Descriptive Entry

These papers document Ursula Marvin's professional career and personal life. Materials include correspondence with friends, family and colleagues; biographical information about Marvin; detailed dairy-like journals of her work and travels; and photographs and slides of her family, work, lectures, and travels. Of special note are journals detailing her trips to Antarctica, and family correspondence describing her activities while in Brazil and Angola.

Historical Note

Ursula Bailey Marvin (1921-2018) was a planetary geologist at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO). Marvin received her bachelor's degree in history fromTufts University in 1943, her master's degree in geology from Harvard University-Radcliffe in 1946, and her Ph.D. in geology from Harvard in 1969. After marrying Thomas Crockett Marvin (1916-2012) in 1952, they moved abroad where work involved prospecting for ore deposits in Brazil and Angola. After returning to the United States in 1958, Ursula taught mineralogy at Tufts for two years before starting meteorite research at Harvard. She became part of the permanent research staff at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in 1961. Ursula Marvin retired in 1998, but continued to research and publish well into her nineties.