After attending various grammar schools he graduated from the high school at Newark, N. J. , and then went into the service of the New York Life Insurance Company and later became an assistant manager in the Edison Illuminating Company of Boston, Massachussets In 1890 he entered the Lawrence Scientific School of Harvard University, and, under the inspiration of Nathaniel S. Shaler [q. v. ], began technical training for his life work.
At Harvard in 1894 he won the degree of B. A. with honors.
His first publications were concerned with the glaciology of New England a subject which he studied intensively and fruitfully throughout his professional life.
Career
In 1901 he became assistant professor and in 1912 associate professor of geology, a position he held until his death.
Three years later they published joint memoirs on "The Geology of the Narragansett Basin" (United States Geological Survey, Monograph No. 33, 1899), and a report on "The Geology of the Richmond Basin, Virginia" (United States Geological Survey, Nineteenth Annual Report, 1899).
In 1902 Woodworth independently published a Survey report on the Atlantic coast Triassic coal field.
LVI, 1912).
His records of the passage of earthquake waves of local and distant origin through his station were sent for comparative study to seismological stations elsewhere.
The record of his efficient work was a leading reason for the improvement in 1933 of the Harvard station, which is now (1936) one of the best equipped in the world.
During the thirty-two years thousands of Harvard students were taught by Woodworth the principles of geology.
By both temperament and scholarship he was equipped to cover the broad subject.
[Who's Who in America, 1924-25; W. A. Woodworth, Descendants of Walter Woodworth of Scituate, Massachussets (1898); Arthur Keith, in Bull.
Geol.
Soc.
of America, vol.
XXXVII (1926), with bibliog. ; W. M. Davis and R. A. Daly, "Geology and Geography, " in The Development of Harvard Univ. (1930), ed.
by S. E. Morison; R. W. Sayles, in Harvard Grads. '
Mag. , Mar. 1926; J. M. Cattell and D. R. Brimhall, Am.
Men of Sci.
(3rd ed. , 1921); obituary in Boston Transcript, Aug. 5, 1925. ]
Connections
He died in Cambridge, survived by his one child, a daughter.
married:
Genevieve
On Sept. 21, 1891, he was married to Genevieve Downs, who died in 1911.
colleague:
Shaler
For many years he cooperated with his senior colleague, Shaler, and in 1896 they published "The Glacial Brick Clays of Rhode Island and Southeastern Massachusetts" under the United States Geological Survey (Seventeenth Annual Report, 1896), in which Woodworth was listed as assistant geologist for fifteen years.
