Agassiz, Louis

Agassiz, (Jean) Louis (Rodolphe)

(1807–73) geologist; born in Motier-en-Vuly, Switzerland. He received an M.D. in Erlangen, Germany (1830), but preferred his early interest in natural science. He became professor of natural history at Neuchâtel, Switzerland (1832), and combined ichthyology, geology, and paleontology in his five-volume classic, Récherches sur les Poissons Fossiles (1833–44). His studies of Alpine glaciers and glacial boulders led to his monumental works, Études sur les Glaciers (1840) and Système Glaciaire (1847), which demonstrated the existence of a geologically recent ice age. In 1846 Agassiz came to the U.S.A. on a lecture tour, and was appointed professor of natural history at Harvard (1847–73). He founded Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology in 1859. With his second wife, Elizabeth Cabot Cary (1822–1907), he conducted a young ladies school in Cambridge; a naturalist and educator herself, she later became president of the Society for Collegiate Instruction of Women and its successor, Radcliffe College (1894). A popular lecturer who opposed Darwin's theories on religious grounds, Agassiz continued to teach, publish, and make zoological expeditions until his death.

The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography, by John S. Bowman. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995. Reproduced with permission.