Mignon Talbot
Mignon Talbot (August 16, 1869 – July 18, 1950) was an American paleontologist, noteworthy as the first woman to discover and name a non-bird dinosaur. She became in 1904 the first woman to receive a Ph.D. in geology from Yale University and became in 1909 the first woman to be elected a member of the Paleontological Society.
Quotes
[edit]- In a bowlder of Triassic sandstone which the glacier carried two or three miles, possibly, and deposited not far from the site of Mount Holyoke College, the writer recently found an excellently preserved skeleton of a small dinosaur the length of whose body is about 18cm. The bowlder was split along the plane in which the fossil lies and part of the bones are in one half and part in the other. These bones are hollow and the whole framework is very light and delicate.
- (June 1911) "Podokesaurus holyokensis, a New Dinosaur from the Triassic of the Connecticut Valley". American Journal of Science—Fourth Series 31 (186): 469–479, with Plate IV, Article XXXVIII. text at archive.org
- Women are in many respects superior to men, since generally speaking, they have more patience and often more taste and discrimination in arranging collections and more deftness in manipulating materials. How true this is!
- "The Department of Geology". Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly 6 (3): 128–132. (quote from p. 128)
Quotes
[edit]- Talbot worked on the paleontology of both vertebrates and invertebrates. Her contributions to invertebrate paleontology included a revision of the Helderbergian crinoids of New York State and the investigation of Stafford limestone, also in New York State. Her discovery of the approximately eighteen-centimeter dinosaur Podokesaurus holyokensis, in the Triassic sandstone near Mount Holyoke, established her reputation in vertebrate paleontology. She postulated that this small dinosaur was a bipedal carnivore.
- Joy Harvey and Marilyn Bailey Ogilvie, "Talbot, Mignon". The Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science: L-Z. Volume 2 of The Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science: Pioneering Lives from Ancient Times to the Mid-20th Century. Taylor & Francis. 2000. p. 1263. ISBN 9780415920407. (1499 pages)
External links
[edit]
- (July 20, 1950) "Mignon Talbot, 80, Geologist 31 years; Professor Emeritus at Mount Holyoke College Dies—Made Discovery of Small Dinosaur". The New York Times: p. 21.
- Pellegrino, Stephanie. Mignon Talbot: The Professor and her Dinosaur. Founding Sisters: The Origins of College Collections, Mount Holyoke College.