Dixie Lee Bryant

{{Short description|American geologist (1862–1949)}}

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| education = Columbia Female Institute, Columbia, Tennessee

| alma_mater = Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Bavarian University in Erlangen

| thesis1_title =A Study of the most recent history of the tide water region of Charles River [Boston area] and | thesis2_title =The petrography of Spitzbergen

| thesis1_url= | thesis2_url=http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/843335091

| thesis1_year=1891| thesis2_year =1904

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| workplaces = State Normal Industrial College

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| name = Dixie Lee Bryant

| birth_date = {{birth date|1862|01|07}}

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| birth_place = Louisville, Kentucky

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| death_date = {{death date and age |1949|11|18|1862|01|07}}

| death_place = Asheville, North Carolina

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| citizenship = American

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Dixie Lee Bryant (1862–1949) was a geologist and educator.

Dixie Lee Bryant was born on January 7, 1862, in Louisville, Kentucky.{{Cite web|url=http://encyclopedia.wp.uncg.edu/dixie-lee-bryant/|title=Dixie Lee Bryant (b. 1862)|last=Lawrimore|first=Erin|date=2015-08-31|website=Encyclopedia of UNCG History|language=en-US|access-date=2020-01-19}}{{Cite book|title=Geology at M.I.T., 1865–1965: a history of the first hundred years of geology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2, 2|last=Shrock|first=Robert Rakes|date=1982|publisher=The M.I.T. Press|isbn=978-0-262-19211-8|location=Cambridge, Mass. |pages=396–399|language=en|oclc=769160197}} After her family moved to Columbia, Tennessee in 1886, she enrolled in the Columbia Female Institute. Despite her desire to access a full college education, no Southern universities would admit her as a woman to their science programs. In 1887 she applied, and was admitted to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston. She graduated in 1891 with a Bachelor of Science.{{Cite news|title=Bachelors of Science List Swelled by Addition of 102 Names Graduation Day at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. President Walker Congratulates the Young Scientists.|date=1891-06-03|work=Boston Globe|page=2}} She submitted a thesis on the tide water region of the Charles River and was the first student (of any gender) to receive a Bachelor of Science in MIT's Course XII Geology department—now called Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences.{{cite web |url=https://eapsweb.mit.edu/news/2021/dixie-lee-bryant-trailblazer|website=mit.edu |title=Dixie Lee Bryant, Trailblazer for Women in Science}}{{Cite journal|last=Bever|first=Marilynn Arsey|title=The women of M.I.T., 1871–1941 : who they were, what they achieved|url=https://core.ac.uk/reader/4399160|access-date=2020-01-19}}

She taught natural science at the State Normal School at Plymouth, New Hampshire following her graduation prior to being hired to teach at the North Carolina State Normal Industrial School in Greensboro, in 1892.{{Cite journal|last=Dean|first=Pamela|date=1991|title=Learning to Be New Women: Campus Culture at the North Carolina Normal and Industrial College|journal=The North Carolina Historical Review|volume=68|issue=3 |page=289|jstor=}} There, she taught botany, geology and chemistry, as well as tutoring many of the early students who entered the university with little prior education in the sciences.{{Cite book|url=http://archive.org/details/annualcatalogue18931894|title=The Annual Catalogue|last=State Normal and Industrial School (Greensboro|first=N. C. )|date=1893|publisher=Greensboro (N.C.): State Normal and Industrial School.|others=University of North Carolina at Greensboro Walter Clinton Jackson Library}} She led the science department until 1901, and presented at regional conferences on teaching technique and curriculum development.{{Cite journal|date=1894-07-19|title=North Carolina Teachers' Association|journal=Journal of Education|volume=40|issue=4|page=79|doi=10.1177/002205749404000404|s2cid=220815767|issn=0022-0574}}{{Cite book|chapter-url=http://archive.org/details/byherownbootstra00coat|title=By her own bootstraps : a saga of women in North Carolina|last=Hall Coates|first=Gladys|publisher=[Chapel Hill, N.C. : s.n.]|others=Public Library of Johnston County and Smithfield|year=1975|editor-last=Coates|editor-first=Albert|pages=45|chapter=The Coming of Women to the University of North Carolina}} Described by former students as "A vigorous, wide-awake, well trained young woman,"{{Cite book|url=http://archive.org/details/alumnaenewsofjun22unse|title=Alumnae News of the North Carolina College for Women|date=1922|publisher=Greensboro, N.C. : Alumnae Association of the North Carolina College for Women|others=University Libraries The University of North Carolina at Greensboro}} Bryant was also attributed as establishing the first chemical laboratory for use by women in the state of North Carolina.{{Cite web|url=https://www.ncpedia.org/biography/bryant-dixie-lee|title=Bryant, Dixie Lee {{!}} NCpedia|website=www.ncpedia.org|access-date=2020-01-19}} Bryant also worked as a faculty for the 1894 Summer School for Teachers and Students held in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where she taught physical geography and botany. In 1897, she and four other women were the first to enroll in the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill.{{Cite book|title=Adventures abroad: North American women at German-speaking universities, 1868–1915|last=Singer|first=Sandra L|date=2003|publisher=Praeger|isbn=978-0-313-09686-0|location=Westport, Conn.|pages=124|language=en|oclc=542338506}} Bryant enrolled for graduate work.

In 1901 Bryant took a leave of absence in 1901 to continue her studies abroad. Early in the year she moved to Madison, Wisconsin to study petrography with Charles R. Van Hise. In the fall of 1901 she moved to Germany to pursue graduate studies. She studied microscopic petrography with Harry Rosenbusch at the University of Heidelberg from 1901 to 1902. She then moved to the Bavarian University in Erlangen, where she studied physics, geology (with Hans Lenk), and botany.{{Cite book|url=http://archive.org/details/statenormalmagnov1904unse|title=State Normal Magazine|date=1904|publisher=Greensboro, N.C. : State Normal and Industrial College|others=University Libraries The University of North Carolina at Greensboro}} She graduated with her PhD in geology in 1904, the first woman to receive a PhD in geology at that university.{{Cite news|url=http://pinckneylocalhistory.org/Dispatch/1904-08-18.pdf|title=Bavaria Takes Step Forward|date=1904-08-18|work=The Pickney Dispatch|page=6}}

Upon her return to State Normal in 1904 she was the first faculty member to hold a PhD. Her credentials did not result in any change in her salary or status and as a result she left the institution in 1905 to teach in public schools in Chicago. For the remainder of her career, Bryant taught in Chicago secondary schools, specifically Hyde Park and Schurz, until 1931 at which point she retired to Asheville, North Carolina.{{Cite book|url=http://archive.org/details/proceedings1912chic|title=Proceedings.|last=Chicago (Ill.). Board of Education|publisher=Chicago|others=University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign}} She died in 1949.{{Cite book|chapter-url=http://archive.org/details/alumnaenewsfeb1950unse|title=Alumnae News|publisher=Greensboro, N.C. : Woman's College of the University of North Carolina|others=University Libraries The University of North Carolina at Greensboro|year=1950|pages=4|chapter=Dr. Dixie Lee Bryant Dies in Asheville, N.C.}}