Louis Agassiz | |
|---|---|
 Agassiz,c. 1865 | |
| Born | (1807-05-28)May 28, 1807 |
| Died | December 14, 1873(1873-12-14) (aged 66) Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Citizenship | United States |
| Education | University of Erlangen-Nuremberg (PhD) University of Munich |
| Known for | Ice age,Polygenism |
| Spouses | |
| Children | 3, includingAlexander andPauline |
| Awards | Wollaston Medal (1836) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | |
| Institutions | University of Neuchâtel Harvard University Cornell University |
| Doctoral advisor | Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius |
| Other academic advisors | Ignaz Döllinger,Georges Cuvier |
| Notable students | William Stimpson,William Healey Dall,Carl Vogt,[1]David Starr Jordan |
| Author abbrev. (zoology) | Agassiz, Ag., L. Ag., Agass. |
| Signature | |
 | |
Jean Louis Rodolphe AgassizFRS (For)FRSE (/ˈæɡəsi/AG-ə-see;French:[aɡasi]; May 28, 1807 – December 14, 1873) was a Swiss-born American biologist and geologist who is recognized as a scholar of Earth'snatural history.
Spending his early life inSwitzerland, he received aPhD atErlangen and a medical degree inMunich. After studying withGeorges Cuvier andAlexander von Humboldt in Paris, Agassiz was appointed professor ofnatural history at theUniversity of Neuchâtel. He emigrated to theUnited States in 1847 after visitingHarvard University. He went on to become professor of zoology and geology at Harvard, to head itsLawrence Scientific School, and to found itsMuseum of Comparative Zoology.
Agassiz is known for observational data gathering and analysis. He made institutional and scientific contributions to zoology, geology, and related areas, including multivolume research books running to thousands of pages. He is particularly known for his contributions toichthyological classification, including of extinct species such asmegalodon, and to the study ofhistorical geology, including the founding ofglaciology.
His theories on human, animal and plantpolygenism have been criticised as implicitly supportingscientific racism.
Louis Agassiz was born on May 28, 1807 inMôtier [fr], ahamlet within the municipality ofHaut-Vully (now part ofMont-Vully), in theSwiss canton ofFribourg.[2] He was the son of Louis Benjamin Rodolphe Agassiz and Rose Mayor.[3][4] His father was aProtestant clergyman, as had been his progenitors for six generations, and his mother was the daughter of aphysician and an intellectual in her own right, who had assisted her husband in the education of their children.[2] Louis Agassiz was educated at home[2] until he spent four years at secondary school inBienne, which he entered in 1818 and completed his elementary studies inLausanne. Agassiz studied at the universities ofZürich,Heidelberg andMunich. At the last one, he extended his knowledge ofnatural history, especially ofbotany. In 1829, he received the degree ofdoctor of philosophy atErlangen and, in 1830, that ofdoctor of medicine at Munich.[5] Moving to Paris, he came under the tutelage ofAlexander von Humboldt and later received his financial benevolence.[6] Humboldt andGeorges Cuvier launched him on his careers of respectively geology and zoology.[7] Ichthyology soon became a focus of Agassiz's life's work.[7]
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In 1819 to 1820, the German biologistsJohann Baptist von Spix andCarl Friedrich Philipp von Martius undertook an expedition toBrazil. They returned home to Europe with many natural objects, including an important collection of thefreshwater fish of Brazil, especially of theAmazon River. Spix, who died in 1826, likely from a tropical disease, 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. The task of describing the Brazilian fish was completed and published in 1829. It was followed by research into the history of fish found inLake Neuchâtel. Enlarging his plans, he in 1830 issued a prospectus of aHistory of the Freshwater Fish of Central Europe. In 1839, however, the first part of the publication appeared, and it was completed in 1842.[5]
In November 1832, Agassiz was appointed professor of natural history at theUniversity 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.[8] Thefossil fish in the rock of the surrounding region, theslates ofGlarus and thelimestones of MonteBolca, soon attracted his attention. At the time, very little had been accomplished in their scientific study. Agassiz as early as 1829, planned the publication of a work. More than any other, it would lay the foundation of his worldwide fame. Five volumes of hisRecherches sur les poissons fossiles (Research on Fossil Fish) were published from 1833 to 1843. They were magnificently illustrated, chiefly byJoseph Dinkel.[9] In gathering materials for that work, Agassiz visited the principal museums in Europe. Meeting Cuvier in Paris, he received much encouragement and assistance from him.[5]
In 1833, he married Cecile Braun, the sister of his friendAlexander Braun and established his household atNeuchâtel. Trained to scientific drawing by her brothers, his wife was of the greatest assistance to Agassiz, with some of the most beautiful plates infossil andfreshwater fishes being drawn by her.[8]
Agassiz found that his palaeontological analyses required a new ichthyological classification. The fossils that he examined rarely showed any traces of the soft tissues of fish but instead, consisted chiefly of the teeth, scales, and fins, with the bones being perfectly preserved in comparatively few instances. He therefore adopted a classification that divided fish into four groups (ganoids, placoids, cycloids, and ctenoids), based on the nature of the scales and other dermal appendages. That did much to improve fishtaxonomy, but Agassiz's classification has since been superseded.[5]
With Louis de Coulon, both father and son, he founded theSocieté des Sciences Naturelles, of which he was the first secretary and in conjunction with the Coulons also arranged a provisional museum of natural history in the orphan's home.[8] Agassiz needed financial support to continue his work. TheBritish Association and theEarl of Ellesmere, thenLord Francis Egerton, stepped in to help. The 1290 original drawings made for the work were purchased by the Earl and presented by him to theGeological Society of London. In 1836, theWollaston Medal was awarded to Agassiz by the council of that society for his work on fossil ichthyology. In 1838, he was elected a foreign member of theRoyal Society. Meanwhile,invertebrate animals engaged his attention. In 1837, he issued the "Prodrome" of a monograph on the recent and fossilEchinodermata, the first part of which appeared in 1838; in 1839–1840, he published two quarto volumes on the fossil echinoderms of Switzerland; and in 1840–1845, he issued hisÉtudes critiques sur les mollusques fossiles (Critical Studies on Fossil Mollusks).[5]
Before Agassiz's first visit to England in 1834,Hugh Miller and other geologists had brought to light the remarkable fossil fish of theOld Red Sandstone of the northeast of Scotland. The strange forms ofPterichthys,Coccosteus, and other genera were then made known to geologists for the first time. They were of intense interest to Agassiz and formed the subject of a monograph by him published in 1844–1845: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).[5]
In 1838,Frederick William III of Prussia founded theNeuchâtel Academy which owes its birth to the impetus of Louis Agassiz. The young scholar endowed with exceptional charisma was recruited by the authorities of thePrincipality of Neuchâtel as early as 1832.[10] In the early stages of his career in Neuchatel, Agassiz also made a name for himself as a man who could run a scientific department well. Under his care, the University of Neuchâtel soon became a leading institution for scientific inquiry.[11]
From 1836 onwards, Agassiz became increasingly interested in glaciers. At a time when Swissglaciers were still advancing, the hypothesis of an extensive pastglaciation emerged in scientific circles. On 24 July 1837, in his speech at the annual meeting of theSwiss Academy of Natural Sciences in Neuchâtel, which he chaired, he presented this new theory, although a lecture on fossil fish was expected. To support theIce Age theory, he traveled theAlps in search of traces of previous glacial movements. The research conducted on theUnteraargletscher between 1840 and 1845 was groundbreaking. At that time, his companions added theAgassizhorn to thelist of mountains of Switzerland named after people.[11]
In 1842 to 1846, Agassiz issued hisNomenclator Zoologicus, a classification list with references of all names used in zoological genera and groups.[12] He was elected as a member of theAmerican Philosophical Society in 1843.[13] After his departure for the United States, his strong commitment to the public dissemination of knowledge and to the defense ofwomen's education would play a decisive role in the affirmation of science in America.[10]
The vacation of 1836 was spent by Agassiz and his wife in the little village ofBex, where he metJean de Charpentier andIgnaz Venetz. Their recently announcedglacial theories had startled the scientific world, and Agassiz returned to Neuchâtel as an enthusiastic convert.[14] In 1837, Agassiz proposed that the Earth had been subjected to a pastice age.[15] He presented the theory to theHelvetic Society that ancient glaciers flowed outward from the Alps, and even larger glaciers had covered the plains and mountains of Europe, Asia, and North America and smothered the entireNorthern Hemisphere in a prolonged ice age. In the same year, he was elected a foreign member of theRoyal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Before that proposal,Goethe,de Saussure, Ignaz Venetz, Jean de Charpentier,Karl Friedrich Schimper, and others had studied theglaciers of the Alps, and Goethe,[16] Charpentier, and Schimper[15] had even concluded that theerratic blocks of alpine rocks scattered over the slopes and summits of theJura Mountains had been moved there by glaciers. Those ideas attracted the attention of Agassiz, and he discussed them with Charpentier and Schimper, whom he accompanied on successive trips to the Alps. Agassiz even had a hut constructed upon one of theAar Glaciers and for a time made it his home to investigate the structure and movements of the ice.[5]
Agassiz visited England, and withWilliam Buckland, the only English naturalist who shared his ideas, made a tour of theBritish Isles in search of glacial phenomena, and became satisfied that his theory of an ice age was correct.[14] In 1840, Agassiz published a two-volume work,Études sur les glaciers ("Studies on Glaciers").[17] In it, he discussed the movements of the glaciers, theirmoraines, and their influence in grooving and rounding the rocks and in producing the striations androches moutonnées seen in Alpine-style landscapes. He accepted Charpentier and Schimper's idea that some of the alpine glaciers had extended across the wide plains and valleys of theAar andRhône, but he went further by concluding that in the recent past, Switzerland had been covered with one vast sheet of ice originating in the higher Alps and extending over the valley of northwestern Switzerland to the southern slopes of the Jura. The publication of the work gave fresh impetus to the study of glacial phenomena in all parts of the world.[18]
Familiar then with recent glaciation, Agassiz and the English geologist William Buckland visited the mountains of Scotland in 1840. There, they found clear evidence in different locations of glacial action. The discovery was announced to the Geological Society of London in successive communications. The mountainous districts of England,Wales, andIreland were understood to have been centres for the dispersion of glacial debris. Agassiz remarked "that great sheets of ice, resembling those now existing inGreenland, once covered all the countries in which unstratified gravel (boulder drift) is found; that this gravel was in general produced by thetrituration of the sheets of ice upon the subjacent surface, etc."[19]
In his later years, Agassiz applied his glacial theories to the geology of the Brazilian tropics, including the Amazon. Agassiz began with a working hypothesis which could be tested by the results of fieldwork to find either inconclusive, or conclusively supporting or refuting evidence. A hypothesis that can be conclusively refuted is better than a hypothesis that is difficult to test. Agassiz had a close association with his student and field assistant, the geologistCharles Hartt who eventually refuted Agassiz's theories about the Amazon based on his fieldwork there. Instead of evidence for any glacial processes, he found chemically weathered sediments from marine and tropical fluvial, not glacial, processes, a finding that later geologists confirmed.[20] Agassiz hypothesis that the Amazon was affected by theLast Glacial Maximum (LGM) was correct, although the mechanism causing the effect was non-glacial. The Amazon rainforest was split into two large blocks by extensive savanna during the LGM.
With the aid of a grant of money from theking of Prussia, Agassiz crossed theAtlantic in the autumn of 1846 to investigate the natural history and geology of North America and to deliver a course of lectures on "The Plan of Creation as shown in the Animal Kingdom"[21] by invitation fromJohn Amory Lowell, at theLowell Institute inBoston,Massachusetts. The financial offers that were presented to him in theUnited States induced him to settle there, where he remained to the end of his life.[19] He was elected a foreign honorary member of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1846.[22]
In 1846, still married to Cecilie, who remained with their three children in Switzerland, Agassiz metElizabeth Cabot Cary at a dinner. The two developed a romantic attachment, and when his wife died in 1848, they made plans to marry. The ceremony took place on April 25, 1850, in Boston, Massachusetts atKing's Chapel. Agassiz brought his children to live with them, and Elizabeth raised and developed close relationships with her step-children. She had no children of her own.[23]
Agassiz had a mostly cordial relationship with the Harvard botanistAsa Gray despite their disagreements.[24] Agassiz believed each human race had been separately created,[25] but Gray, a supporter ofCharles Darwin, believed in the shared evolutionary ancestry of all humans.[26] In addition, Agassiz was a member of theScientific 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 theLowell Institute lectures precipitated the establishment in 1847 of theLawrence Scientific School at Harvard University, with Agassiz as its head.[27] Harvard appointed him professor of zoology and geology, and he founded theMuseum of Comparative Zoology there in 1859 and served as its first director until his death in 1873. During his tenure at Harvard, Agassiz studied the effect of the last ice age in North America.[20] In his "Contributions to the Natural History of the United States,"[28] he critically examined Darwin's theory of evolution. He believed that God created new life after each ice age and that it was the responsibility of naturalists to understand this plan of creation.[20][11] By defending this view, he gained the favor of the American readership.[29] In August 1857, Agassiz was offered the chair of palaeontology in theMuseum of Natural History, Paris, which he refused. He was later decorated with theCross of the Legion of Honor.[30]
Agassiz continued his lectures for the Lowell Institute. In succeeding years, he gave lectures on "Ichthyology" (1847–1848), "Comparative Embryology" (1848–1849), "Functions of Life in Lower Animals" (1850–1851), "Natural History" (1853–1854), "Methods of Study in Natural History" (1861–1862), "Glaciers and the Ice Period" (1864–1865), "Brazil" (1866–1867), and "Deep SeaDredging" (1869–1870).[31] In 1850, he had married Elizabeth Cabot Cary, who later wrote introductory books about natural history and a lengthy biography of her husband after he had died.[32]
Agassiz served as a nonresident lecturer atCornell University while he was also on faculty at Harvard.[33] In 1852, he accepted a medical professorship ofcomparative anatomy atCharlestown, Massachusetts, but he resigned in two years.[19] From then on, Agassiz's scientific studies dropped off, but he became one of the best-known scientists in the world. By 1857, Agassiz was so well-loved that his friendHenry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote "The Fiftieth Birthday of Agassiz" in his honor and read it at a dinner given for Agassiz by theSaturday Club inCambridge.[19] Agassiz's own writing continued with four (of a planned 10) volumes ofNatural History of the United States, published from 1857 to 1862. He also published a catalog of papers in his field,Bibliographia Zoologiae et Geologiae, in four volumes between 1848 and 1854.[34][35][36][37]
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 April 1865, he led theThayer Expedition to Brazil. While there, he commissioned two photographers,Augusto Stahl andGeorges Leuzinger, to accompany the expedition and produce somatological images of Indigenous people and enslaved Africans and Black people.[38] After his return in August 1866, an account of the expedition,A Journey in Brazil,[39] was published in 1868. In December 1871, he made a second eight-month excursion, known as theHassler expedition under the command of CommanderPhilip Carrigan Johnson (the brother ofEastman Johnson) and visited South America on its southern Atlantic and Pacific Seaboards. The ship explored theMagellan Strait, which drew the praise ofCharles Darwin.[40]
Following the establishment of the first U.S.Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in New York City in 1866, Agassiz was called on to help settle disputes about animal behavior. He deemed the way turtles were shipped caused them suffering, whileP.T. Barnum argued with Agassiz' support that his snakes would eat only live animals.[41]
His second wife,Elizabeth Cary Agassiz, assisted him in preparing hisA Journey in Brazil. Along with her stepson,Alexander Agassiz, she wroteSeaside Studies in Natural History andMarine Animals of Massachusetts.[30] Elizabeth wrote at the Strait that "theHassler pursued her course, past a seemingly endless panorama of mountains and forests rising into the pale regions of snow and ice, where lay glaciers in which every rift and crevasse, as well as the many cascades flowing down to join the waters beneath, could be counted as she steamed by them.... These were weeks of exquisite delight to Agassiz. The vessel often skirted the shore so closely that its geology could be studied from the deck."[42]
From his first marriage to Cecilie Braun, Agassiz had two daughters, Ida andPauline, and a son,Alexander.[43]In 1863, Agassiz's daughter Ida marriedHenry Lee Higginson, who later founded theBoston Symphony Orchestra and was a benefactor to Harvard and other schools. On November 30, 1860, Agassiz's daughterPauline was married toQuincy Adams Shaw (1825–1908), a wealthy Boston merchant and later a benefactor to the BostonMuseum of Fine Arts.[44] Pauline Agassiz Shaw later became a prominent educator, suffragist, and philanthropist.[45]
In the last years of his life, Agassiz worked to establish a permanent school in which zoological science could be pursued amid the living subjects of its study. In 1873, the private philanthropist John Anderson gave Agassiz the island ofPenikese, inBuzzards Bay, Massachusetts (south ofNew 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.[19] The school collapsed soon after Agassiz's death but is considered to be a precursor of the nearby Woods HoleMarine Biological Laboratory.[46]
Agassiz had a profound influence on the American branches of his two fields and taught many future scientists who would go on to prominence, includingAlpheus Hyatt,David Starr Jordan,Joel Asaph Allen,Joseph Le Conte,Ernest Ingersoll,William James,Charles Sanders Peirce,Orestes St. John,Nathaniel Shaler,Samuel Hubbard Scudder,Alpheus Packard, and his sonAlexander Emanuel Agassiz. He had a profound impact on the paleontologistCharles Doolittle Walcott and the natural scientistEdward S. Morse. Agassiz had a reputation for being a demanding teacher. He would allegedly "lock a student up in a room full of turtle-shells, or lobster-shells, or oyster-shells, without a book or a word to help him, and not let him out till he had discovered all the truths which the objects contained."[47] Two of Agassiz's most prominent students detailed their personal experiences under his tutelage: Scudder, in a short magazine article forEvery Saturday,[48] andShaler, in hisAutobiography.[49] Those and other recollections were collected and published by Lane Cooper in 1917,[50] which Ezra Pound would draw on for his anecdote ofAgassiz and the sunfish.[51]
In the early 1840s, Agassiz named two fossil fish species afterMary Anning (Acrodus anningiae andBelenostomus anningiae) and another after her friend,Elizabeth Philpot. Anning was a paleontologist known around the world for important finds, but because of her gender, she was often not formally recognized for her work. Agassiz was grateful for the help that the women gave him in examining fossil fish specimens during his visit toLyme Regis in 1834.[52]
Agassiz died inCambridge, Massachusetts, in 1873 and was buried on the Bellwort Path atMount Auburn Cemetery,[53] joined later by his wife. His monument is a boulder from aglacial moraine of the Aar near the site of the oldHôtel des Neuchâtelois [nl], not far from the spot where his hut once stood. His grave is sheltered by pine trees from his old home in Switzerland.[19]
The Cambridge elementary school north of Harvard University was named in his honor, and the surrounding neighborhood became known as "Agassiz" as a result. The school's name was changed to the Maria L. Baldwin School on May 21, 2002, because of concerns about Agassiz's involvement in scientific racism and to honorMaria Louise Baldwin, the African-American principal of the school, who served from 1889 to 1922.[54][55] The neighborhood, however, continued to be known as Agassiz.[56]c. 2009, neighborhood residents decided to rename the neighborhood's community council as the "Agassiz-Baldwin Community".[57] Then, in July 2021, culminating a two-year effort on the part of neighborhood residents, the Cambridge City Council voted unanimously to change the name to the Baldwin Neighborhood.[58] An elementary school, the Agassiz Elementary School inMinneapolis, Minnesota, existed from 1922 to 1981.[59]
An ancientglacial lake that formed in central North America,Lake Agassiz, is named after him, as areMount Agassiz inCalifornia's Palisades,Mount Agassiz in theUinta Mountains of Utah,Agassiz Peak in Arizona,Agassiz Rock in Massachusetts, and theAgassizhorn in the Bernese Alps in his native Switzerland.Agassiz Glacier in Montana, Agassiz Creek inGlacier National Park,Agassiz Glacier in theSaint Elias Mountains of Alaska, andMount Agassiz in theWhite Mountains of New Hampshire also bear his name. Acrater onMars,Crater Agassiz,[60] and a promontorium on the moon are also named in his honor.Cape Agassiz, a headland situated inPalmer Land,Antarctica, is named in his honor. Amain-beltasteroid,2267 Agassiz, is also named in association with him.
Several animal species are named in honor of him, including
and the most well-known,
In 2005, theEuropean Geosciences Union Division on Cryospheric Sciences established the Louis Agassiz Medal, awarded to individuals in recognition of their outstanding scientific contribution to the study of thecryosphere on Earth or elsewhere in theSolar System.[63]
Agassiz took part in a monthly gathering called theSaturday Club at theParker House, a meeting of Boston writers and intellectuals. He was therefore mentioned in a stanza of theOliver Wendell Holmes Sr. poem "At the Saturday Club:"
There, at the table's further end I see
In his old place our Poet's vis-à-vis,
The great PROFESSOR, strong, broad-shouldered, square,
In life's rich noontide, joyous, debonair
...
How will her realm be darkened, losing thee,
Her darling, whom we call our AGASSIZ!
In 1850, Agassiz commissioneddaguerreotypes, which were described as "haunting and voyeuristic" of the enslavedRenty Taylor and Taylor's daughter, Delia, to further his arguments about black inferiority.[64] They are the earliest known photographs of enslaved persons.[65][66][64][67] 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.[68][69] The 15 daguerrotypes were in a case with the embossing "J. T. Zealy, Photographer, Columbia," with several handwritten labels, which helped in later identification.[69] 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.[69][70]
In 2011, Tamara Lanier wrote a letter to the president of Harvard that identified herself as a direct descendant of the Taylors and asked the university to turn over the photos to her.[70][71]
In 2019, Taylor's descendants sued Harvard for the return of the images and unspecified damages.[72] The lawsuit was supported by 43 living descendants of Agassiz, who wrote in a letter of support, "For Harvard to give the daguerreotypes to Ms. Lanier and her family would begin to make amends for its use of the photos as exhibits for thewhite supremacist theory Agassiz espoused." Everyone must evaluate fully "his role in promoting a pseudoscientific justification for white supremacy."[65]Settlement of the lawsuit was announced in May 2025. All of the Agassiz-Zealy daguerrotypes are expected to be transferred to a museum of African-American history in South Carolina (none go to Ms. Lanier personally), and Harvard is to pay an undisclosed monetary sum to Ms. Lanier for her emotional distress.[73]
Aggasiz-Zeally Gallery
![Delia (Born America); daughter of Renty on B.F. Taylor Plantation, Columbia South Carolina [Picture # 1]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=https%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aDelia1850FrontPortrait.jpg)
![Delia daughter of Renty on B.F. Taylor Plantation, Columbia South Carolina [Picture # 2]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=https%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aSlave_Portrait_Agassiz_Zealy_Woman_Side_Bust_2.jpg)
![Jack of Guinea, a slave driver on B.F. Taylor Plantation, Columbia South Carolina [Picture # 1]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=https%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aJackGuineaProfileSlavePortrait.jpg)
![Jack of Guinea, a slave driver on B.F. Taylor Plantation, Columbia South Carolina [Picture # 2]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=https%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aJack1850FrontZealy.jpg)
![Drana daughter of Jack on B.F. Taylor Plantation, Columbia South Carolina [Picture # 1]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=https%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aDrana_(frontal_portrait).jpg)
![Drana daughter of Jack on B.F. Taylor Plantation, Columbia South Carolina [Picture # 2]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=https%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aDrana_(profile_view).jpg)
![Fassena a mandingo Carpender on Wade Hampton Plantation, South Carolina[Note a full face picture can be found at https://saa3dm.org/2021/11/16/1850]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=https%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aSlave_Portrait_Agassiz_Zealy_Man_Side_Bust_2.jpg)
!["Jem. A Gullah..B.W. Green Plantation [See American Heritage June 1977 "Faces of Slavery"]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=https%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aSlave_Portrait_Agassiz_Zealy_Man_Standing_Back.jpg)
Agassiz was a well-known natural scientist of his generation in America.[75] In addition to being a natural scientist, Agassiz wrote prolifically in the field of scientificpolygenism after he came to the United States.
Upon arriving in Boston in 1846, Agassiz spent a few months acquainting himself with the northeast region of the United States.[76] He spent much of his time withSamuel George Morton, a famous American anthropologist at the time who became well known by analyzing fossils brought back by Lewis and Clark.[77] One of Morton’s personal projects involved studying cranial capacity of human skulls from around the world. Morton aimed to usecraniometry to prove that white people were biologically superior to other races. His work "Crania Aegyptiaca" claimed to support the polygenism belief that the races were created separately and each had their own unique attributes.[78]
Morton relied on other scientists to send him skulls along with information about where they were acquired. Factors that can affect cranial capacity, such as body size and gender, were not taken into consideration by Morton.[77] He made questionable judgment calls such as dismissing Hindu skull calculations from his Caucasian cranial measurements because they brought the overall average down. Oppositely, he included Peruvian skull measurements alongside Native American calculations even though the Peruvian numbers lowered the average score. Despite Morton's unsound methods, his published work on cranial capacities across races was deemed authoritative in the United States and Europe. Morton is a primary influence on Agassiz's belief in polygenism.[77]
John Amory Lowell invited Agassiz to present twelve lectures in December 1846 on three subjects titled "The Plan of Creation as shown in the Animal Kingdom,Ichthyology, andComparative Embryology" as a part of the Lowell Lecture series. These lectures were widely attended with up to 5,000 people in attendance on some nights.[79] It was during these lectures that Agassiz announced for the first time that black and white people had different origins but were part of the same species.[77] Agassiz repeated this lecture 10 months later to the Charleston Literary Club but changed his original stance, claiming that black people were physiologically and anatomically a distinct species.[77]
Agassiz believed that humans did not descend from one single common ancestor. He believed that like plants and animals, various regions have differentiated species of humans.[76] He considered this hypothesis testable, and matched to the available evidence. He also indicated that there were obvious geographical barriers that were the likely cause of speciation.
Stephen Jay Gould asserted that Agassiz's observations sprang from racist bias, in particular from his revulsion on first encountering African-Americans in the United States.[80] Referencing letters written by Agassiz, Gould compares Agassiz' public display of dispassionate objectivity to his private correspondence, in which he describes "the production of half breeds" as "a sin against nature..." Describing the interbreeding of white and black people, he warns, "We have already had to struggle, in our progress, against the influence of universal equality... but how shall we eradicate the stigma of a lower race when its blood has once been allowed to flow freely into our children." In contrast, others have asserted that, despite favoring polygenism, Agassiz rejected racism and believed in a spiritualized human unity. However, in the same article, Agassiz asks the reader to consider the hierarchy of races, mentioning "The indomitable, courageous, proud Indian, – in how very different a light he stands by the side of the submissive, obsequious, imitative negro, or by the side of the tricky, cunning, and cowardly Mongolian! Are not these facts indications that the different races do not rank upon one level in nature?"
HistorianMoses Finley considered that the advent ofdemocracy and the development ofslavery were closely linked inancient Greece. This connection, which is questioned, had provided Americanslaveholders with an argument for maintaining slavery during theAmerican Civil War.[81] Agassiz never supported slavery and claimed his views on polygenism had nothing to do with politics.[77] However, his views on polygenism have emboldened proponents ofsegregationism.[82] During the Civil War, Agassiz advocated for the liberation of slaves. However, his goal was to prevent anymiscegenation. Only strict separation would prevent inexperienced or morally weak white masters from succumbing (Agassiz here transforms the victims into culprits) to the supposed lasciviousness of their black servants and producingmixed-race children.[82] Indeed, following the ban on transporting and importating slaves into America in 1807, there were very few pure Africans left, as many black women had been sexually assaulted and raped by their masters.[67] UnlikeAbraham Lincoln, who envisioned repatriating people of African descent to their continent, Agassiz believed their presence in America was irreversible. According to him, the liberation of slaves should be accompanied by strict legal provisions guaranteeingracial segregation to avoid "crossbreedings" which, according to him, risked giving birth to less fertile individuals. He envisioned geographic segregation between the northern and southern United States. Agassiz, like other proponents of so-calledscientific racism, played a pioneering role in the development of systematic racial segregation.[82][83]
Accusations of racism and segregationism against Agassiz have prompted the renaming of landmarks, schoolhouses, and other institutions (which abound in Massachusetts) that bear his name. Opinions about those moves are often mixed, given his extensive scientific legacy in other areas, his racism has long been overshadowed in favor of his brilliant research in the natural sciences. In 2007, theSt. Gallen historianHans Fässler took advantage of the 200th anniversary of Agassiz's birth to uncover the scientist's dark side and created an international committee "Demounting Louis Agassiz" whose objective was to rename places named after the Swiss scientist in order to send a clear signal against racism.[84] In 2007 and 2015, theSwiss government acknowledged his "racist thinking", but declined to rename theAgassizhorn summit Rentyhorn,[82][84] despiteCarlo Sommaruga advocated that such change had already been made in Switzerland when, at the request of Parliament, the Federal Council had decided, in January 1863,[85] to rename theHighest Peak in Switzerland "Pointe Dufour" in honor of the SwissGeneral andtopographerGuillaume Henri Dufour.[83][86] After theSonderbund War, the country pacified by Dufour had adopted a newSwiss Federal Constitution, inspired by theConstitution of the United States,[87] founding thefederal state in 1848.[88] In 2017, theSwiss 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 that removing Louis Agassiz from the list of former honorary members would be to falsify history.[89] Racism was first analyzed in Switzerland by the African-American writerJames Baldwin during his 1953 visit toLeukerbad. He described it as a "naive" belief in the superiority of white culture and "race," which—unlike in the United States—did not reveal its violent side due to a lack of direct contact with enslaved orcolonized people. Since the 1960s, intellectuals and researchers have taken a closer look atantisemitism andxenophobia in Switzerland.[90] In June 2019,Neuchâtel changed the name of Espace Louis-Agassiz, near the Faculty of Letters of theUniversity of Neuchâtel area, to EspaceTilo-Frey.[91] She was the first person of African descent elected to theNational Council, in 1971, the year that Swiss voters approved giving women theright to vote and to stand for office in areferendum.[92][93] In 2020, theStanford Department of Psychology asked for astatue of Louis Agassiz to be removed from the front façade of its building. When another statue, that ofBaronDavid de Pury, became a source of debate in Switzerland, the authorities in Neuchâtel opted to install a plaque and launched an artistic contest to create a work that interacted with the statue and its past. An international jury presided byPap Ndiaye selected Genevan artist Mathias Pfund's sculptureGreat in the Concrete, inspired by the 1906 fall of Agassiz’s statue with head buried in concrete.[94][95] In 2021, Chicago Public Schools announced they would remove Agassiz's name from an elementary school and rename it for theabolitionist and political activist,Harriet Tubman. In 2022,The Trustees of Reservations renamed Agassiz Rock asThe Monoliths.[96]
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This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Woodward, Horace Bolingbroke (1911). "Agassiz, Jean Louis Rodolphe". InChisholm, Hugh (ed.).Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 1 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 367–368.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Johnson, Rossiter, ed. (1906). "Agassiz, Jean Louis Rudolphe".The Biographical Dictionary of America. Vol. 1. Boston: American Biographical Society. pp. 60–64.A collection of Louis Agassiz's professional and personal life is conserved inthe State Archives of Neuchâtel.
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