First U.S. Woman on Antarctica

Edith Ronne was the first woman from the U.S. to set foot on the bottom of the world and the first woman in the world to be a working member of an Antarctic expedition. Her husband, U.S. Navy Capt. Finn Ronne commanded an expedition of Antarctica in 1947 and asked her to go with him. So she gave up her job as a State Department clerk to be him. Since her husband's English was sketchy (he was of Norwegian descent), Edith Ronne was tasked to write dispatches for the North American Newspaper Alliance, one of the expedition's sponsors.

They stayed for 15 months in Antarctica conducting aerial mapping sorties and geological investigations that included detecting the first known Antarctica earthquakes.

According to the Washington Post, Ronne's diary reflected the difficulties of living in a 12-f00t-square hut that also served as the expedition's base. She busied herself filing dispatches under her husband's name, recording scientific data, and visiting penguin colonies. Returning to civilization in 1948, Ronne vowed never to go back to Antarctica but she did twice after. In 1971, she and her husband (he died in 1980) became the first married couple to reach the South Pole. In 1995, she revisited the frozen continent and found the old hut where their group stayed.

When asked why she joined her husband, she replied, "I was in love with him. I would have done anything to support the expedition - even stay behind."

Edith Ronne, an American explorer of Antarctica and in whose honor the Ronne Ice Shelf was named after, died on June 14, 2009.