John Paul Goode

Background

Goode was born on November 21, 1862, near Stewartville, Minnesota, the son of Abraham John and Huldah Jane (Van Valkenburgh) Goode.

Education

Goode worked his way through school and college, attending the local academy and the University of Minnesota, where he was awarded the degree of B. S. in 1889. In 1900 he entered the University of Pennsylvania and received the degree of Ph. D. in 1901, presenting as a dissertation "The Influence of Physiographic Factors upon the Occupations and Economic Development in the United States. "

Career

On graduation Goode accepted a post in the new State Normal School at Moorhead, Minnesota, under President Livingston C. Lord. There for nine years he taught chemistry, physics, botany, zoology, astronomy, and geography, with all the strength derived from a sturdy body and an inquisitive mind. In 1898, when Lord became head of the State Teachers College at Charleston, Illinois, Goode went with him as professor of physical science and geography, a post which he held for two years. Meanwhile he had also pursued his graduate studies, at Harvard in 1894 and as a fellow in geology at the University of Chicago in 1896-1897. During the summers of 1897 and 1900 he taught geography at the latter institution. He later worked for two years as an instructor in geography and as a director of the Geographical Society of Philadelphia. In 1903 the University of Chicago established a department of Geography under the headship of Rollin D. Salisbury, who retained, however, his professorship in the department of geology. Goode was made assistant professor of geography and was charged not only with the task of organizing and teaching a great variety of courses at the university level, but with demonstrating that instruction in geography was a valid university function. In 1910 he was raised to an associate professorship and in 1917 he was made full professor. Through the years his courses reached a total of fourteen, covering most of both the topical and regional aspects of his subject. As the department grew, he was able to concentrate on fewer courses, until during the last years of his teaching he gave instruction only in the geography of Europe, meteorology and climatology, and cartography. His instruction extended far beyond the classroom through the medium of the illustrated lecture. Based on wide personal acquaintance with the United States, Europe, and parts of the Far East, his lectures, illustrated by thousands of beautiful hand-painted slides, were models of lucidity and delivery, and demonstrated uncanny genius in judging an audience. Lectures on "La Belle France"; "The German Dream"; "Britain, Ruler of the Seas"; "Norway, Land of the Vikings"; "America and the Philippines"; and other subjects thrilled large audiences and at the same time educated them in the geography of much of the world. He was not a voluminous writer, but he published frequent articles in the Journal of Geography, the Geographical Review, and other professional periodicals on the content, organization, and methodology of geography in schools. In 1908 his report to the Chicago Harbor Commission on his investigations for that body in Western Europe was published under the title of The Development of Commercial Ports. His lecture entitled "Chicago, City of Destiny, " given on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the founding of the Geographic Society of Chicago, was published in 1923, followed in 1926 by The Geographic Background of Chicago. Though a distinguished teacher and lecturer, J. Paul Goode made his principal reputation as a cartographer. In 1908 he founded Goode's Series of Base Maps. Shortly thereafter Goode's Series of Physical and Political Wall Maps began to appear and set new standards in design and craftsmanship. During the nineteen twenties he published more than two hundred hand-colored map slides. In 1932 the fourth edition of Goode's School Atlas appeared, the successful culmination of ten years' effort to produce a notable American atlas. In map projections three inventions placed him in the front rank of Amercan cartographers. In 1916 he developed the principle of "interruption" in a map grid and applied it in the first instance to the sinusoidal projection. By giving each continent or ocean a mid-meridian of its own, shapes were markedly improved. The resulting sharp polar cusps proved, however, to be unpopular. In 1923 Goode produced the homolosine projection, which was at once hailed as a long advance in cartography, providing, in its interrupted form, an equal-area projection with excellent shapes throughout. In 1928 Goode's polar equal-area projection was devised in which continental lobes were deployed radially from the north pole. Goode retired from teaching, as professor emeritus, in 1928. He died at Little Point Sable, Michigan, in 1932, survived by his only child, Kenneth Hancock.

Achievements

• Goode's professional career of more than forty years covered a critical period in the history of geography in the United States. To him is due a large share of the credit for the advance of geography from a grade-school subject to one of university standing. The needs of geography stimulated his research in cartography, and his maps and projections place his name high on the rolls of honor in that field.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The geographic background of Chicago

    (Leopold Classic Library is delighted to publish this clas...)

  • The Geography of Illinois..

    (This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)

  • Goode's World Atlas (19th Edition)

    (Goode's World Atlas)

  • World atlas, physical, political, and economic: Edited by Edward B. Espenshade, Jr. 9th ed

Membership

Presidents of the American Association of Geographers

Connections

Goode was married, on September 12, 1901, to Ida Katherine Hancock, a teacher. She was active in civic affairs in Chicago and served in the Illinois House of Representatives from 1925 to 1928, in which year she died.

Father:

Abraham John Goode

Mother:

Huldah Jane van Valkenburgh

Spouse:

Ida Katherine Hancock

Son:

Kenneth Hancock

References

• Annals of The Association of American Geographers
• The Geographical Imagination in America, 1880-1950