Margaret Stoughton Abell
Junior Forester; Bent Creek, NC 1930-1937

Appalachian Forest Experiment Station

Margaret Stoughton received her B.S. in Forestry from Iowa State College, Ames, IA in 1930 and began work  as a Junior Forester at the Appalachian Forest Experiment Station in July 1930 -- the first woman forester in the Forest Service.  She married Charles A. Abell, a forester who was also employed at the Appalachian FES.  Although she resigned from the Service after six years, in 1977 she related that she had remained close to the practice of forestry because of her husband.

George W. Thompson, former Department Chair of Forestry at Iowa State University wrote in 1988 that he believed Margaret was only the second woman forestry graduate in the U.S.

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