G.G. Chisholm, A.G. Ogilvie and the 1912 America Transcontinental Excursion

Abstract

This paper discusses the 1912 Transcontinental Excursion of the American Geographical Society. Planned and led by W.M. Davis, the 21 000 kilometre excursion highlighted facets of the geography of the USA and demonstrated the growing status of American academic geography to 43 European geographers. Among these were George G. Chisholm and Alan G. Ogilvie, respectively first lecturer and first professor of geography at Edinburgh University. Use is made of their unpublished notes and selected published material to convey the impact of the excursion on both men, demonstrate the friendships and networks that developed, and illustrate something of the methodological debates conducted during this unique, mobile summer school.

Key Words:

• fieldwork
• transcontinental excursion
• G.G. Chisholm
• A.G. Ogilvie networks
• USA

Acknowledgements

I am very grateful to Charles Withers and Norman Thomson for constructive comments on a first draft, to Hugh Clout for permission to reproduce Table 1, and to the late Mrs Elspeth Collins for access to excerpts from Professor Ogilvie's diaries. I also wish to thank two anonymous referees for their valuable observations. Thanks are also due to cartographer, Alison Sandison, Aberdeen University, archivists Arnot Wilson and Eddie Graham, Edinburgh University Library, Sarah Strong, archivist Royal Geographical Society, and Susan Peschel, Visual Resources Librarian, American Geographical Society, UW Milwaukee Libraries.

Notes

Chisholm's letters used in this article come from two sources: the Royal Geographical Society (RGS), and from ‘Copies of material relating to the life and work of George Goudie Chisholm, drawn together by Professor T.W. Freeman’. E2011.11., Edinburgh University Library, Special Collections.

There are over 130 manuscript notebooks by Chisholm filed in the Edinburgh University Library Special Collections and are classified under Ms Gen.1060. They are arranged chronologically; some date from his student days; others contain notes for his lectures; many comprise information for his ‘Handbook’.

Access to the relevant section of Professor Ogilvie's diaries was very kindly granted by his daughter, the late Mrs Elspeth Collins, who also provided images for Figures 4a and 4b. These are now lodged among ‘Papers and related materials of Professor Alan G. Ogilvie’ E2010.39. Edinburgh University Library, Special Collections.

Traditional historiography dates university geography from the 1880s when the discipline was institutionalised in Britain. Academics, such as Professor Charles Withers (2001), stress that it was taught in different forms eg ‘geometrie and chorographie’ in Scottish universities in conjunction with other subjects from the last quarter of the sixteenth century, confirming Livingstone's statement that ‘geography has meant different things to different people in different places’ (Livingstone, 1992, 28).

Ogilvie was invited by Count Paul Teleki in December 1923 to write a paper on Teaching and Scope of geography in the English-Speaking World. Contacting Ogilvie not long after his appointment to Edinburgh, Teleki pleaded: ‘I know that you have very much to do, but you must confess that there is nobody in the world who would know so well the situation in America and England as you do’. A draft copy in English of the article can be accessed in the Edinburgh University Library Special Collections-JA3797 Papers of A.G. Ogilvie, as also the final version, translated into Hungarian and published in the Magyar Geographical Yearbook, 1924. Count Paul Teleki (1879–1941), one of two representatives of the Hungarian Geographical Society on the 1912 excursion, was a man of many parts. Although he primarily saw himself as a geographer – Head of the Institute of Economic Geography at Budapest University - he twice served as prime minister of Hungary, 1920–21 and, crucially in 1939–41, strove to maintain Hungarian neutrality (see Kish, 1987).