This year marks the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Society of Woman Geographers (SWG). The early organizers conceived of the SWG as an organization in which members could share knowledge, recognize excellence, and offer mutual encouragement in geographical exploration and research. Current members of the organization gathered in Washington, D.C., in October 2025 for their centennial conference to carry this vision forward.
A piece of SWG history is preserved in the organization’s records, which are housed in the Library of Congress Manuscript Division. The records mainly contain membership files related to the biographies of individual women, including details of their accomplishments in their respective fields. The SWG uses the term “geographer” broadly to mean women who are united in a common interest in geography, but who pursue very diverse careers. Members at the forefront of their fields explore places and cultures around the world and must be elected by current members.
The four founders of the SWG included Marguerite Harrison (1879-1967), Blair Niles (1880–1959), Gertrude Emerson Sen (1890-1982), and Gertrude Mathews Shelby (1881-1936). All four women had experience traveling the globe, specializing in different countries or regions. Harrison focused on Russia and China, and Niles explored South America. Sen was considered an expert on Asia, India in particular; and Shelby wrote about the Americas and Africa. They broadened knowledge about the countries and cultures they visited through their writings and lectures.
Blair Niles explained that she and Marguerite Harrison initially met for tea in New York City and discussed the “isolation of women of the exploring species.” They then invited Gertrude Emerson Sen and Gertrude Mathews Shelby to join them for lunch to consider the idea of founding a society for women geographers. Sen noted that “we four were simply annoyed that despite what we thought our adequate qualifications, we were automatically excluded from the Explorers Club and similar all-male organizations, just because we were women. Well then, we said, why not have a society of our own?”
Sen praised the SWG’s first president, Harriet Chalmers Adams (1875-1937), for bringing the organization to life. She noted that it was really Adams “who organized the whole thing without us – we were not organizers. We were inspirers.” Adams was herself a well-known explorer and lecturer who published her travel accounts in National Geographic magazine. Adams worked behind the scenes to build the organization.
Even though the founders and early members all had accomplishments as independent women, they still “sought intellectual companionship,” something they could not find in most other professional organizations of the time that promoted world exploration, geography, anthropology, and allied fields. Just a year after the creation of the SWG, founder Blair Niles already believed that, “The longed-for comradeship has now become an accomplished fact; for that hurriedly arranged lunch was but one of such happy occasions; while Bulletins and News Sheets are connecting the members all over the world…”
SWG chapters were first organized in New York, then in Washington, D.C. (now the group’s headquarters), and later in Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, South Florida, and the San Francisco Bay Area. At-large and corresponding members have resided throughout the United States and in more than fifty countries around the world.
When accepting membership in the SWG in 1928, rising anthropologist Margaret Mead (1901-1978) mildly criticized the group for organizing separately from men. She stated, “Altho I am not entirely in sympathy with organizations which divide professional groups up along sex lines, the future aims of the society seem to me sufficiently valuable to dim that objection.” Mead’s perspective likely proved to be the exception rather than the rule at a time when most women struggled to obtain the necessary degrees in higher education, instead relying heavily on learning in the field. Many found paying professional positions closed to them.
The last surviving founder, Gertrude Emerson Sen, writing from her home in Almora, India, reflected on the success of the SWG during the organization’s fiftieth anniversary in 1975. She speculated about the larger challenges caused by human endeavors, especially in the wake of advancing technology, and “when the world seems to be collapsing into chaos.” Sen wrote, “I sometimes wonder, however, if your travels today, to the Arctic or Antarctic or any other remote area, when you can fly there in a few hours, can be quite as fascinating as ours were in the olden days, when we travelled by slow freighters, or canal, or on horseback, or on foot, but it is hard to make comparisons.” She was deeply impressed, however, by the newer members’ contributions to human knowledge and believed the society had proven beneficial. She encouraged the members to “carry on the good work.”
Do you want more stories like this? Then subscribe to Unfolding History – it’s free!
“Idea of founding…” Blair Niles, “Over the World and Back: Women Explorers, Writers and Scientists Whose Work Carries Them to Far Places,” Woman Citizen 11, no. 7 (December 1, 1926), 27.
“We said…” Copy of letter from Gertrude Emerson Sen to Fellow Members of the SWG, April 4, 1975. Box III: 35, Society of Woman Geographers Records, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.
“She noted…” Interview with Gertrude Emerson Sen, recorded by Ada Currier for the SWG Oral History Program, October 1977, 21. Quoted and cited with permission. Box III: 36, Society of Woman Geographers Records, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.
“Sought intellectual companionship,…” Elizabeth Fagg Olds, Women of the Four Winds (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1985), 4.
“Already believed…” Blair Niles, “Over the World and Back,” 43.
“She stated…” Margaret Mead to Harriet Chalmers Adams, March 6, 1928. Box I:22, Society of Woman Geographers Records, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.
“She encouraged…” Copy of letter from Gertrude Emerson Sen to Fellow Members of the SWG, April 4, 1975. Box III: 35, Society of Woman Geographers Records, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.