William John McGee
William John McGee | |
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Washington, D.C. (1900)
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Born | Farley, Dubuque, Iowa, United States |
April 17, 1853
Died | Script error: The function "death_date_and_age" does not exist. |
Nationality | American |
Fields | Geology, anthropology, and ethnology |
Spouse | Anita Newcomb McGee |
William John McGee, LL.D. (April 17, 1853 – September 4, 1912) was an American inventor, geologist, anthropologist, and ethnologist, born in Farley, Iowa.[1]
Contents
Biography
McGee was self-educated, devoting his early years to reading law and to surveying.[2] He invented and patented several improvements on agricultural implements.[2]
He subsequently turned his attention to geology.[2] In 1877–1881, he executed a topographic and geological survey of 17,000 square miles (44,030 km²) in northeastern Iowa.[3][4][5] He then undertook an examination of the loess of the Mississippi Valley, researched the great quaternary lakes of Nevada and California and studied a recent fault movement in the middle Atlantic slope.[2]
He was appointed geologist for the United States Geological Survey (USGS) in 1881. In 1884 McGee authored the article Map of the United States exhibiting the present status of knowledge relating to the areal distribution of geologic groups for the USGS Journal.[6] While with the USGS, McGee travelled to Charleston, South Carolina, in 1886 for the purpose of studying the earthquake disturbances in its vicinity.
McGee was ethnologist in charge of the Bureau of American Ethnology from 1893 to 1903. In 1895, he explored the Isla del Tiburón, Gulf of California, home of the Seri Indians.[7] In 1904 he was chief of the department of anthropology that organized the "Anthropology Days" at the 1904 Summer Olympics / Louisiana Purchase Exposition, the 1904 World's Fair,[8] and in 1907 he was appointed a member of the Inland Waterways Commission by President Roosevelt.[9] His other prominent positions were: acting president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1897–1898); president of the American Anthropological Association (1902–1912); and president of the National Geographic Society (1904–1905).
Works
Wikisource has original works written by or about: William John McGee |
His publications include:
- The Pleistocene History of Northeastern Iowa (1889)
- The Geology of Chesapeake Bay (1888)
- The Siouan Indians (1895)
- Primitive Trephining (1897)
- The Seri Indians (1899)
- Primitive Numbers (1901)
- Soil Erosion (1911)
- Wells and Subsoil Water (1913)
References
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- ↑ McGee, W.J. and Call, R.E. 1882. “On the löss and associated deposits of Des Moines, Iowa.” The American Journal of Science, 3rd Series, Whole no. 124, 24(141):202-223.
- ↑ McGee, W.J. 1884. “The drainage system and the distribution of loess of Eastern Iowa.” Bulletin of the Philosophical Society of Washington 6:93-97.
- ↑ McGee, W.J. 1891. “The Pleistocene history of northeastern Iowa.” In: Powell, J.W. (ed), Eleventh Annual Report of the Director of the United States Geological Survey, Part 1: 1889-1890, pp. 199-577.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ McGee, W.J. and Johnson, W.D. 1896. Seriland. The National Geographic Magazine 7(4):125-133.
- ↑ Nate DiMeo, Olympic-Sized Racism, Slate.com
- ↑ Donald J. Pisani, Water Planning in the Progressive Era: The Inland Waterways Commission Reconsidered, Journal of Policy History 18.4 (2006) pp.389-418
External links
- Works by William John McGee at Project Gutenberg
- Lua error in Module:Internet_Archive at line 573: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).
- Works by William John McGee at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
- Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from Appleton's Cyclopedia
- Pages with broken file links
- Articles with Internet Archive links
- Writers from Dubuque, Iowa
- American non-fiction writers
- American anthropologists
- American geologists
- American science writers
- American explorers
- American inventors
- American people of Irish descent
- 1853 births
- 1912 deaths
- United States Geological Survey personnel
- History of the Gulf of California