Detail map of Washington, District of Columbia, United States,Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States Overview map of Washington, District of Columbia, United States,Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States

A: Washington, District of Columbia, United States, B: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States

Lorin Blodget Founds of American Climatology and Meteorology

1857

The first comprehensive American work on climatology and meteorology was the American physicist and meteorologist Lorin Blodget's Climatology of the United States, and of the Temperate Latitudes of the North American Content, Embraciing a Full Comparison of these with The Climatology of the Temperate Latitudes of Europe and Asia, and Especially in Regard to Agriculture, Sanitary Investigations, and Engineering, with Isothermal and Rain Charts, published in Philadelphia in 1857. This book was illustrated with 12 folding maps and charts. Based on research that Blodget compiled at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D. C., it was published three years after Blodget was fired from his position at the Smithsonian by its Secretary, Joseph Henry, because of a political dispute in which Blodget sided with Assistant Secretary Charles C. Jewett over the creation of a national library at the Smithsonian. 

According to Rittner, A to Z of Scientists in Weather and Climate (2009), Blodget's career does not seem to have been negatively impacted after he left the Smithsonian. He published numerous other works on statistics and meterology, including several later meterological maps:

"For a number of years after the Henry affair, Blodget worked with engineers on the pacific railroad surveys, determining altitudes and gradients and creating meteorological charts. During this period, he further develped the techniques as mapmaker and would forever draw his own maps for his and other publications." (Rittner p. 25).

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