Harriman Alaska Expedition

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Map showing the route of the Harriman Expedition 1899
Edward Henry Harriman

The Harriman-Alaska Expedition was an expedition to the coastal waters of Alaska organized by industrialist Edward Henry Harriman in 1899.

Harriman chartered the ship George W. Elder for the voyage and invited well-known scientists and friends John Muir , Clinton Hart Merriam , Grove Karl Gilbert , George Bird Grinnell , William Trelease , Theodore Pergande , Edward Curtis , Robert Ridgway and William Emerson Ritter to relocate to explore flora and fauna on site. In the period from May 31 to July 30, 1899, over 5000 photographs were taken that documented the finds and the course of the expedition. Among other things, the College Fjord in the north of Prince William Sound was discovered. From 1910 onwards, the expedition reports and publications based on them were published by Grinnell.

Harriman played loud music with a gramophone when the ship entered coastal towns and villages. He also used this then advanced device to make one of the few records of the dying Eyak language still in existence today . The receiving cylinder was long lost after the expedition ended. Anthony Seeger from the Archives of Traditional Music at Indiana University found it and presented it in 1985 at a conference in Sapporo , Japan . The linguist Michael Krauss, specialist in Na-Dené languages , recognized the language.

The expedition was accused of looting artefacts from the Tlingit . In Cape Fox near Ketchikan, for example, seven or eight totem poles are said to have been stolen and sold to various universities and museums.

Members of the expedition trip

A total of 126 people took part in the expedition:

  • 14 Harriman family members (including servants)
  • 25 scientists
  • 3 artists (painters)
  • 2 photographers
  • 2 stenographers
  • 2 surgeons with assistant (1 trained nurse)
  • 1 chaplain
  • 11 hunters, porters, assistants
  • 65 officers and crew members

The scientists

  • William H. Brewer, Sheffield Scientific School, Yale University, New Haven, Conn.
  • John Burroughs, ornithologist and writer, West Park, NY
  • Wesley R. Coe, Assistant Professor of Comparative Anatomy, Yale University, New Haven, Conn.
  • Frederick V. Coville , National Herbarium Curator and Botanist for the US Department of Agriculture, Washington, DC
  • William H. Dall , US Geological Survey paleontologist and honorary curator for molluscs at the US National Museum, Washington, DC
  • WB Devereux, Mining Engineer, Glenwood Springs, Colo.
  • Daniel G. Elliot , Curator of Zoology, Field Columbian Museum, Chicago, Ill.
  • Benjamin K. Emerson , geologist, Amherst College, Amherst, Mass.
  • BE Fernow, Dean of the School of Forestry, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
  • AK Fisher , Ornithologist, Biological Survey, US Department of Agriculture, Washington, DC
  • Henry Gannett, Chief Geographer, US Geological Survey, Washington, DC
  • GK Gilbert, geologist, US Geological Survey, Washington, DC
  • George Bird Grinnell, editor of Forest and Stream magazine , New York City
  • Thomas H. Kearney, Jr., Assistant Botanist, US Department of Agriculture, Washington, DC
  • Charles A. Keeler, director of the California Academy of Sciences Museum, San Francisco, Calif.
  • Trevor Kincaid, Professor of Zoology, University of Washington, Seattle, State of Washington.
  • C. Hart Merriam, Head of Biological Survey, US Department of Agriculture, Washington, DC
  • John Muir, Author and Student of Glaciers, Martinez, Calif.
  • Charles Palache, Mineralogist, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.
  • Robert Ridgway, Curator, Dept. of Birds, US National Museum, Washington, DC
  • William E. Ritter, President of the California Academy of Sciences and Professor of Zoology at the University of California, Berkeley, Calif.
  • De Alton Saunders, Botanist, South Dakota Experiment Station, Brookings, South Dakota.
  • William Trelease, director of the Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis, Mo.

painter

  • R. Swain Gifford, New York City.
  • Fred S. Dellenbaugh, New York City.
  • Painter for Birds: Louis Agassiz Fuertes , Ithaca, NY

doctors

  • Lewis Rutherford Morris, New York City.
  • Edward L. Trudeau, Jr., Saranac Lake, NY

Taxidermist and taxidermist

  • Leon J. Cole, Ann Arbor, Michigan.
  • Edwin C. Starks, Biological Survey, Washington, DC

Photographers

  • Edward S. Curtis, Seattle, Wash.
  • Duncan G. Inverarity, Seattle, Wash.

Chaplain

  • George F. Nelson, New York City.

Stenographers

  • Louis F. Timmerman, New York City.
  • Julian L. Johns, Washington, DC

Ship officers

  • Captain: Peter Doran.
  • First Officer: Charles McCarty.
  • Pilot: JF Jordan.
  • First engineer: JA Scandrett.
  • Steward: Joseph V. Knights.

The passengers were assigned to special committees and had certain tasks to perform.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Michael E. Krauss: A history of Eyak language documentation and study: Fredericæ de Laguna in memoriam . Ed .: Arctic anthropology. University of Wisconsin Press, 2006, ISSN  0066-6939 , pp. 172-217 .
  2. ^ List of the participants in the expedition listed in Volume I.

Web links

Commons : Harriman Alaska Expedition  - Collection of Images, Videos, and Audio Files