Flora Waumbaugh Patterson (1847 - 1928) was the first woman
hired at the USDA as a mycologist (someone who studies fungi.) While I was
reading about the Cherry Blossom Festival for a post on my women's history blog, I ran across Flora Patterson's name.
When the first shipment of Cherry trees arrived from Japan, it was discovered that they
were infested with insects and diseases and had to be destroyed to protect
native species. Identifying new pathogens was part of Patterson's
responsibilities at the USDA.
Patterson had studied fungi as a hobby when she was young,
but she came to her career as a scientist relatively late. She graduated from
Antioch college in 1865, but married at 22 and had two sons. When her husband was disabled and
couldn't work, she had to become the breadwinner of the family.
After her husband died, Flora began to study biology at the
state University
of Iowa. She made plans
to continue her studies at Yale, but was rejected because they didn't admit
women. Instead she enrolled at Radcliffe and worked at the Gray Herbarium at
Harvard. In 1895, she was hired at the USDA where she worked until her
retirement at the age of 75.
While working at the USDA, she increased their fungi collections approximately six fold and identified many new species. She was instrumental in identifying the chestnut blight that decimated the chestnut forests in the eastern United States.
