D. W. Meinig
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Donald William Meinig (November 1, 1924 – June 13, 2020) was an American geographer. He was Maxwell Research Professor Emeritus of Geography at the
Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs The Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs (Maxwell School) is the professional public policy school of Syracuse University, a private research university in Syracuse, New York. The school is organized in 11 academic departments and 13 ...
,
Syracuse University Syracuse University (informally 'Cuse or SU) is a Private university, private research university in Syracuse, New York. Established in 1870 with roots in the Methodist Episcopal Church, the university has been nonsectarian since 1920. Locate ...
.


Career

Meinig studied foreign service at Georgetown University, and then earned graduate degrees in geography from the University of Washington in 1950 and 1953, under the supervision of Howard H. Martin; he was also strongly influenced by historian
Carroll Quigley Carroll Quigley (; November 9, 1910 – January 3, 1977) was an American historian and theorist of the evolution of civilizations. He is remembered for his teaching work as a professor at Georgetown University, and for his writing about g ...
and
Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
n geographer Graham H. Lawton. Starting in 1950, Meinig held a faculty position at the University of Utah. However, in 1958 he left Utah for a visiting position at the University of Adelaide in Australia, under a Fulbright scholarship, and in 1960 he joined the Syracuse faculty. Between 1968 and 1973, he served as chair of the Geography Department and helped to shape the university's
Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs The Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs (Maxwell School) is the professional public policy school of Syracuse University, a private research university in Syracuse, New York. The school is organized in 11 academic departments and 13 ...
, becoming a Maxwell Research Professor of Geography in 1990. He retired in 2004 after 46 years on the Maxwell faculty. At Syracuse, Meinig was the doctoral advisor of more than 20 graduate students, including New Zealand geographer Evelyn Stokes.


Research

Meinig's work focuses on historical geography,
regional geography Regional geography is a major branch of geography. It focuses on the interaction of different cultural and natural geofactors in a specific land or landscape, while its counterpart, systematic geography, concentrates on a specific geofactor at the ...
, cultural geography,
social geography Social geography is the branch of human geography that is interested in the relationships between society and space, and is most closely related to social theory in general and sociology in particular, dealing with the relation of social phenomena ...
, and landscape interpretation. Even after relocating to Upstate New York, his historical geography work reflected western American interests, with pioneering regional studies on the Mormon culture area (1965), Texas (1969), and the Southwest (1971), as well as three chapters on New York State's historical geography in a volume edited by John Thompson (1966). His most ambitious and well known work is the four volume series "The Shaping of America" (published 1986, 1993, 1998, and 2004), published by the Yale University Press. Meinig dedicated 25 years of his academic career to this research, which offers a detailed overview of the country's geographic development from Columbus' arrival to the year 2000. He also concentrated on literary spaces and geography, stating, "Literature is a valuable storehouse of vivid depictions of the landscapes and lives of modern day society." Thanks to a collaboration with his former doctoral student John Garver, some of Meinig's thematic regional maps named '
The Making of America
'' were published by the National Geographic Society in 1908s, reaching more than 10 million National Geographic subscribers.


Awards and honors

Meinig was a
Fulbright Scholar The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...
, a Guggenheim Fellow, and a Fellow of the National Endowment for the Humanities. He was the first American geographer to be elected as a corresponding Fellow of the British Academy, in 1991. In 1965 the Association of American Geographers awarded him a citation "For Meritorious Contribution to the Field of Geography," and the American Geographical Society gave him their Charles P. Daly Medal in 1986.Haskin prize lecturer: Donald W. Meinig
American Council of Learned Societies American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...
, retrieved 2010-01-30.
Meinig received an honorary doctorate (
D.H.L. The degree of Doctor of Humane Letters (; DHumLitt; DHL; or LHD) is an honorary degree awarded to those who have distinguished themselves through humanitarian and philanthropic contributions to society. The criteria for awarding the degree differ ...
) from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University in 1994. In 2004, he received the John Brinckerhoff Jackson Prize for the best book interpreting the geography of America. The Geographical Review devoted a special issue to him in July 2009. In 2010, he was elected as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.


Personal life

Meinig was born on November 1, 1924 in Palouse, Washington and was raised on a farm. He self-identified as
Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons were a Cultural identity, cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo- ...
of German and British ancestry. Meinig enlisted in the Army in May 1943 and served in the Corps of Engineers. In August 1944, he was promoted to 2nd Lieutenant and honorably discharged from active duty in February 1946. Meinig died at
Syracuse, New York Syracuse ( ) is a City (New York), city in and the county seat of Onondaga County, New York, Onondaga County, New York, United States. It is the fifth-most populous city in the state of New York following New York City, Buffalo, New York, Buffa ...
on June 13, 2020 at the age of 95.


Books

His principal publications include: * ''The Shaping of America: A Geographical Perspective on 500 Years of History, Volume 4: Global America, 1915-2000'' (New Haven, Yale University Press, 2004). * ''The Shaping of America: A Geographical Perspective on 500 Years of History, Volume 3: Transcontinental America, 1850-1915'' (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1995). * ''The Shaping of America: A Geographical Perspective on 500 Years of History, Volume 2, Continental America, 1800-1867'' (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1992). * ''The Shaping of America: A Geographical Perspective on 500 Years of History, Volume 1, Atlantic America, 1492-1800'' (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1986). * (Editor, with John Brinckerhoff Jackson) ''The Interpretation of Ordinary Landscapes'' (New York, Oxford University Press, 1979). * ''Southwest: Three Peoples in Geographical Change 1600-1970'' (New York, Oxford University Press, 1971). * ''Imperial Texas, An Interpretative Essay in Cultural Geography'' (Austin, University of Texas Press, 1969). * ''The Great Columbia Plain, A Historical Geography, 1805- 1910'' (Seattle, University of Washington Press, 1968). * ''On the Margins of the Good Earth: The South Australian Wheat Frontier, 1869–84'' (London: John Murray, 1962) * ''The Interpretation of Ordinary Landscapes'' (New York, Oxford University Press, 1979)


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Meinig, Donald W 1924 births American geographers 21st-century American historians 21st-century American male writers American people of German descent Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Corresponding Fellows of the British Academy Georgetown University alumni Historical geographers 2020 deaths Syracuse University faculty University of Washington College of Arts and Sciences alumni Historians from New York (state) People from Palouse, Washington Historians from Washington (state) American male non-fiction writers