Ellsworth Huntington

Who was Ellsworth Huntington?

Ellsworth Huntington was a professor of geography at Yale University during the early 20th century, known for his studies on climatic determinism, economic growth and economic geography. He served as President of the Ecological Society of America in 1917, the Association of American Geographers in 1923 and President of the Board of Directors of the American Eugenics Society from 1934 to 1938.

He taught at Euphrates College, Turkey; accompanied the Pumpelly and Barrett expeditions to central Asia; and wrote of his Asian experiences in Explorations in Turkestan and The Pulse of Asia. He taught geography at Yale and from 1917 was a research associate there, devoting his time chiefly to climatic and anthropogeographic studies.

In 1909, Huntington led The Yale Expedition to Palestine. It was his mission to determine "step by step the process by which geologic structure, topographic form, and the present and past nature of the climate have shaped man's progress, moulded his history; and thus played an incalculable part in the development of a system of thought which could scarcely have arisen under any other physical circumstances."