Awards

Established: 1941

Represents: Winged Victory standing upon the arc of the world.

The Society’s highest honor is awarded to a member whose original, innovative, or pioneering contributions are of major significance in understanding the world’s cultures and environment.


Amelia Earhart	1933	For her first woman’s solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean on May 2, 1932

Margaret Mead	1942	For anthropological research among primitive tribes in Samoa, New Guinea, other South Seas isles

Blair Niles	1944	For geographic travels and research presented in published novels and non-fiction books, featuring Southeast Asia, Central & South America, and the Caribbean.

Irene Wright	1950	For geographic research and contribution to Tudor maritime history, especially 16^th century English voyages to the Caribbean.

Mary Douglas Leakey	1975	For contributions to our knowledge of the evolution of Homo sapiens and his age on earth, in Tanzania’s Olduwai Gorge.

Marion Stirling Pugh	1975	For contributions in archeology to the world’s knowledge of the Olmec, and discovery of stone “colossal heads”, in Central America.

Eugenie Clark	1975	For contributions in Marine biology, expanding knowledge of the reproduction and behavior of sharks.

Arlene Blum	1984	For mountaineering triumphs, leading the first woman’s climbs of Mt. McKinley, Garwhal Himalaya Brigupanth, and Annapurna, and reaching 24,000 feet on Mt. Everest.

Freya Stark	1987	For her Middle Eastern explorations into remote cultures and areas, including Euphrates River raft trip, and her books recording them.

Sylvia Alice Earle	1990	For achievements as an oceanic biologist, as an experienced, versatile, and intrepid diver, leader and/or pilot of record setting deep water dives in miniature submarines or submersibles.

Jane Goodall	1990	For her pioneering field studies of wild chimpanzees in Tanzania.

Anne LaBastille	1993	For her work as a wildlands and wildlife consultant, and work with rare and endangered wildlife, wild areas, acid rain, and women in the wilderness, particularly in Central America, the Caribbean, and northern South America.

Kathryn Sullivan	1993	For her pioneering nine-day mission into space as a member of the Challenger shuttle crew, becoming the first American woman to “walk” in space.

Natalie Goodall	1996	For her work in botany and biology studies of flora and fauna native to Tierra del Fuego, South America.

Pam Flowers	1990	For pioneering achievements as a solo dog-sled trekker in the Arctic, as the first woman to trek solo to the Magnetic North Pole and as the first person to trek the 2,500 miles across Arctic North America, the longest solo dog sled trek by a woman.

Anna Curtenius Roosevelt	1999	For discovery of evidence of a hitherto unknown prehistoric culture in the Amazon Basin.

Tanya Marie Atwater	2005	For her pioneering work in plate tectonics, which has increased the world's knowledge of earth movements from mountaintops to ocean floors.

Outstanding Achievement Award

Established: 1978

Design: Personalized certificate, with modern version of Society’s seal, North Star rays extend below globe.

This honor is awarded to a member who has made an outstanding contribution or service of lasting benefit to Science, the Arts, or Humanity.

Elisabeth Shirley Enochs	1978	For raising the standards of child and maternal health and nutrition throughout the world, improving institutions housing orphans and abandoned children in Latin America.

Gloria Hollister Anable	1981	For expeditions to British Guiana jungle, and deep-water records set in bathysphere in Bermuda.
Elizabeth Colson	1981	For anthropology achievements, as recognized authority on American Indian society and on the peoples of sub-Saharan Africa.

Frances Kelsey	1981	For scientific investigation of the drug thalidomide that prevented its distribution in the U.S., avoiding major birth deformities.

Evelyn Pruitt	1981	For pioneering the field of remote sensing, used to interpret the earth’s surface and sub-surface, and developing the field of coastal geography with attention on environments of world coasts.

Jocelyn Crane Griffin	1984	For contributions to zoology, ichthyology, and ecology, and for deepwater descent in bathysphere.

Mary Slusser	1984	For anthropological research in Vietnam and Laos, and directing a film on tribes of Laos, in primitive areas, as well as archaeological research of lost cities and neglected ancient shrines, sculptures, and art objects in Nepal.

Nancy Hatch Dupree	1987	For writing and lectures on research and travel in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Mary LeCron Foster	1987	For field work and publications on the linguistic and social anthropology of certain peoples of Mexico.

Jeannette Mirsky	1987	For writings on historical geography and history of Arctic exploration, and history of exploration of Central Asia and China.

Margaret E. Murie	1987	For pioneering work in the environmental movement.

Marvin Breckinridge Patterson	1987	For her insightful writings; photographs of Africa, the Caribbean, and Appalachia; broadcasts; and contributions to many causes, especially historic preservation, as well as her service as chair of the Frontier Nursing Service.

Jeanne M. Gurnee	1990	For expertise in speleology and exploration and conservation of caves, with special work in Puerto Rico and Barbados.

Clara Egli LeGear	1990	For founding the Geography and Map Division of the Special Libraries Association, her expertise in historical cartography, and indexing an eight volume “List of Geographical Atlases” for the Library of Congress

Helen Margaret Wallis	1990	For expertise on history as shown through maps, atlases, and globes, and as Head Map Librarian with the British Map Library, fostering cooperative exchanges, exhibits, and geographic societies.

Laura Nader	1990	For expertise in law in preliterate societies, especially the Zapotec Indians of Oaxaco, Mexico, and contributions to the understanding of the anthropological aspects of legal and social change.

Patricia Anawalt	1993	For pioneering a method for reconstructing the past through evidence that exists in both pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican and present-day Central Mexican cloth and clothing, and contributing to the study of costume evolution.

Elisabeth Booz	1993	For work in southwestern China as the first western professor at Yunnan University, writing four textbooks as she taught English; and for travels in, and writing the first guidebook about, Tibet.

Helen Cruickshank	1993	For a career as a writer, wildlife photographer, conservationist, lecturer, and leader of ecology/wildlife workshops and photographic safaris.

Ruth Robertson	1993	For her career of many “firsts” in photojournalism, including first woman to photograph football games from the 50 yard line at Northwestern and Notre Dame, the only woman photographer in the press pool at the both 1944 Democratic and Republican national conventions, leading the first expedition into Venezuela to photograph Angel Falls, and the only woman correspondent in Alaska during WWII.

Cecilia Doak	1996	For pioneering work and making a major contribution to science and humankind by teaching health workers to talk to patients with low literacy skills so that they understand medical information.

Beth McKnight	1996	For founding an organization dedicated to fostering conservation throughout the world, sponsoring expeditions to retrace earlier explorations in an historical context, and documenting the precariousness of wilderness and nature.

Katharine Fowler Billings	1996	For contributions to geological science, especially in Sierra Leone and as a pioneer in conservation and environmental protection.

Marie Tharp	1996	For expertise in cartography and oceanography and discovering the Rift Valley of the Mid Atlantic Ridge through analysis of depth soundings.

Patricia Ann Woolley	1999	For significant discoveries made as world’s foremost authority on marsupial mice of Australia and New Guinea.

Louise Emmons	2002	For 30 years of work on the ecology of tropical and neotropical rainforests and for her highly praised and respected field guide to the mammalian fauna of neotropical rainforests.

Carol A. Meyer	2002	For 20 years of work as an archaeologist specializing in sites in the Middle East, particularly Jordan, Iraq and Egypt, most especially the settlement site of Bir Umm Fawakhir in Eastern Desert of Egypt.

Edith M. “Jackie” Ronne	2002	For a lifetime of living on, studying about, lecturing on, and writing about the continent of Antarctic, as the first American woman to set foot and over-winter there. Ronne Ice Shelf, the world’s 2^nd largest, is named for her.

Mary Upjohn Meader	2005	For her pioneering aerial photography in the 1930s.

Alison Spence Brooks	2005	For pursuing the theory that human development occurred in Africa much earlier than once believed. She bolstered this theory by developing new dating techniques for materials too old for radiocarbon methods, using fossilized ostrich eggs.

The Society’s Flag - Carriers

Established: 1931

Designer: Carroll Bill, Boston artist

Represents: Eastern half of the Western Hemisphere and the western half of the Eastern Hemisphere, with the North Star above and the Southern Cross below.

By Executive Council approval, the flag is carried on expeditions of such unusual character that their successful accomplishment adds real distinction to the Society and makes a permanent contribution to the world’s store of geographical knowledge; or the bearer is engaged in work of a professional, geographic, or scientific nature that is new, original, or represents a “first” in at least one sense.


Marie Peary Stafford	1932	Carried to Cape York, North Greenland, for dedication of memorial to her father, Admiral Robert E. Peary. As first white baby born in the Far North, she partially grew up with the Eskimos and was called “Snow Baby.”

Amelia Earhart	1932 1935	Carried on her flight from New York to Washington to receive National Geographic Medal, but it commemorated her solo trans-Atlantic flight on May 21, 1932.

Gloria Hollister	1934	Carried when she was one of the scientists working with William Beebe’s Oceanographic Expedition, when she descended in the bathysphere to 1,208 feet, the greatest depth ever attained by a woman at that time.

Margaret Mead	1936	Carried to Bali and New Guinea in connection with her anthropological research among the primitive tribes, documenting village life with still and moving pictures.

Mary Vaux Walcott	1936	Carried to Japan for botanical research and collection of wild flowers for the Smithsonian Institution and her watercolor reproductions of them.

Lucile Quarry Mann	1937 1940	Carried in 1937 with her husband, National Zoo Director William Mann, to the East Indies, as only woman on the expedition, which collected live animals, birds, and reptiles for the zoo. Carried in 1940, with her husband, to Liberia on expedition to collect live specimens for the National Zoo, enduring rough travel by hammock, rickshaw, dugout canoe, and on foot.

Marion Stirling Pugh	1948 1951 1953 1957	Holds distinction of being only member to carry SWG’s flag four times, all on archaeological expeditions with her husband Matthew Stirling, under the joint sponsorship of the National Geographic Society and the Smithsonian Institution. Carried in 1948, 1951, and 1953 to Panama, for archaeological work in first Chiriqui and Veraguas provinces, then Colon province, and finally on an ethnological visit to the Choco Indians. Carried in 1957 to the Pacific Coast of Ecuador, where she excavated pottery figurines.

Irene Morden	1953	Carried on the Morden African Expedition to Southwest Africa to collect specimens of native material representing a cross-section of daily life, for the American Museum of Natural History, as first western woman to travel to Etosha Pan and the remote Skeleton Coast.

Ardelia Ripley Hall	1954	Carried to South Korea on a mission for the Departments of State and Army to survey and photograph Korean War damage to museums, palaces, temple-monasteries, and ancient sites.

Margaretta Hopkins	1955 1956	Carried in 1955 on a hunting safari to Tanganyika, when she was alone with a white hunter and his staff and was the first woman to kill the rare swamp-dwelling sitatunga antelope. Carried in 1956 on a hunting expedition with her husband to French Equatorial Africa.

Dorothy Schweitzer	1957	Carried on her boat on travel based on Bora Bora to the Society Islands to study coral reefs and their creatures and the people of the area and studied marine biology.

Marie-Helene Sachet	1958	Carried to Clipperton Island, off the west coast of Central America, on Biological expedition sponsored by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, when she collected plants, studied vegetation, and worked on geology and soils.

Eugenie Clark	1962 1982	Carried in 1969 when she led the American delegation participating in the international Israel South Red Sea Expedition, to contrast studies of the coral reef environment with the mangrove areas in the vicinity of Massawa, Eritrea, with her work centering on sharks and eels. Carried in 1982 to Japan’s Izu Oceanic Park to study marine biota at various depths.

Gladys Owen	1964	Carried to Oaxaca, Chiapas, and Yucatan, Mexico, to study effects on native populations of the newly improved systems of transportation there.

Marie Poland Fish	1966	Carried to the Canary Islands and the coast of West Africa on a Narragansett Marine Laboratory oceanographic expedition, when she monitored and recorded underwater choruses of fish, whales, and porpoises.

Jeanne M. Gurnee	1968	Carried to Guatemala’s Alta Verapaz area on a speleological expedition sponsored by the Explorers Club, when they descended in a cave to a site undisturbed for 1000 years which contained human skeletons, pottery, and altar-hearths.

Anne Lyon Haight	1968	Carried to Greenland to collect Eskimo artifacts for the Vilhjalmur Stefansson (a great Arctic explorer) Collection at Dartmouth College.

Ellen Sparry Brush	1970 1984	Carried in 1970 on an American Museum of Natural History expedition to coastal Guerrero, Mexico, with archaeological investigations producing colorfully painted pottery, some resembling Olmec forms. Carried in 1984 to Chile and Bolivia to study the world’s highest lake, Licancabur Crater, and its environs.

Edith “Jackie” Ronne	1971	Carried to the South Pole to participate in the 60^th anniversary celebration of Amundsen’s first reaching it, and commemorating the year she spent as the first woman expedition member (as historian and newspaper correspondent) in the Antarctic with the Ronne Antarctic Research Expedition, 1946-48; Ronne Ice Shelf, the world’s second largest, was named for her.

Mary Livingston Ripley	1981-82	Carried to the remote Namdapha Valley in Arunchal Pradesh, India, on an environmental survey with the Smithsonian Institution.

Alison Spence Brooks	1983	Carried to northwestern Kalahari Desert in Botswana, when she led an archaeological expedition to excavate and date a Middle Stone Age faunal site.

Sara Bisel	1983-84	Carried to Herculaneum, Italy, for anthropological study of skeletal material dating to the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, bringing a wealth of new details of how people lived, as well as died, in the lost cities of Vesuvius.

Mercedes S. Foster	1984	Carried to Carro de la Neblina at the southernmost tip of Venezuela where she studied many aspects of the evolutionary process and to document with specimens the fauna of this high plateau 9,000 feet above the rain forests along the Venezuela-Brazil border.

Kathryn D. Sullivan	1984	Carried into space as a member of the Challenger shuttle crew on a nine-day mission, becoming the first American woman to “walk” in space while participating in a 3½-hour extravehicular experiment on the feasibility of satellite refueling.

Tanya Atwater	1985	Carried to the deep ocean about two miles down, 300 miles northeast of the Galapagos Islands, to explore rifts in the ocean bottom in an area where plates are moving apart and that contains the clearest known example of a “propagating rift” – one which is extending itself past another, shutting off the latter.

Sylvia Alice Earle	1985	Carried to the “deep scattering layer” in the Coronado canyon offshore from San Diego, diving solo in the Deep Rover to a depth of 3,000 feet, as leader of the expedition to explore marine life in the Coronado canyon and to obtain and keep alive selected specimens.

Patricia V. Rich	1989	Carried to an underground excavation in Dinosaur Cove, Victoria, in southern Australia to excavate rocks and fossils, including those of polar dinosaurs, uncovered after 105 million years.

Elizabeth McKnight	1992 1993	Carried in 1992 to Rio Roosevelt in central Brazil as leader of expedition with first two women to traverse the 950-mile river discovered by Theodore Roosevelt in 1914. Carried in 1993 on three-month 3,000-mile expedition across Tanzania, Burundi, and Zambia, retracing the last expeditions of Dr. David Livingstone and documenting changes.

Pam Flowers	1993-4 1997	In 1993-4 on 2,500-mile solo dog sled expedition across Arctic North America, retracing the 1923 Firth Thule Expedition, marking the first time a lone woman or an American completed the route solo. Carried in 1997 on the first documented solo winter round trip by surface to the Magnetic North Pole from Resolute Bay in the Northwest Territories, Canada.

Ann Parks Hawthorne	2003	Carried to the Southern Ross Sea area of Antarctica to photograph geographical features for a historical gazetteer.

Karen Huntt & Michele Westmoreland	2005	Carried to Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, retracing the steps of portrait painter and SWG member Caroline Mytinger in the 1920's and taking photographs and videotapes to document cultural changes in the ensuing 80 years.

Martha Hayne Talbot	2007	Nam on- Annamite Mountains Expedition

The Society of Woman Geographers has two special awards: a Gold Medal and an Outstanding Achievement Award for members who have shown outstanding excellence and achievement commensurate with the objectives of the Society. The names of past recipients are listed on the SWG Honors page of the Bulletin.

The Society’s President, as a special part of the Triennial Meeting, traditionally presents these awards. Our next Triennial will be held May 24-27, 2008 at the InterContinental Chicago.

GOLD MEDAL: the highest honor that you can be bestowed by the Society. It is awarded to a member whose original, innovative, or pioneering contributions are of major significance to the world’s knowledge and understanding of the universe in which we live.

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT AWARD: is conferred on a member in recognition of her outstanding contribution or service that is of lasting benefit to Science, the Arts, o

Awards

of The Society of Woman Geographers

and their recipients

For writing and lectures on research and travel in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Carried in 1969 when she led the American delegation participating in the international Israel South Red Sea Expedition, to contrast studies of the coral reef environment with the mangrove areas in the vicinity of Massawa, Eritrea, with her work centering on sharks and eels.

Carried in 1970 on an American Museum of Natural History expedition to coastal Guerrero, Mexico, with archaeological investigations producing colorfully painted pottery, some resembling Olmec forms.