met Mohamed Ali Pasha, the founder of modern Egypt in 1834 during an extensive trip through the Middle East. Inspired by his travels, and a 1912 trip she had made to Egypt, Catherine's January 1939 travel to Syria, Iraq, and Central Arabia became a landmark trip: the first American woman to enter Riyadh. Until Catherine's visit, the only recorded visits of “foreign” women who had been allowed access to the al Saud capital were: Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone, of the United Kingdom, in February 1938, by invitation from then Crown Prince Saud of Saudi Arabia, who had met her in 1936 at Ascot Geraldine Rendel, along with her husband, a British diplomat, interested in seeing the Eastern Arabian oil fields from her Kuwaiti base, in 1937 Violet Dickson, who accompanied her husband, a retired British Political Agent in Kuwait, also in 1937 The visits of these women, and by Catherine Hamersley were possible due to the consolidation of the Arabian regions by King Abdulaziz al Saud (“ibn Saud”) in 1932, and they were landmark trips to the heart of the Wahabi Islamic sect, an event which had been a goal, never achieved, by the intrepid British explorer and diplomat Gertrude Bell. During her Riyadh visit Catherine captured photographic images including those of the King, the Crown Prince, and royal advisor Yusuf Yasin of Syria. Catherine herself was photographed in Riyadh wearing traditional Najdi woman's garb. Later, following the trip, both Catherine and her husband Carpenter gave an interview to Lowell Thomas, on his “Order of Adventurers” Radio program. In 1939 the United States had no diplomatic representation in Saudi Arabia; any American in the Kingdom was likely working in the Eastern Coastal area of Dhahran, the center of emerging Saudi oil production beginning in 1938. Both the West Arabian coastal city of Jeddah, and the Eastern Coast area were visited by western women. But the al Saud capital of Riyadh and the central Arabian Najd region were off-limits to western women except by special permission from the royal court. Remarkably, Catherine commented upon her return from her visit that she had not only stayed in the King's new palace, but had been included in a falcon-hunting trip with King Abdulaziz; some of her photographs show the camp and the falcons used for hunting. The inclusion of a western woman on a royal hunting trip has not been recorded until