Ellen Churchill Semple
Ellen Churchill Semple (January 8, 1863 – May 8, 1932) was an American geographer and the first female president of the Association of American Geographers. She contributed significantly to the early development of the discipline of geography in the United States, particularly studies of human geography. She is most closely associated with work in anthropogeography and environmentalism, and the debate about "environmental determinism".
Ellen Churchill Semple
January 8, 1863
May 8, 1932 (aged 69)
Cave Hill Cemetery
Louisville, Kentucky, U.S.
Early life[edit]
Semple was born in Louisville, Kentucky, the youngest of five children by Alexander Bonner Semple and Emerine Price.
Education[edit]
Semple's early education was guided by her mother, Emerine Semple, as well as private tutors. Semple followed her sister, Patty Semple, to Vassar where she graduated as valedictorian and was the youngest member of her graduating class.[1] Semple graduated in 1882 with a BA in History from Vassar College at the age of 19, and continued on at Vassar to earn an MA in History in (1891). She became interested in geography while visiting London, where she encountered the works of Friedrich Ratzel. She went to Germany to seek out Ratzel and study with him at the University of Leipzig. As a woman, she was prohibited from matriculating, but she was able to gain permission to attend Ratzel's lectures, the only woman in a class of five hundred male students.[2] She continued to work with Ratzel and produced several academic papers in American and European journals, but was never conferred a degree.[3]
Career[edit]
Semple was the first woman to become president of the Association for American Geographers. Semple was a pioneer in American geography, helping to broaden the discipline's focus beyond physical features of the earth and bringing attention to human aspects of geography. Her innovative approach and theories influenced the development of human geography as a significant subfield and influenced the social sciences across disciplines, including history and anthropology.[2]
Semple taught at the University of Chicago from 1906 to 1920, but her first permanent academic position was offered to her in 1922 at Clark University.[3] She was the first female faculty member, teaching graduate students in geography for the next decade, but her salary was always significantly less than her male colleagues.[2] She also lectured at the University of Oxford in 1912 and 1922.
Her first book, American History and its Geographic Conditions (1903) and her second, Influences of Geographic Environment (1911), were widely used textbooks for students of geography and history in the United States at the start of the 20th century.[3]
Semple was a founding member of the Association of American Geographers (AAG). She was elected AAG's first female President in 1921, and remains only one of six women to hold that office since the organization's founding in 1904.
Late life[edit]
Semple continued to teach geography until her death in 1932.[3] She died in West Palm Beach, Florida, and is buried in the Cave Hill National Cemetery in Louisville.
Awards and recognition[edit]
In 1914 Semple received the Cullum Geographic Medal from the American Geographical Society, "in recognition of her distinguished contributions to the science of anthropogeography". She was President of the Association of American Geographers (now the American Association of Geographers) from 1921 to 1922 and was awarded the Helen Culver Gold Medal by the Geographic Society of Chicago, in recognition of her leadership in American Geography.
Semple Elementary School in Semple's hometown of Louisville was named in her honor.