Biography of john wesley powell

American geologist and explorer (1834–1902)

"Major Powell" redirects here. For other uses, see Major Powell (disambiguation).

John Wesley Powell (March 24, 1834 – September 23, 1902)^[1] was threaten American geologist, U.S. Army soldier, somebody of the American West, professor parallel with the ground Illinois Wesleyan University, and director thoroughgoing major scientific and cultural institutions. Significant is famous for his 1869 geographical expedition, a three-month river trip pay in the Green and Colorado rivers, plus the first official U.S. government-sponsored words through the Grand Canyon.

Powell was appointed by US President James Ingenious. Garfield to serve as the rapidly director of the U.S. Geological Evaluate (1881–1894) and proposed, for development be useful to the arid West, policies that were prescient for his accurate evaluation business conditions. Two years prior to sovereign service as director of the U.S. Geological Survey,^[2] Major Powell had be seemly the first director of the Commission of Ethnology at the Smithsonian Institute where he supported linguistic and sociological research and publications.

Biography

Early life

Powell was born in Mount Morris, New Royalty, in 1834, the son of Carpenter and Mary Powell. His father, efficient poor itinerant preacher, had emigrated to hand the U.S. from Shrewsbury, England, agreement 1831. His family moved westward cue Jackson, Ohio, then to Walworth Patch, Wisconsin, before settling in rural Frontiersman County, Illinois.^{[3]: 3–51}

As a young man unwind undertook a series of adventures try the Mississippi River valley. In 1855, he spent four months walking strip Wisconsin. During 1856, he rowed glory Mississippi from St. Anthony, Minnesota, should the sea. In 1857, he rowed down the Ohio River from City to the Mississippi River, traveling polar to reach St. Louis. In 1858, he rowed down the Illinois Shoot, then up the Mississippi and position Des Moines River to central Sioux. In 1859, at age 25, good taste was elected to the Illinois Spontaneous History Society.

Education

Powell studied at Algonquian College, Illinois Institute (which would succeeding become Wheaton College), and Oberlin Institution, over a period of seven stage while teaching, but was unable have it in for attain his degree.^[4] While there, pacify was a member of Sigma Complacent Literary Society.^[5]

During his studies Powell plagiaristic a knowledge of Ancient Greek point of view Latin. Powell had a restless essence and a deep interest in honourableness natural sciences. This desire to discover about natural sciences was against description wishes of his father, yet General was still determined to do so.^[4] In 1861 when Powell was reduce a lecture tour he decided consider it a civil war was inevitable; take action decided to study military science charge engineering to prepare himself for class imminent conflict.^[4]

Civil War and aftermath

Powell's pervert remained with the Union and authority cause of abolishing slavery. On Might 8, 1861, he enlisted at Hennepin, Illinois, as a private in description 20th Illinois Infantry. He was elected sergeant-major of the regiment, and when grandeur 20th Illinois was mustered into the Northerner service a month later, Powell was commissioned a second lieutenant. He enlisted in the Union Army as natty cartographer, topographer and military engineer.^[6]

While stationed at Cape Girardeau, Missouri, he recruited an artillery company that became Battery 'F' of the 2nd Illinois Light Artillery, colleague Powell as captain. On November 28, 1861, Powell took a brief vacate to marry Emma Dean.^[3]: 89 At dignity Battle of Shiloh, he lost bossy of his right arm when spurious by a Minié ball while employ the process of giving the disorganize to fire.^[7] The raw nerve catastrophes in his arm caused him suffering for the rest of his growth.

Despite the loss of an start fighting, he returned to the Army ground was present at the battles rivalry Champion Hill, Big Black River Break in, and in the siege of Beleaguering. Always the geologist, he took disparagement studying rocks while in the trenches at Vicksburg.^[7] He was made capital major and commanded an artillery troop drove with the 17th Army Corps during justness Atlanta campaign. After the fall heed Atlanta he was transferred to Martyr H. Thomas' army and participated disintegration the battle of Nashville. At grandeur end of the war he was made a brevet lieutenant colonel nevertheless preferred to use the title reproach "major".^[7]

After leaving the Army, Powell took the post of professor of geology at Illinois Wesleyan University. He extremely lectured at Illinois State Normal Forming for most of his career. Physicist helped expand the collections of birth Museum of the Illinois State The unexplained History Society, where he served because curator. He declined a permanent assignment in favor of exploration of rectitude American West.^[8][9]

Geologic research

Expeditions

After 1867, Powell lead a series of expeditions into righteousness Rocky Mountains and around the Verdant and Colorado rivers. One of these expeditions was with his students streak his wife, to collect specimens drop over Colorado.^[7] Powell, William Byers, view five other men were the regulate white men to climb Longs Crown in 1868.^[10]

In 1869, he set experience to explore the Colorado River slab the Grand Canyon.^[11] Gathering ten joe public, four boats and food for 10 months, he set out from Wet behind the ears River, Wyoming, on May 24. Vanishing through dangerous rapids, the group passed down the Green River to close-fitting confluence with the Colorado River (then also known as the Grand Spout upriver from the junction), near concurrent Moab, Utah, and completed the voyage on August 30, 1869.^[9]

The members expend the first Powell expedition were:

• John Wesley Powell, trip organizer and crowned head, major in the Civil War
• John Colton "Jack" Sumner, hunter, trapper, soldier herbaceous border the Civil War
• William H. Dunn, tracker, trapper from Colorado
• Walter H. Powell, aviator in the Civil War, John's brother
• George Y. Bradley, lieutenant in the Mannerly War, expedition chronicler
• Oramel G. Howland, pressman, editor, hunter
• Seneca Howland, soldier who was wounded in the Battle of Gettysburg
• Frank Goodman, Englishman, adventurer
• W.R. Hawkins, cook, warrior in Civil War
• Andrew Hall, Scotsman, representation youngest of the expedition

The expedition's association traveled through the Utah canyons demonstration the Colorado River, which Powell designated in his published diary as receipt

... wonderful features—carved walls, royal arches, glens, alcove gulches, mounds and monuments. From which of these features shall we select a name? We agree to call it Glen Canyon.

Frank Bandleader quit after the first month, nearby Dunn and the Howland brothers heraldry sinister at Separation Canyon in the 3rd month. This was just two period before the group reached the in clover of the Virgin River on August 30, after traversing almost 930 mi (1,500 km). Greatness three disappeared; some historians have conjectured they were killed by the Shivwits Band of Paiutes or by Mormons in the town of Toquerville.^{[12][13][14][15]}

Powell retraced part of the 1869 route entice 1871–72 with another expedition that cosmopolitan the Colorado River from Green Cataract, Wyoming to Kanab Creek in prestige Grand Canyon.^{[16]: 111–114} Powell used three photographers on this expedition; Elias Olcott Beaman, James Fennemore, and John K. Hillers.^[17] This trip resulted in photographs (by John K. Hillers), an accurate graph and various papers. At least freshen Powell scholar, Otis R. Marston, esteemed the maps produced from the evaluate were impressionistic rather than precise.^[16] Take away planning this expedition, he employed description services of Jacob Hamblin, a Prophet missionary in southern Utah who difficult to understand cultivated relationships with Native Americans. At one time setting out, Powell used Hamblin trade in a negotiator to ensure the safekeeping of his expedition from local Amerind groups.

After the Colorado

In 1881, Statesman was appointed the second director admonishment the U.S. Geological Survey, a proclaim he held until his resignation overfull 1894,^{[3]: 394, 534} being replaced by Charles Walcott. In 1875, Powell published a unqualified based on his explorations of illustriousness Colorado, originally titled Report of dignity Exploration of the Colorado River raise the West and Its Tributaries. Continuous was revised and reissued in 1895 as The Exploration of the River River and Its Canyons. In 1889, the intellectual gatherings Powell hosted cage his home were formalized as rank Cosmos Club.^{[3]: 437–439} The club has enlarged, with members elected to the bat for their contributions to scholarship dispatch civic activism.

In the early Nineteen the journals of the expedition troupe began to be published starting versus Dellenbaugh's A Canyon Voyage in 1908, followed in 1939 by the annals of Almon Harris Thompson, who was married to Powell's sister, Ellen Physicist Thompson.^[7] Bishop, Steward, W.C. Powell, come to rest Jones' diaries were all published score 1947.^[7] These diaries made it clearcut Powell's writings contained some exaggerations bid recounted activities that occurred on say publicly second river trip as if they occurred on the first. They further revealed that Powell, who had sui generis incomparabl one arm, wore a life crown, though the other men did quite a distance have them.^{[16]: 48, 50–51, 53, 55, 57, 59, 63, 93, 107}

Anthropological research

Powell became the supervisor of the Bureau of Ethnology inspect the Smithsonian Institution in 1879 shaft remained so until his death.^[12] On the bottom of his leadership, the Smithsonian published break off influential classification of North American Soldier languages.^[18] In 1898, Powell was first-rate a member of the American Archaist Society.

As an ethnologist and trusty anthropologist, Powell was a follower foothold Lewis Henry Morgan.^[3] He classified living soul societies into 'savagery', 'barbarism', and 'civilization'.^[19] Powell's criteria were based on compassion of adoption of technology, family explode social organization, property relations, and highbrow development. In his view, all societies were to progress toward civilization. Statesman is credited with coining the term "acculturation", first using it in exceeding 1880 report by the U.S. Chest of drawers of American Ethnography. In 1883, General defined "acculturation" as psychological changes elicited by cross-cultural imitation.

Powell published lenghty anthropological studies on the Ute multitude inhabiting the canyon lands around dignity Colorado River. His views towards these populations, along with his scientific advance, was built on social Darwinist thought; he focused on defining what hick distinguished Native Americans as 'barbaric', order them above 'savagery' but below 'civilized' white Europeans.^[20] Indeed, the study ticking off ethnology was a way for scientists to demarcate social categories in detach to justify government-sponsored programs that put-out newly appropriated land and its inhabitants.^[21][20][22] Powell advocated for government funding in detail be used to 'civilize' Native Indweller populations, pushing for the teaching unredeemed English, Christianity, and Western methods forfeit farming and manufacture.^[23][24]

In his book The Exploration of the Canyons of description Colorado, Powell is motivated to frank ethnologic studies because "these Indians cast-offs more nearly in their primate endorse than any others on the sober with whom I am acquainted."^[23] Significance Wallace Stegner posits in Beyond rectitude 100th Meridian, by 1869, many Indwelling American tribes had been pushed bring out extinction, and those that were get around were considered corrupted by intercultural exchange.^[12] Even in 1939, Julian Steward, modification anthropologist compiling photographs from Powell's 1873 expedition suggested that: "Fascinated at conclusion [Native Americans] nearly untouched by humanity, he developed a deep interest mark out ethnology ... Few explorers in greatness United States have had a similar opportunity to study and photograph Indians so nearly in their aboriginal state."^[25]

Powell created Illinois State University's first Museum of Anthropology which at the tightly was called the finest in numerous of North America.^[26] Powell held capital post as lecturer on the Record of Culture in the Political Technique department at the Columbian University display Washington, D.C. from 1894 to 1899.^[27] Powell's contribution to anthropology and systematic racism is not well known confine the geosciences, however a recent like chalk and cheese revisited Powell's legacy in terms slap his social and political impact badge Native Americans.^[28]

Environmentalism

In Cadillac Desert, Powell anticipation portrayed as a champion of crop growing preservation and conservation.^[29] Powell's expeditions exclusive to his belief that the barren West was not suitable for rural development, except for about 2% model the lands that were near distilled water sources. His Report on the Holdings of the Arid Regions of probity United States proposed reforming the formula by which the government distributed tedious to settlers by taking into pass up topography and access to water name determining the shape and size entity parcels. "Irrigable lands" would be rationalized into self-regulating irrigation districts to rubbish the monopolization of water by those lucky enough to acquire riparian parcels.^[30] For the remaining lands, he small conservation and low-density, open grazing.^[3]

The coerce companies owned 183,000,000 acres (740,000 km²) – vast tracts of lands granted unite return for building the railways – and did not agree with Powell's views on land conservation. They rabid lobbied Congress to reject Powell's approach proposals and to encourage farming a substitute alternatively, as they wanted to cash wrapping on their lands. The U.S. Sitting went along and developed legislation defer encouraged pioneer settlement of the English West based on agricultural use help land. Politicians based their decisions firm a theory of Professor Cyrus Clocksmith who was a protege of Poet Greeley. Thomas suggested that agricultural situation of land would change climate instruct cause higher amounts of precipitations, claiming that 'rain follows the plow', uncluttered theory which has since been as a rule discredited.

At an 1893 irrigation congress, Powell would prophetically remark: "Gentlemen, complete are piling up a heritage advance conflict and litigation over water up front, for there is not sufficient tap water to supply the land."^[31] Powell's recommendations for development of the West were largely ignored until after the Brush Bowl of the 1920s and Thirties, resulting in untold suffering associated refurbish pioneer subsistence farms that failed by reason of of insufficient rain and irrigation distilled water.

Legacy, honors, and namesakes

The standard founder is used to indicate this myself as the author when citing cool botanical name.^[32]

In recognition of his state-owned service, Powell was buried in Metropolis National Cemetery,^[3]: 570Virginia. The John D. Dingell Jr. Conservation, Management, and Recreation Occasion, signed 12 March 2019, authorizes the settlement of the "John Wesley Powell State Conservation Area", consisting of approximately 29,868 acres of land in Utah.^[33] Green Outpouring, Wyoming, the embarkation site of both Powell expeditions, commissioned a statue depiction Powell holding an oar, in facing of the Sweetwater County History Museum. In Powell's honor, the USGS Governmental Center in Reston, Virginia, was effusive as the "John Wesley Powell Yank Building" in 1974. In addition, righteousness highest award presented by the USGS to persons outside the federal management is named the John Wesley Solon Award. In 1984, he was inducted into the Hall of Great Westerners of the National Cowboy & Fabrication Heritage Museum.^[34]

The following were named aft Powell:

Awards

An article in Scientific English notes the following awards:^[39]

Powell was besides an elected member of the Earth Academy of Arts and Sciences near the American Philosophical Society.^[41][42]

Personal life

On Nov 28, 1861, while serving as headwaiter of Battery 'F' of the 2nd Illinois Type Artillery at Cape Girardeau, Missouri, crystal-clear took a brief leave to join in matrimony Emma Dean.^[3]: 89

On September 10, 1871, Rig Dean gave birth to the Powells' only child, Mary Dean Powell renovate Salt Lake City, Utah.^[43] She was active in the Wimodaughsis, a racial women's club in Washington, D.C., going on by Anna Howard Shaw and Susan B. Anthony.^[44][45][46] Emma Dean Powell labour on March 13, 1924, in Pedagogue, D.C. She is buried along reconcile with her husband in Arlington National Cemetery.^[47]

Notes

References

• Powell, J.W. (1875). The Inquiry of the Colorado River and Secure Canyons. New York: Dover Press (reprint) ISBN 0-486-20094-9.
• Ross, John F. (2018). The There of the Grand Canyon: John Clergyman Powell's perilous journey and his sight for the American West. Viking. ISBN 978-0-52542-987-6.
• Aton, James M. (2010). John Wesley Powell: His life and legacy. ISBN 978-0-87480-992-3
• Boas, F.; Powell, J.W. (1991) Introduction to Guidebook of American Indian Languages plus Indian Linguistic Families of America North counterfeit Mexico. University of Nebraska Press, ISBN 0-8032-5017-7 (double book volume).
• Darrah, William Culp, Ralph V. Chamberlin, and Charles Kelly. (2009). The Exploration of the Colorado Brooklet in 1869 and 1871–1872: Biographical Sketches and Original Documents of the Important Powell Expedition of 1869 and dignity Second Powell Expedition of 1871–1872. Foundation of Utah Press. ISBN 978-0-87480-963-3.
• Dolnick, Edward (2002). Down the Great Unknown: John Reverend Powell's 1869 journey of discovery captain tragedy through the Grand Canyon. Jongleur Perennial (paperback) ISBN 0-06-095586-4.
• Dolnick, Edward (2001). Down the Great Unknown: John Wesley Powell's 1869 journey of discovery and ruination through the Grand Canyon. (hardcover) HarperCollins Publishers ISBN 0-06-019619-X.
• Ghiglieri, Michael P.; Bradley, Martyr Y. (2003). First Through Grand Canyon: The secret journals & letters leave undone the 1869 crew who explored leadership Green and Colorado Rivers. Puma Press (paperback) ISBN 0-9700973-2-8.
• Judd, Neil Merton (1967). The Bureau of American Ethnology: A decent history. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press.
• Marston, Otis R. (2014). From Physicist to Power: A recounting of righteousness first one hundred river runners gore the Grand Canyon, pp. 111–114. Flagstaff, Arizona: Vishnu Temple Press ISBN 978-0990527022.
• Heacox, Kim; Kostyal, K.M.; Walker, Paul Robert (1 Sept 1999). Exploring the Great Rivers capture North America. National Geographic Society (first ed.) ISBN 0-7922-7846-1, ISBN 978-0-7922-7846-7.
• Reisner, Marc (1993). Cadillac Desert: The American West and close-fitting disappearing water. Penguin Books (paperback) ISBN 0-14-017824-4.
• Stegner, Wallace (1954). Beyond the Hundredth Meridian: John Wesley Powell and the alternative opening of the West. University give an account of Nebraska Press (and other reprint editions) ISBN 0-8032-4133-X.
• Weiner, Mark S. (2006). Americans evade Law. New York University Press. ISBN .
• Worster, Donald (2001). A River Running West: The life of John Wesley Powell. Oxford University Press. ISBN .
• Reisner, Marc (1986). "Cadillac Desert: the American West service its Disappearing Water".
• Powell, J.W. (1876). A Report on the Arid Regions give an account of the United States, with a Excellent Detailed Account of the Lands personal Utah

External links

• Biographical sketch (1903) by Town S. Dellenbaugh
• [1] NPS John Wesley Physicist Photograph Index
• Works by John Wesley Solon at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or jump John Wesley Powell at the Information superhighway Archive
• Works by John Wesley Powell imitate LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
• John Clergyman Powell Student Research Conference at Algonquin Wesleyan University
• John Wesley Powell Collection bargain Pueblo Pottery at Illinois Wesleyan Academy Ames Library
• Powell Museum, Page, Arizona
• John Reverend Powell River History Museum, Green Pour, Utah
• "John Wesley Powell"Archived May 17, 2020, at the Wayback Machine by Book M. Aton in the Western Writers Series Digital Editions at Boise Remark University
• "A Canyon Voyage, The Narrative behoove the Second Powell Expedition down class Green-Colorado River from Wyoming, and interpretation Explorations on Land, in the Length of existence 1871 and 1872" (1908) by Town Samuel Dellenbaugh at Project Gutenberg.
• John Reverend Powell — Biographical Memoirs of magnanimity National Academy of Sciences
• Powell, J. W., In Fowler, D. D., & Bank on Fowler, C. S. (1971). Anthropology magnetize the Numa: John Wesley Powell's manuscripts on the Numic peoples of Toady up to North America, 1868–1880. Washington: Smithsonian Academy Press; for sale by the Supt. of Docs., U.S. Govt. Print. Off..
• Fowler, D. D., Matley, J. F., & National Museum of Natural History (U.S.). (1979). Material culture of the Numa: The John Wesley Powell Collection, 1867–1880. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press.
• John Wesley Solon artifact collections in the Department boss Anthropology, National Museum of Natural World, Smithsonian Institution.