Ida Helen Ogilvie

Ida Helen Ogilvie
Born February 12, 1874
New York City
Died October 13, 1963 (aged 89)
Germantown, New York
Nationality United States
Fields Geology
Institutions
Alma mater

Signature

Ida Helen Ogilvie (born in New York City, February 12, 1874; died in 1963) was a United States educator and geologist.

Biography

She was the daughter of Clinton and Helen (Slade) Ogilvie.[1] Her father was a landscape painter; her mother was also a painter, and was a daughter of Jarvis Slade. Ogilvie was educated at the Brearley School and Bryn Mawr College, where she was graduated A.B. in 1900. While at Bryn Mawr she showed a marked aptitude for scientific research in geology and zoology. She studied under professor Florence Bascom who founded the Geology Department at Bryn Mawr.[1] She prosecuted her research studies in zoology for two summers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution of Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

She eventually devoted herself to geology. She explored the Adirondacks, publishing her observations in a paper under the title of “The Glaciation of the Adirondacks.” Later she studied at Columbia, where she was awarded the degree of Ph.D. in 1903. As a result of her graduate field work in 1901, she published a geological survey of Paradox Lake area in the Adirondack Mountains for the New York State Education Department.[2] Her most notable investigations were along the line of past glaciation of the continent and of volcanic activities. She explored the Canadian Rockies, north of the line of the railway, and added to her distinctions that of mountain climber, always as a scientific investigator.

She explored Popocatapetl, one of the highest volcanoes in Mexico, and reached the rim of the crater. She carried her investigations to the Ortiz Mountains of New Mexico, which belong to the laccolith type of extinct volcano. These explorations enabled her to announce to the scientific world many new facts in regard to the chemical relationship of lavas. She also published articles on the subject of the effect of aridity on erosion. She was one of the first investigators to establish the axiom that aridity has a notable effect upon the conflagration of the surface of the earth, and upon the composition of the sands and soil. She also studied the work of intermittent streams, and gave the name "conoplain" to the form of surface produced by the action of such streams.

Ogilvie's accounts of her excursions attracted immediate attention. She lectured on geology in the Misses Rayson's School in New York in 1902-03. Her methods of presenting geology to the girls made it most interesting and easy of comprehension. In 1903, after receiving her Ph.D. degree, she was appointed lecturer in geology in Barnard College. Here her success was even more pronounced, and she was steadily promoted, being after 1911 in full charge of her department. She also lectured to classes in Columbia University.

The department of geology in Barnard originated with Ogilvie's appointment. She was a fellow of the Geological Society of America, fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, fellow of the New York Academy of Science and of the Seismological Society of America.

Publications

Further reading

Notes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Ogilvie, Marilyn; editors, Joy Harvey, (2000). The biographical dictionary of women in science : pioneering lives from ancient times to the mid-20th century. New York: Routledge. p. 958. ISBN 978-0415920407.
  2. ↑ Ogilvie, Ida Helen (1905). "Geology of the Paradox Lake Quadrangle, New York". New York State Museum Bulletin (Albany: New York State Education Department) 96 (10): 461–508. Retrieved 22 October 2014.

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