Edward S. Morse

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Edward S. Morse 1878

Edward Sylvester Morse (born June 18, 1838 in Portland (Maine) , † December 20, 1925 in Salem (Massachusetts) ) was an American malacologist , archaeologist and expert on Japanese ceramics .

Morse's parents were Jonathan Kimball Morse, a Congregationalist minister , and his wife, Jane Seymour Beckett of Cape Elizabeth . Edward was not very successful in school and was regularly evicted , but had success as a snail and shell collector and discovered two new species as a teenager. His main job was as a technical draftsman . Because of his reputation as a collector and his drawing skills, he became assistant to Louis Agassiz at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University . There he was in charge of the collection of mollusks and brachiopods . In 1863 he founded the magazine The American Journalist with other Agassiz students and became one of the editors. In 1864 he published a book on the terrestrial mollusks of Maine and in 1870 one on brachiopods, which he counted among the worms. From 1871 he was professor of comparative anatomy and zoology at Bowdoin College and from 1874 lecturer at Harvard.

In 1877 he first visited Japan to collect brachiopods. He stayed three years after he was offered a professorship in zoology at the Imperial University of Tokyo . This was thanks to the opening of Japan in the Meiji period . He also collected and studied Japanese ceramics (the term Jōmon time goes back to him afterwards ) and he recognized the importance of clam piles for Japanese archeology. As a zoologist, he founded a marine biology laboratory in Enoshima . In 1885 he published a book on Japanese home decor ( Japanese Homes and their Surroundings , New York: Harper). He returned to Japan several more times in the 1880s and also visited Southeast Asia and Europe .

In 1890 he became curator of ceramics at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and from 1880 to 1914 he was also director of the Peabody Museum of Archeology and Ethnology in Salem. In 1914 he became director of the Museum of Fine Arts and in 1915 of the Peabody Museum.

As a friend of the astronomer Percival Lowell , he visited his observatory in Flagstaff several times and published the book Mars and its Mysteries in 1906 to defend Lowell's theses about life on Mars.

In 1869 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . In 1876 he became a Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences . In 1883 he became vice president and from 1886 to 1898 president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science . In 1898 he received the Japanese Order of the Rising Sun 3rd Class and in 1922 the Order of the Sacred Treasure 2nd Class.

On June 18, 1863, Edward Ellen married Elizabeth Owen (1837-1911). This marriage produced two children, Edith and John Gould.

His collection of Japanese ceramics is in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the collection of Japanese everyday objects in the Peabody Museum. He donated a large number of his books to the University of Tokyo - they burned there in the great earthquake of 1923 .

Publications

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jonathan Kimball Morse was in turn a descendant of Anthony Morse, who immigrated to Portland from England.
    Quote: “Anthony Morse of Wiltshire, England, came to America in 1635 and settled in Newbury, Mass. He died in 1678. His son, Anthony, born 1662. His son Stephen [son of Anthony] was born 1695. His son Thomas was born 1721. His son Thomas [son of Thomas] born 1749. His son Thomas lived in Haverhill, NH, but the date of his birth is not known. His son, John [Jonathan] Kimball, was born in 1802 and Edward Sylvester, born 1838, was his son. “ (Data supplied by John G. Morse.) Biography page 3
  2. ↑ Online version "Japanese Homes an their Surroundings"
  3. ↑ Ellen Elizabeth Owen in the Find a Grave database . Retrieved September 13, 2017 (English).
  4. ^ Edit Morse in the Find a Grave database . Retrieved September 13, 2017 (English).
  5. ^ John Gould Morse in the Find a Grave database . Retrieved September 13, 2017 (English).

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Morse, Edward S.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Morse, Edward Sylvester (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American zoologist and expert in Japanese ceramics
DATE OF BIRTH June 18, 1838
PLACE OF BIRTH Portland , Maine , United States
DATE OF DEATH December 20, 1925
Place of death Salem , Massachusetts , United States