Peveril Meigs III (May 5, 1903 – September 16, 1979) was an American geographer, notable for his studies of arid lands on several continents and in particular for his work on the native peoples and early missions of northern

Baja California Baja California (; 'Lower California'), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Baja California ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Baja California), is a state in Mexico. It is the northernmost and westernmost of the 32 federal entities of Mex ...

, Mexico. Meigs was born in

Flushing Flushing may refer to: Places * Flushing, Cornwall, a village in the United Kingdom * Flushing, Queens, New York City ** Flushing Bay, a bay off the north shore of Queens ** Flushing Chinatown (法拉盛華埠), a community in Queens ** Flushing ...

in New York City. He studied at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

, receiving his B.A. degree in 1925 and a Ph.D. in 1932. He held academic positions at San Francisco State Teachers College (1929),

Chico State College California State University, Chico, or commonly, Chico State, is a public university in Chico, California. Founded in 1887, it is the second oldest campus in the California State University system. As of the fall 2020 semester, the university had ...

(1929-1942),

Louisiana State University Louisiana State University (officially Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, commonly referred to as LSU) is a public land-grant research university in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The university was founded in 1860 nea ...

(1938-1939),

American University The American University (AU or American) is a private federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C. Its main campus spans 90 acres (36 ha) on Ward Circle, mostly in the Spring Valley neighborhood of Northwest D.C. AU was charte ...

(1948), and

George Washington University , mottoeng = "God is Our Trust" , established = , type = Private federally chartered research university , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $2.8 billion (2022) , preside ...

(1948). Beginning during World War II, Meigs was employed primarily by the U.S. government, working for the

Office of Strategic Services The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was the intelligence agency of the United States during World War II. The OSS was formed as an agency of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) to coordinate espionage activities behind enemy lines for all branc ...

(OSS) (1942-1944), Joint Intelligence Study Publishing Board (1944-1947), Earth Sciences Division of the U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps (1949-1953), and Quartermaster Research and Engineering Center (1953-1965). In the red scare of the early 1950s, Meigs was prominent among those listed as security risks by Senator

Joseph McCarthy Joseph Raymond McCarthy (November 14, 1908 – May 2, 1957) was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957. Beginning in 1950, McCarthy became the most visi ...

. Meigs published dozens of articles and books. Particularly notable was his early work on Baja California, which was influenced by his Berkeley mentors,

Carl O. Sauer Carl Ortwin Sauer (December 24, 1889 – July 18, 1975) was an American geographer. Sauer was a professor of geography at the University of California at Berkeley from 1923 until becoming professor emeritus in 1957. He has been called "the d ...

in historical geography and

Alfred L. Kroeber Alfred Louis Kroeber (June 11, 1876 – October 5, 1960) was an American cultural anthropologist. He received his PhD under Franz Boas at Columbia University in 1901, the first doctorate in anthropology awarded by Columbia. He was also the first ...

in ethnography. He co-authored with Sauer a study of Mission San Fernando Velicatá, the only mission founded by the Franciscans during their brief tenure (1768-1773) on the peninsula. Meigs' doctoral dissertation (1932) was a groundbreaking study of the Dominican missions of northwestern Baja California. It was subsequently published and remains the key source on the subject. During his field trips to northern Baja California, particularly in 1928, 1929, and 1936, Meigs became familiar with the region's surviving Indian groups. He published a monograph on the Kiliwa (1939) that continues to be the most reliable source concerning the aboriginal lifeways of that people. Also included were important notes on the neighboring Paipai and

Kumeyaay The Kumeyaay, also known as Tipai-Ipai or by their historical Spanish name Diegueño, is a tribe of Indigenous peoples of the Americas who live at the northern border of Baja California in Mexico and the southern border of California in the Unit ...

. After his retirement in 1965, Meigs published several additional articles on the ethnography and archaeology of these groups, based on his notes from his earlier field studies. His book on the

coastal deserts The desert climate or arid climate (in the Köppen climate classification ''BWh'' and ''BWk''), is a dry climate sub-type in which there is a severe excess of evaporation over precipitation. The typically bald, rocky, or sandy surfaces in desert ...

was published by

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...

in 1966. He also mapped

tide mill A tide mill is a water mill driven by tidal rise and fall. A dam with a sluice is created across a suitable tidal inlet, or a section of river estuary is made into a reservoir. As the tide comes in, it enters the mill pond through a one-way gate ...

s along the Atlantic coast of the U.S. Has died aged 76 in Wayland, Middlesex County, Massachusetts.Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/65908298/peveril-meigs : accessed 08 June 2020), memorial page for Peveril Meigs, III (5 May 1903–16 Sep 1979), Find a Grave Memorial no. 65908298, Maintained by Dorothy Oksner (contributor 46619695).

Bibliography

* Meigs, Peveril, III. 1935. ''The Dominican Mission Frontier of Lower California''. University of California Publications in Geography No. 7. Berkeley. * Meigs, Peveril, III. 1939. ''The Kiliwa Indians of Lower California''. Iberoamericana No. 15. University of California, Berkeley. * Meigs, Peveril, III. 1966. ''Geography of Coastal Deserts''. Arid Zone Research No. 28. UNESCO, Paris. * Meigs, Peveril, III. 1970. "Capes of Human Hair from Baja California and Outside". ''Pacific Coast Archaeological Society Quarterly'' 6(1):21-28. * Meigs, Peveril, III. 1971. "Creation Myth and Other Reflections of the Nijí Mishkwish". ''Pacific Coast Archaeological Society Quarterly'' 7(1):9-13. * Meigs, Peveril, III. 1972. "Notes on the La Huerta Jat'am, Baja California: Place Names, Hunting, and Shamans". ''Pacific Coast Archaeological Society Quarterly'' 8(1):35-40. * Meigs, Peveril, III. 1974. "Field Notes on the Sh'un and Jat'am, Manteca, Baja California". ''Pacific Coast Archaeological Society Quarterly'' 10(1):19-28. * Meigs, Peveril, III. 1974. "Meigs on Tablas". ''Pacific Coast Archaeological Society Quarterly'' 10(1):37-38. * Meigs, Peveril, III. 1976. "Some Pictographs in Northern Baja California". ''Pacific Coast Archaeological Society Quarterly'' 12(1):2-8. * Meigs, Peveril, III. 1977. "Notes on the Paipai of San Isidoro, Baja California". ''Pacific Coast Archaeological Society Quarterly'' 13(1):11-20. * Sauer, Carl O., and Peveril Meigs, III. 1927. "Site and Culture at San Fernando de Velicatá". ''University of California Publications in Geography'' 2:271-302. Berkeley.

References

;Sources * Mathes, W. Michael. 2001. "Peveril Meigs, III, and Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, the Final Dominican Mission Frontier of Lower California". ''Pacific Coast Archaeological Society Quarterly'' 37(4):16-18. ;Notes

External links

Biographical outline and bibliography

MSS 530.
Special Collections & Archives
UC San Diego Library. {{DEFAULTSORT:Meigs, Peveril 1903 births 1979 deaths American geographers Archaeologists of the Baja California peninsula People of the Office of Strategic Services California State University, Chico faculty Historians of Baja California 20th-century geographers