ATWOOD, WALLACE WALTER

(b. Chicago, Illinois, 1 October 1872; d. Annisquam, Massachusetts, 24 July 1949)

geography, geomorphology. geology.

Atwood was the son of Adelaide Adelia Richards Atwood and Thomas Green Atwood, the owner of a planing mill and a descendant of an old Massachusetts family. He entered the University of Chicago in December 1892 and received the bachelor’s degree in 1897. At Chicago he came under the strong influence of Rollin D, Salisbury and T. C Chamberlin. His academic work under these scholars led to his distinguished and varied career as a Rocky Mountain geologist for the U.S. Geological Survey, an exceptionally talented teacher, president of Clark University in Worcester. Massachusetts, and founder and director of that institution’s Graduate School of Geography. Atwood also was author or coauthor of numerous geography textbooks for students ranging in age from grammar school through college. On 22 September 1900 he married Harriet Towle Bradley; they had two daughters and two sons. The latter, Rollin and Wallace, Jr., became a glaciologist and a geologist, respectively.

A member of numerous professional societies, Atwood was a fellow of the Geological Society of America, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Antiquarian Society. He also was president of the National Parks Association, the National Council of Geography Teachers, and the Pan-American Institute of Geography and History.

Atwood was a true conservationist and environmentalist. His consistent philosophy regarding the significance of geography is clearly articulated in his presidential address to the Association of American Geographers in 1935. He felt that the task of the geographer was to sensitize schoolchildren, teachers, college and university students, government officials, and businessmen to the importance of geographical conditions, and to explain the economic and social setting of human activity, He slated, “Nature has determined through the variety in soils, in landscapes, in climate, and in peoples, the interdependence of one part of the earth upon another and of one people upon the activities of another,” He stressed the importance of geographical understanding for “the establishment of goodwill [sic] among the peoples of the earth” and thus as part of a peaceful solution to world problems.

Atwood also was a strong advocate of the protection and wise use of natural resources, and he developed a deep commitment to the National Park System from its earliest days. Throughout his career he demonstrated the vital role that science must have in establishing public policy. He taught that man does not conquer nature, but “He may discover the laws of nature and accomplish better and better adjustments to the natural conditions of this earth.” This theme was lost sight of for nearly three decades, until the strong environmental movement caused a reawakening in the middle 1960’s.

Atwood’s strong belief in the need for field observation is clearly evident in his classic geologic study with Kirtley F. Mather on the San Juan Mountains (1932). In this work he describes his own extensive fieldwork and explains the mountains and scenery in terms of the sequence of events in the physiographic history of the region that produced the particular environment. Indeed, he had the opportunity to do extensive fieldwork throughout his life. Even before he received his doctorate from the University of Chicago in 1903, Atwood had worked with the New Jersey Geological Survey, the Wisconsin State Geological Survey, and the Illinois State Geological Survey, and had begun his long association with the U.S. Geological Survey (1901–1946). Atwood began his academic career in 1903 as instructor in physiography and general geology. He had risen to the rank of associate professor by 1913, when he succeeded William Morris Davis as professor of physiography at Harvard. While at Harvard, Atwood continued training students in physiography and began the preparation of his geography textbooks. He remained at Harvard until he was appointed president of Clark University in 1920, with the primary responsibility of developing the Graduate School of Geography and becoming its director. Under his directorship, that school became a world center of excellence at which many leaders in the field obtained their graduate training. In 1946, after being named president emeritus of Clark University, he continued his interest in world travel and geologic studies of the Rocky Mountains. He died of cancer at his summer home and is buried at Cambridge, Massachusetts.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Original Works. A bibliography of Atwood’s works, prepared by George B. Cresses, is in Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 39 , no. 4 (1949), 296–306. Some of his principal works are “Physical Geography of the Evanston-Waukegan Region” in Illinois State Geological Survey Bulletin, 7 (1908), written with James W. Goklthwait: “The Interpretation of Topographic Maps,” U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper no. 60 (1908), written with Rollin D Salisbury; “Glaciation of the Uinta and Wasatch Mountains,” ibid., no, 61 (1909); “Mineral Resources of Southwestern Alaska,” in U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin no. 379 (1990), 108–152; “Geology and Mineral Resources of Parts of the Alaska Peninsula,” U. S. Geological Surves Bulletin no. 467 (1911); New Geography; Book II (Boston. 1920); Home Life in Far-away Lands (Boston. 1928), written with Helen G. Thomas, who was coauthor of a number of other textbooks.

Other works include “Physiography and Quaternary Geology of the San Juan Mountains, Colorado,” U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper no. 166 (1932), written with Kirtley F. Mather; The Physiographic Provinces of North America (Boston, 1940); The Rocky Mountains (New York, 1945); and Our Economic World (Boston, 1948), written with Ruth E. Pitt.

II Secondary Literature. There is no critical biographical study of Atwood, but additional information about his life is in Kirtley F. Mather, “Memorial to Wallace Walter Atwood,” in Proceedings of the Geological Society of America (1949), 106–112. A later, somewhat anecdotal biography is William A. Koelsch. “Atwood, Wallace Walter,” in Dictionary of American Biography. Supp. 4 (1974), 31–33. Another biography by Koelsch, with a good bibliography and an outline of Atwood’s career, is “Wallace Walter Atwood, 1872–1949,” in Geographers Biobibliographical Studies, 3 (1979), 13 -18.

William Back