George Perkins Marsh

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George Perkins Marsh

George Perkins Marsh (born March 15, 1801 in Woodstock , Vermont , †  July 23, 1882 in Vallombrosa , Italy ) was an American diplomat , philologist and writer. In some circles he is considered the first American environmentalist .

Life

George Perkins Marsh Boyhood Home (Marsh-Billings House)

Marsh was born in Woodstock to a prominent family. The house where he was born has not been preserved; he spent most of his childhood in the Marsh Billings House, which was built in 1805 . His father Charles was a federal attorney in Vermont and later sat for the state in the US House of Representatives . Marsh graduated from Dartmouth College with honors in 1820 and honed his legal knowledge in Burlington . In 1835 he was elected to the Supreme Council of the State of Vermont. From 1842 to 1849 he took a seat in Congress as a member of the Whigs, like his father before, and was then appointed envoy to Constantinople. He used this office to undertake a journey of several months through Italy and an eight-month expedition to Egypt, the Sinai and what is now Jordan. He also got to know Greece and Austria. In 1851 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . In 1852 he went on a special mission to Greece , returned to his homeland in 1854 after a long trip through Europe and in 1861 took over the legation post of the newly formed Italian nation in Rome during the civil war , which he held until 1882. In 1874 he was given the task of mediating the Italian - Swiss border dispute in the Valle Cravariola . As an entrepreneur, Marsh was consistently unsuccessful in breeding sheep, as the owner of a wool spinning mill, property speculator and operator of a marble quarry. All ventures ended in financial disasters.

Marsh was able to speak and write in 20 languages. German was his favorite language. He had an extraordinary memory, could memorize everything he read, and was able to acquire a new language in a short time. One of his passions was comparative linguistic research . In 1838 he translated Rask's " Icelandic Grammar ". His collected works appeared in three volumes in 1882. He is also considered one of the earliest environmental advocates in the United States. His demand for the preservation of natural forests led to the creation of Adirondack State Park .

Marsh was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1851, and to the National Academy of Sciences in 1866 .

Marsh died on July 23, 1882 in Vallombrosa and was buried in Rome .

The Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park in Vermont includes his name, because he grew up here. Frederick Billings was also an early environmentalist who set up a professionally run dairy farm and protected the forest on the former marsh farm . Eventually the property went to Frederick Billings' granddaughter, Mary French Rockefeller, and her husband, environmentalist Laurance S. Rockefeller , who turned it into a national park in 1968.

Man and Nature

Marsh's major work Man and Nature , published in 1864, was the result of years of extensive travel and reading. He studied descriptions of landscapes and agricultural use in many countries and historically as far as ancient Greece and Rome. He supplemented this reading with his own observations in Europe. Marsh gained a sense of the connection between human activity and nature particularly through reading the works of Alexander von Humboldt , who early on pointed out the dangers of deforestation. Marsh took these thoughts further and saw humans everywhere as "a disruptive factor". He therefore intended to give his book the title "Man, the troublemaker of harmonies in nature", which his publisher refused.

Marsh in Man and Nature cited a variety of examples of human interference with the rhythm of nature, such as the obsolescence of fur hats in Europe, which led to a recovery of beaver populations in Canada, and killing of birds by farmers who wanted to protect their crops, causing swarms of insects to appear. Marsh denounced the exploitation of nature by humans. This included the overfishing of waters, industrial pollution, poisoning by chemicals or the unrestrained use of water with the result of the shrinking of large rivers and the creation of salty, sterile soils, as well as the rigorous deforestation of forests in the USA. It was a direct result of the Homestead Act of 1862, which unconditionally allowed landowners who acquired new land to cut down the trees on their property.

Man and Nature was the first natural history work in the United States to have a lasting impact on American politics. It was unusually critical and slowly but sustainedly influenced politics in a phase of the industrial boom in which no consideration was given to nature. It wasn't until the Forest Reserves Act of 1891 for the protection of American forests showed the influence of Marsh's work. The book's influence extended into the foundations of environmental protection legislation, for example in Italy, France and New Zealand. Man and Nature shaped a generation of environmental activists in the first half of the 20th century and became for them the "origin of the conservation movement".

Fonts

  • A Compendious Grammar of the Old Northern or Icelandic Language (1838)
  • Lectures on the English language (1861)
  • The origin and history of the English language (1862)
  • Man and Nature, Or Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action Publisher: Sampson Low, Son and Marston, London 1864 (1862)
  • The earth as modified by human action (1874)

literature

  • David Lowenthal: George Perkins Marsh: Prophet of Conservation . University of Washington Press, Seattle 2000. ISBN 0-295-97777-9 .
  • Andrea Wulf : Alexander von Humboldt and the invention of nature . Chapter 21: Man and Nature. George Perkins Marsh and Humboldt . Translated from the English by Hainer Kober . Bertelsmann, Munich 2016. ISBN 978-3-570-10206-0 .

Web links

Commons : George Perkins Marsh  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ National Register of Historic Places Inventory-Nomination: Marsh-Billings House / George Perkins Marsh Boyhood Home. Accessed February 2, 2019
  2. ↑ Andrea Wulf: Alexander von Humboldt and the invention of nature. C. Bertelsmann 2016. ISBN 978-3-570-10206-0 . P. 358ff
  3. ↑ Andrea Wulf: Alexander von Humboldt and the invention of nature. C. Bertelsmann 2016. ISBN 978-3-570-10206-0 . P. 356
  4. ↑ Andrea Wulf: Alexander von Humboldt and the invention of nature. C. Bertelsmann 2016. ISBN 978-3-570-10206-0 . P. 355ff
  5. ^ National Park Foundation: Marsh - Billings - Rockefeller National Historical Park , accessed February 2, 2019
  6. ↑ a b Andrea Wulf: Alexander von Humboldt and the invention of nature. C. Bertelsmann 2016. ISBN 978-3-570-10206-0 . P. 366
  7. ↑ Andrea Wulf: Alexander von Humboldt and the invention of nature. C. Bertelsmann 2016. ISBN 978-3-570-10206-0 . P. 362
  8. ↑ Andrea Wulf: Alexander von Humboldt and the invention of nature. C. Bertelsmann 2016. ISBN 978-3-570-10206-0 . P. 367
  9. ↑ Andrea Wulf: Alexander von Humboldt and the invention of nature. C. Bertelsmann 2016. ISBN 978-3-570-10206-0 . P. 368
  10. ↑ Andrea Wulf: Alexander von Humboldt and the invention of nature. C. Bertelsmann 2016. ISBN 978-3-570-10206-0 . P. 371
personal data
SURNAME Marsh, George Perkins
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American statesman and writer
DATE OF BIRTH March 15, 1801
PLACE OF BIRTH Woodstock , Vermont
DATE OF DEATH July 23, 1882
Place of death Vallombrosa , Italy