WLG Joerg

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Wolfgang Louis Gottfried Joerg (born February 6, 1885 in New York City , † January 7, 1952 in Washington, DC ) was an American geographer and cartographer . His specialty was the geography of the Arctic and Antarctic regions. From 1937 until his death he held the post of senior archivist of the cartographic collection of the National Archives and Records Administration .

Life

Joerg was born as the son of physicist Oswald Joerg from Germany and his wife Denise (née Coulin), who immigrated from Switzerland , in Brooklyn, New York . At the age of 14 he graduated from the Brooklyn Polytechnic Preparatory School . Since he was not given the opportunity to pursue his interest in geography in the United States, he continued his education between 1901 and 1904 at the Thomas School in Leipzig . After a year at Columbia University , he returned to Germany and studied geography at the University of Göttingen from 1906 to 1911 . There was one Ludwig Mecking (1879-1952) to his teachers.

After graduating from university, he became a member of the American Geographical Society . He worked initially as an assistant, then between 1916 and 1920 as co-editor alongside Cyrus C. Adams (1849–1928) for the Geographical Review , the society's scientific journal. He then worked as an editor and journalist for that institution and strengthened at this time his reputation as capacity in the field Arctic and Antarctic regions. Although he had never personally visited any of these regions, Joerg was a consultant for the geographic research programs of the first two Antarctic expeditions ( 1928–1930 and 1933–1935) of the American polar explorer Richard Evelyn Byrd and the United States Antarctic Service Expedition (1939–1941 ). During his time at the National Archives and Records Administration, Joerg played a key role in the evaluation of geodetic survey data and aerial photographs to determine the position of numerous geographic objects in the Antarctic. He was chairman of the committee for the assignment of place names in the Antarctic of the United States Board on Geographic Names and was a member of the successor organization, the Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names , from 1947 until his death .

WLG Joerg died in Washington DC in 1952 at the age of 66 of a cerebral haemorrhage . The Joerg Peninsula and the Joerg Plateau in Antarctica are named in his honor.

literature

personal data
SURNAME Joerg, WLG
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Joerg, Wolfgang Louis Gottfried (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American geographer, cartographer, and archivist
DATE OF BIRTH February 6, 1885
PLACE OF BIRTH Brooklyn , New York City
DATE OF DEATH January 7, 1952
Place of death Washington, DC