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Article Excerpt
Speaking in April 1962, at a dinner honoring nearly fifty Nobel Prize honorees as well as university presidents and other distinguished guests, John F. Kennedy famously remarked that it was the most extreme concentration of talent and knowledge ever to dine at the White House, "with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone" (1963, 161). The comparison was exaggerated for humorous effect, of course, but it points both to the depth of his predecessor's intellectual accomplishments and to the range of his intellectual interests.
Among those interests was geography, as understood in the late eighteenth century. Yet interest by geographers in Jefferson's geography has been minimal, sporadic, and highly selective. In the last 110 or so years geographers have made only three significant general attempts to examine Jefferson's interests and accomplishments in this field broadly, the most recent almost fifty years ago. The last full treatment of Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia in an American geographical periodical appeared during World War II (Brown 1943a).
The literature of the Lewis and Clark Expedition is a partial exception to this recent neglect of Jefferson as a geographer. Scholarly and popular interest has been stimulated by the bicentennial of that major event. The recent comprehensive publication of the journals of the expedition may well give further impetus to our understanding of Jeffersonian geography, as may other documents relating to it (Jackson 1962, 1978; Moulton 1983-2001). But geographical survey and the associated increase in scientific geographical knowledge is only one part of Jefferson's geographical legacy. Indeed, the Lewis and Clark Expedition itself is only a part of Jefferson's interest in the new geographical knowledge that comes through exploratory travel and scientific survey. This article attempts to survey the "state of the literature" on Jeffersonian geography, primarily by geographers and a few other scholars in closely related fields. It also suggests some Jefferson-related geographical topics that remain to be explored more fully.
THE "BIG THREE" AND OTHERS
The earliest serious attempt in the geographical literature to establish Jefferson's credentials as a geographer occurs in a short note on "Jefferson as a Geographer" published in the National Geographic Magazine in 1896. Its author, General Adolphus Washington Greely, was himself a noted Arctic explorer and head of the Army's Signal Service, which until 1891 had also served as the nation's weather bureau under his direction. It originated as a piece d'occasion, a brief speech Greely had given at the National Geographic Society's annual field day, held that year in Charlottesville, Virginia. Participants had paid a visit to Jefferson's home, Monticello, and to his grave site. An expanded version of Greely's remarks was published a few years later as one of the introductory essays to each volume of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association's edition of the Writings of Thomas Jefferson. That project was the fullest collection of Jefferson's writings before Princeton University launched its still incomplete Papers of Thomas Jefferson project (Greely 1896, 1905; Boyd 1950-).
Greely praised Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia as admirable for its treatment of climate and for anticipating Alexander von Humboldt's argument about the relationship of climate and soil to plant and animal life. Greely also credited Jefferson with the plan for dividing the public lands and--as secretary of state--with overseeing the first U.S. census. He also praised Jefferson's "extra-constitutional act of annexation by purchase" of the Louisiana Territory and applauded him for sending out not only the Lewis and "Clarke" [sic] Expedition but also those of others. By its visit to Monticello, said Greely, the National Geographic Society recognized that Jefferson was the only one of our presidents of whom it could be said, "He was a geographer." Greely concluded that Jefferson must be recognized "as one of the greatest of American geographers" (1896, 270-271; 1905, iii, vii).
George Surface, then an assistant professor of geography in Yale University's Sheffield Scientific School, made the second general assessment by a geographer of Jefferson as a geographer. Surface, a native Virginian and graduate (with bachelor of science and master of science degrees) of the Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College--now Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University--had studied at Johns Hopkins and Cornell Universities before earning his doctorate at the University of Pennsylvania in 1907. His eight-page study of Jefferson was initially published in the Bulletin of the American Geographical Society and was reprinted the following year in the Journal of American History (1909, 1910). Surface did not pursue this topic further, however. He left Yale University in 1911 for a career as a banker and farmer in the town in which he was born and remained there until his untimely death, at age 40, in 1916 (Dunbar 1996, 107).
Pointing out that up to that time little had been written on Jefferson's achievements in geography and science, Surface declined to call him "the father of American geography," reserving that title for Yale alumnus Jedidiah Morse. Surface argued--incorrectly, in this case--that Jefferson had been "an acute observer in the field of geography before Morse had reached the age of ten years," and that his Notes on the State of Virginia had been published five years before Morse's first publication. Surface believed Jefferson's Notes to be "the most logical treatment to be found in any book on geography published in the eighteenth century." He had special praise for Jefferson's treatment of weather and climate, of animal and plant life, and of American Indians. As one might expect, he also commended Jefferson's acquisition of the Louisiana Territory and his active direction of the scientific aspects of the subsequent Lewis and Clark Expedition. Finally, Surface saw Jefferson as a utilitarian whose practical work, including the observations in his garden and farm books, his plant introductions, and his interest in canal systems, qualified him as a pioneering student of economic geography (1909, esp. 743-744).
The third, most recent, and most accurate general survey of Jefferson's geographical interests by a geographer was also a piece d'occasion. Gary Dunbar, then a member of the University of Virginia's Geography Department, was asked to speak at a meeting in Charlottesville of the Washington Chapter of the Special Libraries Association's Geography and Map Division. In "Thomas Jefferson, Geographer," his admittedly hastily prepared address, Dunbar referred to the work of both Greely and Surface (1960). He went on to discuss Jefferson's own map of Virginia prepared for the Notes, his "essentially geographical" work in natural history, his observations of seasonally recurrent biological phenomena, and his work in weather and climate. In these last topics, Dunbar argued, Jefferson went well beyond the work of the ordinary weather observer of his time and attempted to describe the data comparatively, as well as to discuss long-term climatic conditions and speculate on the reasons for climatic change.
Dunbar touched on several topics not treated by the two earlier geographers, such as Jefferson's early interest in the overland expeditions of John Ledyard and Andre Michaux, his encouragement as president not only of Lewis and Clark's explorations but also that of William Dunbar, his relationship with Alexander von Humboldt, and his presidency of the American Philosophical Society. Dunbar concluded by agreeing not only with Greely's assessment that Jefferson "was a geographer" but also by asserting, with him and "without qualification," that "Jefferson was one of the greatest American geographers" (Dunbar 1960, 14).
Both before and since Dunbar's general summary, some nongeographers have written about special aspects of Jefferson's geographical interests. Few scholars writing on Jefferson's scientific interests, however, have echoed the earlier geographers by devoting a separate chapter-length account to Jeffersonian geography. In his 1984 book American Science in the Age of Jefferson the historian of science John Greene discussed the impact of Jefferson's Notes on others, such as Jedidiah Morse (Greene 1984, 188-217). But Greene's emphasis was almost entirely on the scientific results of the Lewis and Clark Expedition and their diffusion. While asserting that geography in both Europe and United States "had not yet attained the status of a science," Greene nevertheless concluded that, "as planner and sustainer of that expedition and as author of the Notes on the State of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson played a leading role in promoting research into the geography, natural history, and ethnography of North America" (p. 217).
Other scholars from outside geography have also examined aspects of Jefferson's geographical interests in recent years. Silvio Bedini's Thomas Jefferson: Statesman of Science includes much geographical material, scattered throughout his scientific biography of Jefferson (1990); his notes and bibliography are helpful beginnings for further research. And Martin Bruckner, a former student of geography at the University of Mainz, devotes a chapter of his book on geography in early America (2006), primarily to the relationship of Native American geographies to the work of Lewis and Clark, and also provides some useful comments on Notes on the State of Virginia.
Each of these works is well worth consulting. Yet most of them, especially those written by persons with no background in geography, provide us with a limited view of Jefferson's broad interests in the field. The remainder of this article reviews some of the more specialized literature bearing on Jefferson's contribution to American scientific geography. It also treats some topics neglected or overlooked in the geographical literature, such as Jefferson's advocacy of geography as a fundamental educational study and his provision for geography in the academic program of the University of Virginia.
SURVEYING AND MAPPING
Thomas's father, Peter Jefferson, like most Virginia planters, had to locate his properties precisely, after being issued a land warrant by the colonial...
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