A Pioneering Use of Early Computers in Weather and Mortality Research: Ellsworth Huntington’s Work with New York Life Insurance Companies in the 1920s

Abstract

Geographers are familiar with Ellsworth Huntington’s influential, yet frequently derided, claims about climatic determinism, eugenics, and the progress of civilization. His work on weather and mortality in New York City, a study conducted under the auspices of the National Research Council and with the extensive collaboration of New York–based life insurance companies, offers a different insight into Huntington’s approach. Although the results of this 1920s research project had a limited impact on the field, the work that produced it represents one of the earliest examples of using computing technology in the atmospheric sciences. Drawing on archival research at Yale University and the National Academy of Sciences, the article argues that not only can Huntington be considered pioneering in his use of early computers but the use of such machines constrained the research in important ways. The limited funding and processing capabilities of early computers, standardized punch card designs, necessary labor and staff time, and clerks’ learned practices all came to define the research project. This demonstrates that early computers did not simply enable more efficient numerical analysis of geographical problems but rather that they were part of sociotechnical configurations that were coemergent from the situated development of technologies within user communities.

地理学者们熟知埃尔斯沃思·亨廷顿（Ellsworth Huntington）的有影响力但受到嘲讽的气候决定论、优生论和文明进程。他在美国纽约市开展的天气和死亡的工作, 得到美国国家研究委员会的资助, 并和纽约的各个人寿保险公司有着广泛的合作。这为我们提供了对亨廷顿的新认识。尽管亨廷顿的研究在1920年代的影响不大, 他的工作是大气科学领域里最早应用计算技术的案例之一。根据在耶鲁大学和美国科学院开展的档案研究, 本文认为, 亨廷顿不仅是使用早期计算机的先驱, 机器的使用也极大地限制了他的研究。早期计算机的有限经费和处理能力、标准化的打卡机设计、必要劳动力和雇员的时间、职员的操作, 都影响了亨廷顿的科研项目。早期的计算机, 不仅能更有效地进行地理问题的数值分析, 也是技术发展带来的社会技术形态的一部分。

Los geógrafos están familiarizados con las ideas de Ellsworth Huntington, influyentes, aunque frecuentemente ridiculizadas, acerca del determinismo climático, la eugenesia y el progreso de la civilización. Su trabajo sobre meteorología y mortalidad en la Ciudad de Nueva York, un estudio adelantado bajo los auspicios del Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones y con amplia colaboración de compañías de seguros de vida basadas en Nueva York, ofrece una perspectiva diferente del enfoque de Huntington. Aunque los resultados de este proyecto de investigación de los años 1920 tuvo un impacto limitado en la disciplina, el trabajo que lo produjo representa uno de los ejemplos más tempranos del uso de tecnologías de computación en las ciencias atmosféricas. Con base en investigación de archivos de la Universidad de Yale y la Academia Nacional de Ciencias, el artículo arguye que no solo puede considerarse a Huntington como pionero en el uso de las primeras computadoras, sino que el uso de tales máquinas constriñó la investigación de modo importante. El apoyo financiero limitado y las capacidades de procesamiento de las computadoras primitivas, los diseños estandarizados de las tarjetas perforadas, horas de trabajo necesarias y tiempo de personal, y las prácticas del encargado de la oficina, todo se juntaba para definir el proyecto de investigación. Esto demuestra que las computadoras de entonces simplemente no facilitaron un análisis numérico más eficiente de los problemas geográficos, sino que además se convirtieron en parte de las configuraciones sociotécnicas co-emergentes desde el desarrollo situado de tecnologías dentro de las comunidades de usuarios.

Key Words:

• computing
• history of atmospheric sciences
• Huntington
• life insurance
• sociotechnical configurations

关键词:

• 计算
• 大气科学史
• 亨廷顿
• 人寿保险
• 社会技术形态

Palabras clave:

• computación
• configuraciones sociotécnicas
• historia de las ciencias atmosféricas
• Huntington
• seguros de vida

Acknowledgments

Thank you to all of the staff at Yale University Archives and Janice Goldblum at the National Academy of Sciences. James Kneale and Jim Fleming provided essential input, and Jason Dittmer, David Livingstone, Martin Mahony, and audiences at the IGU Commission History of Geography and History of Science Society conferences in 2019 provided helpful comments. James McCarthy and the referees provided useful critical encouragement.

Notes

1 The Division of Biology and Agriculture was interested in biological correlation, had formed a Eugenics Committee in 1920, and had a working relationship with the Ecological Society of America, for whom Huntington was appointed representative in the division in 1921.

2 These undated, unsigned documents are cited as Anonymous (n.d.) for consistency with the records at Yale University. They were produced or compiled by Harris and received by Huntington 7 December 1921.

3 It is unclear whether a rubber or regular plate was selected.

4 This went beyond a neutral technical issue as eugenics arguments supported both the Johnson-Reed Immigration Act of 1924 that blocked migration from Asia and the restrictive insurance practices for African Americans (Bouk 2015).

5 The Department of Genetics had previously tried to limit Harris’s involvement in this committee work, feeling that it did not fit their remit (Harris 1922g).

6 There is no evidence that Huntington directly corresponded with Pollak.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Samuel Randalls

SAMUEL RANDALLS is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography at University College London, London WC1E 6BT, UK. E-mail: [email protected]. His research interests are broadly in the relationships between commerce, science, and the environment, with a particular current focus on nineteenth- and early twentieth-century weather and climate-related insurance.