WINIFRED GOLDRING (1888-1971), NEW YORK PALEONTOLOGIST

Born and schooled in the Albany region of New York State, Goldring graduated from Wellesley College in 1909 with a major in botany and zoology. Her Wellesley MA thesis (1912) in geography was supervised by William Morris Davis of Harvard. Edward Berry (Johns Hopkins University) and Amadeus Grabau (Columbia University) taught her paleontology, which she also learned on the job from John Clarke and Rudolf Ruedemann of the New York Geological Survey. She taught briefly at Wellesley and at an adult education school in Boston. Initially hired to develop exhibits at the New York State Museum in 1914, Goldring soon proved her worth as a researcher, and she spent the rest of her career at the Museum, culminating in her appointment as state paleontologist (1939-1954), the first woman to hold that position in the Unites States. As a researcher, she worked mainly on crinoids, publishing the massive Devonian Crinoids of the State of New York in 1923, and in paleobotany. Her museum duties required large amounts of time and energy for public outreach in the form of exhibits (notably on the Gilboa fossil fern forest diorama) and publications (Handbook of Paleontology for Beginners and Amateurs, Guide to the Geology of John Boyd Thacher Park). She also mapped the Berne and Coxsackie quadrangles of New York. Active in professional societies, Goldring led the 1933 IGC fieldtrip through New York State, and served as president of the Paleontological Society in 1949 (the first woman so elected) and a vice president of the Geological Society of America in 1950. She received honorary doctorates from Russell Sage College and Smith College. The Association for Women Geoscientists has named a student award in her honor.