Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz (; ) FRS (For) FRSE (May 28, 1807 – December 14, 1873) was a Swiss-born American biologist and geologist who is recognized as a scholar of Earth's natural history. Spending his early life in Switzerland, he received a doctor of philosophy and a medical degree at Erlangen and Munich, respectively.
He was educated at home until he spent four years at secondary school in Bienne, which he entered in 1818 and completed his elementary studies in Lausanne.
Ichthyology soon became a focus of Agassiz's life's work. ==Early work== In 1819 to 1820, the German biologists Johann Baptist von Spix and Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius undertook an expedition to Brazil.
Ichthyology soon became a focus of Agassiz's life's work. ==Early work== In 1819 to 1820, the German biologists Johann Baptist von Spix and Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius undertook an expedition to Brazil.
Spix, who died in 1826, did not live long enough to work out the history of those fish, and Martius selected Agassiz for this project. Agassiz threw himself into the work with an enthusiasm that would go on to characterize the rest of his life's work.
In 1829, he received the degree of doctor of philosophy at Erlangen and, in 1830, that of doctor of medicine at Munich. Moving to Paris, he came under the tutelage of Alexander von Humboldt and later received his financial benevolence.
The task of describing the Brazilian fish was completed and published in 1829.
Agassiz as early as 1829, planned the publication of a work.
In 1829, he received the degree of doctor of philosophy at Erlangen and, in 1830, that of doctor of medicine at Munich. Moving to Paris, he came under the tutelage of Alexander von Humboldt and later received his financial benevolence.
Enlarging his plans, he in 1830 issued a prospectus of a History of the Freshwater Fish of Central Europe.
In 1839, however, the first part of the publication appeared, and it was completed in 1842. In November 1832, Agassiz was appointed professor of natural history at the University of Neuchâtel, at a salary of about US$400 and declined brilliant offers in Paris because of the leisure for private study that that position afforded him.
Five volumes of his Recherches sur les poissons fossiles (Research on Fossil Fish) were published from 1833 to 1843.
They had known him for seven years. In 1833 he married Cecile Braun, the sister of his friend Alexander Braun and established his household at Neuchâtel.
Agassiz was grateful for the help that the women gave him in examining fossil fish specimens during his visit to Lyme Regis in 1834. Agassiz died in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1873 and was buried on the Bellwort Path at Mount Auburn Cemetery, joined later by his wife.
In 1836, the Wollaston Medal was awarded to Agassiz by the council of that society for his work on fossil ichthyology.
Under his care, the University of Neuchâtel soon became a leading institution for scientific inquiry. In 1842 to 1846, Agassiz issued his Nomenclator Zoologicus, a classification list with references of all names used in zoological genera and groups. He was elected as a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1843. ==Ice age== The vacation of 1836 was spent by Agassiz and his wife in the little village of Bex, where he met Jean de Charpentier and Ignaz Venetz.
In 1837, Agassiz proposed that the Earth had been subjected to a past ice age.
In 1838, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Society.
In 1839, however, the first part of the publication appeared, and it was completed in 1842. In November 1832, Agassiz was appointed professor of natural history at the University of Neuchâtel, at a salary of about US$400 and declined brilliant offers in Paris because of the leisure for private study that that position afforded him.
In 1840, Agassiz published a two-volume work, Études sur les glaciers ("Studies on Glaciers").
The publication of the work gave fresh impetus to the study of glacial phenomena in all parts of the world. Familiar then with recent glaciation, Agassiz and the English geologist William Buckland visited the mountains of Scotland in 1840.
Those and other recollections were collected and published by Lane Cooper in 1917, which Ezra Pound would draw on for his anecdote of Agassiz and the sunfish. In the early 1840s, Agassiz named two fossil fish species after Mary Anning (Acrodus anningiae and Belenostomus anningiae) and another after her friend, Elizabeth Philpot.
In 1839, however, the first part of the publication appeared, and it was completed in 1842. In November 1832, Agassiz was appointed professor of natural history at the University of Neuchâtel, at a salary of about US$400 and declined brilliant offers in Paris because of the leisure for private study that that position afforded him.
Under his care, the University of Neuchâtel soon became a leading institution for scientific inquiry. In 1842 to 1846, Agassiz issued his Nomenclator Zoologicus, a classification list with references of all names used in zoological genera and groups. He was elected as a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1843. ==Ice age== The vacation of 1836 was spent by Agassiz and his wife in the little village of Bex, where he met Jean de Charpentier and Ignaz Venetz.
Five volumes of his Recherches sur les poissons fossiles (Research on Fossil Fish) were published from 1833 to 1843.
Under his care, the University of Neuchâtel soon became a leading institution for scientific inquiry. In 1842 to 1846, Agassiz issued his Nomenclator Zoologicus, a classification list with references of all names used in zoological genera and groups. He was elected as a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1843. ==Ice age== The vacation of 1836 was spent by Agassiz and his wife in the little village of Bex, where he met Jean de Charpentier and Ignaz Venetz.
They were of intense interest to Agassiz and formed the subject of a monograph by him published in 1844–1(45: Monographie des poissons fossiles du Vieux Grès Rouge, ou Système Dévonien (Old Red Sandstone) des Îles Britanniques et de Russie (Monograph on Fossil Fish of the Old Red Sandstone, or Devonian System of the British Isles and of Russia).
Under his care, the University of Neuchâtel soon became a leading institution for scientific inquiry. In 1842 to 1846, Agassiz issued his Nomenclator Zoologicus, a classification list with references of all names used in zoological genera and groups. He was elected as a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1843. ==Ice age== The vacation of 1836 was spent by Agassiz and his wife in the little village of Bex, where he met Jean de Charpentier and Ignaz Venetz.
He was elected a foreign honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1846. In 1846, still married to Cecilie, who remained with their three children in Switzerland, Agassiz met Elizabeth Cabot Cary at a dinner.
He emigrated to the United States in 1847 after he visited Harvard University.
In addition, Agassiz was a member of the Scientific Lazzaroni, a group of mostly physical scientists who wanted American academia to mimic the more autocratic academic structures of European universities, but Gray was a staunch opponent of that group. Agassiz's engagement for the Lowell Institute lectures precipitated the establishment in 1847 of the Lawrence Scientific School at Harvard University, with Agassiz as its head.
The two developed a romantic attachment, and when his wife died in 1848, they made plans to marry, and the ceremony that took place on April 25, 1850 in Boston, Massachusetts at King's Chapel.
He also published a catalog of papers in his field, Bibliographia Zoologiae et Geologiae, in four volumes between 1848 and 1854. Stricken by ill health in the 1860s, Agassiz resolved to return to the field for relaxation and to resume his studies of Brazilian fish.
The two developed a romantic attachment, and when his wife died in 1848, they made plans to marry, and the ceremony that took place on April 25, 1850 in Boston, Massachusetts at King's Chapel.
In 1850, he married an American college teacher, Elizabeth Cabot Cary, who later wrote introductory books about natural history and a lengthy biography of her husband after he had died. Agassiz served as a nonresident lecturer at Cornell University while he was also on faculty at Harvard.
poem "At the Saturday Club:" === Daguerreotypes of Renty and Delia Taylor === In 1850, Agassiz commissioned daguerreotypes, which were described as "haunting and voyeuristic" of the enslaved Renty Taylor and Taylor's daughter, Delia, to further his arguments about black inferiority.
In 1852, he accepted a medical professorship of comparative anatomy at Charlestown, Massachusetts, but he resigned in two years.
He also published a catalog of papers in his field, Bibliographia Zoologiae et Geologiae, in four volumes between 1848 and 1854. Stricken by ill health in the 1860s, Agassiz resolved to return to the field for relaxation and to resume his studies of Brazilian fish.
In August 1857, Agassiz was offered the chair of palaeontology in the Museum of Natural History, Paris, which he refused.
By 1857, Agassiz was so well-loved that his friend Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote "The Fiftieth Birthday of Agassiz" in his honor and read it at a dinner given for Agassiz by the Saturday Club in Cambridge.
Agassiz's own writing continued with four (of a planned 10) volumes of Natural History of the United States, published from 1857 to 1862.
Harvard appointed him professor of zoology and geology, and he founded the Museum of Comparative Zoology there in 1859 and served as otsy first director until his death in 1873.
He also published a catalog of papers in his field, Bibliographia Zoologiae et Geologiae, in four volumes between 1848 and 1854. Stricken by ill health in the 1860s, Agassiz resolved to return to the field for relaxation and to resume his studies of Brazilian fish.
On November 30, 1860, Agassiz's daughter Pauline was married to Quincy Adams Shaw (1825–1908), a wealthy Boston merchant and later a benefactor to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
Agassiz's own writing continued with four (of a planned 10) volumes of Natural History of the United States, published from 1857 to 1862.
The vessel often skirted the shore so closely that its geology could be studied from the deck." ==Family== From his first marriage to Cecilie Bruan, Agassiz had two daughters and a son, Alexander. In 1863, Agassiz's daughter Ida married Henry Lee Higginson, who later founded the Boston Symphony Orchestra and was a benefactor to Harvard and other schools.
In April 1865, he led a party to Brazil.
In 2017, the Swiss Alpine Club declined to revoke Agassiz's status as a member of honor, which he received in 1865 for his scientific work, because the club considered this status to have lapsed on Agassiz's death.
After his return in August 1866, an account of the expedition, A Journey in Brazil, was published in 1868.
After his return in August 1866, an account of the expedition, A Journey in Brazil, was published in 1868.
Paris: Bailière, 1869) Geological Sketches (Second Series) (Boston: J.R.
In December 1871, he made a second eight-month excursion, known as the Hassler expedition under the command of Commander Philip Carrigan Johnson (the brother of Eastman Johnson) and visited South America on its southern Atlantic and Pacific Seaboards.
Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz (; ) FRS (For) FRSE (May 28, 1807 – December 14, 1873) was a Swiss-born American biologist and geologist who is recognized as a scholar of Earth's natural history. Spending his early life in Switzerland, he received a doctor of philosophy and a medical degree at Erlangen and Munich, respectively.
Harvard appointed him professor of zoology and geology, and he founded the Museum of Comparative Zoology there in 1859 and served as otsy first director until his death in 1873.
In 1873, the private philanthropist John Anderson gave Agassiz the island of Penikese, in Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts (south of New Bedford), and presented him with $50,000 to endow it permanently as a practical school of natural science that would be especially devoted to the study of marine zoology.
Agassiz was grateful for the help that the women gave him in examining fossil fish specimens during his visit to Lyme Regis in 1834. Agassiz died in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1873 and was buried on the Bellwort Path at Mount Auburn Cemetery, joined later by his wife.
Baldwin School on May 21, 2002 because of concerns about Agassiz's involvement in scientific racism and to honor Maria Louise Baldwin, the African-American principal of the school, who served from 1889 to 1922.
The ship explored the Magellan Strait, which drew the praise of Charles Darwin. His second wife, Elizabeth Cary Agassiz, the daughter of Thomas Graves Cary, of Boston, who was president of Radcliffe college in 1898, desired to share his studies and aided her husband in preparing his A Journey in Brazil.
Those and other recollections were collected and published by Lane Cooper in 1917, which Ezra Pound would draw on for his anecdote of Agassiz and the sunfish. In the early 1840s, Agassiz named two fossil fish species after Mary Anning (Acrodus anningiae and Belenostomus anningiae) and another after her friend, Elizabeth Philpot.
Baldwin School on May 21, 2002 because of concerns about Agassiz's involvement in scientific racism and to honor Maria Louise Baldwin, the African-American principal of the school, who served from 1889 to 1922.
An elementary school, the Agassiz Elementary School in Minneapolis, Minnesota, existed from 1922 to 1981. ===Geological tributes=== An ancient glacial lake that formed in the Great Lakes region of North America, Lake Agassiz, is named after him, as are Mount Agassiz in California's Palisades, Mount Agassiz, in the Uinta Mountains of Utah, Agassiz Peak in Arizona, Agassiz Rock in Massachusetts and in his native Switzerland, the Agassizhorn in the Bernese Alps.
Agassiz left the images to Harvard, and they remained in the Peabody Museum's attic until 1976, when they were rediscovered by Ellie Reichlin, a former staff member.
An elementary school, the Agassiz Elementary School in Minneapolis, Minnesota, existed from 1922 to 1981. ===Geological tributes=== An ancient glacial lake that formed in the Great Lakes region of North America, Lake Agassiz, is named after him, as are Mount Agassiz in California's Palisades, Mount Agassiz, in the Uinta Mountains of Utah, Agassiz Peak in Arizona, Agassiz Rock in Massachusetts and in his native Switzerland, the Agassizhorn in the Bernese Alps.
Baldwin School on May 21, 2002 because of concerns about Agassiz's involvement in scientific racism and to honor Maria Louise Baldwin, the African-American principal of the school, who served from 1889 to 1922.
In 2007, the Swiss government acknowledged his "racist thinking," but declined to rename the Agassizhorn summit.
Reichlin spent months doing research to try to identify the people in the photos, but Harvard University did not make efforts to contact the families and licensed the photos for use. In 2011, Tamara Lanier wrote a letter to the president of Harvard that identified herself as a direct descendant of the Taylors and asked for the return of the photos. In 2019, Taylor's descendants sued Harvard for the return of the images and unspecified damages.
In 2017, the Swiss Alpine Club declined to revoke Agassiz's status as a member of honor, which he received in 1865 for his scientific work, because the club considered this status to have lapsed on Agassiz's death.
Reichlin spent months doing research to try to identify the people in the photos, but Harvard University did not make efforts to contact the families and licensed the photos for use. In 2011, Tamara Lanier wrote a letter to the president of Harvard that identified herself as a direct descendant of the Taylors and asked for the return of the photos. In 2019, Taylor's descendants sued Harvard for the return of the images and unspecified damages.
In 2020, the Stanford Department of Psychology requested to remove a statue of Louis Agassiz from the front façade of its building.
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