By Emily K. Gibson, PhD March 8, 2021
On November 12, 1969, six women linked arms as they walked down the ramp of a large, ski-equipped Navy transport plane in Antarctica. Lois Jones, Terry Lee Tickhill Terrell, Kay Lindsay, and Eileen McSaveney all researchers from Ohio State University were joined by Pam Young, a scientist from New Zealand, and Jean Pearson, a reporter for the Detroit Free Press
as they stepped onto the ice near the Earth’s southernmost point. With that final step, they became the first women to visit the South Pole.
After lunching with a group of researchers and Navy men working at the Amundsen-Scott research station, the women posed for a photo in front of the iconic, mirrored marker for the geographic South Pole before boarding a transport plane back to McMurdo Station, located on the Antarctic coast. Though they’d just made history, they were anxious to turn their attention to what had brought them to Antarctica in the first place resear