intellectual position of women. Miss Bascom's prestige as a research scientist probably brought her to Bryn Mawr's attention, but it seems that there was no intention on the college's part to establish a fully organized geology department; the subject was not considered one of wide appeal to women. But Bascom had other ideas. Her small allotment of space grew, and her single course expanded into a full major; in 1903 a second faculty member was added. She secured the Theodore D. Rand collection of mineral and rock specimens for Bryn Mawr, and successfully staved off President Thomas's attempt to reduce the geology program to a nonmajor elective.

She was promoted to the rank of professor in 1906. Bascom was soon sought out by graduate students, and several of those she trained became leaders in American geology. Indeed, until the mid-1930's a majority of American women geologists came from Bryn Mawr. In 1896 Bascom had pioneered again by becoming the first woman assistant on the United States Geological Survey. She was assigned to work on the intricate, highly metamorphosed rocks of southeastern Pennsylvania and northern Delaware. In an incredibly short time she brought out the Survey's Philadelphia Folio and Trenton Folio (both in 1909). This large area was surveyed, mostly in the summers, by foot, horseback, and buggy. She worked from dawn until dark, and insisted on the same routine for her students, both graduate and undergraduate. Her later Elkton-Wilmington Folio (1920) and her bulletins on the Quakertown-Doylestown and Honeybrook-Phoenixville districts (1931 and 1938) completed the areal survey of the region.

The foremost woman geologist of her time, Bascom became the authority on the crystalline rocks of the so-called Piedmont province from the Susquehanna River to Trenton, N. J. By an agreement with the Maryland geologists, she used the term Baltimore gneiss for the basement complex of rocks, and her designation of the Wissahickon gneiss (schist), from the excellent exposures along Wissahickon Creek in Philadelphia, was adopted for that widespread formation far to the south into Virginia.

She also had a keen interest in geomorphology and crystallography. She studied the streams and erosional surfaces of the Piedmont region and the origin of the surficial gravels, giving the name Bryn Mawr gravel to the deposits on the uppermost surface. In 1907 she spent a year studying in the laboratory of Victor Goldschmidt at Heidelberg. One result of this interest was the development of the two-circle contact goniometer for instruction in crystallography.

Miss Bascom retired from her teaching at Bryn Mawr in 1928, but continued her work on the United States Geological Survey for another decade. Failing health caused her to retire, and she returned to live in the New England area she loved. She died in Northampton, Massachussets, in 1945 of a cerebral hemorrhage and was buried in the Williams College Cemetery.

Achievements

• Florence Bascom became a legend: at Bryn Mawr, among geologists, and to the people of the countryside where she worked. She was the first woman to receive a Ph. D from Johns Hopkins University. She was also the first woman hired by the United States Geological Survey. Apart from being one of the first women to earn a master's degree in geology, she was known for her innovative findings in this field, and led the next generation of notable female geologists. Geologists consider her to be the "first woman geologist in this country. "

Works

More photos

• book

  • Water Resources of the Philadelphia District (Classic Reprint)

    (Excerpt from Water Resources of the Philadelphia District...)

  • The Ancient Volcanic Rocks of South Mountain, Pennsylvania (Classic Reprint)

    (Excerpt from The Ancient Volcanic Rocks of South Mountain...)

  • The American Geologist, Vol. 18: A Monthly Journal of Geology and Allied Sciences; July to December, 1896 (Classic Reprint)

    (Excerpt from The American Geologist, Vol. 18: A Monthly J...)

  • American Geologist, Vol. 21: A Monthly Journal of Geology and Allied Sciences, January to June, 1898 (Classic Reprint)

    (Excerpt from American Geologist, Vol. 21: A Monthly Journ...)

  • Piedmont district of Pennsylvania (Geological Society of America. Bulletin)
  • Fasting: Lecture Series On Health And Progress

Membership

Bascom was the first woman to be elected a fellow of the Geological Society of America (1894); she became a councilor in 1924, and in 1930 vice-president.

Personality

A handsome, stylishly dressed woman, she impressed everyone with her physical vigor and her uncompromising moral and intellectual standards.

Connections

She never married.

Father:

John Bascom

philosopher and college president

Mother:

Emma (Curtiss) Bascom

former schoolteacher

mentor:

Roland Duer Irving

mentor:

Charles Richard Van Hise

References

• The stone lady: A memoir of Florence Bascom