Florence Bascom

Florence Bascom (July 14, 1862 – June 18, 1945) was a pioneer American woman geologist and educator. Bascom was the second woman to earn a PhD in geology in the United States. She received her PhD in 1893 from Johns Hopkins University and was the first woman to earn a PhD at the institution in any field. In 1896 Bascom became the first woman to work for the United States Geological Survey. Bascom also founded the department of geology at Bryn Mawr College where she trained many leading women geologists.

Early life Florence Bascom was born in Williamstown, Massachusetts, on July 14, 1862, the youngest of five children. Bascom came from a family which, unlike most at the time, encouraged women's education and participation in public life.

Florence Bascom had a very close relationship with her father and he played a very influential role in her life. He was the driving factor of her career and her first contact in the field of geology.

Education Bascom graduated from the University of Wisconsin with two bachelor's degrees. The first degree was in arts which was received in 1882 and the second was a Bachelor of Science in 1884. Bascom also received her master's in geology in 1887 at the same university and this is where she discovered her interest in geology but specifically in the very unknown field at that time – petrography. After completing her master's, Bascom enrolled at Johns Hopkins University when it allowed women to attend graduate school and continued her studies in petrography there. Bascom's thesis was on "A Contribution to the Geology of South Mountain, Pennsylvania". In 1893, Bascom graduated from Johns Hopkins with her PhD, making her the first woman to graduate the university with that degree and the second woman in the United States to earn a PhD in geology.

While attending the University of Wisconsin, Bascom was a member of the Kappa Kappa Gamma chapter and was one of the first members to join an all women's fraternities between 1867 and 1902.

Career After receiving her PhD, Bascom spent the next two years as an instructor and associate professor at Ohio State University teaching geology. Bascom then went on to Bryn Mawr College and founded the department of geology in 1895 which led to it becoming one of the best departments in the country. Bascom was appointed assistant on the U.S. Geological Survey and later was assigned that section of the Piedmont which lies in Maryland, Pennsylvania and part of New Jersey. In 1899 Bascom went on to teach petrography and by 1906 Bascom became a full professor and had an associate. Bascom spent many summers mapping the schists and gneisses of that area and studied the thin sections of the rocks both during summer and winter. This area of work came with great complexity, however Bascom's work and careful study provided much clarification. Throughout her career of thirty-three years, Bascom continued to work at Bryn Mawr College and retired when the college had just expanded its science building. By 1924, Bascom became a councillor of the Geological Society of America and in 1930 she was appointed as vice-president of that society making her the only woman to have ever held those offices. Bascom's career consisted of her being an editor of the American Geologist, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Research Council, as well as the Geophysical Union and many other scientific societies. Bascom had also written many short papers, some which were in the field of geomorphology.

Work Florence Bascom contributed to a special type of identification for acidic volcanoes. Her article, "The Structures, Origin, and Nomenclature of Acidic Volcanic Rocks of South Mountain", begins by identifying various rock structures formed by the volcano. Bascom argues that South Mountain's rock formations have changed over time, with some rocks originally showing signs of being rhyolite, but now holocrystalline rock. These rocks defy the nomenclature used to identify rocks invented by German and English scientists, so she created prefixes to add to these pre-existing names, to identify acidic changes in rocks. The prefixes she came up with are meta-, epi-, and apo-.

Bascom presented a second notable new conclusion regarding the cycles of erosion within Pennsylvania; earlier scientific thought was that the Piedmont province of Pennsylvania was made by two to three erosion cycles, while she discovered that there were at least nine cycles. Bascom found this by compiling a stratigraphic record of Atlantic deposit in the province, listing the depth, unconformities, and different grain sizes (like sand, clay, or gravel). The cycles occurred over a large period of time, with six cycles occurring in the post-Cretaceous period and three occurring in the Cretaceous period. This conclusion gave scientists new ideas about erosion cycles regarding their rate of occurrence and how to define a cycle. In 1896, Bascom worked as an assistant for the USGS. Her role in the team was to study crystalline schists in a square degree of area along eastern Pennsylvania and Maryland, as well as a portion of northwest Delaware. For part of her life as a teacher, Bascom simultaneously worked in the geological survey and her work lead to a multitude of comprehensive reports of geologic folios.

Bascom spent a year learning and researching advanced crystallography in the laboratory of Victor Goldschmidt in Heidelberg before going back to teaching as she did not want to spend time doing "overspecialistic research", that she would not be able to teach to her students in the courses offered.

Notable mentors Bascom trained under experts in metamorphism and crystallography.

George Huntington Williams (1856–1894): Bascom met George Huntington Williams through her early mentor Irving, and later worked with Williams in field research while she was at Johns Hopkins University. Bascom began her studies at Hopkins, and was told there was a chance she would not get her degree because she was a woman. Williams supported her and she later received her PhD.

Edward Francis Baxter Orton (1829–1899): Bascom worked with Edward Francis Baxter Orton while she was at Ohio State University.

Victor Mordechai Goldschmidt (1853–1933): Bascom studied crystallography under Victor Mordechai Goldschmidt while on leave in Germany in 1906–1907.

Legacy Florence Bascom left a legacy in part due to her significant scientific discoveries, but also partly due to her legacy of training women geologists. Bascom founded the geology department at Bryn Mawr College and encouraged other women to enter the field of geology. Bascom trained and mentored Louise Kingsley, Katharine Fowler-Billings, petrologist Anna Jonas Stose, petrologist Eleanora Bliss Knopf, crystallographer Mary Porter, paleontologist Julia Gardner, petroleum geologist Maria Stadnichenko, glacial geomorphologist Ida Ogilvie, Isabel Fothergill Smith, Dorothy Wyckoff, and Anna Heitonen. She is buried in a Williams College cemetery in Williamstown, close to family members. Glacial Lake Bascom, a prehistoric, postglacial lake located in what is now northern Berkshire County, Massachusetts, formed when receding glacial ice acted as a dam and prevented drainage of the Hoosic River watershed. The U.S. Geological Survey's Florence Bascom Geoscience Center located in Reston, Virginia The Geological Society of America's Florence Bascom Geologic Mapping Award The Bascom Undergraduate Teaching Laboratories at the Homewood Campus of Johns Hopkins University

Publications

Florence Bascom published over 40 articles on genetic petrography, geomorphology (specifically the provenance of surficial deposits), "John Bascom's Signature" The Wisconsin Magazine of History, June 1925 "The Geology of the Crystalline Rocks of Cecil County" Maryland Geological Survey (1902) "The ancient volcanic rocks of South Mountain, Pennsylvania" Pennsylvania US Geological Survey Bulletin No. 136 (1896) "Water resources of the Philadelphia district" US Geological Survey Water-Supply Paper No. 106 (1904) "Geology and mineral resources of the Quakertown-Doylestown district, Pennsylvania and New Jersey" Edgar Theodore Wherry and George Willis Stose. US Geological Survey Bulletin No. 828 (1931) "Elkton-Wilmington folio, Maryland-Delaware-New Jersey-Pennsylvania" with B.L. Miller. Geologic Atlas of the United States; Folio No. 211 (1920) American Mineralogist, Volume 31, 1946 Bryn Mawr Alumnae Bulletin, November 1945; spring, 1965 Science, September 1945 University of Wisconsin Department of Geology and Geophysics Alumni Newsletter, 1991 Arnold, Lois Barber, Four Lives in Sciences, Schocken Books, 1984 Smith, Isabel F., The Stone Lady: A Memoir of Florence Bascom, Bryn Mawr College, 1981