Katharine Woodley Carman

Katharine Woodley Carman (January 1, 1906 – April 11, 1992) was an American petroleum geologist. In a 1938 profile, she was described as "the only woman geologist in the United States employed by an oil company to work in the field exploring for oil".[1]

Katharine Woodley Carman
A young white woman with dark wavy hair cut in a bob with a sidepart
Katharine Woodley Carman, from the 1927 yearbook of Wellesley College
BornJanuary 1, 1906
New York City
DiedApril 11, 1992 (age 86)
OccupationGeologist

Early life and education

Carman was born in New York City,[2] and raised in Colorado[1] and in Evanston, Illinois,[3] the daughter of George Washington Carman and Ruth Anne Woodley Carman.[4] Her father was president of an investment brokerage; her mother was a Northwestern University graduate.[5] She graduated from Wellesley College in 1927.[6] She completed a PhD at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1933,[7] with a dissertation titled "The Shallow-Water Foraminifera of Bermuda."[8][9]

Career

Carman was a micropaleontologist in the petroleum industry.[10][11] She was an analyst for the Petroleum Administration Board from 1934 to 1936, and was based in Texas and Nebraska as a geologist for the Felmont Corporation from 1936 to 1939.[1][4] She was exploration manager for North Central Oil Corporation from 1939 to 1941. In 1943, she returned to the Petroleum Administration for wartime planning and economic analysis.[2] Her expertise was cited and her testimony was read into the record of several Congressional committees,[12][13][14] including a 1942 Senate hearing on mineral resources and public lands.[15]

Carman was the Illinois district geologist for the Great Lakes Carbon Corporation from 1943 to 1946. Beginning in 1946, she was a partner in the Buckhorn Oil Company, based in Indiana.[2] She lived in Colorado in the 1950s.[16]

Publications

Personal life

Carman died in 1992, at the age of 86, in Colorado.[18]

References
  1. "Woman Geologist Working for Big Oil Corporation Finds Her Work Interesting". The Tyler Courier-Times. 1938-04-24. p. 2. Retrieved 2023-10-08 – via Newspapers.com.
  2. American Men of Science: A Biographical Directory. Bowker. 1949. p. 385.
  3. "Diplomas Awarded to 195 by Evanston High School". Chicago Tribune. 1923-06-22. p. 23. Retrieved 2023-10-08 – via Newspapers.com.
  4. Harbour, Kenneth (1937-06-22). "Dr. Katharine Carman Directs Field Crews in Geophysical Tests for Oil". Star-Herald. pp. 1, 3. Retrieved 2023-10-08 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. Northwestern University (1903). Alumni record of the College of liberal arts, 1903. The Library of Congress. [Chicago] The University. p. 363.
  6. Wellesley College, Legenda (1927 yearbook): 35.
  7. "Most Prominent Figures at M. I. T. Graduation; Twelve Women in Procession". The Boston Globe. 1933-06-06. p. 12. Retrieved 2023-10-08 – via Newspapers.com.
  8. Carman, Katharine W. "The shallow-water foraminifera of Bermuda." PhD diss., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1933.
  9. Cushman Laboratory for Foraminiferal Research (1933). Contributions from the Cushman Laboratory for Foraminiferal Research. p. 31.
  10. Burek, Cynthia. "Review of Robbie Rice Gries, Anomalies – Pioneering Women in Petroleum Geology: 1917-2017". The Geological Society of London. Retrieved 2023-10-07.
  11. Shrock, Robert Rakes (1977). Geology at MIT 1865-1965: A History of the First Hundred Years of Geology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology: Department Operations and Projects. MIT Press. p. 686. ISBN 978-0-262-19211-8.
  12. Commerce, United States Congress House Committee on Interstate and Foreign (1935). Petroleum Investigation ... Report: Pursuant to H. Res. 441 (73d Cong.) ... U.S. Government Printing Office. p. 4.
  13. United States Energy Resources Committee (1939). Energy Resources and National Policy. U.S. Government Printing Office. p. 210.
  14. United States Congress House Temporary National Economic Committee (1940). Investigation of Concentration of Economic Power: Hearings Before the Temporary National Economic Committee, Congress of the United States, Seventy-fifth Congress, Third Session. U.S. Government Printing Office. p. 9549.
  15. United States Congress Senate Committee on Public Lands and Surveys (1942). Development of Mineral Resources of the Public Lands of the United States: Hearings Before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Public Lands and Surveys, United States Senate, Seventy-seventh Congress, First Session, Pursuant to S. Res. 53, a Resolution Providing for an Investigation with Respect to the Development of the Mineral Resources of the Public Lands of the United States and Laws Relating Thereto. U.S. Government Printing Office.
  16. "Estate Closed". Fort Collins Coloradoan. 1955-12-27. p. 10. Retrieved 2023-10-08 – via Newspapers.com.
  17. Carman, Katharine Woodley (September 1929). "Some Foraminifera from the Niobrara and Benton formations of Wyoming". Journal of Paleontology. 3 (3): 309–315.
  18. Date of death in the U.S., Social Security Death Index, 1935-2014; via Ancestry
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