Martha Krug-Genthe

Martha Krug-Genthe (1871–1945) was a German geographer. She was the first woman to obtain a doctorate in geography.

Life According to Ginsburger, her doctorate was made possible by a favorable context and environment, at a time when women were not pursuing academic careers. Krug studied under Friedrich Ratzel at Leipzig University, a few years after Ellen Churchill Semple, the first known woman geography student in Germany. Krug met Alfred Hettner in Leipzig, who made her publish several articles on the teaching of geography in the German and American school systems, in the journal he founded in 1895, the . In her thesis, Martha Krug examined how hydrographic charts are used to map ocean currents. In particular, she analyzed the extension of the Gulf Stream to the northeast, the North American current, in order to draw up a map of knowledge in the field of oceanography.

In 1901, National Geographic magazine published a 14-page article she wrote on German geography. She then obtained a teaching position at the Beacon School in Hartford, Connecticut, a secondary school for young women where she taught geography.

She is one of the 48 founding members of the AAG, the only woman alongside Ellen Churchill Semple, and also the only one of the 48 founders of the AAG present in Philadelphia to have a doctorate in geography.

Martha Krug-Genthe was named associate editor of the Bulletin of the American Geographical Society. This affiliation strengthened her professional credentials.

In 1907, the Bulletin of the American Geographical Society published her work Valley Towns of Connecticut. This is a regional study of the economic factors driving the evolution of Hartford's urban system as the preeminent center of the Connecticut River Valley.

In 1911, she returned to Germany, and retired.

Krug-Genthe had a short (a decade) but very visible career, at a very restrictive time for women. Ginsburger mentions that: