William Morris Davis was an American geographer, geomorphologist, and meteorologist. He was famous as the Meteorologist who founded the science of geomorphology, the study of landforms. Often called the ”father of American geography”. Davis studied geology and geography at Harvard’s Lawrence Scientific School. Later joined the Harvard-sponsored geographic exploration party to the Colorado territory, led by the inaugural Sturgis-Hooper professor of geology, Josiah Dwight Whitney.
He was a founder of the Association of American Geographers in 1904. Additionally he was heavily involved with the National Geographic Society in its early years, writing a number of articles for the magazine. Davis retired from Harvard in 1911. He served as president of the Geological Society of America in 1911. He was awarded the patron’s medal of the Royal Geographical Society in 1919.
Wild stories had circulated since soon after the Louisiana Purchase about Rocky Mountains peaks 18000 feet or higher. The Harvard expedition set out to investigate and found none but they did find ”14ers” (14000-plus feet). He graduated from Harvard University in 1869 and received a master of Mining Engineering in the following year. Davis worked for Nathaniel Shaler as a field assistant and was later hired to teach at Harvard. Though his legacy lives on in geomorphology, he also advanced theories of scientific racism in his writings about physical geography.
Davis initially worked in Cordoba, Argentina as a meteorologist for 3yrs and after working as an assistant to Nathaniel Shaler, he became an instructor in geology at Harvard, in 1879. The same year he married Ellen B. Warner from Springfield, Massachusetts. While Davis never completed his Ph.D., he was appointed to his full professorship in 1890 and remained in academia and teaching throughout his life.
He was a tenacious as well as keen observer of nature, a master of logical deduction, and a brilliant synthesizer of disparate observations and ideas. He devised his most influential scientific contribution; the ”geographical cycle”. His theory was first defined in his 1889 article, The Rivers and Valleys of Pennsylvania, which was a model of how rivers erode uplifted land to base level and was inspired by the work of Erasmus and Charles Darwin.
Though the cycle of erosion was a crucial early contribution to the development of geomorphology, many of Davis’ theories regarding landscape evolution,sometimes termed ‘Davisian geomorphology’. were heavily criticized by later geomorphologists. When Davis retired from Harvard in 1911, the study of landscape evolution was nearly monopolized by his theories.
His textbook, Elementary Physical Geography (1902), includes a chapter entitled ”The Distribution of Plants, Animals and Man”. In which Davis details how the physical geography of landscapes influences the progress of man, from the savage toward the civilized state. This textbook chapter exemplifies how Davis borrowed from Darwinian biological concepts and applied it to physical landscapes and climate. in a type of Social Darwinistic thought termed ”environmental determinism”. His work influenced geographer and writer Elsworth Huntington, a student of Davis at Harvard who attempted to explain differences in human culture by climate and geography. for example, comparing communities of British descent in Canada and the Bahamas and suggesting that Anglo Bahamians are slower because of climate and proximity to black people.
William Davis Age
Davis was born on February 12th 1850 but died in Pasadena, California, shortly before his 84th birthday. His Cambridge home is a National Historic Landmark.
William Davis Parents
William was born into a prominent Quaker family in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He is the son of Edward M. and Maria Mott Davis (a daughter of the women’s advocate Lucretia Mott).
William Davis Wife
Davis following his first wife death, he married Mary M. Wyman from Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1914, and after her death, he married Lucy L. Tennant from Milton, Massachusets in 1928, who survived him. David had two daughters; Jane Alice Morris and May Morris.
William Davis Net worth
William Net worth estimate was unknown that goes to his annual salary. But we know he had a successful career as ” The father of American Geography’.