1905-1999

Posted 08/04/99

Hannah Thompson Croasdale, a freshwater biologist and the first woman to become a tenured professor at Dartmouth College, died last Tuesday (July 27) at her home in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida. She was 93.

Hannah Croasdale's long career at Dartmouth was divided between research and teaching. She joined the staff of Dartmouth Medical School in 1935 as a research assistant and two years later became a technical assistant in the zoology department. She became an Assistant Professor in 1959, was given tenure in 1964, and became a full Professor in 1968. In 1971, she retired as a Professor Emeritus but continued to teach for seven years after her retirement and conducted research for another 20 years.

Her specialty was phycology, the study of freshwater and marine algae, and she was recognized as an authority on Arctic plant life. Her research took her to Alaska, England and Scandinavia, and she was frequently consulted by researchers throughout the world for information and assistance with identification of unusual species. For more than 20 years she was actively involved with the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass., where she taught a botany class each summer.

A 1928 Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, she also earned her masters and doctoral degrees there, in 1931 and 1935. Her Ph.D. thesis on the freshwater algae of Woods Hole, Mass., won a Sigma Xi prize.

Hannah Croasdale authored hundreds of scientific papers, was a skilled translator of scientific Latin, and created scientific illustrations for several botany textbooks.

In 1968 she was awarded membership in the Societas pro Fauna et Flora for her contribution to Finnish science. She was a founding member and 21st president of the Phycological Society of America.

During World War II, she became the first female member of the Hanover Volunteer Fire Department, from which she reluctantly retired when she moved to Norwich, Vt., in 1963. She was honored with a life membership in the department with voting privileges.

She was born in Tredyffrin Township, Chester County, Pa., in 1905, the daughter of John P. Croasdale and Mary G. Croasdale, both deceased. She is survived by numerous cousins in North Carolina and Pennsylvania.

For many years, Hannah Croasdale spent her summers in Norwich and her winters in Florida. She moved permanantly to Santa Rosa Beach in 1994.

Memorial services will take place at the Community Church in Santa Rosa Beach, Fla., and at the Croasdale family plot in Woodlands Cemetery, Philadephia, Pa. Gifts in memory of Hannah Croasdale can be made to the Phycological Society of America, Hannah Croasdale Scholarship, c/o M. Dennis Hanisak, Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute, 5600 Old Dixie Highway, Fort Pierce, Fla. 34946.