Background

John Campbell Merriam was born on October 20, 1869, in Hopkinton, Iowa, United States and was the eldest of three children of Charles Edward Merriam and Margaret Campbell Kirkwood. His only brother, Charles Edward Merriam, became a prominent political scientist at the University of Chicago. His mother, a schoolteacher, had been born in Pennsylvania but had grown up in Scotland. His father, of old American stock, had moved from Princeton, Massachusetts, to Iowa in the 1850s. After serving in the Civil War, he became a merchant and a political leader in Hopkinton, a Presbyterian elder, and a trustee of the local Lenox College. As a young man, Merriam began collecting Paleozoic invertebrate fossils near his Iowa home.

Education

John Campbell Merriam took a Bachelor of Science degree at Lenox College, Iowa, where developed an interest in botany and geology. A family sojourn (1888-1889) in Berkeley, California, gave him the opportunity to continue these interests at the University of California, where he studied geology with Joseph LeConte and botany with Edward L. Greene. Like many aspiring scientists of the time, Merriam went to Germany to complete his postgraduate work, taking a doctor's degree at the University of Munich in 1893 in the field of vertebrate paleontology. He studied there under the famous paleontologist Karl von Zittel.

Career

The next year, upon his return to the United States, Merriam became an instructor at the University of California. He rose to assistant professor in 1899, associate professor in 1905, and professor in 1912.

After the pioneer activities of the Wilkes Expedition, the Pacific Railroad surveys, and the California State Geological Survey, paleontology had entered a quarter-century of what Merriam later called "stagnation." From the early 1890s, however, investigators at both the University of California and Stanford University sent out a steady stream of field parties for the particular purpose of collecting vertebrate and invertebrate fossil remains. As a leader of this group, Merriam published papers between 1896 and 1908 on Tertiary molluscan faunas and Tertiary echinoids and on the Triassic Ichthyosauria. In 1901 he published a classic work on the sequential stratigraphical events of the rich John Day Basin in Oregon, an area pioneered by Thomas Condon, Othniel C. Marsh, and Edward D. Cope.

Merriam's most productive period as a paleontologist was between 1900 and 1919. After the rekindling of interest in 1905 in the fossils of the Rancho La Brea tar pits at Los Angeles, he published many papers on the rich remains of Tertiary mammalian faunas of this site. He became president of the Paleontological Society of America in 1917 and of the Geological Society of America in 1919. Gradually, however, other concerns began to intrude upon Merriam's time. As a leading West Coast scientist during the great period of institution-building in California, he necessarily became involved in efforts to promote and support research. Early in his career at Berkeley, he had successfully enlisted the interest and financial backing of Annie M. Alexander, daughter of a Hawaiian sugar planter and a benefactor of the university, without whose patronage much of his research would have been difficult if not impossible to carry on. In 1912, he was appointed a chairman of the newly formed department of paleontology at the university. In 1917, he became chairman of the Committee on Scientific Research of the California State Council of Defense, an agency which was interested in stimulating and coordinating research and which grew directly out of the developing network of professional scientists in California. Later, in 1919, he became chairman of the National Research Council, which was making a similar effort on a nationwide scale.

Merriam was appointed a dean of the faculties at the University of California in 1920, but that same year he resigned to become the third president of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. His new position was a critical one for American science. In addition to being one of the leading patrons of research in the country, the Institution by virtue of its eminence and location in Washington, D. C., served as the unofficial scientific embassy of the nation's researchers. Merriam held this post until 1938, during which time he was a leader in the efforts to create a national climate of opinion favorable to the encouragement and support of scientific research.

Elected in 1918 to the National Academy of Sciences, Merriam was for many years chairman of its Committee on Government Relations. From 1933 to 1935 he was a member of the Science Advisory Board appointed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to advise the government on scientific problems. Merriam's third major career, intimately connected with those of research scientist and science administrator, was that of an ardent conservationist. In 1917, along with Henry Fairfield Osborn and Madison Grant, he helped establish the influential Save-the-Redwoods League, which, under his quarter-century tenure as president, acquired nearly 45, 000 acres of redwood forest in northern California for parkland. He was a frequent consultant to the National Park Service and a consistent champion of the need to preserve the nation's outdoor heritage for its scientific and educational, as well as its moral, usefulness. Nature was to him, in the phrase he used as a title for his last book (1943), The Garment of God. After his retirement in 1938, Merriam divided his time between the University of Oregon (and work on the John Day Basin) and an office at the California Institute of Technology.

Achievements

• It was Merriam who first developed the latter subject in the western half of North America from its pioneering stage to an established discipline. His eminence in science was recognized and acknowledged in several ways. He was a member of numerous scientific societies. Also, throughout his life, he received many degrees honorary degrees including Doctor of Science degrees from Columbia in 1921, Princeton in 1922, Yale in 1922, University of Pennsylvania in 1936, University of the State of New York in 1937, and Oregon State College in 1939, as well as Legum Doctor degrees from Wesleyan University in 1922, University of California in 1924, New York University in 1926, University of Michigan in 1933, Harvard University in 1935, George Washington University in 1937, and the University of Oregon in 1939.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Skull And Dentition Of A Camel From The Pleistocene Of Rancho La Brea 1913
  • The Fauna of Rancho La Brea, Vol. 1: Occurrence 1911
  • Recent Cave Exploration in California, And, Evidence of the Work of Man on Objects From Quaternary Caves in California 1906
  • The Function of Educational Institutions in Development of Research 1920
  • A living link in history 1949
  • Triassic Ichthyosauria: With Special Reference to the American Forms 1908
  • The fauna of the Sooke beds of Vancouver Island 1899
  • Notes on two tertiary faunas from the rocks of the southern coast of Vancouver Island 1896
  • Tertiary Mammalian Faunas Of The Mohave Desert 1919
  • The Thalattosauria: A Group of Marine Reptiles From the Triassic of California 1905
  • The relation of paleontology to the history of man, with particular reference to the American problem 1914
  • Significant Features in the History of Life on the Pacific Coast 1915
  • Time and Its Mysteries, Series 1: Four Lectures Given on the James Arthur Foundation, New York University 1936
  • New species of the Hipparion group from the Pacific Coast and Great Basin provinces of North America Volume 9 1916
  • Published Papers and Addresses of John Campbell Merriam, V3: Mammalia, Faunas from the Pacific and Great Basin Regions 1938
  • Published Papers and Addresses of John Campbell Merriam, V4: History, Biography, General Addresses, Etc. 1938

Religion

Merriam as a boy was strongly influenced by his mother's Presbyterian religious views. That was she from whom he received the belief that the hand of God could be found in nature.

Politics

Merriam was a cautious political supporter of eugenics.

Views

Vertebrate paleontology continued to claim Merriam's major interest throughout almost his whole life.

Membership

Outside of his work as a teacher, Merriam belonged to and worked for many other associations. He was chairman of the National Research Council in 1919, president of the Carnegie Institution in Washington from 1920 to 1938 and president emeritus from 1939 until his death, a regent of the Smithsonian Institution starting in 1928, fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences and president of the Pacific Division from 1919 to 1920, president of the Geological Society of America in 1910, president of the American Paleontology Society in 1917, president of the executive committee on the Pan American Institute of Geography and History from 1935 to 1938, and chairman of the research committee of the California State Council of Defense from 1917 to 1920. John was a member of the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, the American Philosophical Society, the Washington Academy of Sciences, the California Academy of Sciences, the Philadelphia Academy of Sciences (now Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University), the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, American Association of University Professors, the Commission du Parc National Albert, the Christian Michelsen Institute of Bergen, Norway, the Cosmos Club of Washington, the Century Association of New York, the Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco, corresponding member of the London Zoological Society, and honorary member of the Society of Geography and History of Michoacan, Mexico.

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  American Association for the Advancement of Sciences , United States

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  Geological Society of America , United States

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  National Academy of Sciences , United States

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  American Philosophical Society , United States

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  Washington Academy of Sciences , United States

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  California Academy of Sciences , United States

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  Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University , United States

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  American Academy of Arts and Sciences , United States

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  American Association of University Professors , United States

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  Cosmos Club , United States

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  Zoological Society of London , United Kingdom

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  Commonwealth Club of California , United States

• Century Association , United States

Personality

Merriam presented the demeanor of the professional man. At the height of his administrative powers, he found relaxation in summer visits to the field camps of his paleontological associates. During the early years of his career at the University, his favorite sports were shooting ducks in the tule lands of the San Francisco Bay region and fishing for trout in the streams of northern California. He was by nature not genial, but rather grave and distant; his conversation was usually in a serious vein. As a lecturer in the classroom, Merriam became a polished speaker, capable of holding and enthralling the audience with his subject matter. These qualities were likewise evident in his public addresses. His social instincts were conventional and cautious.

Physical Characteristics: Merrian was not a robust person, but rather one of medium stature and slender build. He died in a rest home in Oakland, California, of hypostatic pneumonia, following a decade of chronic myocarditis and arteriosclerosis.

Interests

• hunting, fishing

Connections

Merriam's first wife, Ada Gertrude Little of Berkeley, whom he had married on December 22, 1896, died in 1940, and on February 20, 1941, he married Margaret Louise Webb of Pasadena. His three children survived him: Lawrence Campbell and Charles Warren, both geologists for the United States Geological Survey, and Malcolm Landers, a government economist.

Father:

Charles Edward Merriam

Mother:

Margaret Campbell Kirkwood

Brother:

Charles Merriam

Sister:

Susan Agnes Merriam Gearhart

late wife:

Ada Gertrude Little Merriam

Son:

Malcolm Landers Merriam

Son:

Charles Warren Merriam

Son:

Lawrence Campbell Merriam Sr

Cousin:

Frank Finley Merriam

Frank Finley Merriam was an American politician who served as the 28th governor of California from June 2, 1934, until January 2, 1939.

Wife:

Margaret Louise Webb

mentor:

Joseph LeConte

mentor:

Karl Alfred von Zittel

References

• Dictionary of Scientific Biography: Volumes 9 & 10
  1980
• Preserving the Living Past: John C. Merriam's Legacy in the State and National Parks
  2005
• John Campbell Merriam, 1945, Year Book of the American Philosophical Society
  1945