Robert Stein (polar explorer)

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Robert Stein

Robert Stein (born January 9, 1857 in Rengersdorf , Province of Silesia , † April 21, 1917 in Washington, DC ) was a German-American translator , author and polar explorer . He was involved in the American peace movement .

Life

Born in Rengersdorf in Silesia, Stein attended high school in Glatz and emigrated to the United States in 1875. With the intention of becoming a priest, he enrolled at Georgetown University in Washington, DC . After a brief episode as a teacher, he switched subjects and completed his studies in 1886 as a doctor of medicine . But he probably never practiced as a doctor . Instead, he worked as a stenographer and translator for the United States Geological Survey since 1885 . His excellent language skills enabled him to translate texts from German, French, Italian, Danish, Swedish, Russian, Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese on a freelance basis or for the authorities.

Harmony Hall

In 1892 Robert Stein acquired the Harmony Hall estate in Fort Washington , Maryland , and moved into it with the families of his brother Richard Stein and brother-in-law Joseph Adler. In the following years, other relatives from Prussia settled in the immediate vicinity, which in 1898 at Robert Stein's request was named Silesia after the old homeland . In 1903 the settlement got a school and its own post office. Harmony Hall, which was sold in 1929, is now listed as a cultural monument on the National Register of Historic Places .

Stein developed plans in the 1890s for a multi-year systematic exploration of the arctic areas west of Ellesmere Island, which were still unknown at the time. Since he did not find the financial support he needed, he was only able to undertake a poorly equipped and poorly profitable expedition to Smithsund from 1899–1901 . Stein was involved in the American peace movement as early as the 1890s, but especially after his return from the Arctic. His plans for large-scale area exchanges to alleviate international tensions were unrealistic.

In 1905, Stein joined the Bureau of Statistics at the United States Department of Agriculture as a shorthand typist . On April 21, 1917, he committed suicide . His ashes were scattered on the family estate.

Expedition to the Arctic 1899–1901

Map of the Arctic with marking of the still unknown areas (Stein 1896)

In 1893 Stein published the plan for an expedition to the last remaining unknown area in the Canadian Arctic , which he consistently developed further in the following years. 600 km west coast of Ellesmere Island - from Graham Island in the south to Alert Point at 82 ° 28 ′ in the north - were still completely unknown. Stein wanted to explore this area on a budget and over a period of several years from a fixed station near the eastern entrance to Jonessund . Prominent polar researchers, including Franz Boas , Adolphus Greely , Edward Inglefield , George Nares , Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld , Clements Markham , Carl Koldewey and Julius Payer , welcomed the project enthusiastically in some cases. But funding was a serious problem from the start.

As early as April 1893, Stein established contact by letter with Robert Edwin Peary , who was often in Etah in northwest Greenland in his quest to discover the geographic North Pole . At first Stein tried in vain to be able to use one of Peary's supply ships to transport his own expedition and equipment. It was not until 1897 that he was able to travel north on the Hope so that he could gain his first Arctic experience on the west coast of Greenland for three weeks. From August 10 to September 1, 1897, he explored Inugsulik Bay south of Wilcox Head with three Inuit. He found the stone man that Carl Ryder had set at the northernmost point of his survey expedition in 1887, came across the remains of an abandoned Inuit settlement and opened some graves.

For 1899 Stein could agree with Herbert Bridgman (1844-1924), the secretary of the Peary Arctic Club, that Peary's supply ship Diana would transport him to Pim Island , an island in Smithsund. Stein had recruited two colleagues for his expedition. Julian S. Warmbad was a taxidermist with German roots and Leopold Kann (1875–1959) was a Viennese physicist who worked at Cornell University on an imperial scholarship . The Diana dropped the three men on August 5, 1899 in Payer Harbor on the east coast of the island. The expedition had 25 tons of equipment with them, including 10 tons of coal and 5 tons of lumber for a house. The rest were rifles, ammunition, tools, scientific equipment and provisions for 15 months. Stein had bought clothes, kayaks and ten sled dogs on Disko Island . Bridgman promised to bring walrus meat for the dogs later and to pick up the men again the following year. In Etah Stein had learned that the Norwegian Otto Sverdrup had wintered with the Fram near Pim Island in 1898/99 and had traveled with several dog sleds to the exact area that Stein wanted to explore.

The men built their house, which they called Fort Magnesia , and prepared for wintering. When Diana failed to take the dog food, the animals soon starved to death. In the winter Inuit came with the news that Peary was in Etah, and Stein gave them a letter for them. In January Inuit arrived with dog food and a letter from Pearys, in which he told Stein that no ship would be able to bring him back south for the next year. This got the men in serious trouble, as Pim Island was not a good hunting ground and their provisions would not last until 1901. Kann left the expedition in the spring and found a whaler at Cape York who took him to Scotland. Stein tried to get to Upernavik to learn more about Sverdrup's discoveries, but had to turn back before reaching his destination. After the second hibernation, Stein and Warmbath were able to leave Pim Island on Peary's ship Windward .

The expedition had hardly produced any results. It is considered to be one of the most inefficient Arctic expeditions ever. The planned voyages of discovery had not taken place. After all, Stein published an ethnographic work on the music of the Inuit in 1902 . Warmbath brought back a number of animal preparations and furs as well as Inuit clothing, which he used for exhibitions and lectures in the USA. The reasons for the failure lay in the financially-related renunciation of their own logistics and in the Second Fram Expedition Sverdrup, which was operating successfully in the same area at the same time.

Working in the peace movement

Stein was active in the American peace movement since 1890. In 1894 he had the article On the Threshold of Universal Peace under the pseudonym "Pan-Aryan" . An American Answer to the Question How to Reconcile France and Germany (German: On the threshold to universal peace. An American answer to the question of how France and Germany can be reconciled ). In it he appealed to the German Emperor Wilhelm II to return the predominantly French-speaking part of Alsace-Lorraine to France. This would be an important first step towards world peace . International tensions can only be reduced through mutual concessions. At the beginning of the 20th century, Stein not only campaigned for Franco-German reconciliation, but also for gradual disarmament , an end to the European alliance system and the “United States of Europe”. He developed the idea of ​​a “Greater Canada” by the United States abandoning the Alaska Panhandle and exchanging Danish Greenland for a British colony in Africa. More realistic was his approval of Theodore Roosevelt's idea of ​​an international police force enforcing world peace. 1916 Stone urged the United States to mediate between the opposing alliances in the First World War . After the peace agreement, a defense alliance of the United States, Great Britain, France and Germany should be created. Stein corresponded with Democratic MP William S. Howard in the hope that he would put a resolution to the vote in Congress. Ultimately, however, Stein's advance was seen as part of German propaganda.

Stein's political writings are shaped by racist beliefs. In his book The United States of Europe in 1908, he warned against world domination by the “yellow race” if the European states were not to be reconciled. As early as 1904, in a letter to the writer Thomas Nelson Page, he had formulated a detailed plan for solving the "Negro problem" which was perceived as threatening. After that, a puppet state, Hopeland , controlled by whites, was to be founded in what is now Nigeria , to which the African-Americans were to be transported on a large scale. In order to make the move more palatable, they should be guaranteed polygamy : "The idea that a Negro can have as many women as he wants by moving to Africa would be a real magnet for the colored people of this country."

Stein also saw his commitment to the creation of a standardized script based on a phonetic alphabet as a contribution to peace. In this way he hoped to improve communication between peoples. He called for an international conference on this subject and, as a talented linguist , wrote a preliminary phonetic alphabet himself.

Works (selection)

Polar Research Writings
Political and linguistic writings

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ William Barr: Robert Stein's Expedition to Ellesmere Island, 1899-1901 . P. 253.
  2. ↑ a b Harmony Hall (PDF; 1 MB), information from the National Park Service, US Department of the Interior.
  3. ^ A b Eugene L. Meyer: Prussian Echoes in a Handed-Down Hamlet in the Washington Post on September 1, 2001.
  4. ^ A b c William Barr: Robert Stein's Expedition to Ellesmere Island, 1899-1901 . P. 272.
  5. ↑ Hangs Self on Gas Fixture . In: The Washington Herald . April 22, 1917, p. 7 (English).
  6. ↑ William Barr: Robert Stein's Expedition to Ellesmere Island, 1899-1901 . P. 253 f.
  7. ↑ William Barr: Robert Stein's Expedition to Ellesmere Island, 1899-1901 . P. 254.
  8. ↑ William Barr: Robert Stein's Expedition to Ellesmere Island, 1899-1901 . P. 259.
  9. ^ Robert Stein: On the Threshold of Universal Peace. An American Answer to the Question How to Reconcile France and Germany . In: Review of Reviews Volume 10, No. 6, 1894, pp. 635-643.
  10. ^ John David Smith: Out of Sight, Out of Mind: Robert Stein's 1904 "Deafricanization" Scheme to "Hopeland" . P. 8.
  11. ^ A Frank for Propaganda (PDF; 36 kB). Letter to the editor from Maurice Parmelee (1882–1969) in: The New York Times, October 18, 1916.
  12. ^ John David Smith: Out of Sight, Out of Mind: Robert Stein's 1904 "Deafricanization" Scheme to "Hopeland" . P. 9.
  13. ↑ from a letter from Robert Stein to Thomas Nelson Page of January 29, 1904 (quoted in: John David Smith: Out of Sight, out of Mind: Robert Stein's 1904 "Deafricanization" Scheme to "Hopeland" ): “ The idea that a negro by moving to Africa can have as many wives as he chooses would act as a veritable magnet to the colored people of this country. ”
  14. ^ John David Smith: Out of Sight, Out of Mind: Robert Stein's 1904 "Deafricanization" Scheme to "Hopeland" . P. 7 f.
personal data
SURNAME Stein, Robert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American translator, author and polar explorer
DATE OF BIRTH January 9, 1857
PLACE OF BIRTH Rengersdorf
DATE OF DEATH April 21, 1917
Place of death United States