Honoring Our History

 

1850-1851 The American Geographical Society (AGS) was founded to search for the lost Franklin Expedition that was exploring the Arctic, funded by Henry Grinell, New York City merchant and first elected President of the new Society.

 

1852 Bulletin of the American Geographical Society begins. It was later replaced with the Geographical Review.

 

1854 AGS was commissioned to develop a 15x30 foot map of the United States to map proposed routes for the Pacific railroad.

 

1854 - 1865  The First and Second Transatlantic Cables were developed by three AGS Councilors: Cyrus W. Field, developer and organizer; Samuel F. B. Morse, inventor of the telegraph and Morse code; Matthew Fontaine Maury, ocean scientist.

 

1855 Oceanography, previously known as “the physical geography of the oceans, emerged as a “new” discipline due to outstanding work by AGS Councilor Matthew Fontaine Maury.

 

1890 - 1905 AGS helped promote and solidify plans for the Panama Canal by synthesizing geographic knowledge of the Isthmus, informing the U.S. choice of Panama over Nicaragua, and lending scientific legitimacy to the project in policy and public discourse.

 

1915 First Publication of Geographical Review, the flagship academic journal of the society.

 

1917-1918 AGS led the 'Inquiry' organized by President Woodrow Wilson to define territorial, economic, and political strategies for the Paris Peace Conference, drafting nine of Wilson’s famous Fourteen Points. At one point in the negotiations at Versailles, AGS was producing 300 maps per week to aid the negotiators.

 

1920-1945 AGS produced The Map of Hispanic America, a monumental 107-sheet map series at a 1:1,000,000 scale, covering over 8 million square miles from Mexico to Cape Horn, the largest map ever produced by a private institution.

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1929 AGS acquired its Fliers' & Explorers' Globe as a gift from AGS President John H. Finley, then editor-in-chief of the New York Times. It now bears the signatures of 80 pioneers across air, sea, and space, forming a continuous record of exploration over the past century.

 

1945 AGS produced the first aeronautical chart series for all of Latin America, based on The Map of Hispanic America.

 

1951 AGS cartographer Jacques May published the first global map of malaria distribution.

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1978 The American Geographical Society Library (AGSL) was relocated to the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.  The AGSL contains over 1 million items and is one of the oldest and largest map collections in the United States.

 

1998 AGS assisted the Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining in promulgating  the LandScan Global Population Database as the de facto world standard for estimating populations-at-risk for disasters of all sorts including, for instance, hurricanes, accidental chemical releases, earthquakes, wars, and terrorist attacks.

 

2008 AGS assisted the Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining in promulgating the current world standard for cartographic representation of landmines, minefields, and mine actions.

 

2014 Geography 2050, our multi-year strategic dialogue focused on the key issues shaping our interconnected world launched at Columbia University. The event brings together experts from government, business, academia and civil society.

 

2014 AGS Council Fellowships created to support geographical graduate student research.

 

2015 AGS completed and published the AGS Geographic Knowledge and Values Survey.

 

2020 GeoBoost, awarding dozens of mini-grants ($300-500) to AP Human Geography (APHG) teachers to enrich the learning experiences of their students, is launched.

 

2021 Celebration of Black Geographers Anthology created by Councilor Dr. Dee Jordan.