Ernestine Adams: Pioneer Journalist in the Petroleum Industry (1902–1989)

Ernestine Adams, journalist, newspaper publisher, and longtime editor of the Dallas-based oil industry trade journal Petroleum Engineering, was born on April 14, 1902, in Hartville, Missouri, to Ernest James Adams and Bettie (Cottengim) Adams. She had three younger siblings who survived infancy: two brothers, Robert L. and Max Martin, and a sister, Aileen.

Adams’s family moved to Crescent, Oklahoma, a few months after she was born. As a child, her first exposure to the petroleum industry was watching drilling rigs around Crescent. She attended preparatory school at the Oklahoma College for Women in Chickasha until 1919 and completed her secondary education at Guthrie High School in 1920. She subsequently attended summer courses at Edmond Normal School and taught public grade-schoolers in Crescent from 1920­ to 1921. She then moved to Columbia, Missouri, to study journalism at the University of Missouri and earned a bachelor’s degree in 1924.

After graduating, Adams edited the Aikin Independent Age, a Republican newspaper in Minnesota. She later did publicity work for the Western Electric Company in New York. She also pursued graduate work at the Columbia University School of Journalism in New York. In 1928 Adams partnered with Clifford Chandler to purchase the Logan County News in Crescent. Her sister Aileen joined this partnership shortly thereafter. Adams served as manager and editor and also wrote articles for the newspaper, most notably on oil fields and petroleum production. Later that year Adams became the founding vice-president of the Oklahoma Press Association. In 1934 John H. Casey, professor of journalism at the University of Oklahoma, selected Adams as a member of that year’s All-American Weekly Newspaper Eleven, a national listing that recognized outstanding publishers. She was the first woman to receive this honor. Adams was the editor and publisher of the News until she leased the paper in 1935; she sold it in 1941. After leasing the News, she wrote for the Oklahoma City Times and the Daily Oklahoman.

Adams was active in the Republican party of Oklahoma and held county, district, and state-level party positions. In 1931 she was elected first vice-president of the Oklahoma Young Republicans and served as a delegate to the first convention of the Young Republicans National Federation. The following year she was named a director of the Oklahoma Young Republicans. She was a delegate to the state Republican conventions in 1928 and 1934 and to the national Republican convention in 1932. In 1934 Adams narrowly lost the race for state representative of Logan County.

Adams moved back to New York in 1937 where she took post-graduate courses at New York University and worked for trade journals. In 1942 she relocated to Dallas, where she worked in the advertising department of Neiman Marcus. In 1943 Adams joined the staff of The Petroleum Engineer as an associate editor. Shortly thereafter she took a course in engineering math at Southern Methodist University to improve her technical understanding of the petroleum industry. In 1948 she became the managing editor of The Petroleum Engineer. She was the first woman editor of an oil magazine in the male-dominated petroleum industry. She conducted annual surveys of the industry.

Adams was highly critical of government regulation of the oil industry. Her widely republished 1951 editorial “What’s Wrong with Being an Oil Company?” passionately defended oil companies from accusations of profiteering and characterized nationalization of the industry as a plot pushed by “the conspiracy of socialism.”She also spoke confidently about opportunities for women in the oil industry and claimed that any woman who worked hard could succeed in the industry, especially those with technical knowledge.

Adams was a frequent public speaker at oil industry events. In 1951 she was a charter member of the Press Club of Dallas and the Dallas chapter of the Association of Desk and Derrick Clubs of North America. The Desk and Derrick Clubs named her “Oil Woman of the Year,” the highest honor of her career, during the International Petroleum Exposition, held in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in May 1953. In 1955 Adams became the first woman to be inducted into the Pi Epsilon Tau petroleum engineering honor society. In 1961 she served as national president of the Technical Writing Improvement Society. She was a member of the Theta Sigma Phi professional journalism sorority, which honored her with a Matrix Award in 1964. She was also a member of the Association of Petroleum Writers, the Chi Omega sorority, and the Downtown Republican Women’s Club of Dallas, and was the first woman to become an elder at the First Presbyterian Church in Dallas. In the 1970s Adams edited the Energy Management Report, also published by the Petroleum Engineer Publishing Company. After editing The Petroleum Engineer for nearly forty years, she retired in 1982. Ernestine Adams died on January 21, 1989, and was buried in Restland Memorial Park in Dallas.