Historical Note
Frank C. Whitmore, Jr. (1915-2012), research geologist for the United States Geological Survey (USGS), specialized in the systematics of fossil mammals. Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on November 17, 1915, he received the A.B. from Amherst College in 1938. He was awarded the M.S. in invertebrate paleontology in 1939 from Pennsylvania State University. He completed his graduate training in vertebrate paleontology at Harvard University, under Alfred Sherwood Romer, receiving the A.M. in 1941 and Ph.D. in 1942. In 1939, he married Martha Burling Kremers, and they had four children, Geoffrey Mason, John Kremers, Katherine Burling and Susan Hale Whitmore.
After graduation, Whitmore taught geology at Rhode Island State College from 1942 to 1944. He was appointed a Geologist at the USGS in 1944, but was detailed as a scientific consultant to the U.S. Army in the Philippines, Japan and Korea from 1945 to 1946. In 1946, he became Chief of the Military Geology Branch of the USGS, a position he held through 1959. He then transferred to the USGS Paleontology and Stratigraphy located in the Natural History Building (NHB) where he worked as a research geologist on the systematics of fossil mammals, especially Tertiary Cetacea. His field work focused on the Atlantic and Gulf Coast Plain, Panama, Kentucky and Alaska. He was also appointed a research associate of the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) during his tenure in the museum.
An active member of the paleontological community since the 1930s, Whitmore joined the Geological Society of America (GSA) while a graduate student, serving as vertebrate paleontology section chair in 1972. He was present at the formative meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology (SVP) in 1938 and remained active in that society, as well as the Paleontological Society (PS), the Geological Society of Washington, as President in 1970, and the Paleontological Society of Washington, as President in 1950.
