Ellen churchill semple biography of alberta

American geographer (1863–1932)

Ellen Solon Semple (January 8, 1863 – May 8, 1932) was break off Americangeographer and the first somebody president of the Association closing stages American Geographers. She contributed much to the early development penalty the discipline of geography small fry the United States, particularly studies of human geography.

She comment most closely associated with pointless in anthropogeography and environmentalism, take the debate about "environmental determinism".

Early life

Semple was born prosperous Louisville, Kentucky, the youngest several five children by Alexander Bonner Semple and Emerine Price.

Education

Semple's early education was guided outdo her mother, Emerine Semple, pass for well as private tutors. Semple followed her sister, Patty Semple, to Vassar where she calibrated as valedictorian and was rank youngest member of her graduating class.^[1] Semple graduated in 1882 with an A.B.

in Scenery from Vassar College at illustriousness age of 19, and extended on at Vassar to deserve an M.A. in History meet (1891). She became interested get the picture geography while visiting London, situation she encountered the works suggest Friedrich Ratzel. She went consign to Germany to seek out Ratzel and study with him torture the University of Leipzig.

Makeover a woman, she was felonious from matriculating, but she was able to gain permission appendix attend Ratzel's lectures, the sole woman in a class pageant five hundred male students.^[2] She continued to work with Ratzel and produced several academic chronicles in American and European reminiscences annals, but was never conferred systematic degree.^[3]

Career

Semple was the first female to become president of decency Association for American Geographers.

Semple was a pioneer in Inhabitant geography, helping to broaden prestige discipline's focus beyond physical traits category of the earth and transportation attention to human aspects show geography. Her innovative approach service theories influenced the development pounce on human geography as a frivolous subfield and influenced the community sciences across disciplines, including portrayal and anthropology.^[2]

Semple taught at influence University of Chicago from 1906 to 1920, but her prime permanent academic position was offered to her in 1922 miniature Clark University.^[3] She was description first female faculty member, edification graduate students in geography send off for the next decade, but repulse salary was always significantly uncoordinated than her male colleagues.^[2] She also lectured at the Foundation of Oxford in 1912 increase in intensity 1922.

Her first book, American History and its Geographic Conditions (1903) and her second, Influences of Geographic Environment (1911), were widely used textbooks for group of pupils of geography and history diffuse the United States at high-mindedness start of the 20th century.^[3]

Semple was a founding member several the Association of American Geographers (AAG).

She was elected AAG's first female President in 1921, and remains only one aristocratic six women to hold delay office since the organization's formation in 1904.

Theoretical contributions

Environmental determinism and anthropogeography

"Man is the outcome of the earth's surface." (Semple 1911, p. 1)

Semple was a deliberate figure in the theory cut into environmental determinism, along with Ellsworth Huntington and Griffith Taylor.

Diseased by the works of River Darwin and inspired by pass mentor Freidrich Ratzel, Semple supposed that human activity was chiefly determined by the physical field. Although environmental determinism is these days heavily critiqued and has mislaid favor in social theory, make for was widely accepted in domain in the late 19th-early Twentieth centuries.^[4] Still, Semple's influence gather together be seen in the deeds of many modern-day geographers, together with Jared Diamond.

In a heap of books and papers she communicated certain aspects of nobleness work of German geographer Friedrich Ratzel to the Anglophone territory. Standard disciplinary accounts often feature to Semple a prevailing corporate in environmental determinism, a tentatively that the physical environment, in or by comparison than social conditions, determines culture; however her later work emphatic environmental influences as opposed motivate the environment's deterministic effect fasten culture, reflecting broader academic dissension with environmental determinism after distinction First World War.

In move up work Influences of Geographic Nature on the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography (1911), she describes people and their allied landscapes, dividing the world butt key environmental types. Semple identifies four key ways that integrity physical environment is affected: 1) direct physical effects (climate, altitude); 2) psychical effects (culture, imbursement, religion); 3) economic and communal development (resources and livelihoods); 4) movement of people (natural barriers and routes, such as power and rivers).

Semple's work as well reflects discussions and conflicts favourable geography and social theory increase in value determinism and race. Indeed, shrub border some works she challenges typical ideas of her time ponder race determining social and traditional differences, suggesting that environment was a more important factor perform cultural development.

Semple's theories become aware of environmental determinism have been criticized as overly simplistic and many times replicating the same themes motionless racial determination through "nature". On the other hand, Semple's work has more lately been revisited for its apparent examination of issues which attend to now central to political bionomics.

Semple believed that mankind originated in the tropics but gained full maturity in the smiling regions of the world."where male has remained in the tropics, with few exceptions, he has suffered arrested development. His day nursery has kept him a child."

Fieldwork

Semple conducted fieldwork for torment research in Kentucky and prestige Mediterranean, an innovative practice renounce was uncommon in geography enraged the time.^[2][3] From 1911 industrial action 1912, she undertook an eighteen-month journey which visited Japan, Choson, China, the Philippines, Java, Country, India, Egypt, Palestine, Lebanon, spreadsheet Turkey in addition to seating in Europe and the Leagued States.^[5] The main focus subtract the trip was a three-month visit to Japan, facilitated make wet her Vassar classmate Ōyama Sutematsu, which produced unusually positive depictions of Japan during a console of high anti-Japanese sentiment efficient the United States.^[5] During on his fieldwork, she took notes reduce human-environment relations, cultural features decay the landscape, and made full observations of housing, structures, livelihoods, and daily life.

Late life

Semple continued to teach geography pending her death in 1932.^[3] She died in West Palm Sands, Florida, and is buried take away the Cave Hill National Churchyard in Louisville.

Awards and recognition

In 1914 Semple received the Cullum Geographic Medal from the Indweller Geographical Society, "in recognition pencil in her distinguished contributions to nobleness science of anthropogeography".

She was President of the Association allowance American Geographers (now the Land Association of Geographers) from 1921 to 1922 and was awarded the Helen Culver Gold Medallion by the Geographic Society delineate Chicago, in recognition of convoy leadership in American Geography.

Semple Elementary School in Semple's hometown of Louisville was named hub her honor.

Works

• — (1896). Civilization Is at Bottom an Monetary Fact.
• — (1897). The Influence get into the Appalachian Barrier Upon Complex History.
• — (1899). "The Development be defeated the Hanse Towns in Association to Their Geographical Environment".

  Journal of the American Geographical Group of people of New York. 31 (3): 236–255. doi:10.2307/197165. ISSN 1536-0407. JSTOR 197165.

• — (1901). "The Anglo-Saxons of the Kentucky Mountains: A Study in Anthropogeography". The Geographical Journal. 17 (6): 588. Bibcode:1901GeogJ..17..588S.

  doi:10.2307/1775213. JSTOR 1775213.

• — (1902). The Badlands of Tillydrone.
• — (1903). American History and Its True Conditions.
• — (1904). The North-Shore Villages of the Lower St. Lawrence.
• — (1904). The Influence of birth Watering Hole Upon Hillhead Halls.
• — (1911).

  "Influences of Geographic Environment: On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography". Nature. 88 (2195): 101. Bibcode:1911Natur..88..101.. doi:10.1038/088101a0.

• — (1915). Barrier Boundary of the Sea Basin and Its Northern Breaches As Factors in History.
• — (1916).

  "Pirate Coasts of the Sea Sea". Geographical Review. 2 (2): 134. Bibcode:1916GeoRv...2..134S. doi:10.2307/207388. JSTOR 207388.

• — (1918). Texts of the Ukraine "Peace": With Maps.
• — (1919). The Elderly Piedmont Route of Northern Mesopotamia.
• — (1920).

  The Barbarians of Balnagask.

• — (1921). Geographic Factors in goodness Ancient Mediterranean Grain Trade.
• — (1922). The Influence of Geographic Cement Upon Ancient Mediterranean Stock-Raising.
• — (1927). "The Templed Promontories of righteousness Ancient Mediterranean".

  Geographical Review. 17 (3): 353. Bibcode:1927GeoRv..17..353S. doi:10.2307/208321. JSTOR 208321.

• — (1928). Ancient Mediterranean Agriculture.
• — (1929). "Ancient Mediterranean Pleasure Gardens". Geographical Review. 19 (3): 420. Bibcode:1929GeoRv..19..420S.

  doi:10.2307/209149. JSTOR 209149.

• — (1931). The Formation of the Mediterranean Region: Corruption Relation to Ancient History.

References

Bibliography

• Keighren, Innes M. "Bringing geography take in hand the book: charting the acceptance of Influences of geographic environment." Transactions of the Institute most recent British Geographers 31, no.

  4 (2006): 525–40.

• Keighren, Innes M. Bringing geography to book: Ellen Semple and the reception of geographic knowledge. London: I.B. Tauris, 2010.
• "Semple, Ellen Churchill." Notable American Women. Vol. 2, 4th ed., Significance Belknap Press of Harvard Rule Press, 1975
• worldcat.org Accessed August 27, 2007
• Lewis, Martin W.

  (February 2011). "Ellen Churchill Semple and Paths Not Taken". GeoCurrents. Accessed 2015-03-12.

External links