George Perkins Marsh
Marsh, 1855–1865
1stUnited States Minister toItaly
In office June 23, 1861 – July 23, 1882
President	Abraham Lincoln Andrew Johnson Ulysses S. Grant Rutherford B. Hayes James A. Garfield Chester A. Arthur
Preceded by	Diplomatic relations established
Succeeded by	William Waldorf Astor
3rdUnited States Minister Resident to the Ottoman Empire
In office March 11, 1850 – December 19, 1853
President	Zachary Taylor Millard Fillmore Franklin Pierce
Preceded by	Dabney Smith Carr
Succeeded by	Carroll Spence
Member of theU.S. House of Representatives from Vermont's3rd district
In office March 4, 1843 – May 29, 1849
Preceded by	Horace Everett
Succeeded by	James Meacham
Personal details
Born	(1801-03-15)March 15, 1801 Woodstock,Vermont, U.S.
Died	July 23, 1882(1882-07-23) (aged 81) Vallombrosa,Reggello,Kingdom of Italy
Party	Whig,Republican
Education	Dartmouth College
Signature

George Perkins Marsh (March 15, 1801 – July 23, 1882) was an American lawyer, diplomat, politician, andphilologist. After serving in theUnited States Congress in the 1840s, he went on to be a diplomat in Turkey and the firstUnited States Minister to Italy. Marsh is also considered by some to be America's firstenvironmentalist and by recognizing the irreversible impact of man's actions on the earth, a precursor to the sustainability concept,^[1] although "conservationist" would be more accurate. TheMarsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park in Vermont takes its name, in part, from Marsh. His 1864 bookMan and Nature had a great impact in many parts of the world.

George Perkins Marsh was born inWoodstock, Vermont, to a prominent family. His father,Charles Marsh, had been a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. George Marsh graduated fromPhillips Academy,Andover, Massachusetts, in 1816 and fromDartmouth College with highest honors in 1820 and taught atNorwich University the following year. He studied law inBurlington, Vermont,^[2] was admitted to the bar in 1825, and practiced law in Burlington. He also devoted himself to philological studies. In 1835 he was appointed to theExecutive Council of Vermont, and from 1843 to 1849 was aWhigrepresentative in Congress.^[3] He served as an editor ofAncient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley which was published in 1848.^[4]

In 1849 PresidentZachary Taylor appointed MarshUnited States minister resident in theOttoman Empire. He rendered valuable service to the cause of civil and religious toleration in that empire. In 1852–1853, he discharged a mission toGreece in connection with the imprisonment of American missionaryJonas King. He accomplished this task with a vigor that surprised the diplomats of Athens and showed a masterly knowledge of the Greek constitution and legislation, as well as of international law.

In 1849, Marsh was elected as a member of theAmerican Philosophical Society.^[5]

Marsh was elected a member of theAmerican Antiquarian Society in 1851.^[6]

He returned to Vermont in 1854. In 1857 he was appointed by the governor of Vermont to make a report to the legislature in regard to the artificial propagation of fish. He had previously been appointed one of the commissioners to rebuild the state house at Montpelier and in 1857 was appointed as the state railroad commissioner, succeedingCharles Linsley.

In 1861, PresidentAbraham Lincoln appointed Marsh the first United States minister to theKingdom of Italy. Marsh would go on to be the longest-servingchief of mission in U.S. history, serving as envoy for 21 years until his death atVallombrosa in 1882.^[7] He is buried at theProtestant Cemetery in Rome.

Marsh was an able linguist, able to both speak and write fluently in Swedish and over 20 other languages. He was a philologist and a scholar of great breadth, trained in military science, engraving and physics, as well asIcelandic, which was his specialty. He wrote many articles for Johnson'sUniversal Cyclopaedia, and contributed many reviews and letters toThe Nation.^[3]

He was an admirer of theGoths, whose presence he traced in whatever is great and peculiar in the character of the founders ofNew England. He owned the finest collection of Scandinavian literature outside of Scandinavia. Part of it ultimately became the property of theUniversity of Vermont, through the liberality ofFrederick Billings. During the winter of 1858/9 he began a course of thirty lectures on the English language atColumbia University, and a year later he delivered a second course, on the grammatical history ofEnglish literature, before theLowell Institute, inBoston. Marsh played a role in the creation of the first edition of theOxford English Dictionary by acting as Coordinator of the American readers.^[8]

In 1847 Marsh gave a speech^[9] to the Agricultural Society of Rutland County, Vermont, adhering to the idea that man's activities influence local and regional climate by cutting and clearing forests, and draining swamps. This was a common debate among philosophers, naturalists, and local elites on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean during the Enlightenment era, includingDavid Hume,Comte de Buffon,Thomas Jefferson,Hugh Williamson,Alexander von Humboldt,Charles Lyell, and many others in the turn of the eighteenth to the nineteenth centuries:^[10]

"Man cannot at his pleasure command the rain and the sunshine, the wind and frost and snow, yet it is certain that climate itself has in many instances been gradually changed and ameliorated or deteriorated by human action. The draining of swamps and the clearing of forests perceptibly affect the evaporation from the earth, and of course the mean quantity of moisture suspended in the air. The same causes modify the electrical condition of the atmosphere and the power of the surface to reflect, absorb and radiate the rays of the sun, and consequently influence the distribution of light and heat, and the force and direction of the winds. Within narrow limits too, domestic fires and artificial structures create and diffuse increased warmth, to an extent that may affect vegetation. The mean temperature of London is a degree or two higher than that of the surrounding country, and Pallas believed, that the climate of even so thinly a peopled country as Russia was sensibly modified by similar causes."

His bookMan and Nature (1864) constituted an early work of ecology, and played a role in the creation of theAdirondack Park. Marsh argued thatdeforestation could lead todesertification. Referring to the clearing of once-lush lands surrounding theMediterranean, he asserted "the operation of causes set in action by man has brought the face of the earth to a desolation almost as complete as that of the moon." He argued that welfare is secured as long as man manages resources and keep them in good condition. Welfare of future generations should be one ofresource management determinants.Resource scarcity is a result of misbalancing an environmental equilibrium. In other words: it comes from unreasonable human action rather than is determined by some absolute resource scarcity.^[11] He also studied the work of the Italian foresters, particularlyAdolf von Berenger and was influenced by the approaches to forest restoration. Marsh was visiting Berenger at the forestry institute in Vallombrosa at the time of his death.^[12]

• A Compendious Grammar of the Old Northern or Icelandic Language (1838), compiled and translated from the grammars ofRask
• The Camel, his Organization, Habits, and Uses, with Reference to his Introduction into the United States (1856)
• Lectures on the English Language (1860)
• The Origin and History of the English Language (1862; revised ed., 1885)
• Man and Nature (1864; Italian tr. 1872)
• The Earth as Modified by Human Action (1874; rev. ed., 1885), a largely rewritten version ofMan and Nature
• Mediaeval and Modern Saints and Miracles (1876)

He prepared an American edition ofHensleigh Wedgwood'sDictionary of English Etymology (New York, 1862), to which he made large additions and annotations. He translatedRask'sIcelandic Grammar.^[2]

His second wife, Caroline (Crane) Marsh (1816–1901), whom he married in 1839, publishedWolfe of the Knoll and other Poems (1860), and theLife and Letters of George Perkins Marsh (New York, 1888). This last work was left incomplete, the second volume never having been published. She also translated from the German ofJohann C. Biernatzki (1795–1840),The Hallig; or the Sheepfold in the Waters (1856).^[3] (See "Hallig").

Marsh actively studied and collected engravings, including EuropeanOld Master prints.^[13] His collection included more than a thousand prints by various artists, dating from the 15th to the 19th centuries, representing works byRembrandt,Albrecht Dürer,William Hogarth and others.^[14] In 1849, theSmithsonian Institution purchased a large group of Marsh's European prints and art books, which was transferred on deposit to theLibrary of Congress in 1865. During the 1880s and 1890s, the Smithsonian got some of the Marsh Collection returned, but part of it still remains at the Library of Congress.^[15]

• Environmental history of the United States

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Marsh, George Perkins".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 17 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 768.
• This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Wilson, J. G.;Fiske, J., eds. (1900)."Marsh, Charles" .Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton.

• Curtis, Jane; Will Curtis; and Frank Lieberman. (1982).The World of George Perkins Marsh. Woodstock, VT: Countryman Press.
• Dolling, Lisa M., ed.George Perkins Marsh: An American For All Seasons (Hoboken: Stevens Institute of Technology, 2013), 179 pp.
• Garvey, T. Gregory. (2009). "The Civic Intent of George Perkins Marsh’s Anthrocentric Environmentalism,"New England Quarterly82 (March), 80–111.
• Hall, Marcus, ed. (2004).The Nature of G.P. Marsh: Tradition and Historical Judgement. Special issue ofEnvironment and History10 (2).
• Linehan, Peter. "The Teacher and the Forest: The Pennsylvania Forestry Association, George Perkins Marsh, and the Origins of Conservation Education."Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies (2012) 79#4 pp: 520–536.
• Lowenthal, David. (2000).George Perkins Marsh: Prophet of Conservation. Seattle: University of Washington Press.

• Ducci, Lucia.George P. Marsh Correspondence: Images of Italy, 1861–1881 (Lexington Books, 2011)

Wikisource has the text ofThe New Student's Reference Work article about "George Perkins Marsh".

• George Perkins Marsh (1801–1882) on the website of the Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State

• United States Congress."George Perkins Marsh (id: M000147)".Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
• About George Perkins Marsh on the website of The George Perkins Marsh Institute at Clark University
• Works by George Perkins Marsh atProject Gutenberg
• Works by or about George Perkins Marsh at theInternet Archive
• National Academy of Sciences Biographical Memoir
• The Marsh Collection at The National Museum of American History

• George Perkins Marsh
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• 1882 deaths
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• Ambassadors of the United States to the Ottoman Empire
• Whig Party United States representatives from Vermont
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