Albert J. Myer

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Albert J. Myer

Albert James Myer (born September 20, 1828 in Newburgh , New York , † August 24, 1880 in Buffalo , New York) was an American surgeon and officer. Myer is the inventor of WIG-WAG signal or antenna telegraphy. As the first chief officer, he founded the United States Army Signal Corps . He is considered to be the father of the US Weather Bureau .

Life

Myers weather map from 1877

Myer was born in Newburgh, Orange County . His father was Henry Beekman Myer and his mother was Elenor Mc Clanahan Myer. The family moved to west New York. After his mother died, Myer lived with his aunt in Buffalo. He worked as a telegraph operator. In 1851, Myer received his medical doctorate from Buffalo Medical College with a dissertation on a new sign language for the deaf and mute. First he worked in a medical practice in Florida ; then he went on September 18, 1854 as a surgical assistant with the rank of lieutenant in the US Army .

In addition to surgery, his main interest was in signal transmission over long distances. He thus invented a signal transmission system known as WIG-WAG signaling, which was then used on both sides of the civil war . Myer recognized the use of antenna signaling technology as a means of communication.

On August 24, 1857, he married Catherine Walden, the daughter of a Buffalo celebrity. He had six children.

Albert J. Myer visited Europe twice: once in September 1873 when he was attending a conference of the International Meteorological Organization , and once in 1879 when he was on vacation with two children in Rome and Paris. Myer was promoted to the rank of brigadier general on June 16, 1880.

Myer laid the foundation stone for a US weather agency that was founded in 1870 as a military institution and transferred to the Department of Agriculture in 1890 . Building on Myer's innovative ideas, the agency created the first weather maps, issued hurricane warnings and used kites to monitor the weather. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration emerged from the Weather Office in 1970 as an institution of the Ministry of Commerce .

Michael August Friedrich Prestel , the long-time director of the Natural Research Society in Emden , was also a meteorologist and cartographer . He established the connection to Myer, who on December 22, 1873 became a corresponding honorary member of the Emden Society.

Honors

Myer has received many awards:

  • In 1881 Fort Whipple in Virginia was renamed Fort Myer
  • A US Navy ship was named USNS Albert J. Myer in his honor. In 1950, underwater cables were laid with the ship.
  • Albert J. Myer Center (CECOM) in New Jersey
  • 1872 LL.D. (Hobart College)
  • 1875 Ph.D.
  • 1873 honorary member of the Natural Research Society in Emden

literature

  • Brown, J. Willard, The Signal Corps, USA in the War of the Rebellion , US Veteran Signal Corps Association, 1896, (reprinted by Arno Press, 1974), ISBN 0-405-06036-X .
  • Cameron, Bill, "Albert James Myer," Encyclopedia of the American Civil War: A Political, Social, and Military History , Heidler, David S., and Heidler, Jeanne T., eds., WW Norton & Company, 2000, ISBN 0-393-04758-X .
  • Eicher, John H., and Eicher, David J., Civil War High Commands , Stanford University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8047-3641-3 .
  • Scheips, Paul J., "Union Signal Communications: Innovation and Conflict", Civil War History , Vol. IX, No. 4 (December 1963).
  • Biography at The Handbook of Texas Online
  • Evolution of the National Weather Service

Web links

Commons : Albert James Myer  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration , accessed May 22, 2019.
  2. ↑ Annual report of the Natural Research Society in Emden (PDF).
personal data
SURNAME Myer, Albert J.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Myer, Albert James (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American surgeon and officer
DATE OF BIRTH September 20, 1828
PLACE OF BIRTH Newburgh , New York
DATE OF DEATH August 24, 1880
Place of death Buffalo , New York