Arthur C. Trowbridge
1885-1971
Born in Glasgow, Missouri on March 4, 1885, Trowbridge enrolled at the University of Chicago in 1903. He received his BS in geology in 1907 and continued at Chicago graduating with his Ph.D. in 1911. During his time at the University of Chicago, Trowbridge worked in the university's geology laboratory and established himself as Rolin Salisbury's protégée. Given his previous research and training at the University of Chicago, Trowbridge was offered positions at several universities, but he accepted an offer from the University of Iowa after George F. Kay offered him the position of full professor in 1911. Also in 1911, Trowbridge married Sue Estelle Bussey; the couple later had two children.
At Iowa, Trowbridge's research primarily focused on stratigraphy and sedimentation, yet he taught a variety of classroom, laboratory, and summer field courses; he and Salisbury published three field manuals in 1912 and 1913 to aid these courses. When World War I began, Trowbridge was given military leave from Iowa and he served as the educational director for the US army's YMCA at Camp Dodge from 1917 to 1918, then was relocated to New York City from 1918 to 1919. After returning from the military leave, he began projects with the US Engineer Corps of the war department to study the Mississippi Delta's sedimentation rates. Besides studying the sedimentation of the Mississippi, he worked with several oil companies in the United States to try and locate new oil fields. In 1925-1926, Trowbridge served as a consultant for the Turkish Petroleum Company of London in surveying oil fields in Iraq. In 1934, he became head of the University of Iowa's geology department, director of the Iowa Geological Survey and state geologist of Iowa succeeding George F. Kay. During World War II, Trowbridge and another professor, Arthur K. Miller, taught all of the geology classes at Iowa so that the other professors in the department could serve in the military.
Trowbridge remained in his leadership positions until 1947 when he resigned as the state geologist and head of the Iowa Geological Survey in order to spend more time teaching. In 1952, he retired from the University of Iowa, but continued to teach part time until 1965. He also worked as a consultant for an oil company based in Houston Texas from 1952-1955. For his teaching efforts, Trowbridge received the Neil A. Miner award from the National Association of Geology Teachers in 1960 and a honorary doctoral degree from Augustana College in 1963.
Arthur C. Trowbridge died on November 16, 1971. When the geology department at the University of Iowa relocated to the previous dental science school in 1973, the building was renamed Trowbridge Hall in his honor.