Nathaniel Shaler
Nathaniel Southgate Shaler | |
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Edward A. Birge | |
Other notable students | Ralph Stockman Tarr |
Author abbrev. (zoology) | Shaler |
Signature | |
Nathaniel Southgate Shaler (February 20, 1841 – April 10, 1906)
Biography
Born to a slave-holding family in Kentucky in 1841,
Research: ecology, geology, and scientific racism
Early in his professional career, Shaler was broadly a
Shaler was an apologist for slavery and an outspoken believer in the superiority of the Anglo-Saxon race. In his later career, Shaler continued to support Agassiz's
Shaler published work describing the physical geography of different continents and linking these geologic settings to the intelligence and strength of human races that inhabited these spaces. In Nature and Man in America, Shaler justifies the superiority of the Aryan race based on their development within European topography, "marvelously suited to be the cradles of people", erroneously attributing their origin to the Scandinavian provinces, "a field which seems to have been the seat of the strongest men in the world for thousands of years." Expanding upon this logic, Shaler explains that a Scandinavian origin is most fitting because it would seem strange that the "most vigorous and at the same time the most plastic of the world-peoples should have developed among the limited opportunities afforded by high Asia." Similarly, Shaler disparages the topography of the Americas, Africa, and Australia, claiming that these continents "have shown by their human products that they are unfitted to be the cradle places of great peoples." Nevertheless, Shaler is particularly interested in North America. Although he explains that its "large, simple, and easily comprehensible geographic features" as well as unfavorable climate for agriculture render the continent "unfit to cradle great peoples", he argues that the topography is perfectly suited for a race with better characteristics. Thus, Shaler argues that North America has "peculiar advantages” for American people (of Aryan descent) because the climate and topography of the land is ideal for the institution of slavery, which made it possible to cultivate this "new and rude land".[12]
Shaler believed that slavery was greatly beneficial for the United States, and even went so far as to suggest that slaves themselves benefitted from this institution, suggesting slavery "led to the rapid accumulation of wealth, and in this way brought the people the sooner into a condition in which they could control their own destiny." Expressing concern that the South will "release into barbarism", Shaler proposes that "the advance of the negro to a satisfactory grade of development still depends upon his remaining in close contact with the superior race."[12]
Legacy at Harvard University
In his later career, Shaler served as Harvard's Dean of Sciences and was considered one of the university's most popular teachers.
Shaler was a neighbor of businessman Gordon McKay, and convinced McKay to leave most of his enormous fortune to fund expansion of Harvard's science programs.[17]
Works
- (1870). On the Phosphate Beds of South Carolina.
- (1876–82). Geological Survey of Kentucky [6 vols.]
- (1876). Memoirs of the Geological Survey of Kentucky.
- (1878). Thoughts on the Nature of Intellectual Property and its Importance to the State.
- (1880). "The Geology of Boston and its Environs," in The Memorial History of Boston.
- (1881). Illustrations of the Earth's Surface; Glaciers [with William Morris Davis].
- (1884) "The Negro Problem", article in the Atlantic Monthly
- (1884). A First Book in Geology.
- (1885). Kentucky, a Pioneer Commonwealth ["American Commonwealth Series"].
- (1891). Nature and Man in America.
- (1891). Origin and Nature of Soils.
- (1892). The Story of Our Continent.
- (1893). The Interpretation of Nature.
- (1894). The United States of America [2 vols.]
- (1895). Domesticated Animals.
- (1895). The Geology of the Road-Building Stones of Massachusetts.
- (1896). American Highways.
- (1898). Geology of the Cape Cod District.
- (1898). Outlines of the Earth's History.
- (1899). Geology of the Narragansett Basin.
- (1900). The Individual: Study of Life and Death.
- (1903). A Comparison of the Features of the Earth and the Moon.
- (1904). The Citizen: A Study of the Individual and the Government.
- (1904). The Neighbor.
- (1905). Man and the Earth.
- (1909). The Autobiography of Nathaniel Southgate Shaler.[19]
- Fiction
- (1903). Elizabeth of England: A Dramatic Romance in Five Parts.
- Poetry
- (1906). From Old Fields: Poems of the Civil War.
See also
References
- ^ a b c Rines, George Edwin, ed. (1920). Encyclopedia Americana. .
- ^ Harvard, University. "Nathaniel S. Shaler". Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences. Harvard. Retrieved 15 January 2023.
- JSTOR 621848.
- ^ Shaler, Nathaniel (1907). The Autobiography of Nathaniel Southgate Shaler. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. pp. 93–100. Cited in Cooper, Lane (1917). "How Agassiz Taught Professor Shaler". Louis Agassiz as a teacher; illustrative extracts on his method of instruction. Ithaca: Comstock Publishing. pp. 14–26.
- ^ George P. Merrill and Eleanor R. Dobson (1935). "Shaler, Nathaniel Southgate". Dictionary of American Biography. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
- ^ Zabilka, Ivan L. (1980). "Nathaniel Southgate Shaler and the Kentucky Geological Survey," The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society, Vol. 80, No. 4, pp. 408-431.
- ^ a b Wilson, J. G.; Fiske, J., eds. (1900). . Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton.
- ^ Darwin, Charles (1881). The formation of vegetable mould through the action of worms, with observations on their habits. London: John Murray.
- ^ Shaler, N. S. (1891). The Origin and Nature of Soils, in Powell, J. W., ed., USGS 12th Annual report 1890-1891: Washington, D.C., Government Printing Office, pp. 213-45.
- ^ Livingstone, David N. (1987). Nathaniel Southgate Shaler and the Culture of American Science. University of Alabama Press, pp. 124-125.
- ^ Shaler, N.S. (1884). "The Negro Problem," Atlantic Monthly, p. 697-698.
- ^ a b Shaler, Nathaniel Southgate (1897). Nature and Man in America. New York: C. Scribner's Sons. pp. 148–173.
- ^ Bacon, H. Philip (1955). "Fireworks in the Classroom: Nathaniel Southgate Shaler as a Teacher," Journal of Geography 54, p. 350.
- ^ Koch, Philip S. (2018-09-07). "William Morris Davis". Harvard Magazine. Retrieved 2019-04-01.
- ^ Davis, William Morris (1902). Elementary physical geography. Boston: Ginn.
- ^ Personal communication with Paul Kelley, Harvard Earth & Planetary Sciences Department administrator
- ^ Lewis, Harry R. (September–October 2007). "Gordon McKay: Brief life of an inventor with a lasting Harvard legacy: 1821-1903". Harvard Magazine. Retrieved 3 February 2013.
- ^ International Plant Names Index. Shaler.
- S2CID 3989897.
Further reading
- Adams, Michael C.C. (1998). "'When the Man knows Death': The Civil War Poems of Nathaniel Southgate Shaler," The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society, Vol. 96, No. 1, pp. 1–28.
- Berg, Walter (1957). Nathaniel Southgate Shaler: A Critical Study of an Earth Scientist. Ph.D. thesis, University of Washington.
- Bladen, Wilford A. (1983). "Nathaniel Southgate Shaler and Early American Geography," in Pradyumna P. Karan (ed.), The Evolution of Geographic Thought in America: A Kentucky Root. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company.
- Davis, William M. (1906). "Nathaniel Southgate Shaler," Educational Foundations 17 (10), pp. 746–755.
- Koelsch, William A. (1979). "Nathaniel Southgate Shaler, 1841-1906", in T.W. Freeman & Philippe Pinchemel (ed.), Geographer: Bibliographical Studies, Vol. III. London: Mansell.
- Lane, A. C. (1926). "Nathaniel Southgate Shaler (1841-1906)," Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Vol. 61, No. 12, pp. 557–561.
- Livingstone, D. N. (1980). "Nature and Man in America: Nathaniel Southgate Shaler and the Conservation of Natural Resources," Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, New Series, Vol. 5, No. 3, pp. 369–382.
- Thayer, William Roscoe (1906). "Nathaniel Southgate Shaler," The Harvard Graduates Magazine 15, pp. 1–9.
- Warner, Langdon (1906). "Nathaniel Southgate Shaler," The World's Work 12, pp. 7676–7677.
External links
- Works by Nathaniel Shaler at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
- Works by Nathaniel Shaler at Project Gutenberg
- Works by Nathaniel Shaler, at Hathi Trust
- Works by or about Nathaniel Shaler at Internet Archive