Michiel VAN MEETEREN, University of British Columbia, Canada
Born within seven months of each other, the two Edwards, Ackerman (1911-1973) and Ullman (1912-1976), were often reckoned the smartest, most capable American geographers of their cohort. Their conception of geography, their projects, their successes and disappointments, shed critical light on the development of US geography during the key transition to a post-War American 'high-modern' society. Drawing on sizable archival holdings, particularly the life-time correspondence between the two men, the purpose of the paper is to use the lives of Ackerman and Ullman to exemplify and to understand the professionalization of American geography occurring in mid-century. Their lives and the geographical discipline to which they contributed were drawn into an expanded interventionist modernist US state that valued scientific expertise, instrumental reason, problem solving, collective inquiry, and credentialism. For that participation to occur, however, the discipline had to be modernised and professionalized. These were tasks to which the two Edwards devoted themselves. The results were in the end mixed, but they set the stage for the quantitative revolution and later various anxieties within American geography that continued for the rest of the century. The paper will first provide a conceptual framework by drawing together literatures on modernism, expertise, professionalization and how academic disciplines are co-constituent of those imperatives. Second, we review the life and career stages of the two Edwards in conjunction with developments in American geography and society from the mid-1930s when they were students. It becomes clear that they were exponents of the drive to professionalize and modernize the antiquated discipline of American geography. The lives of the two Edwards were thus profoundly inscribed within the history of the 20th century US geography and its transformations. The personal was professional.
Mots clés : American Geography|modernity|professionalization|Edward Ackerman|Edward Ullman
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