The William J. Cromie Papers are arranged in chronological order by date of creation of original item; when items are copies, their date of creation is included in their title. Items with the same date of creation are further arranged in alphabetical order by item title.
Accession No. PA.2010.0015: William J. Cromie, 2010 October; Accession No. PA.2011.0020: William J. Cromie, 2011 June; Accession No. PA.2011.0027: William J. Cromie, 2011 June; Accession No. PA.2012.0006: William J. Cromie, 2012 April; Accession No. PA.2012.0022: William J. Cromie, 2012 November
[identification of item], William J. Cromie Papers, SPEC.PA.56.0207, Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center Archival Program, Ohio State University
Contains compact discs.
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Processed by: Audrey Wimbiscus, 2026 March; Finding aid written by: Audrey Wimbiscus, 2026 April
William J. Cromie (1930-2014) was a geologist and science journalist. In 1945, he ran away from home and served in the United States Navy as a seaman, cook, and engineer; in 1950, he enrolled at Columbia University in a program for people who had never finished high school. Cromie graduated from the program in 1956 with a bachelor of science in geology. From 1957 to 1958, he joined the International Geophysical Year's (IGY) scientific staff in Antarctica on the geology team. While there, Cromie and five others made the 1,450 mile Ross Ice Shelf Traverse over previously unexplored areas of the Ross Ice Shelf. He also established an oceanographic station and did seismic and glaciological research at Little America V, an Antarctic base. Cromie left Antarctica in 1958 to participate in another IGY project, a study of the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea. The following year, he worked with other scientists from Columbia University to map the floor of the Arctic Ocean from a research station on an ice floe, Station Charlie.
In 1960, Cromie was a fellow at Columbia University's Advanced Science Writing; following this course, he became a science journalist. Over the course of his career, he published six books and wrote for
The William J. Cromie Papers date from 2010-2012, and consist of digital image copies on compact disc of color slides originally photographed by Cromie in Antarctica during the International Geophysical Year (1957-1958). A printed inventory of the slide descriptions is also included in the collection. The images depict Antarctic landscapes, wildlife, and fellow participants of the Ross Ice Shelf Traverse. The collection also contains typescripts by Cromie; two of them describe his time in Antarctica during the International Geophysical Year, and the other describes his time working on Station Charlie in the Arctic Ocean.