Charles Wellington Furlong (1874–1967) was an American explorer, writer, artist and photographer from Massachusetts.
Life
Furlong was born in
Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1874. He graduated from
Massachusetts Normal Art School
Massachusetts College of Art and Design, branded as MassArt, is a public college of visual and applied art in Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1873, it is one of the nation’s oldest art schools, the only publicly funded independent art school ...
in 1895. From 1901-1902, he was a student at
Cornell
Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...
,
Harvard
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
,
Ecole des Beaux Arts, Paris. He was the head of the Art Department at Cornell from 1896-1904.
He was in
North Africa, 1904-1905;
Tierra del Fuego, 1907-1908; and
Venezuela, 1910. In 1915 he was a member of an expedition to the West African islands for the
Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology (the ''Kitty A'' expedition).
He was the first American to explore the
Tripolitan Sahara. This experience led to his writing of The Gateway to the Sahara in 1909. Harper's magazine funded him on a trip to
South America around 1909. His article "The Southernmost people of the world" came out of this trip. Even after the article was written he continued to travel and explore in South America.
His world travels led to a decline in his overall health, in order to get better he traveled to the American West as
Theodore Roosevelt had done for his health earlier.
In 1914, he became a member of the
U.S. Army until the end of
World War I in 1918. After the war, he was a Member of the American Peace delegation in
Paris, France for a year. Then in 1919 he was appointed as the Special Military aide to President
Woodrow Wilson for a brief time before he was reappointed as a Military observer, intelligence officer in the
Balkans, Near East and Middle East. His association with the U.S. military was not a brief affair. He served as a Reserve officer for 34 years, attaining the rank of colonel. His knowledge of the Middle East was valuable during
World War II.
In 1925, he helped establish a voting system in
Tacona, Africa, personally designing ballots and setting up polling places in remote areas.
While traveling the world he continued to write and create a variety of types and kinds of art, along with his work as a diplomat and military delegate.
He died in 1967, leaving behind two children.
Works
Books
*
*
* ''Tripoli in Barbary''(1911)
''The vanishing people of the Land of Fire'' ''The southernmost people of the world''
Articles
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
• -- (August, 1918) "Climbing the Shoulders of Atlas," Harper's Monthly Magazine 819 (1918): 420-434.
Artworks
http://americanart.si.edu/search/search_artworks1.cfm?StartRow=1&ConID=1704&format=short
References
External links
Charles Wellington Furlong papersat the University of Oregon
Ask Art BiographyThe Papers of Charles W. Furlongat Dartmouth College Library
{{DEFAULTSORT:Furlong, Charles W.
1967 deaths
1874 births
American male writers
Writers from Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cornell University alumni
Harvard University alumni
American alumni of the École des Beaux-Arts
Artists from Cambridge, Massachusetts