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Looking for Oral History Interview of Ruth Patrick, limnologist
I am forwarding this query to the list in the hopes that someone may be able to more definitively answer it. Thanks!
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John Mauer and I have a contract (actually a participating agreement) with
the U.S. Forest Service office that manages the land at the Savannah River
Site to write the 50th anniversary history of that Forest Service office
and do oral histories. We have been able to arrange to interview Ruth
Patrick, and are trying to find out whether anyone has ever done systematic
oral history with her.
Ruth Patrick is a limnologist, specializing in the one-celled organisms
that live in rivers. One person we interviewed told us the story that
during World War II the Navy took samples of the hull of a German sub that
had sunk and asked Dr. Patrick to tell them where it had been by the
organisms growing on the hull. She did baseline environmental studies for
DuPont before they put in new factories even before they contracted with
her to do one for the Savannah River Plant in early 1951. She became the
first woman on the DuPont board of directors and she served for many years
on the Environmental Advisory Committee for the Savannah River Site. One
brief history piece about her is at:
http://heritage.dupont.com/floater/fl_patrick/floater.shtml Dr. Patrick
is 95 years old and still goes to her office at the Philadelphia Academy of
Natural Sciences most days.
She isn't a physicist, so she isn't an obvious person for you to collect an
interview of, though she is clearly of significance to the history of
environmental issues at nuclear weapons productions facilities. I've
checked the Beckman Center for the History of Chemistry list and they
haven't interviewed her either. I don't know what oral history collections
there are in the biological sciences--can you suggest any organizations
that I could contact that might have interviewed her?
Pam
Pamela E. Mack tel: 864-656-5356
Dept. of History fax: 864-656-1015
Clemson University email: Pammack@clemson.edu
Clemson SC 29634-0527 http://people.clemson.edu/~pammack/
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