Born:14 July 1862, Williamstown, Mass.
Died:18 June 1945

Education:Third B.A. from the University of Wisconsin, 1884; M.S. in 1887
                 Ph.D.Johns Hopkins University, 1893

Bascom became first woman to actually receive a doctorate from Johns Hopkins in 1893. (One other woman had earned a Ph.D. there, who completed her studies in1882 but the trustees refused to grant her the degree until 1926.)

Similarly, in the U.S. as a whole there was one woman, Mary Holmes, who had earned a Ph.D. in the field of geology earlier, in 1888, from the University of Michigan.

Nevertheless, she truly merits the accolade of "first woman geologist in America" by her accomplishments. These were described in the Geological Society of America's magazine, GSA Today, July 1997 as follows:

"Bascom was the first woman hired by the U.S. Geological Survey (1896), the first woman to present a paper before the Geological Society of Washington (1901), the first woman elected to the Council of the Geological Society of America (elected in 1924; no other woman was elected until after 1945), and the first woman officer of the GSA (vice president in 1930). She was an associate editor of the American Geologist (1896-1905) and a four-starred geologist in the first edition of American Men and Women of Science (1906), which meant that her colleagues regarded her as among the country's hundred leading geologists. After joining the Bryn Mawr College faculty, Bascom founded the college's geology department. This site became the locus of training for the most accomplished female geologists of the early 20th century."

For a comprehensive biographical article on this Rock Star see GSA Today, July 1997