Edith Ann “Jackie” Maslin Ronne
Born Edith Ann Maslin on October 13, 1919, Edith “Jackie” Ronne was raised in
a conservative, private Baltimore family. Her father, Charles Jackson Maslin, worked
several jobs, his last being with the B&O Railroad. Her mother, Elizabeth Parlett Maslin,
could have taught school, but like a proper married woman of her day, she stayed home
instead and reviewed Edith’s homework every night making sure she never went to
school without knowing her lessons letter perfect.
According to Edith, she spent three “marvelous” summers away from home at a
Girl Scout summer camp, Camp May Flather, in Virginia. It was at camp where she
acquired her nickname, “Jackie.” In the 1930s, Baltimore, Maryland, did not believe in
co-education in their public schools so she graduated from Eastern High School at sixteen
without ever having a date, except when she arranged for a classmate’s brother to take
her to the senior prom.
Jackie spent her first two years in college at the College of Wooster in Wooster,
Ohio. Then she transferred to George Washington University in Washington, D.C., In
order to be near the university, Jackie moved to live with her aunt and uncle in Chevy
Chase, Maryland, who were financing her education. The first person she recognized on
campus was a girl from Girl Scout Camp. To her friends, she introduced Edith as Jackie,
and everyone felt the name better fit her personality than Edith. Since that time she has
been called Jackie.
At George Washington University, Jackie joined Phi Mu Sorority, had a great
social life, and in 1940 graduated with a major in History and a minor in English. When
she graduated, it was not easy to find a job with a “mere” undergraduate degree.
Therefore, Jackie began a typing and shorthand course while looking for work. The
National Geographic Society offered her a job. After about nine months, she sought and
found a government job at the Civil Service Commission paying twice the salary of the
National Geographic Society. A few months later she moved on to the State Department
where she would remain for over five years serving in several different positions from
file clerk to International Information Specialist in the Near and Far Eastern Division of
Cultural Affairs.
In 1942, she met the polar explorer Lieutenant Finn Ronne (who would later
advance to the rank of Commander) on a blind date and over the ensuing months, Jackie
enjoyed his maturity (Finn was 20 years her senior), nationality, “charming” Norwegian
accent, and stories of exploration. Finn proposed to Jackie before Christmas of 1943 and
they were married on March 18, 1944.
Finn Ronne was a great organizer, planner, and leader; and in 1947 he
commanded the last privately funded expedition to Antarctica despite roadblocks and
obstacles erected by Admiral Byrd and associates and the British who currently occupied
the area of Antarctica where the Ronne Expedition was destined. (Once the Ronne
Expedition reached the frozen continent, the Americans and British worked closely
together.) Nevertheless, regardless of a small budget and crew, the Ronne Expedition
departed on January 25, 1947, from Beaumont, Texas, where Finn selected Beaumont
Eagle Scout Arthur Owen to join the expedition. Jackie edited all of Finn’s
correspondences and reports and was to be in charge of the domestic side of the
expedition. However, instead of remaining stateside, she resigned her position with the
State Department to accompany her husband on his fifteen month Ronne Antarctic
Research Expedition.
As Expedition Recorder-Historian, Jackie Ronne wrote the news releases for the
North American Newspaper Alliance. She also kept a daily history of the expedition’s
accomplishments, which formed the basis for her husband’s book, Antarctic Conquest,
published by Putnam in 1949, and made routine daily seismographic and tidal
observations when the geophysicist was in the field during summer trail program.
Jackie Ronne became the first American woman to set foot on the Antarctic
Continent. (Before her, only the wife of a Norwegian whaling captain had done so very
briefly.) Mrs. Ronne, along with the wife of one of the expedition’s pilots, became the
first two members of an over-wintering expedition, and the first women to spend a year in
the Antarctic. No woman had ever lived in the Antarctic before this, nor did any do so
for the following twenty-five years, until women scientists occasionally accompanied
their scientific husbands in recent years. The 400,000-square-mile area newly discovered
by the Ronne Antarctic Research Expedition was named EDITH RONNE LAND by the
U.S. Board on Geographic Names, making it one of the very few land areas honoring a
woman of non-royal birth. After 20 years on the maps, the feature was renamed RONNE
ICE SHELF, an area which is second only to the great Ross Ice Shelf.
In the years following that first expedition, Jackie Ronne has lectured extensively
throughout the U.S. and in numerous foreign countries. In addition to collaborating with
her husband in various scientific and popular accounts, she has written numerous articles
including those for the annual editions of the Britannica, Americana, and Funk and
Wagnall’s encyclopedias, as well as many articles for the North American newspaper
Alliance.
Upon the invitation and sponsorship of the Argentine Government in 1959, she
participated in the first commercial tourist cruise to Antarctica. In 1962, she made a trip
to the Arctic Islands of Spitsbergen, visiting Norwegian and Russian coal mining stations
on a Norwegian sealing vessel which penetrated the pack ice to within 600 miles of the
North Pole.
In 1971, upon the invitation of the Secretary of Defense, she accompanied her
husband as a guest of the U.S. Navy to McMurdo Sound, Antarctica, and made a flight to
the South Pole Station, as the first husband and wife team and only the eighth woman to
do so, in observance of the 60th Anniversary of Amundsen’s attainment of the Pole on
December 14, 1911. (Finn Ronne’s father, Martin Ronne, was a member of the
Amundsen expedition.)
In addition, Jackie held various offices in the Society of Woman Geographers;
The Columbian Women of George Washington University; the United Nations
Association and the National Society of Arts and Letters. She assisted in civic
organizational work in various capacities and is listed in Who’s Who of American
Women. Jackie received a special Congressional Medal for American Antarctic
Exploration, was elected president of the Society of Woman Geographers, holding that
office from April 1978-1981. She was the recipient of a special Achievement Award
from Columbian College of George Washington University and dedicated a Polar Section
to the National Naval Museum. She was a special Guest Lecturer aboard Abercrombie
and Kent’s Antarctic Cruise Ship, “Explorer,” in February and March, 1994, and aboard
the Orient Lines ship, “Marco Polo,” in January and February, 1996. Jackie also returned
to her former Antarctica base at Stonington Island as a guest lecturer. In her lifetime, she
has made 15 trips to Antarctica.
Jackie Ronne has one daughter, Karen Tupek, and two grandchildren. Both her daughter
and granddaughter were also Girl Scouts. Her grandson is an Eagle Scout and
engineering student (like his grandfather Finn Ronne, who was a mechanical engineer
with postgraduate studies in naval architecture) with aspirations to make the 2008 US
Olympic rowing team.
Currently, Jackie Ronne resides in Bethesda, Maryland, and is as active and quick-witted
as ever. She returns to Beaumont, Texas, on November 11, 2004, for the opening of the
Ronne Expedition and Arthur Owen Museum Exhibit at the Clifton Steamboat Museum,
the debut of her book “Antarctica’s First Lady,” a reunion of the surviving six crew
members from the Ronne Antarctic Research Expedition, and the unveiling of her
Adventures of the Elements character card, the Jackie Ronne card. These events to honor
Jackie Ronne, the Arthur Owen family, and the expedition are being coordinated by
Three Rivers Council #578, Boy Scouts of America, which is the same Boy Scout
Council area that was involved in the 1947 expedition. Philanthropist, historian, and
Clifton Steamboat Museum owner David Hearn, Jr., has made this historically significant
event possible by funding the publication of her book and the extensive Ronne Exhibit at
his museum including digitizing and preserving over 16,000 feet of motion picture film
from the expedition.
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