The Utilization of the Scientific Reports of the United States Arctic Expeditions, 1850-1909 PDF Download

Author: John Edwards Caswell
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Arctic regions
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description

Author: P. J. Capelotti
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 0806154454
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 760

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Book Description
In Gilded Age America, Arctic explorers were fabulous celebrities—assured of riches and near-immortality so long as they reached the North Pole first. Of the many attempts to meet that goal, three American expeditions, launched from the Russian archipelago of Franz Josef Land, ended in abject failure, their exploits consigned to near-oblivion. Even so, these ventures—the Wellman expedition (1898–99), the Baldwin-Ziegler (1901–2), and the Fiala-Ziegler (1903–5)—have much to tell us about the personalities, politics, and economics of exploration in their day. In The Greatest Show in the Arctic, the first book to chronicle all three expeditions, P. J. Capelotti explores what went right and what, in the end, went tragically wrong. The cast of colorful characters from the Franz Josef Land forays included Walter Wellman, a Chicago journalist and bon vivant running from debts, his mistress, and an illegitimate daughter; Evelyn Briggs Baldwin, a deranged meteorologist with a fetish for balloons and a passion for Swedish conserves; and Anthony Fiala, a pious photographer in search of God in the Arctic. Featuring an international cast of supporting characters worthy of a three-ring circus, The Greatest Show in the Arctic follows each of the three expeditions in turn, from spectacular feats of financing to their bitter ends. Along the way, the explorers accumulated considerable geographic knowledge and left a legacy of place-names. Through close study of the expeditions’ journals, Capelotti reveals that the Franz Josef Land endeavors foundered chiefly because of poor leadership and internal friction, not for lack of funding, as historians have previously suspected. Presenting tales of noble intentions, novel inventions, and epic miscalculations, The Greatest Show in the Arctic brings fresh life to a unique and underappreciated story of American exploration.

Author: United States. Department of the Air Force
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 532

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Author: Stanford University
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Dissertations, Academic
Languages : en
Pages : 824

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Book Description

Author: Jesse John Dossick
Publisher: National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada
ISBN:
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 588

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Book Description

Author: Dartmouth College. Library
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Libraries
Languages : en
Pages : 386

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Author: Dartmouth College. Library
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Library science
Languages : en
Pages : 342

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Book Description

Author: R. Launius
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230114652
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 471

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Book Description
The International Polar Years and the International Geophysical Year represented a remarkable international collaborative scientific effort that has been largely neglected by historians. This groundbreaking collection seeks to redress that neglect and illuminate critical aspects of the last 150 years of international scientific endeavour.

Author: Arctic Institute of North America
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Arctic regions
Languages : en
Pages : 1520

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Book Description

Author: Vincent Ponko
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description
Includes chapters on Wilkes expedition to Antarctica, 1838-42, U.S. expeditions in search of Franklin, 1850-55, and expeditions in North Pacific and Bering Strait, 1852-63.