| | 1. | Title: | George Gaylord Simpson Travel Journals (1924-1984) | | | | Dates: | 1924 - 1984 | | | | Extent: | 36 volumes
| | | | Locations: | Antarctica | Athens | Baffin Bay | Bangkok | Beijing | Buenos Aires | Cairo | Calcutta | Cape Town | Caracas | Corfu | Curacao | Dakar | Darjeeling | Dubrovnik | Easter Island | Fiji | Frankfurt | Grand Junction | Hong Kong | Honolulu | Hydra | Karachi | Kyoto | London | Los Angeles | Madrid | Mount Everest | Moscow | Nairobi | New York | Piraeus | Rio de Janeiro | Seychelles | Shanghai | Singapore | Sydney | Tokyo | Zanzibar | | | | Abstract: | The travel journals of Harvard professor, curator, and evolutionary biologist George Gaylord Simpson ought to be near the top research lists of scholars investigating twentieth-century history, travel, conservation, anthropology, and paleontology. Available in seven boxes of handwritten journals, typed pages, carbon copies, and countless ephemera, Simpson's travel writings provide textured insights into his life, research, intellectual, philosophical, and political positions. Over the course of six decades of journaling (1924-1984), Simpson records at least 36 distinct expeditions, traveling to every continent and documenting discoveries in extraordinary detail and literary style. (Consider the locations identified with this note representative rather than comprehensive of his diverse travels.) Noteworthy journals include: Depression-era trips to Patagonia (1931, 1934), an extended tour of Venezuela in the late-1930s (1938-39), trips to Brazil and the Amazon basin (1954-56, 1983-84), a tour to Spain under Franco (1960), expeditions in North Africa and the Middle East just before the Six Day War (1967), visits to Australia (1951, 1968), Fiji (1968), Indonesia (1975), Papua New Guinea (1976), trips to the Galapagos (1970, 1974), expeditions to the Arctic (1974) and Antarctica (1971-73), a trip to Soviet Union during the Cold War (1977), and a tour of China after its economic reforms (1980).; In his travels, Simpson's mastery of detail is matched only by his curiosity and literary flourish. For example, during his 1938-39 Venezuela tour, he discusses everything from population density (4/25/1939) and the work of Catholic missionaries with indigenous populations (1/15/1939) to the sweet coffee in Barquisimeto (9/21/1938) and his method for killing an opossum without damaging its skin (10/6/1938). At times, his reflections blur the boundaries of prose and poetry. In a collection of reminders from his time in Los Robles, he lists: "The noise they make to shoo animals--This can't be written even approximately, something like the clearing of a throat long and viciously. The sound of rain falling on canvas, on bushes, everywhere, the roar of flooding gullies, and slip and thud of landslides. The sound of pigs slashing and shearing by night outside the kitchen. The smell of fresh, heavily roasted coffee being ground…Hillsides brilliant yellow and pale green with mecutera" (12/19/1938). Researchers may anticipate discovering such redolent entries scattered throughout Simpson's journals, as suggested by Selected Quotations. Although items are not individually cataloged, scholars may choose to begin to mine this rich collection using Anne Roe Simpson's "Note on travel diaries." | | | |
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| The travel journals of Harvard professor, curator, and evolutionary biologist George Gaylord Simpson ought to be near the top research lists of scholars investigating twentieth-century history, travel, conservation, anthropology, and paleontology. Available in seven boxes of handwritten journals, typed pages, carbon copies, and countless ephemera, Simpson's travel writings provide textured insights into his life, research, intellectual, philosophical, and political positions. Over the course of six decades of journaling (1924-1984), Simpson records at least 36 distinct expeditions, traveling to every continent and documenting discoveries in extraordinary detail and literary style. (Consider the locations identified with this note representative rather than comprehensive of his diverse travels.) Noteworthy journals include: Depression-era trips to Patagonia (1931, 1934), an extended tour of Venezuela in the late-1930s (1938-39), trips to Brazil and the Amazon basin (1954-56, 1983-84), a tour to Spain under Franco (1960), expeditions in North Africa and the Middle East just before the Six Day War (1967), visits to Australia (1951, 1968), Fiji (1968), Indonesia (1975), Papua New Guinea (1976), trips to the Galapagos (1970, 1974), expeditions to the Arctic (1974) and Antarctica (1971-73), a trip to Soviet Union during the Cold War (1977), and a tour of China after its economic reforms (1980).; In his travels, Simpson's mastery of detail is matched only by his curiosity and literary flourish. For example, during his 1938-39 Venezuela tour, he discusses everything from population density (4/25/1939) and the work of Catholic missionaries with indigenous populations (1/15/1939) to the sweet coffee in Barquisimeto (9/21/1938) and his method for killing an opossum without damaging its skin (10/6/1938). At times, his reflections blur the boundaries of prose and poetry. In a collection of reminders from his time in Los Robles, he lists: "The noise they make to shoo animals--This can't be written even approximately, something like the clearing of a throat long and viciously. The sound of rain falling on canvas, on bushes, everywhere, the roar of flooding gullies, and slip and thud of landslides. The sound of pigs slashing and shearing by night outside the kitchen. The smell of fresh, heavily roasted coffee being ground…Hillsides brilliant yellow and pale green with mecutera" (12/19/1938). Researchers may anticipate discovering such redolent entries scattered throughout Simpson's journals, as suggested by Selected Quotations. Although items are not individually cataloged, scholars may choose to begin to mine this rich collection using Anne Roe Simpson's "Note on travel diaries."
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Selected Quotations- Skinning an opossum in Venezuela: "The night's catch consisted of one young opossum and one field mouse, quite like, but I think a different species from the others. The opossum was alive and I showed him how they could be killed in order not to hurt the skin—a nasty job, particularly with these beasts which are tenacious of life—I must have been 20 minutes at it, but that's partly lack of skill and strength , I suppose, The animal makes no protest, which is a help—I can do with only a few of these—they have a strong odor, quite like garlic and almost overpowering to the skinner!" (10/6/1938)
- 'Reminders' from Venezuela: "Things that will remind me of Los Robles…Melancholy shouts of long-drawn 'A---a-a-ah-ooooo!' from one hillside to the next. The noise they make to shoo animals--This can't be written even approximately, something like the clearing of a throat long and viciously. The sound of rain falling on canvas, on bushes, everywhere, the roar of flooding gullies, and slip and thud of landslides. The sound of pigs slashing and shearing by night outside the kitchen. The smell of fresh, heavily roasted coffee being ground…Hillsides brilliant yellow and pale green with mecutera…The smell of thick, green mold." (12/19/1938)
- Catholic missionaries in Venezuela: "[T]he Venezuelan Catholics did to some extent take over the work and are apparently, on a very small scale, doing some good in civilizing the Indians. It is (in my opinion) unfortunate that this work of civilization should be done by religious missionaries and it is abundantly clear in this account and also in innumerable others it suffers greatly by being inseparably linked with Evangelical efforts and, still more, with bitter factional strife in the area between different sects of missionaries. Sometimes the civilizing efforts merely result in maladjustment, but this is not necessarily so and, taking this friar at his word is not so here. One cannot, then, but approve of teaching the savages elements of hygiene, writing, farming, etc." (1/15/1939)
- "Incredible swarms of brown people. (Mostly Chinese, but Chinese are brown, not yellow, really.) Especially children everywhere, practically piled up in heaps along the narrow streets. Such a focus (and we know that it only exemplifies the abundance and fecundity of the Asians) is a sort of breeding point quite capable of rapidly populating the whole world—and perhaps likely to do so? The One World, when it comes, must surely be a predominantly Asiatic world in genetic source, at least. How can we, and should we, forever dam back this flood of people? Their increase is checked by starvation, our sentimental amelioration of which can only produce more people to starve later on, and by killing them off, which we are doing but not effectively enough to be a long-range solution. The necessary ultimate solution, if one is ever achieved, is birth, or rather , population control, but this only accentuates the trend because obviously it has been and will be applied sooner and to greater extent by Europeans and Americans than by Asians. I see nothing tragic in a predominantly Asian genetic future for Homo sapiens. I only hope we may be may be sensible enough to incorporate the best of our genes and of our institutions and knowledge into this future, and not force the Asians to exterminate us and wipe out our culture" (6/3/1951)
- Dictatorship in Spain: "As for dictatorship, of course I don't like the idea any more than Catalonians or any other Spaniards do, but a majority of Spaniards do like it, and in any case it does not impinge on the visitor at all. There are no secret police, and the regular police are just like cops anywhere but rather more polite than in America. The newspapers do not attack the government, but the citizens do very freely and without looking over their shoulders. Most cities have a Francisco Franco or Caudillo avenue, but there is no obvious hero worship and there are few slogans on display. There is a vast amount of road, dam, ditch, and other public construction under way, so the government is obviously turning a decent part of the taxes into useful channels. In fact as even opponents of this regime are likely to stay, this is one of the best governments Spain has ever had in its sorry history, and that is something. The Spaniards have no talent for democracy. They cannot and will not compromise unless the compromise is forced or dictated. It would be nice if a workable democracy were possible, but that is not realistic for now, at least. If a democracy ever does become possible, it is more likely to develop from this rather easy-going personalist dictatorship than from a dictatorship of the proletariat, and there has been no real chance of avoiding one or the other" (8/16/1960)
- Dress in Nairobi: "The great majority of the Africans one sees are dressed in mad conglomerations of rags, patched and unpatched. A very few wear European street clothes of course although many men do wear shorts. Hotel servants here also in white robes, some with wide belts some with gilets" (6/11/1961)
- Soviet military activity: "Defense note: At the entrance to the Suez Canal and Port Said are two Soviet warships to defend the canal from attack. From Russian attack?" (3/29/1967)
- On Blue Whales near Antarctica: "These seas used to swarm with whales, but they have mostly been killed off. No species extinct yet, but the noblest whales of all, the blues, are so near extinction that they probably cannot be saved" (1/22/1971)
- Rhodesia and South Africa. "1) Few countries compare with these for beauty and scenic, faunal, and floral interest. 2) There are some nice, decent people of any race or color. 3) The legal systems and social mores of these white-controlled countries are so cruel, hypocritical, and disgusting that it is an absurd mockery to call them civilized." (4/2/1972)
- The Himalayas: "[T]he clouds that were below us at sunrise have risen and broken, still sweep in bits across the incredible panorama, but do not long obscure that parade of peaks from Everest and beyond across to Kangchen junga and beyond. Just below us varicolored and movement Darjeeling basks in fitful and rather cold but delightful sunshine. This unnecessary and so chancy trip is a success, whatever else may not occur" (2/20/1977)
- Buddhist shrine in China: "This is an awe-inspiring and tremendous place, & we are told that one reason for the multitude of Japanese visitors to China just now is because they hold this temple as particularly holy. But one of my probably many prejudices is that I think the Japanese, as a people, are not much impressed by what I consider holy. For that matter, Americans aren't either. (But I feel what for me is holiness is a temple like this, or a medieval cathedral in France, or an early Mosque in Egypt, without in any of these cases agreeing with rather nasty theology involved)" (9/2/1980)
| | | | Subjects: | Africa. | Antarctica. | Asia. | Australia. | Diaries. | Ephemera. | Europe. | Evolutionary developmental biology. | Expedition | Scientific expeditions. | South America. | Travel. | United States--Civilization--1918-1945. | United States--Civilization--1945- | | | | Collection: | George Gaylord Simpson Papers
(Mss.Ms.Coll.31)
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