Monson, Charles (Author)
Earth Sciences History: Journal of the History of the Earth Sciences Society
Volume: 31, no. 2
Issue: 2
Pages: 193-209
Louis Agassiz's public lectures in population centers on the east coast of the United States are well known, but he also took his ideas to smaller towns in the heart of the continent. These visits by `the people's naturalist' were sometimes touted by local press in these relatively young settlements as a validation of their communities' cultural sophistication. In 1864, Agassiz gave a lecture on fossil Devonian `reefs' at Iowa City, Iowa. According to local tradition, the lecture inspired so much public enthusiasm that a neighboring settlement was subsequently named Coralville. Agassiz tied the Iowa fossils to his own work on modern reefs in Florida, arguing that Devonian expansion of the North American continent had proceeded by coral growth in a manner not unlike the more recent formation of the Florida peninsula. Agassiz's coral work was a centerpiece of his public attacks on the idea of evolution, but it also served to popularize the idea that the Earth had a long history prior to the appearance of humanity.
...MoreSimilar Citations
Book
Dobbs, David;
(2005)
Reef Madness: Charles Darwin, Alexander Agassiz, and the Meaning of Coral
(/isis/citation/CBB000500280/)
Book
O'Connor, Ralph;
(2007)
The Earth on Show: Fossils and the Poetics of Popular Science, 1802--1856
(/isis/citation/CBB000830501/)
Thesis
Emma Jo Priesendorf;
(2021)
Trilobites and the Culture of Wonder in Antebellum America
(/isis/citation/CBB708237122/)
Book
Dingus, Lowell;
Norell, Mark A.;
(2010)
Barnum Brown: The Man Who Discovered Tyrannosaurus Rex
(/isis/citation/CBB001023269/)
Article
Joseph H. Hartman;
(2021)
The importance of the museum in antebellum U.S. Western Territorial exploration: Part 2. The roles of Hayden and Meek in a paradigm shift in geologic and paleontologic studies
(/isis/citation/CBB328483331/)
Article
Jordan D. II Marché;
(2019)
“Giant Birds of Old”: An 1837 poem by James Dwight Dana (?) on the supposed makers of the Connecticut Valley's fossil trackways
(/isis/citation/CBB796867178/)
Thesis
Sponsel, Alistair William;
(2009)
Coral Reef Formation and the Sciences of Earth, Life, and Sea, c. 1770--1952
(/isis/citation/CBB001561159/)
Chapter
Stefano Dominici;
Elisabetta Cioppi;
(2018)
All is not lost: History from fossils and catalogues at the Museum of Natural History, University of Florence
(/isis/citation/CBB784047995/)
Book
Michele Currie Navakas;
(2017)
Liquid Landscape: Geography and Settlement at the Edge of Early America
(/isis/citation/CBB794123640/)
Article
Brown, Barbara E.;
(2007)
The Legacy of Professor John Stanley Gardiner FRS to Reef Science
(/isis/citation/CBB000760059/)
Article
Brice, William R.;
Figueirôa, Silvia F. de M.;
(2001)
Charles Hartt, Louis Agassiz, and the Controversy over Pleistocene Glaciation in Brazil
(/isis/citation/CBB000102220/)
Book
Petraitis, Peter Steven;
(2013)
Multiple Stable States in Natural Ecosystems
(/isis/citation/CBB001421446/)
Article
Robert W. Jackson;
(2005)
Extant Approach Spans of the Dunleith and Dubuque Bridge
(/isis/citation/CBB281968075/)
Article
Jordan D. II Marché;
(2018)
Edward Hitchcock, Roderick Murchison, and rejection of the alpine glacial theory (1840-1845)
(/isis/citation/CBB113445617/)
Chapter
Jørgensen, Dolly;
(2013)
Environmentalists on Both Sides: Enactments in the California Rigs-to-Reefs Debate
(/isis/citation/CBB001420340/)
Book
Iain McCalman;
(2015)
The Reef: A Passionate History: The Great Barrier Reef from Captain Cook to Climate Change
(/isis/citation/CBB928969611/)
Book
Richard C. Carpenter;
(2013)
A Railroad Atlas of the United States, Volume 5: Iowa and Minnesota
(/isis/citation/CBB120356890/)
Article
Roberts, Jon H.;
(2011)
Louis Agassiz on Scientific Method, Polygenism, and Transmutation: A Reassessment
(/isis/citation/CBB001220635/)
Book
Richard Fallon;
(2021)
Reimagining Dinosaurs in Late Victorian and Edwardian Literature: How the ‘Terrible Lizard' Became a Transatlantic Cultural Icon
(/isis/citation/CBB569188287/)
Article
Adelman, Juliana;
(2007)
Eozoön: Debunking the Dawn Animal
(/isis/citation/CBB000850046/)
Be the first to comment!