our queer elders
easter ellen cupp
“well, we had each other and enough to keep us busy.”
—e.e.c. about working at male-dominated scripps, oral history interview 1999
easter ellen cupp (1904-1999) was the first woman in north america to earn a ph.d. in oceanography. awarded the degree in 1934, she was one of only five people with a ph.d. in oceanography at the time. easter studied diatoms, microalgae found in rivers, lakes, and oceans. after earning her ph.d., easter continued to work as a researcher at scripps. in 1939, however, the director of scripps, harald sverdrup, fired easter despite glowing reviews, ”in order to begin studies [at scripps] which at the present time appear to be of greater importance.” evidence suggests that his motive for firing easter was because she was a woman.
throughout all this, easter lived with dorothy rosenbury (1906-2003), a ”friend” she met on the field hockey team as undergraduates. they became roommates while both completing master’s degrees at uc berkeley, and they lived together for the rest of their lives. after easter lost her job at scripps, she joined dorothy in teaching at woodrow wilson middle school.
easter ellen cupp in 1935. uc san diego library digital collections.
about the song
dorothy and easter, photos from archived whittier college yearbooks, 1925.
readers, a confession: I have a ph.d. in oceanography, and I didn’t know that the first woman to receive a ph.d. in oceanography was likely queer until years into this project! an oral history interview with easter and dorothy from 1998 (the year before easter died) shows the two of them still living together more than sixty years later, and easter’s obituary described dorothy as her “longtime companion.” another mind-boggling omission from history.
despite (because of?) his sexism, sverdrup climbed to oceanographic fame: the “sverdrup” is a rate of measure in oceanography relating to the flow rates of ocean currents, and the “sverdrup balance” is related to ocean circulation. the bridge of this song throws some very intentional (yet nerdy) shade at the guy.
microscope
the gyre follows us around in ocean waves and poetry
we’re little cells housed in glass
you’re everywhere in this town yet never close enough to me
we drift on currents as we pass
darling be my microscope
focus your light on me
magnify; kaleidoscope
beyond what the naked eye can see
and we’re two currents found upwelling from the deep
like diatoms in the sea
we’ll make ourselves a house, just each other and the beach
and my vials of green
darling be my microscope
focus your light on me
magnify; kaleidoscope
beyond what the naked eye can see
when it yields no good results
when I feel like giving up
flow rates and surface winds
can’t keep me from your lips
darling be my microscope
focus your light on me
magnify; kaleidoscope
beyond what the naked eye can see
magnify me
k.a.castagno 2024
recommended reading
oral history interview with easter ellen cupp and dorothy rosenbury. by joelle russell. 1999.
pioneers of plankton research: easter ellen cupp. by john dolan, published in journal of plankton research. 2023.
quantitative studies of miscellaneous series of surface catches of marine diatoms and dinoflagellates taken between Seattle and the Canal Zone from 1924 to 1928, a research article by easter ellen cupp, published in transactions of the american microscopical society. 1930.