Ida Helen Ogilvie

Ida Helen Ogilvie
Born February 12, 1874
New York City
Died October 13, 1963(1963-10-13) (aged 89)
Germantown, New York
Nationality United States
Alma mater

Bryn Mawr College

Columbia University
Scientific career
Fields Geology
Institutions Barnard College
Signature

Ida Helen Ogilvie (/ˈaɪdə ˈhɛlən oʊˈgɪlvi/) (February 12, 1874 – October 13, 1963) was a United States educator and geologist.

Biography

Ida Helen Ogilvie was the daughter of Clinton and Helen Ogilvie, who were both painters. Her first language was French, then English.[1] She was raised in a wealthy family with roots tracing back to the Mayflower, and was well travelled, attending schools in Europe before studying at Brearley School. She graduated from Bryn Mawr in 1900, majoring in zoology and geology. There, she spent her summers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. She then went on to get her PhD in 1903 from Columbia University.[2] Ida attended Columbia with Florence Bascom, whom many consider to be the “first woman in geology” in America.[3]

Career

Shortly after graduating from Columbia, Ogilvie joined the Barnard College faculty as a lecturer, and later helped found the geology department there, eventually becoming the head of the department, a title she held for 30 years.[2] However, not satisfied with simply teaching undergraduate students at Barnard, Ogilvie became a lecturer for a glacial geology class at Columbia University. Ogilvie was offered to teach the first geology lecture at Barnard College, but turned it down in order to stay at Columbia, and with their geology community.[1] In order to prepare for the class, she spent a considerable amount of time in New York and Alberta studying the glaciers.

Ogilvie headed up Barnards’ Women’s Land Army initiative whose goal was to combat the widespread food shortages faced by the country during World War I. Though the traditionally conservative farming community had some initial resistance to the idea of the “farmerettes”, the dire conditions brought on by the lack of male labourers due to the war led to the acceptance of help from women across the country. Ogilvie toured the country attending college campuses to encourage more women to assist in farming to continue to reduce the shortage of food. Ogilvie was so successful that many women continued to farm even after the shortages had been all but eliminated.[4]

World War I

Delia Marble (Miss Marble) was a close friend of Ogilvie. They met in the Woman’s Land Army, the first Woman’s Land Army unit in America during the First World War. They spent many weekends together on Miss Marble’s farm in Bedford, New York, which Ogilvie named Airlie after her farm in Scotland, which later became Bedford Camp for the Woman’s Land Army.[3] Ogilvie was the director of recruiting for the Woman’s Land Army, touring across colleges in the United States to recruit women into agricultural work that was needed due to the shortage of manpower available.[1]

As a Women in Science

Like many women in this time in history, Ogilvie faced great odds on her path to success in geology. Even considering that Ogilvie came from a wealthy family whose name carried respect, she still had to struggle through a practice that was dominated by men. Despite her conditions, Ogilvie pursued geology continuously and had an immense amount of success. On top of founding the department of geology at Barnard College and lecturing at Columbia University, Ogilvie was only the second woman to ever be admitted into the Geological Society of America. She also got her doctorate in science which she received from University College, London in 1893 and was the first women to do so.[5]

She was also the first woman to receive their doctorate in science, and was even included in the “American Men in Science” distinction three times in her career (1906, 1910, and 1921).[2] Not only did Ogilvie focus on her own success, but rather she used her influence to empower young woman and help them through their education. In fact she provided financial aid for her female students who were keen to learn but did not have the support to do so. Ogilvie was quite an influential member of the Women’s Land Army, which was a program that recruited young women to help with agricultural work while there was a shortage during WWI. Not only did Ogilvie have her own personal success and rise up to great odds as a woman in science, she used her own prosperity to make a difference for many young woman both in her community and across the United States.[1][3]

Papers

Ogilvie wrote several papers during her lifetime, one of them being Geology of the Paradox Lake Quadrangle, published in December 1905, and the paper she is most well known for. Ogilvie also published a paper titled The Glaciation of the Adirondacks, titled after a visit to the Adirondacks, a mountain range in New York.[6] Ogilvie started work on the paper in the summer of 1901, with results elaborated on. in the shape of a survey of the surrounding area, in 1902, and all the research being done at Columbia University. The paper essentially goes over the geology of a lake in the New York area, talking about the topography of the area, the Adirondack region, which were a region of mountains, what she noticed. She noticed that the area had a lot of faults, and was worn down by streams. In one part of it, she tries to determine the age of park of the Adirondack region, coming to the idea of around the Pliocene and Miocene eras. She discusses the different locations of glacial deposits, showing maps, pictures, and diagrams. A large part of the paper is dedicated to different definitions and terminology, from granite to syenite to intrusives, all of which have definitions and explanations.[7]

Personal life

After the First World War finished, around 20 of the recruited girls in the Woman’s Land Army wanted to continue as an agricultural group so they all moved to a farm Ogilvie purchased in 1930 in Germantown, New York. The farm house has been historically named the Hermitage dairy farm. It was in the Hudson Valley and was 660-acres large.[1] She lived and retired on the Hermitage until she passed away.[1] It was purchased by Margaret Rockefeller Strong and was demolished on March 1983, despite efforts of historical preservationists to save it.[8]

Ogilvie ceased her geological publications after the First World War, focusing on the personal interest of her students’ geological advancements, on running the farm, as well as her hobbies, knitting, herding cattle and breeding animals. Both farms, the Airlie and the Hermitage, bred Jersey cattle, and had about 250 registered animals.[1][3]

Ogilvie died at the age of 89 on October 13, 1963. A close companion of Ogilvie, Dorothy Avery Rippier, who lived with Ogilvie at Airlie and the Hermitage for many years, took close care of Ogilvie in her last 2 years of life. A letter Rippier wrote to Elizabeth A. Wood, writer of the Memorial to Ida Helen Ogilvie, said “she lived a long and mostly happy life, doing the things she wanted to do”.[1]

Inheritance

When Ida Ogilvie’s mother, Helen Slade Ogilvie (1851-1935), passed away on August 24, 1935,[9] her will (drafted on February 15, 1934) made Ida Helen Ogilvie the principal beneficiary of her assets. Ida Ogilvie was bequeathed a life estate in her residuary estate, all her mother’s household and personal effects, $50,000 in the form of trust funds and $500,000.[10]

Publications

References and notes

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Wood, Elizabeth A. (1964). "Memorial to Ida Helen Ogilvie (1874–1963)". GSA Bulletin. 75 (2): P35–P40. doi:10.1130/0016-7606(1964)75[P35:MTIHO]2.0.CO;2.
  2. 1 2 3 "Ida H. Ogilvie". Barnard College. Retrieved 12 October 2017.
  3. 1 2 3 4 The biographical dictionary of women in science : pioneering lives from ancient times to the mid-20th century. Ogilvie, Marilyn Bailey., Harvey, Joy Dorothy. New York: Routledge. 2000. ISBN 1135963436. OCLC 606390201.
  4. ↑ "The Barnard "Farmerettes" of World War I". Barnard College. Retrieved 12 October 2017.
  5. ↑ "The Cyclopædia of American Biography/Ogilvie, Ida Helen". Wikisource. Retrieved 12 October 2017.
  6. ↑ Homans, James (1915). The Cyclopædia of American Biography, Volume 8. Cornell University: Press Association Compilers, Incorporated. p. 521.
  7. ↑ Ogilvie, Ida H., 1874-1963. Geology of the Paradox Lake Quadrangle, New York. , United States, 1905.
  8. ↑ Faber, Harold (April 10, 1983). "RAZING OF 1774 HOME CAUSES DISPUTE UPSTATE". The New York Times. Retrieved 7 December 2017.
  9. ↑ "Helen Slade Ogilvie (1850-1935) - Find A Grave..." www.findagrave.com. Retrieved 2017-12-07.
  10. ↑ "MRS. OGILVIE'S WILL TO BENEFIT HOSPITAL: St. Luke's is Destined to Get Residuary Estate After Death of Daughter." New York Times (1923-Current file), 1935, pp. 15
  •  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Homans, James E., ed. (1918). "Ogilvie, Ida Helen". The Cyclopædia of American Biography. New York: The Press Association Compilers, Inc.
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