An expert on fossil mollusks from the Paleogene Period (66 to 23 million years ago), Katherine Van Winkle Palmer was among the leading American women paleontologists of the 20th century. She credited her extraordinary career to her childhood in Oakville.
Paleontologist Katherine Van Winkle Palmer from Grays Harbor County
Katherine Evangeline Van Winkle was born on February 5, 1895, to Jacob Van Winkle (1863-1934) and Edith Hilton Van Winkle (1862-1949) in Oakville. Her mother was a nurse and her father a doctor. Many of his patients were from the Chehalis Reservation and he was sometimes paid with baskets. His collection was donated to the Chehalis Tribe after his death.
An only child, Katherine (nicknamed “Punkie” or “Rip”) was close to her father. She would later credit her love of nature and the outdoors to him. The two spent many hours collecting fossil mollusks from the nearby Cowlitz Formation. At an early age she decided she wanted be a geologist.
That it was a male dominated field did not deter her. Katherine graduated from Olympia High School in 1914. A good student, her speech “Robert Emmet on Being Convicted on the Charge of High Treason,” won the OHS declamation contest earlier that year. At her graduation ceremony, Katherine gave a demonstration of how to test for food adulteration.
From Oakville to University of Washington: Katherine Van Winkle Palmer Sets Sites on Career
The only girl in her high school class to go to college, she enrolled at the University of Washington. Katherine was mentored by Professor Charles E. Weaver (1880-1958), an expert on Paleogene fossils, working as his research assistant.
Katherine did field work for her senior thesis in 1916-1917, surveying several creeks in the Chehalis Valley using only a compass and tape traverse. Her paper, “Paleontology of the Oligocene of the Chehalis Valley, Washington,” is now online.
After graduating with a B.A. in Science in 1918, Katherine worked as a post-graduate lab assistant for Weaver. But she wanted to continue her studies.
Katherine received a Goldwyn Smith Fellowship to do graduate work at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. She worked with the renowned Professor Gilbert D. Harris (1864-1952), the only professor in the geology department who accepted female students. In 1921, Katherine helped found Cornell’s chapter of Sigma Delta Epsilon, the only national society for women in science at the time. She would later serve as its national president.
Katherine Van Winkle Palmer’s Early Career in Paleontology
While Katherine originally planned to move back to Washington, she fell in love with Ithaca and Cornell professor of rural education and nature study Ephraim “Eph” Laurence Palmer (1888-1970). The couple married in 1921. A writer and conservationist himself, the pair were each other’s constant support in their scholarly careers. The couple reviewed each other’s manuscripts.
They had two sons: Laurence “Punky” (1923-1940) and Robin (1930-2010).
Katherine continued her work with Harris through an assistantship in paleontology and historical geology (1921-1925). She even worked briefly as a visiting assistant professor at the UW in 1922. She completed her doctorate in 1925. Her thesis on Veneracean lamellibranches (a class of bivalve mollusks including clams, scallops, and oysters) received high praise. She continued to work with Harris after graduation through a Hecksher Fellowship (1925-1927).
Katherine held many jobs over the decades, working at universities and museums and traveled frequently to Paleogene sites along the East and Gulf Coasts. She was even a special lecturer on paleontology at Cornell during World War II. But her main work was with the Paleontological Research Institution (PRI).
Paleontological Research Institution
Katherine helped found the Paleontological Research Institution in 1932 and served on its board of directors. While she never held a permanent academic position, the Paleontological Research Institution gave her the professional base she needed for publishing her work.
After Harris resigned, Katherine became the Paleontological Research Institution’s second director in April 1952. Over her tenure she helped the organization grow, moving into a larger former orphanage in 1968. The building is now named Palmer Hall in her honor. The new space allowed them to create a mini-museum to display fossils. Now the Museum of the Earth, Katherine was popular with visitors. Locals nicknamed her the “Fossil Lady.”
Despite declining health, Katherine continued as director until 1978.
Grays Harbor Paleontologist Katherine Palmer ’s Career Highlights
Katherine was the author or co-author of over 70 paleobiologic papers, including 17 major works. She identified and described 80 new taxonomic species of fossil mollusks. Katherine also wrote biographies of historic paleontologists.
But her greatest contribution to her field was through cataloging. She created thousands of pages of catalogs of fossil mollusks collections. Often synthesizing the work of others, Katherine’s systematic classification and descriptions are still considered the gold standard of this type of work.
Although she never moved back to Washington, Katherine kept close ties to her old home. In 1925, she published a collection of Chehalis legends titled, “Honne, the Spirit of the Chehalis: the Indian Interpretation of the Origin of the People and Animals as Narrated by George Saunders,” a Chehalis/Nisqually man.
Katherine was the first woman to receive the Paleontological Society of America’s medal in 1973. The Western Society of Malacologists awarded her for “outstanding contributions to the study of Mollusca” in 1974. And in 1978 Tulane University presented her with an honorary doctorate.
Katherine died on September 12, 1982 in Ithaca. Since 1993 the PRI has awarded the annual Katherine Palmer Award to non-professional paleontologists. She had been a strong supporter of avocational paleontology.
Katherine Van Winkle Palmer was a groundbreaking woman scientist. “They broke the mold after they made her,” Professor Harris once said of her. And that mold was made in Oakville.
