Raoul Blanchard | |
|---|---|
| Born | 4 September 1877 Orleans, France |
| Died | 24 March 1965 (1965-03-25) (aged 87) Paris, France |
| Nationality | French |
| Occupation | Geographer |
| Known for | Father of modern geography in Québec |
| Honours | National Order of the Legion of Honor, CNRS gold medal, Broquette-Gonin prize, Charles P. Daly medal, Honorary doctorate fromLaval University |
Raoul Blanchard (4 September 1877 – 24 March 1965) was a French geographer. He taught at theUniversity of Grenoble from 1906 and devoted most of his research toAlpine andCanadian geography.
The son of an inspector of the Department of Water ofOrléans, Blanchard attended Holy Cross School and Pothier Secondary School, where he studied under the geographerLouis Gallouédec. He was admitted to theEcole Normale Superieure in 1897, he became excited by geography, which was taught byPaul Vidal de La Blache.
Blanchard received hisagrégation in 1900 and became a professor at the school ofDouai, France. He prepared a thesis on the regional geography of Flanders, which he defended in 1906 under the titleFlanders, Geographic Study of the Flemish Plain in France, Belgium, Holland.[1][2]
A few months after his successful defence, he was appointed to the Faculty of Arts of theUniversity of Grenoble. In 1907, he founded a research centre on theFrench Alps of which very little was then known. The Alpine Geography Institute was endowed in 1913, and its journal began in 1920 and became theRevue de géographie alpine (Alpine Geography Review).[1] Blanchard collaborated with the institute and its journal for 50 years, and both still exist today.
He was appointed professor in 1913 and became known as the head of geography at the University of Grenoble. One of his students there was geographerThérèse Sclafert. His 12 volumes on the French Alps are considered his chief work. He taught at the University of Grenoble until his retirement, in 1948.[1][2][3]
Blanchard was appointed an instructor atHarvard University, inMassachusetts, in 1917 and was named a full professor from 1928 to 1936, which gave him the opportunity to spend a few months a year inNorth America. In 1929, he grew interested in the geography of French-speakingCanada. Given the Francophone roots in the Canadian province ofQuebec and the facilities available there, Blanchard enjoyed researching the vast area, which had not been the subject of geographical study. Until 1960, he visited Quebec 15 times. He began to produce documents about Quebec with a strictly-geographical method.[1][3]
During his five autumn trips (1929 to 1933), he travelled to theGaspé Peninsula twice on foot and by car. He also went to the north shore of thest. Lawrence River and theNatashquan River. As a man accustomed to Europe, he was very interested in the novelty of Quebec culture. In 1930, he publishedGaspé Peninsula in his journal, the first in a long series of articles about Canada, especially Quebec.[2]
Blanchard then became a part-time lecturer in Montreal. In 1947, he agreed to found an Institute of Geography of theUniversity of Montreal, which in 1962 became the Department of Geography. The institute offered courses that took place in Gaspé,New Brunswick, andNova Scotia according to the method that had been used in his 1929 study. Blanchard was appointed the first director of the institute until illness struck, when one of his students, Pierre Dagenais, took over.
At the 1939 founding of the Geographical Society of Montreal, Blanchard was appointed honorary president, and in 1952, he became president of the Association of Geographers.
In 1958, he was elected to theAcadémie des sciences morales et politiques (Academy of Moral and Political Sciences).
In 1964, a year before his death, his last book was published at Porte de Paris, in Quebec City.
The great Quebec economic historian Albert Faucher praised Blanchard's work in Quebec by writing in 1962:
He never claimed to be an economist historian and yet, in his investigations, he never neglected the temporal dimension of the spatial phenomena he studied. His works abound in historical insights. The historian will be able to criticize it, he will never finish consulting it or quoting it. Perhaps we will say of him what Talleyrand said of Jeremy Bentham: no matter how much they plunder him, he remains rich.
Blanchard died on 24 March 1965 in Paris.[3]
He is considered the father of modern geography in Quebec.[3] To thank him for his many contributions, the Commission de Toponymie du Québec gave his name to a mountain near Quebec City reaching 1,181 m above sea level, the highest peak in theLaurentian Mountains.[2][4] In addition, the geography department of the University of Montreal honoured him by naming its largest classroom after him.
As of 2020, he is the only geographer to have received theCNRS gold medal (1960).
In 1966, the Association des Amis de l'Université de Grenoble publishedRaoul Blanchard (1877-1965): in memoriam, which contains a biography.
In the centre ofGrenoble is rue Raoul-Blanchard.
Collège Raoul-Blanchard is inAnnecy.
A spatial analysis laboratory named after him is inNice.
Since June 5, 1954, a street is named after him inKoksijde.
He wrote about 290 works covering a wide range of subjects such asFlanders, theFrench Alps, theMiddle East andNorth America (especiallyQuebec).
