Abstract
For over 100 years, female geologists have enjoyed careers in petroleum geology. They have been successful in finding oil and gas as employees, as managers, entrepreneurs, and as innovators in oil-finding technology. In the years closely succeeding their impactful work, their contributions were ignored, forgotten or transferred to male colleagues.
Five of the earliest women in industry remarkably illustrate the practice of minimizing or eliminating the records of their accomplishments. These are the stories of Alva Ellisor (1892–1964), Esther Applin neé Richards (1895–1972) and Hedwig Kniker (1891–1985), who revolutionized economic exploration for oil and gas worldwide with their discovery of the usefulness of foraminifera in biostratigraphy. Fanny Carter Edson (1887–1952) applied her unconventional background in hard-rock mining geology to introduce the use of heavy minerals for correlations in difficult Paleozoic sandstones of the Midcontinent US. And, Dollie Radler Hall (1896–1995), the first female geologist manager in an oil company, pioneered the application of reflection seismic technology, and played a large role the in the discovery of the Williston Basin as an oil province. Defying the image of early women in petroleum geology being strictly ‘office’ geologists, as they were often referred to, they were devoted to fieldwork and visiting well sites when work demanded.
Ellisor, Applin, Kniker and Radler Hall took advantage of the critical need for geologists during World War I (WWI) to gain or further their geological education and used it to enter the world of petroleum as the war ended. Edson, who earned her degree in 1910 before WWI, became a mining geologist out of college but then turned to petroleum after WWI opened the career to women.
Recruitment of male geologists away from the oil and gas industry during WWI left many companies in dire need of hiring new talent – unusual talent. At least 16 women were hired by companies in Oklahoma during the war (Gries 2018a). Universities offering geology degrees increased their female student rolls when the men were absent for the war. Women remained an integral part of the workforce after the war as new technologies, many that they were responsible for, flourished and created job opportunities. The unfortunate practice of firing women when they married eliminated most of the women over time, but those that stayed (usually unmarried) built excellent track records of success.
Micropalaeontology discovery, post-WWI
The most remarkable geotechnological contribution for the oil and gas industry was made by three female geologists beginning in 1921. The industry was lacking reliable correlation tools because both well-logging and reflection seismic tools were not yet invented. These three women were Alva Ellisor, Esther Applin neé Richards and Hedwig Knicker. Their discovery of the use of foraminifera for correlations created a revolution in both the economics of drilling and the expanded science of micropalaeontology and stratigraphy.
However, over time, this discovery was shifted away from the three women and gradually transferred to several men – men who actually failed to see the value or, in fact, treated the discovery with disdain. Our story relies upon Ellisor's quotes in her Distinguished Alumna acceptance (Ellison et al. 1962) and the unpublished autobiography of Applin (unpublished autobiography, 1970). Their story is also supported by the early writings of Dumble (1921), Gries (2018a, p. 107) and Russell (1970, p. 9).
Dumble's consortium
Esther Richards was a palaeontology student at the University of California, Berkeley when approached by Rio Bravo Oil to develop a palaeontology laboratory in Houston (Fig. 1). E.T Dumble had convinced several companies in Houston to join him in hiring a palaeontologist to employ macropalaeontology for stratigraphic correlations in the complex Gulf Coast oil exploration regime. WWI had inspired many geology departments across the country to recruit women into their programmes but this was the first instance where they were hired to carry out work in palaeontology.
Esther English Richards, c. 1920, was raised on Alcatraz Island in California and studied palaeontology at the University of California Berkeley (photograph courtesy of Patty Kellogg, granddaughter of Esther Richards Applin, Gloucester, Virginia).
She began on Labor Day, 1920 (Fig. 2). Applin was a Californian with an unusual background, having grown up on Alcatraz Island, the escape-proof prison in San Francisco Bay. Her father was part of the architectural team. She and her younger sister ferried back and forth to San Francisco for her early education, and she was responsible for managing their home after her mother died while she was in high school.
Richards, 1921, set up a palaeontological laboratory for Rio Bravo Oil in Houston, Texas and the four-company consortium (photograph courtesy of Patty Kellogg, granddaughter of Esther Richards Applin, Gloucester, Virginia).
Months after Richards began working at Rio Bravo, two of the other consortia members, Humble Oil and The Texas Company, also hired women from The University of Texas at Austin to set up palaeontology laboratories in their companies. Alva Ellisor was hired by Humble Oil Company and Hedwig Kniker (Fig. 3) was hired by The Texas Company. Both moved into the downtown Houston apartment that Richards had rented near the oil company offices (Fig. 4). They were encouraged to collaborate and that they did, having daily discussions in the evenings about their problems and perceptions. Initially, most of their time was spent focused on macrofossils, which their bosses thought could be the key to solving stratigraphic problems. The companies provided samples from the wells they had drilled or were drilling. Soon the women came to the conclusion that the macrofossils were so damaged in the drilling process that they were a little use. But they had noticed how intact the microfossils were, particularly the foraminifera. It was the consensus of professional micropalaeontologists at this time that these one-celled creatures did not have enough diversity and stratigraphic specificity to be useful. However, the women discovered they could recognize suites of foraminifera species that did provide detailed stratigraphic correlations and this proved to be a profound breakthrough. Plus, foraminifera were abundant and undamaged by the drill bit.
Hedwig Thusnelda Kniker, c. 1918, graduate of The University of Texas at Austin, was hired to establish a palaeontological laboratory for The Texas Company (photograph courtesy of Janice Kniker Lee, niece of Hedwig Kniker, Houston, Texas).
Richards had conferred with Dumble's acquaintance at the Texas Bureau of Economic Geology, Dr J. A. Udden, about the work they were doing in Houston and learned much better techniques for working with well cuttings – particularly with washing and using sieves to collect the fossils they needed. Hedwig Kniker had worked with Udden after graduating from The University of Texas, and both she and Ellisor embraced the refined sample preparation.
The three women (Kniker, Richards and Ellisor) shared an apartment in downtown Houston, and shared their research progress with each other as encouraged by their companies (photograph courtesy of Patty Kellogg, granddaughter of Esther Richards Applin, Gloucester, Virginia).
Applin neé Richards wrote in her autobiography:
After what seemed to us to be a very long time, we hit pay dirt. It so happened that both Alva and I were working on samples from the same well on the same day and found a nice collection of forams independently and at approximately the same time
(p. 60 in Applin's unpublished 1979 autobiography in the Applin archives).
Applin said, ‘All in all, it was a great day’. And, continued her story:
At last we had been able to determine the age of a formation deeply buried on a salt dome in the Texas Gulf Coast area. We soon found that fauna in other wells on other salt domes. Then we found two other faunal units, one above and one below the first one we had discovered and were able to trace these also from well to well and record the changes in depth position. Then in a faulted well I discovered an older formation, the Jackson [Eocene], and we knew our project was a success
(pp. 60–61 in Applin's unpublished
1979 autobiography).
Sam Ellison (and others) wrote about Ellisor's discovery in 1962:
[Ellisor] made the first discovery of foraminifera in well samples from the Gulf Coast. The samples came from a Humble well at Goose Creek which was drilled to a depth of more than 4000 feet, a very deep well in those times. Miss Ellisor's account of the event is as follows: ‘Mr. Pratt was very excited about this discovery. He decided that such an amazing find should be kept a company secret and gave me instructions not to say a word to anyone about it … When I got home, Esther Richards … greeted me with the news of my discovery. It seems Mr. Pratt couldn't keep the secret and chose to tell Esther's boss in the Rio Bravo Oil Company
(Ellison et al. 1962).
Publication
Applin neé Richards wrote, ‘Dr. Dumble wanted to spread the news that these simple organisms did change as rapidly in time as their more organically complicated macro-fossil relatives’ (p. 61 in Applin's unpublished 1970 autobiography).
He hurriedly wrote a brief paper, ‘Recent geological work in the Gulf Coast oil-fields’ (Dumble 1921; Gries 2018a, p. 107) and listed himself as the only author, although he acknowledged the work of Richards and Ellisor. He also sent them off on the long train ride to Amherst, Massachusetts, to present the paper at a post-Christmas meeting of the Geological Society of America (GSA). It was delivered in the Paleontological Society session but was not published. It only survived in Applin's personal archives and was recently published in Gries (2018a).
Applin neé Richards described the Amherst meeting experience:
[T]hat was an awe-inspiring group of scientists. All the big names from all the Ivy League colleges were there in force and all of the tops from the U.S.G.S. in Washington. There were a few women, heads of Geol. Departments of Vassar, Bryn Mawr, etc.’ …That was my first attempt at being a speaker, and when I got up to read Dr. Dumble's paper before that distinguished group, I was properly scared. I think I squeeked [sic] at first. For reasons given earlier, I knew that it would take a while to convince people in regard to the value and usefulness of our work. So, I wasn't too surprised when, Professor [Jesse J.] Galloway (of Columbia) stood and said, ‘Gentlemen, here is this chit of a girl right out of college, telling us that we can use Foraminifera to determine the age of formation. Gentlemen, you know it can't be done’
(pp. 61, 62 in Applin's unpublished 1979 autobiography).
Undaunted by this criticism, Richards and Ellisor, with Rio Bravo's and Humble's approval, remained through the holidays on the East Coast to meet with and talk to other leading palaeontologists, including Professor J. A. Cushman (Columbia) in Boston and William H. Dall of the United States Geological Survey (USGS) in Washington. Cushman had heard her paper in Amherst and invited them to visit him. They also accepted an invitation from Dr Julia Anna Gardner of the USGS to visit her and review the correlation work she was doing on the Gulf Coast using macrofossils. A lasting friendship and collaboration was formed, and they were able to tie their subsurface work into the Tertiary surface geological correlations for which Dr Gardner was renowned. Gardner, uniquely for a female geologist, did solo mapping along the US coast from Maryland all the way to Mexico.
When Richards and Ellisor returned to Houston, excited about their new contacts and colleagues in the palaeontology world, they, along with Hedwig Kniker, continued their determined efforts to solve the correlation problems in the Gulf Coast (Fig. 5). Added to their assignment was the need to get out into the field and check their correlations made in the subsurface with the outcrops (Fig. 6). Dumble, Richard's boss, also played cupid with her and sent her on several geological field trips with his field geologist Paul Applin. The ploy was successful, in 1923 they married. Very unusual for this time, Dumble allowed her to continue to work after marriage. It was an unwritten rule for women to quit when they married. She continued to work for Rio Bravo until Paul took a job in Fort Worth and they moved out of Houston in 1926. At that juncture, Applin neé Richards began consulting and did so for decades.
The women micropalaeontologists believed in connecting their subsurface stratigraphy to the outcrop, and organized many field trips in central Texas. Ellisor and Richards are the third and second from the right. (Photo: Kellogg).
Laboratory uniforms in the 1920s, where facilities were not air-conditioned, were extremely uncomfortable; left to right: Hedwig Kniker, Esther Richards and Alva Ellisor (photograph courtesy of Patty Kellogg, granddaughter of Esther Richards Applin, Gloucester, Virginia).
While still in Houston, Esther Applin took on a new charge of meeting with drillers who delivered samples to her office:
[O]ne of my jobs during this early development period was to talk to the drillers who were brought into my office, and explain why it was necessary for them to cooperate by getting the best samples possible and furnishing the most accurate data as to the depth, etc. and that helped us too
(p. 70 in Applin's unpublished 1979 autobiography).
The seminal paper
Applin wrote:
In 1924, the AAPG held their annual meeting in Houston. This was a most important meeting for Alva, Hedwig, and me. Together, we were to present a paper discussing the several formations and their subdivisions, that we had established through the use of the groups of foraminifera that each formation contained. Our work had not only proven to be successful, but highly valuable from a scientific and economic viewpoint. The Houston geologists thought that it was time for a public announcement, and wanted those who had done the work to write up the report – I was asked to deliver the paper…Alva wanted to do the Pliocene, Hedwig was equally anxious to do the Jackson [Eocene], and I took the leftover Miocene
(p. 94 in Applin's unpublished 1979 autobiography).
Interestingly, in 1924, the same year that Applin neé Richards, Ellisor and Kniker delivered their seminal work, Dumble, again, wrote a paper about the use of foraminifera (and macrofossils) for Texas Tertiary stratigraphy in oil wells of the Gulf Coast. Therein he thanked neé Richards for the laboratory work but did not include either her or the other women who made this discovery as coauthors (Dumble 1924, p. 245).
A year after their oral presentation, the women published a landmark paper in the Bulletin of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG Bulletin) entitled ‘Subsurface stratigraphy of the coastal plain of Texas and Louisiana.’ In 2017 it was included in the AAPG's 100th Anniversary project recognizing the most impactful papers over their 100 years of publishing under the title of ‘Landmark Papers: Top 10 Landmark Papers in Paleontology “Tools”’ (https://100years.aapg.org/landmark-papers).
Impact
Because of their discovery, the field of micropalaeontology expanded exponentially, and oil companies, universities and geological surveys hired hundreds of micropalaeontologists over the next four decades. Even after the technology of seismic exploration was developed, micropalaeontology assisted in establishing the most sophisticated models for sequence stratigraphy.
Society of Economic Paleontology and Mineralogy
The geological association and publication world was also revolutionized with their discovery. The growth in the number of micropalaeontologists, the amount of research generated and the papers written about new discoveries increased so vastly that a new society was established to conduct focused meetings and to publish the huge expanse of peer-reviewed papers on applied micropalaeontology that could not be handled by the AAPG or the Paleontological Society. The new organization began in 1927 and was called the Society of Economic Paleontology and Mineralogy (SEPM). Although Ellisor, Applin and Kniker were founders, they were never elected to be President of the society. Instead, that honour went to some of their protagonists who had become zealous converts to the application of foraminiferal biostratigraphy.
Micropalaeontology history revised
When J.J. Galloway was President of SEPM in 1928 he wrote about the evolution of thinking about foraminifera and began a process of taking credit for the discovery of its application to exploration in the oil industry by referring to work he had done in Mexico in 1917 (Galloway 1928). However, his early work only identified foraminifera that he had found in his studies in Mexico and Texas but did not suggest or recognize that this could be used for detailed biostratigraphy.
And even worse, he did not even mention the breakthrough work of these women. Worse still, his claim came after the publication of the women's seminal paper in 1925. Indeed, in 1926, a year after their paper was published, Galloway published a paper declaring that foraminifera are ‘just as reliable as Mollusca or any other marine fossils for correlation’. But, again, does not refer to the work of the three women or their paper published the previous year.
This revision of history was amplified 32 years later when Dr Cary Croneis, University of Chicago, was President of SEPM and gave a presidential address, again walking through the history of micropalaeontology. He repeated the credit Galloway had claimed and relied heavily on Galloway's earlier ‘history’. Gries (2018b) gives a more thorough analysis of Croneis’ paper and the deflection of substantial credit from the three women and towards others. R. Dana Russell, in 1970, was charged with writing the ‘SEPM history’ and, although he relied upon Chroneis’ earlier work, he stated:
Although these three ladies apparently were not the first micropaleontologists in the oil business (Croneis 1941), they were certainly largely responsible for launching the field of applied micropaleontology, and all of you ‘bug-pickers’ should be eternally grateful to them!
(Russell 1970, p. 9).
When Edgar Owen wrote his epic volume on the history of petroleum geology in 1975, he unfortunately used the SEPM histories of Galloway and Croneis, and gave credit for the discovery of this applied micropalaeontology field to the ‘men whose influence was most pervasive in its adoption – J. A. Udden, Edwin T. Dumble, Joseph A. Cushman, and Jesse J. Galloway’ (Edgar Owen 1975, pp. 523–525). The role the women played could easily have been forever lost except for more recent research (Gries 2018a, b) and the discovery of Applin's unpublished 1970 autobiography.
Recognition
Thomas Barrow, Ellisor's boss at Exxon Corporation (formerly Humble), presented Alva Ellisor with a Distinguished Alumna Award at The University of Texas at Austin in 1962, and stated:
During the first few years as this work in the Houston Laboratories gradually became known, prejudice and opposition in its validity was expressed not only by petroleum geologists, but by quite a few prominent geologists and paleontologists in the academic world. Miss Ellisor not only had to prove to her company, but also to convince the rest of the geologic profession that micropaleontology was important
(Ellison et al. 1962, p. 2).
L.P. Teas, who was trained by Alva Ellisor in the Humble laboratory, wrote in her Memorial:
When Miss Ellisor entered upon the scene Gulf Coast subsurface geology was almost a hopeless muddle. Drillers’ logs were inaccurate and unreliable at best. Megafossils, or fragments thereof, were unsatisfactory. Her discovery of forams and their significance on the Gulf Coast, came just in time to bridge the gap of seven or eight years before the introduction of electric logging. Although forams have lost some of their value because of electric logging methods, they are still indispensable in many Tertiary areas of the world, particularly the Louisiana coastal region where lithologic changes in many areas are frequent and abrupt
(Teas 1965, p. 470).
Economic impact
Almost every significant exploration company in the world soon after their discovery had a palaeontology laboratory, mainly focused on foraminifera. Alva Ellisor's career with Humble (now ExxonMobil) exemplifies the impact and scope of these early laboratory managers. When she started the Humble laboratory in 1920, the palaeontology staff consisted of herself and one sample washer. By 1946, she (Fig. 7) supervised 12 micropalaeontologists, two palaeontologists, 20 sample washers and several clerks, and handled 220 000 samples annually (Rolshausen and Woods 1946).
Alva Ellisor at work in her laboratory in 1946, which had expanded to almost 40 employees and ran 220 000 samples a year (photograph from Rolshausen and Woods 1946).
Wallace Pratt, who had hired Ellisor, did an analysis in 1937 and noted that pre-1920 the major field discoveries in a 5 year period amounted to 23 but in the subsequent 5 years (1920–25) that count increased to 40 (as micropalaeontology was being utilized) (Pratt 1937). Between 1925 and 1930 the number of major discoveries increased to 59; and, notably, almost 100 major oilfields were discovered between 1925 and 1935, whereas it had taken 35 years to find 100 major oilfields prior to 1925 (Pratt 1937, p. 699). Pratt stated that 1000 dry holes (no commercial hydrocarbons) had typically been drilled before one major oilfield was discovered but with this new technology that number was reduced by half (Pratt 1937, p. 703). And, of course, the high dry hole percentage was increasingly reduced once newer technologies were combined with micropalaeontology – well logs, and seismic.
These three micropalaeontologists, Alva Ellisor, Esther Applin neé Richards and Hedwig Kniker, made a profound impact on the economics of drilling for oil and gas, and on the science of biostratigraphy. That usefulness continues to today. Because their success was gradually credited to others in the literature, it is time to reassert the importance of their role in this technology and how it impacted the world of petroleum.
Fanny Carter Edson (1887–1952)
Fanny Carter Edson made her stratigraphic, petrographical and palaeontological contributions to petroleum geology working the difficult and puzzling lower Paleozoic section of the Midcontinent region of the United States. In 1910, she was the first woman to graduate with a BA in Geology from the University of Wisconsin (Fig. 8). Her college yearbook quote forespoke her life's attitude: ‘He's a fool who thinks by force or skill to turn the current of a woman's will’ (University of Wisconsin 1911).
Fanny Carter, 1910, the first woman to graduate with a degree in geology from the University of Wisconsin (photograph courtesy of Sue Tappeiner, granddaughter of Fanny Carter Edson, Corvallis, Oregon).
Fanny Carter married fellow geologist Frank Aaron Edson, also from the University of Wisconsin, soon after her graduation. He entered the iron-ore exploration business, starting a company in Minnesota where his wife's role was as an ‘advisory geologist’, as well as ‘secretary-treasurer’. Not confined to the office, she would later write about overseeing drilling and core examination, as well as making structure maps of Precambrian rocks encountered from the core data and selecting locations for future core holes. Fanny Edson also used magnetic data, a newly developing geophysical technology, as a mapping tool. In the middle of this, she decided she needed to know more about ‘hard rocks’ and returned to Wisconsin for her Master's degree in 1913–14.
In 1917, with the outbreak of WWI, Frank and Fanny moved to Duluth, Minnesota, where, at the age of 30, she gave birth to her only child, Eleanor (after two earlier still births). Frank left for service in Europe and Fanny kept the home fires burning in Duluth but either wanted to or needed to keep working. Married schoolteachers were not allowed in almost all school systems in the USA at that time, so she could only teach as a ‘substitute’. She contributed to the war effort with an assignment in Washington, DC as part of the Minerals Division of the War Trade Board, leaving baby ‘El’, as she was called, with a caretaker in Duluth while she was away.
Returning from the war, Frank Edson took a job in Norman, Oklahoma, with the Oklahoma Geological Survey in 1920, and was joined in January 1921 by Fanny and young El. Upon arrival in Norman, Fanny Edson immediately recognized that, to work in Oklahoma, she needed to remake herself into a petroleum geologist and enrolled in classes at the University of Oklahoma. She had an ambitious schedule there, as she became an instructor, enrolled in graduate classes and began her studies on heavy minerals. Her first paper was published by the AAPG (Edson 1923) on research conducted at the University of Oklahoma. Her marriage was, at the same time, failing. From 1923 into 1924 she took young Eleanor to California and enrolled at Stanford to study with Austin Flint Rogers, a well-known mineralogist. At the age of 35, married and a mother, Edson felt more like a colleague than a typical coed and did not follow Stanford's rules for coeds. Because she ‘bobbed’ her hair and smoked, she was dismissed from Stanford before finishing her PhD. In March 1924 she delivered a paper on heavy minerals of the Simpson Formation (Ordovician of Oklahoma) (Edson 1924) at the Houston AAPG meeting in the very same afternoon session where Applin, Ellisor and Kniker delivered their seminal paper (Applin et al. 1925).
Returning to Oklahoma, Edson had a job offer from Roxana Petroleum (subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell) and joined them in September 1924. Her soon-to-be single status allowed Roxana to hire her. Although making less money than the men working with her, she was grateful for the job. She had a child to support with little help from her ex-husband (Fig. 9).
Fanny Edson neé Carter and young daughter Eleanor, c. 1921, when they moved to Oklahoma. Carter becomes the first ‘single mum’ geologist in the industry (photograph courtesy of Sue Tappeiner, granddaughter of Fanny Carter Edson, Corvallis, Oregon).
She brought into Roxana substantial knowledge of the Ordovician sediments and their heavy mineral content, and proceeded to set up laboratory facilities for her new employer. Edson had to work long hours (Monday–Friday plus Saturday morning) for Roxana. She managed her single parenthood by having a maid come in during the week but on Saturdays she took young Eleanor with her to the office. She must have been the first female single parent/geologist in the oil business. She published another paper on heavy minerals in 1925 (Edson 1925).
For 14 years, Edson managed and trained people for her Roxana laboratory in conjunction with working out the much-needed pre-Mississippian stratigraphy for Roxana's Kansas and Oklahoma exploration. She diligently integrated her well sample work with fieldwork. Her son-in-law, Bob Burtnett, wrote of her:
She also had to ‘sit on wells,’ that meant, she had to be on hand when the drilling rig was penetrating the formation usually associated with the critical oil sands. She stayed in village inns or boarding houses close to the crew. There were no fancy motels in those days. Wells, like babies, generally ‘blew in’ at night and the thrill of feeling the earth tremble with the sudden release of trapped petroleum by the hard metal spud of the rotary drill was compensation enough for sagging beds and greasy food
(Fanny Edson's and Eleanor Edson Burtnett's personal papers and correspondence, courtesy of Sue Tappeiner, Corvallis, Oregon).
Burtnett continued:
Several times a year she joined field trips, to which geologists from all over the nation assembled. They would compose a caravan of twenty, or so, open touring cars following a leader to the Black Hills in South Dakota or one of the newly discovered western Texas oil fields [Fig. 10]. Edson was ‘one of the boys’ and was extended no special consideration because of her womanliness.
Fanny Edson loved field excursions, and participated in many to check outcrops and to debate geology. Arbuckle Mountains Oklahoma field trip, 1933 (photograph taken by Edson, and provided by Sue Tappeiner, granddaughter of Fanny Carter Edson, Corvallis, Oregon).
With Roxana, she recognized suites of heavy minerals that characterized what she called the ‘True Wilcox’ sandstone and other stratigraphic zones. She used her technique to let drillers know if they had hit the best pay zone or needed to drill deeper. Often, they were not happy taking orders from a woman, having to continue to drill when they were only making 1 ft a day drilling with the old cable tools. But her biggest discovery for Roxana occurred with just such a situation. The drilling had cut into several Wilcox sandstones, and had some good oil shows that looked like they might produce. The drillers wanted to quit drilling and try to make a well out of these sandstones but she kept telling them to drill on. She told them she had not yet seen the minerals signifying the ‘True’ Wilcox. She continued to look at the samples under a microscope on the well site until, finally, she found the mineral suite that signified the best pay. And it was oily, too! Roxana completed the well and it turned into their biggest discovery to date, opening up the Marshall Field, which was developed for 15 MMbbl barrels. Roxana had been desperate for more production as they had built a large refinery and needed to keep it supplied (Sheldon 1941, pp. 28–32). Edson applied her stratigraphic techniques to developing other fields, like the Braman, Seminole, and Oklahoma City fields.
Interestingly, in Shell's 800 page volume of company history in the United States no mention is made of the Shell laboratory in Tulsa or Edson or heavy minerals or micropalaeontology. And, although it was mentioned that in WWI and World War II (WWII) women were hired for refineries, field pumping and marketing, no mention is made of women hired for geological exploration even though there were many (Roxana/Shell had been a leader in hiring women). Chapters were written about the onset of geophysics, well logging, coring and many other tools that helped exploration but nothing about the use of either heavy minerals or micropalaeontology, technologies that were pioneered by women. The only reference that can be tied to Edson's work was a reference:
[A]bout Shell needing to ‘Feed the Big Expansion’ of its sales operation and the important development of new oil fields. There it was said ‘the company discovered the Lovell pool and a new pool in the Marshall district’
(Beaton 1957, p. 332).
She was the first geologist to find a major field in the Midcontinent using the technique in the subsurface.
J.B. Leiser discussed her contributions to resolving the numerous problems in Oklahoma stratigraphy:
Edson's correlation charts kept pace with the amassing detail and her research; the frequency of revision at times led her to laughingly refer to them as ‘late editions’… her determinations and mapping of the subsurface pre-Mississippian rocks yielded for her company an accurate outline of the newly recognized Central Kansas Uplift … Edson's able planning had organized the processing of samples and the training of new employees which now began. Under her administration and training supervision the laboratory staff of assistants grew to seven in number and became recognized … as one of the most efficient in the region
(Leiser 1953, p. 1184).
When the SEPM was founded in Tulsa in 1927, they had begun with the idea of an ‘Association of Economic Paleontologists’ but, as they developed the constitution, the committee decided to broaden it to include mineralogists. Dana Russell, who wrote the history of SEPM in 1970 (Russell 1970, p. 10), mused, ‘Why the constitution committee chose the rather narrow term ‘mineralogist’ instead of petrologist, petrographers, or stratigraphers … has been debated ever since’. Actually, it was likely to have been because of the popularity at the time of heavy mineral success in oil finding, which lasted for only a couple of decades. Heavy mineral research in industry was displaced with the development of downhole well logs and geophysical techniques which were faster and did not require a laboratory. New technology had overtaken Edson's technique. Micropalaeontology, on the other hand, was far broader, both geographically and stratigraphically, in its usefulness for oil finding and refining stratigraphy. Therefore, when well logs and geophysics revolutionized exploration, micropalaeontology was integrated into this work, making those tools much more powerful.
Edson's son-in-law, Bob Burtnett wrote:
Slackening of operations at the onset of the great depression brought consolidation of the Shell Company's Mid-Continent field district sample laboratory work into the Tulsa office directly under [Edson]. For one thing, she was a woman working for less than a man with a comparable job. She needed the job because she had a daughter to support. She took subsequent cuts in salary as the depression worsened.
In 1938, Shell hired a cost accountant to streamline Shell operations, and Edson's job seemed unproductive to him so she was consequently fired
(Fanny Edson's and Eleanor Edson Burtnett's personal papers and correspondence, courtesy of Sue Tappeiner, Corvallis, Oregon).
She was 51 years old and had little chance of finding another job. She consulted for several years and finally moved in with her daughter and son-in-law where, in her later years, she regaled her granddaughter, Kris Ann, with stories of her hardships juggling caring for Eleanor with her well-site and fieldwork demands, and, even more fascinating, her friendships with bootleggers in Tulsa during Prohibition, especially Pretty Boy Floyd, a famous Oklahoma outlaw.
J.B. Leiser, in his 1953 AAPG Memorial for Edson, wrote:
The vigor and humor of her personality included a trenchant scorn in her contempt aroused by hypocrisy. But her laugh, in merriment was infectious and especially characteristic, for she found much at which to laugh
(Leiser 1953, p. 1185).
Dollie Radler Hall (1897–1995)
Dollie Radler, after marriage Dollie Radler Hall, played many pioneering roles as the first female exploration manager in an oil company; she was instrumental in the first reflection seismic oil discovery in the world, the discovery of oil in the Williston Basin, and in opening the door to other women as managers in oil companies and to hiring married women. Dollie always used both her maiden name, Radler, with her married name, Hall, although not hyphenated.
Radler Hall was probably the most remarkable female petroleum geologist of our history. Born an illegitimate child of an imprisoned Oklahoma outlaw, she was 5 years old when her father was released and returned to Oklahoma to marry her mother. Both of her parents were crippled, her mother from a birth defect and her father from multiple bullet wounds when he was captured by the law. As a child she was responsible for much of the work maintaining their house, small store operations and livestock. She was brilliant and studious, and worked her way through Oklahoma ‘Normal’ school to become a teacher (Fig. 11).
Radler as she graduated from the Edmond Normal School. She went to work at a country school in Yale, Oklahoma for about $25 per month (photograph courtesy of Dollie Radler Hall Collection, Western History Collections, University of Oklahoma Libraries; contributed by Hall's niece, Bethan Read, Jackson, MS).
In summer 1919, after a short time teaching unruly country school students, she enrolled at the University of Oklahoma to find a better career. Her timing was fortuitous as it was near the end of WWI. Fatefully, she was crossing the campus when she fell into conversation with a geology student. She asked him what geology was, and he proceeded to tell her about Earth studies and how this was used to find oil. He, no doubt, talked about the booming need for oil because of the war and because of the rapidly expanding automobile industry. He mentioned that two women he knew were earning $125 per month with their new jobs (Parker 1993). No surprise, male petroleum geologists earned between $150 and $250 per month (Ellison et al. 1987). She had been making about $25 a month teaching and she quickly appreciated the difference. The very next day she changed her major to Geology and completed her requirements for a Bachelor's degree rapidly. She greatly impressed one of her professors, Dr Charles Decker, and assisted him as he prepared a paper to be delivered at the American Association of Petroleum Geologist (AAPG) meeting in Tulsa in 1920. This professional society had been formed in 1917. She attended the meeting and Decker sang her praises to the Chief Geologist of Amerada Petroleum Corp., Sidney Powers, a man who would become one of the most hailed and respected petroleum geologists in the country.
Powers was impressed and contacted her to come for an interview, whereupon he hired her on the spot. She joined the company as soon as her Bachelor of Science was complete. In her first year at Amerada (Fig. 12) she worked full time, and simultaneously continued her studies at the University of Oklahoma and completed her Masters degree in 1 year, becoming the first female to be granted a Master's degree at the University of Oklahoma.
Radler as a new employee of Amerada, c. 1922 (photograph courtesy of Dollie Radler Hall Collection, Western History Collections, University of Oklahoma Libraries; contributed by Hall's niece, Bethan Read, Jackson, MS).
Within 3 years she began taking on management responsibilities, which continued until Powers completely relied on her to run the exploration programme and the four–five district offices they had established. When Powers died unexpectedly in 1932, she was asked to continue her job managing Amerada's exploration but was not given the title of ‘Chief Geologist’ that Powers had held, she was instead called ‘Acting’ Chief Geologist (Edmond 1979). It was a sore point that she only complained about to her close family. She was Acting Chief Geologist for 5 years until her protégé, Rodger Denison, was promoted over her to be ‘Chief Geologist’.
Discovery using reflection seismic
In 1928, Radler Hall managed the first reflection seismic geophysical crew (assigning the crew to areas for shooting and purchasing boxes of dynamite in her own name so that other companies would not know what Amerada was doing), as well as interpreting the ‘squiggles’.
Amerada owned the geophysical company Geophysical Research Company (G.R.C.), except for a smaller interest that was granted to J. Clarence Karchner, the pioneer who had developed the reflection seismic technology (Petzet 1978). It was decided, probably by Amerada President Everett DeGolyer, who had been instrumental in Amerada funding the development of G.R.C., to test the new reflection seismic equipment in Oklahoma instead of Texas where early refraction seismic work had been successful. DeGolyer knew his staff in Tulsa had been having excellent success finding anticlines with surface and subsurface work, and is likely to have wanted to try the new technique in an area where the geology was less complicated than the Texas Gulf Coast.
Sidney Powers was Chief Geologist and his ‘right-hand man’ was Radler (not yet married). In her eighth year at Amerada, she had largely taken over most of the management and exploration duties, leaving Powers to develop ideas for new play areas around North America and do more of the incredible research for which he became famous.
The Tulsa World article stated:
Powers and [Radler] Hall staked a well on what looked, according to Lawrence's wiggledies, like an anticline. Amerada's No. 1 Stalnaker, NENWSE 24-8n-4e, Pottawatomie County, was a dry hole.
A second was tried, and the elderly Tulsans agreed that it became the first oil discovery as a direct result of data gained from the reflection seismograph. It was Amerada No. 1 Hallum, NE SE SE 1-8n-4e, spudded Sept 13, 1928, and completed Dec. 4 as an oil discovery in the Misener formation [Fig. 13]
(Petzet 1978, p. G9)
Radler Hall with the men she managed in 1936 as Acting Chief Geologist. These men came from five Amerada offices in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas (photograph courtesy of Dollie Radler Hall Collection, Western History Collections, University of Oklahoma Libraries; contributed by Hall's niece, Bethan Read, Jackson, MS).
What was not shared in this story told 50 years after the event was how dominant Radler Hall's role was in this revolutionary discovery. Although Radler Hall quietly and generously shared the accolades for picking this location with her boss, Sidney Powers, she did not tell the world that 1928 was a year when Powers was deathly ill, and was in and out of the hospital from late January to June. She had the responsibility for running the crew and for interpreting the data that led to this discovery.
Letters she wrote to her protégé, Rodger Denison, in the Amerada Fort Worth office tell some of the story (Radler Hall archives, Western History Collections, University of Oklahoma). Her letters indicate her work with the G.R.C. crew assignments in Oklahoma starting in February as she wrote to Denison, ‘Finally got the G.R.C. settled yesterday. Surely have quite a program laid out’.
She corresponded often with Denison about both Powers’ hospital stays, including a transfer from Tulsa to St Louis hospital for a while, and about exploration efforts and tending to G.R.C. Powers returned to work in mid–late June 1928 but was very difficult to work with: he was emotional and irrational. She lamented to Denison in her July 12, 1928 letter:
I am still at very much of a loss to know what is the best method to use in handling our esteemed boss. – Spend seven years learning how best to get along with a person and then have them change in so many ways certainly is food for thought … Sidney has decided to get rid of our geological department first.
[Which, of course, was not done.]
Radler, and Powers if he could, would have reviewed the seismic data and picked locations in June or July for wells to be drilled in July and September. As was discussed earlier, this was when Powers was either very ill or often hospitalized. Radler and Denison learned later the cause of his critical illness when, in 1929, a spleen operation was successful, and Powers returned to his good humour. But in the summer of 1928 she was likely to have worked on these data mostly on her own and picked the locations. Fifty years later, in the Tulsa World story, she graciously shared the success with her boss. Regardless, even if both had picked the drill sites, Radler Hall's name has never been mentioned in relationship to the first discovery using reflection seismic. Only by reviewing a 1978 newspaper account combined with her private correspondence with Denison do we know what a significant role she played.
Also found in her personal papers was a tribute to her work at Amerada written by long-time colleague, John Ferguson, upon her retirement in 1949. His recognition of her pioneering work in reflection seismic is revealed in his long tribute (in the Radler Hall archives), excerpted here:
Seismograph parties were nursed into useful endeavor by Dollie
Sending them hole diggers, township maps, inner tubes, shooting trucks quickly
Then geologically viewing their physical efforts toward oil fields
Sold their results to John Lovejoy [Amerada President] as showing the Viola structure.
These Allman Blow put to lease to be drilled by John Burline,
Adding reserves beyond Millikan's dreams to pay dividends yearly.
Also big profits thus making the company a major producer.
… In the big middle was Dollie and pencil with ideas for shooting
Leasing and trading and drilling, then on to another new problem.
… In Thirty-Two came the end of the great Sidney Powers, our leader
Whom Dollie guarded and guided for eleven busy years of much progress.
Without a falter she picked up the reins and kept the team moving,
Urging each member to pull his full load for the good of the company … .
Ferguson continued to applaud her accomplishments when he wrote her 1963 citation as she was selected to become the first female Honorary Member of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG). There he said:
In 1926 she became admin geologist, assisting in supervision of district offices [she helped populate and run 4–5 offices in the midcontinent], geological field parties, core drills, and geophysical crews of all types … In 1932 when Powers died, Dollie as acting chief geologist, assumed full responsibility for the operations, recommendations for exploring, leasing and drilling, and authorizations of capital expenditures by the exploration department.
Radler Hall's participation in this important technology breakthrough was never adequately recognized and was not mentioned in any publication on the history of reflection geophysics. Reflection geophysics grew rapidly worldwide, and revolutionized the economics of oil and gas exploration.
Williston Basin first oil discovery
Another event for which Radler Hall was not given credit was the role she played in Amerada's first discovery in North Dakota, the #1 Clarence Iverson. This opened up the amazing and long-lasting potential in the heretofore unpromising Williston Basin. The story was told by Jack Gray (pers. comm. 2017), a man who had worked for Radler Hall before and during WWII. When he was drafted, Radler Hall hired his wife, Marcella, to be her assistant which would have helped with the Gray finances while he was away at war. Although he did not return to Amerada after the war, Marcella continued to work there for at least another 5 years. Marcella shared with Jack her frustration that Radler Hall was never credited with the role she played in Amerada drilling in the Williston Basin. Apparently, Amerada had taken, on speculation, a large leasehold in the Williston Basin. Radler Hall was involved with getting their seismic crews to run some lines across their acreage. When they returned to Tulsa with the data, their report was very negative about the possibility of hydrocarbons worth pursuing in the Paleozoic structures that were identified on the seismic lines.
Radler Hall was considered to be one of the best subsurface geologists in the state and was no stranger to the field: ‘Dollie Radler Hall, quite a gal. She was a geologist when it was tough for a woman to get out in the field in the high boots and britches’, as Phil Chenoworth said in the Broken Arrow Ledger (18 May 1995).
According to Marcella, Radler Hall loaded up her vehicle with her field gear, drove over 1000 miles north to the outcrops SW and west of the Williston Basin, and for days took a hard look at the Paleozoic rocks. She returned to Tulsa and reported to Alfred Jacobsen, President of Amerada at the time, that they should go ahead and drill. This was just before Radler Hall's retirement in 1949, and the Clarence Iverson #1, near Tioga, North Dakota was spudded in September 1950; tested and declared a discovery on 4 April 1951. Many gentlemen were credited for their roles in this huge new discovery, as is true with most big discoveries. There is a saying in the oil business that dry holes are all bastards but discoveries have many fathers. And, maybe mothers too. Never was her role acknowledged. Without the memories of Marcella and Jack Gray it would continue to be lost history.
Fitts Pool and others
Radler Hall's success at Amerada was assured early on when she convinced Amerada to develop a poorly producing field, the Fitts Pool, and the work increased Amerada's income by $1 000 000 a year. For a small company like Amerada, founded in 1919, this kind of infusion of cash made a big difference in their future success. Ferguson in his tribute to Dollie at retirement mentions the role she played in other field discoveries such as Lucien, Polo, Tomball, Monument, Seminole, Searight, Bowlegs, Little River and others.
Sale to Stanolind
In 1929, not long after her reflection seismic work was successful, Amerada needed cash for other ventures, and the Vice President of Amerada, Allemand Blow, put the responsibility on Radler Hall. Her story was told in 1979 (AAPG Explorer):
Amerada owned a large amount of undrilled acreage in Kansas and Oklahoma. The vice president called her into his office and requested [that she] make maps showing this acreage in the best possible light. The deadline was short so Radler went to work in a flurry, utilizing everyone at her disposal.
I was mad though, because I thought they were going to sell the company. They hadn't told me why they wanted the maps. Still, I did my job.
(Recall that chief geologist Powers was occupied with a serious spleen operation in 1929.) She soon learned that she, the Vice President and the head of the Land Department were going to Chicago to try to interest Stanolind (Amoco) in the land:
‘I did the best selling job I could,’ she said.
‘The deal resulted in the sale of an undivided one-half interest in these undeveloped leases for a cash consideration of $5 million and an oil payment of $5 million from Stanolind's one-half interest’.
For Stanolind? Twenty-five years later people at Stanolind told Radler Hall that was the best deal they had ever made.
Radler Hall never complained about Amerada. Just as she did not complain when she was paid less than the men she worked with; and when she was often overlooked for pay rises when her men were granted such. She managed five district offices, over 100 people for some time (Fig. 14). She wrote to her colleague and protégé Rodger Denison on 3 February 1928 (Radler Hall archives):
You have received your check before now and I am sure you have survived the shock. [of getting a raise from $400 to $450 per month, twice what others got in the same raise period]. No, the ‘Powers that Be’ [Sidney Powers] did not see fit to increase my check, but that is just another of the penalties I pay for being a woman in a man's profession. That, however, does not lesson my pride and joy in your achievements. I always have the satisfaction of knowing that I have already accomplished more than my wildest dreams when I started on my geologic career, and that I have also accomplished as much as any woman in the same kind of work. So, this isn't such a bad world after all.
Hall's photograph of one of Amerada's wells blowing out, c. 1930 (photograph courtesy of Dollie Radler Hall Collection, Western History Collections, University of Oklahoma Libraries; contributed by Hall's niece, Bethan Read, Jackson, MS).
Pay rises were again handed out in July 1928, and she wrote to Denison that, again, she did not get one.
Denison had been a student at the University of Oklahoma when Radler was there and she persuaded Amerada to hire him a year after she was hired. John Ferguson also wrote Denison's memorial after his untimely early death and stated, ‘Having been hired for Amerada and adjusted into its routine by Dollie Radler’ (Ferguson 1964, p. 240). In their correspondence it is clear she trusted him and promoted him within Amerada. As stated previously, the irony was that when Powers died she continued to run the exploration department as ‘Acting Chief’ for 5 years and then, in 1937, Amerada promoted Denison to the job in Tulsa as Chief Geologist, the title she never got. Now he was her boss. Radler Hall was basically demoted. He went on to become Vice President. She continued her work finding oil, mentoring and training new employees. But gradually she was doing less and less geology, and finally in 1949 she retired and started consulting. Very quickly she had a new discovery in Seminole County on her own account (Bethan Read (niece) pers. corr.). When Radler Hall retired, she had a substantial income from her many royalty interests in production in Oklahoma and elsewhere, many from her Amerada years, and some from her solitary efforts as a consultant after her retirement.
Breaking ground for other women
Another ground-breaking part of Radler Hall's career with Amerada involved breaking the barrier for allowing married women to work there. Not just oil companies but almost all institutions – schools, government and other businesses – abided by the practice of forcing women to quit when they married. Radler was so important to Amerada that when she married in 1933 she was not discharged. She married Charles Hall, a young rancher whom she had known for years (Fig. 15). Not only did she keep her job, she hired other female geologists, both single and married (Amerada employee photographs and stories indicate there were more than 18 women hired while Radler Hall was manager). Once Amerada established a geophysics department, she hired women geologists and trained them to be geophysicists.
Charles Hall and his new bride, Dollie Radler, in 1933, after she became Acting Chief Geologist (photograph courtesy of Dollie Radler Hall Collection, Western History Collections, University of Oklahoma Libraries; contributed by Hall's niece, Bethan Read, Jackson, MS).
Radler Hall was generous with her success – sharing her knowledge and talent, and was a tremendous philanthropist, giving generously to the University of Oklahoma, to the Oklahoma Pilot Club (a civic association) and to many programmes for children. One amusing gift was to her beloved husband, Charlie. She assigned him a lucrative oil royalty interest to use for ‘spending money’. Radler Hall died in 1995, at the age of 97, consulting almost to the end. She was able to see and enjoy the vast influx of women into the industry in the 1970s as a result of affirmative action.
Summary
Research into the lives of women in petroleum geology has uncovered these instances of women being denied the credit they deserved for their innovative work. The careers of Esther Richards Applin, Alva Ellisor, Hedwig Kniker, Dollie Radler Hall and Fanny Carter Edson were short-changed by this type of professional credit usurping. Many other instances where this has happened to women in this profession, and in most professions, remain no doubt untold.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Dr Gwenn Jensen, Dr Cynthia Burek, and Dr Bettie Higgs for their careful and helpful reviews, and volume editors, as well as the GSL production department for critical editing.
Author contributions
RRG: conceptualization (lead), writing – original draft (lead).
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
Data availability
All data generated or analysed during this study are included in this published article (and its supplementary information files).
Archives
Esther Richards Applin:
Personal papers and correspondence residing with granddaughter, Patty Kellogg, Gloucester, Virginia, including:
– correspondence with E.T Dumble, 1919–27
– 1970 unpublished autobiography (139 pages).
Fanny Carter Edson:
Personal papers, correspondence, photographs, and newspaper articles residing with granddaughter Sue Tappeiner, Corvallis, Oregon, including:
– personal papers, correspondence, photograph with Eleanor Edson, daughter
– personal papers and correspondence with Bob Burtnett, son-in-law.
– personal correspondence with Kris Anne Moyer (2015), great-granddaughter.
Dollie Radler Hall:
Personal collection of photographs, newspaper articles and letters gifted by Bethan Read, niece, to Dollie Radler Hall Collection, Western History Collections, University of Oklahoma Libraries, Norman, Oklahoma, including:
– ‘Hail to Dollie: retirement tribute by J.L. Ferguson (1950)
– letters to A.R. Denison, January–July 1928 and to Tim Denison, 1974 (gifted by Tim Denison).
Hedwig Thusnelda Kniker:
Family papers, 1887–1987: Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas
- © 2020 The Author(s). Published by The Geological Society of London. All rights reserved
