Jump to content

Edmund Otis Hovey

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Edmund Otis Hovey
BornSeptember 15, 1862 (1862-09-15)
New Haven, Connecticut, US
DiedSeptember 27, 1924 (1924-09-28) (aged 62)
Alma materYale University
Scientific career
FieldsGeology
InstitutionsAmerican Museum of Natural History
Doctoral advisorJames Dwight Dana
Samuel Lewis Penfield
Signature

Edmund Otis Hovey (September 15, 1862 – September 27, 1924) was an American geologist specialising in volcanoes, earthquakes and meteorites. He made his greatest impact as curator of geology at the American Museum of Natural History.[1][2][3]

Early life and career

[edit]

Hovey was born in New Haven, Connecticut and he began studying geology through the amateur interests of his father — the Rev. Horace Carter Hovey, a Presbyterian minister. The family travelled throughout Hovey's teens exposing him to a range of landscapes across the United States. He first studied at Yale University before becoming a school teacher. For the next few years he managed both teaching and postgraduate study - gaining his doctorate under James Dwight Dana in 1889. He was appointed assistant curator at the American Museum of Natural History in 1894, after organising a successful mineralogical exhibition at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago. He was promoted to associate curator in 1901, and eventually became Curator of Geology and invertebrate paleontology in 1910.[1]

Fieldwork and expeditions

[edit]
Steam column rising from south-east part of La Soufriere, St Vincent

Hovey travelled extensively to study geological phenomena and was often accompanied by his wife, Esther Lancraft,[1] who would write up the more prosaic aspects of their travels.

One of his most significant voyages was to study the aftermath of the Mount Pelee and La Soufriere eruptions in 1902.[4] Hovey travelled to the Caribbean in the immediate aftermath of the eruptions, on the USS Dixie. The party included geologists Thomas Jaggar, Israel Russell, Angelo Heilprin and Robert T. Hill, geographer George Carroll Curtis and Norwegian explorer Carsten Borchgrevink.[5][6][7] In the Caribbean, Hovey also met up with British photographer and volcanophile, Tempest Anderson.

Many of Hovey's notebooks, photographs and published papers are archived at the American Museum of Natural History.[8][9]

Hovey's fieldwork and expeditions
Year Destinations Example photograph
1897 Italy Mount Vesuvius
1902 Martinique and Saint Vincent
Dust covered ridge of Bunkers Hill, Richmond estate
1905 Mexico
1906 1906 San Francisco earthquake
Around 1905 Willamette Meteorite
1915-16 Greenland

Family

[edit]

Hovey married Esther Amanda Lancraft in September 1888; she died in 1914. Hovey later married Dell Geneva Rogers, in 1919.[10] Hovey died at Roosevelt Hospital in New York on September 27, 1924.[10]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ a b c http://www.minsocam.org/ammin/AM10/AM10_58.pdf
  2. ^ F. A. B. (November 2, 1924). "Dr. E. O. Hovey". Nature. 114 (2871): 690. Bibcode:1924Natur.114..690F. doi:10.1038/114690a0. S2CID 5141163.
  3. ^ Berkey, Charles P. (December 19, 1924). "Edmund Otis Hovey (1862-1924)". Science. 60 (1564): 559–560. Bibcode:1924Sci....60..559B. doi:10.1126/science.60.1564.559. PMID 17838217.
  4. ^ "Expedition to a Modern Pompeii | AMNH".
  5. ^ "Expedition to Martinique". Science. 15 (386): 836–837. 1902. doi:10.1126/science.15.386.836.b. JSTOR 1628081. S2CID 239849503 – via JSTOR.
  6. ^ Hovey, Edmund Otis (February 20, 1902). "Martinique and St. Vincent : a preliminary report upon the eruptions of 1902. Bulletin of the AMNH ; v. 16, article 26". hdl:2246/508. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  7. ^ Hovey, Edmund Otis (November 1, 1902). "Observations on the eruptions of 1902 of La Soufriere, Saint Vincent, and Mount Pele, Martinique". American Journal of Science. s4-14 (83): 319–358. Bibcode:1902AmJS...14..319H. doi:10.2475/ajs.s4-14.83.319 – via www.ajsonline.org.
  8. ^ "Hovey, Edmund Otis, - Biodiversity Heritage Library". www.biodiversitylibrary.org.
  9. ^ "Digital Collections | AMNH". digitalcollections.amnh.org.
  10. ^ a b "Funeral of Late Edmund O. Hovey, Curator-Geologist, Was Held Today". The Yonkers Herald. September 29, 1924. p. 12. Retrieved April 25, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
[edit]