The Legacy of Jedidiah Morse in Early American Geography Education: Forgotten and/or Forgettable Geographer?

Abstract

Despite numerous and significant writings by historians of geography and biographers from other disciplines, and his authorship of the first geography textbooks written in and for the new American republic, most geographers are largely unaware of the contributions of Jedidiah Morse in academic geography. Writings about Morse suggest that he had alienated himself from many of his contemporaries early in his career through his authoritarian brand of Calvinistic republicanism, a perceived contradiction of that style with his entrepreneurial ambitions, his role in the controversial Bavarian Illuminati, and a dispute with a noted New England historian. But subsequent, broader intellectual movements sealed Morse's fate as a forgotten geographer (to most), including the end of the Second Great Awakening, Transcendentalism, Darwinism, and the “new,” process‐based geographical thinking inspired by Carl Ritter, Alexander von Humboldt, and Arnold Guyot. Regardless of the reasons for Morse's lost legacy, his contributions to geographical education are important and should be remembered.

Key words:

• history of geography
• Jedidiah Morse
• U.S. geographical education

Notes

1. Letter written from Jedidiah Morse to John Cotton Smith on 22 December 1784.

2. Although Medway does not appear on today's maps, Krakow noted its location in Liberty County, its sometimes‐used name of “Medway Church,” and the rather early change to “Midway” (1999). The Medway River, which forms much of the boundary between Liberty and Bryan counties in coastal Georgia, does appear on modern maps with its original spelling, but also uses the “Midway” designation.

3. During much of the fourteen years prior to his death, Brown's scholarship in historical geography embraced substantial research vis‐à‐vis Morse. In 1934, he wrote to J. K. Wright at the American Geographical Society about his plans to write a historical geography of the Eastern seaboard, and in 1936 and 1937 he conducted research at the society headquarters in New York (Miles 1982). At the 1937 annual meeting of the Association of American Geographers, Brown delivered a paper titled, “An Early Chapter in American Geography,” “composed from geographical observations recorded during a twenty‐year period whose mid‐point is approximately 1800” (Brown 1938). In 1939, Mirror for Americans was completed (Miles 1982). He spent a summer examining the Morse papers, and traced the sources Morse had used. Brown discovered that the books contained little original material; moreover, some of Morse's materials and facts were out of date. Brown decided to write an essay on the “Morse geographies” (Miles 1982, 94); by December of 1940, his work on Morse was accepted for publication in the Annals (Brown 1941). Reviews of this Annals manuscript were quite favorable, including comments from distinguished geographers such as Glenn Trewartha, Derwent Whittlesey, and Ellsworth Huntington (Miles 1982).

4. Our research suggests that the final edition was published in 1795, which calls into question Chamberlain's 1939 assertion that the first edition was published in 1718. Future research should be conducted to determine whether Guthrie published texts across an amazingly wide range of years or whether some of Guthrie's editions were published posthumously.

5. Vermont and Massachusetts mandated the instruction of geography in schools in the early 1800s. Morse also appears to have influenced his children in matters geographical. One son, Sidney, produced an atlas in 1823 and the first cerographic map in 1839; Samuel also engaged in correspondence with Alexander von Humboldt (Martin 1998, 3‐‐4).

6. During his years in Massachusetts, Guyot delivered lectures on teaching geography to more than 1500 students annually (Koelsch 2008, 38‐‐39).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Robert V. Rohli

Dr. Robert V. Rohli, Department of Geography and Anthropology, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803; [[email protected]].

Merrill L. Johnson

Dr. Merrill L. Johnson, Department of Anthropology, Colorado State University Fort Collins, CO 80523‐1787