Mark Jefferson, 1863–1949

Bibliographic Data

ID8375764
AuthorsS S Visher (corresponding author)
Year1949
Volume39
Issue4
Pages307-312
Publication date1949-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueAnnals of the Association of American Geographers (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0004-5608 • E-ISSN: 1467-8306
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/00045604909352016
OpenAlexW1982591333
LanguageEN
References cited15

P ROFESSOR MARK JEFFERSON, charter member of the Association of American Geographers, vice president in 1910, and president in 1916, died August 8, 1949 in his 87th year. Professor Jefferson, for almost forty years in charge of geography at the State Normal College at Ypsilanti, Michigan, made a notable contribution to the development of geography in the United States. His influence was exerted partly through many worthy articles, notes, and reviews and several exceptionally stimulating articles, and partly through his success as a teacher. During his earlier years at Ypsilanti he started on their geographic careers three men who later became presidents of the Association of American Geographers and two others who have risen high in the Association.1 Three have received the Distinguished Service to Geography Award of the National Council of Geography Teachers. This disciple record is better than that of any other college. Indeed, few major universities with departments of geography and with large numbers of students, fine equipment, and graduate school opportunities have approached that record, of starting in geography as many men who subsequently rose high in the profession. Professor Jefferson's life may be divided into five periods. Until he was twenty, he lived in a suburb of Boston. He entered Boston University at the age of 17, and studied chiefly languages (at twenty he could read six) and astronomy. Early in his senior year he was invited to become an assistant astronomer at the National Astronomical Observatory, Cordoba, Argentina. His acceptance marked the beginning of the second period of his life, 1883-1889. Jefferson spent nearly six years in South America. This period was highly significant in his development. He enjoyed and appreciated the South Americans, and acquired knowledge of their life which helped to prepare him for later geographic work. His Argentine experiences included three years as a submanager of a sugar estate. Between sugar harvests, he returned once to Boston and completed, in two months and partly by examinations, the work for the A.B. degree. The degree was conferred by Boston University in 1889. Jefferson's travels during this period took him to Chile and Brazil, to Europe, and to North Africa. The third period was 1890-1901. This time was spent largely in high school teaching in Massachusetts. However, two years and two summers, 1892 and 1896, were devoted to study at Harvard University. From that institution, Jefferson received the A.B. degree in 1897 and the M.A. in 1898. Jefferson first became acquainted with William Morris Davis in 1892. Davis effectively stimulated him to become a geographer, and aided him otherwise. (Davis had held, a dozen years 1 Isaiah Bowman, Charles C. Colby, A. E. Parkins, D. H. Davis, R. R. Platt; George J. Miller had his first course in geography as a student of Jefferson's at the University of Michigan in the summer of 1903

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