1909
Harry Fielding Reid, portrait photograph, 50 years of age.
Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, United States
Reid entered Johns Hopkins in 1876 and received his Ph.D. there in 1885.
Widener University, Chester, Pennsylvania, United States
Reid attended and graduated from the Pennsylvania Military Academy.
1933
Alaska, United States
Dr. H.F. Reid in Southeastern Alaska. Photo by Charles Will Wright.
Glacier Bay, Alaska, United States
Candid photograph of Reid at approximately 32 years old with John Muir and some other men at Glacier Bay, Alaska.
Harry Fielding Reid (May 18, 1859 – June 18, 1944) was an American geophysicist.
Harry Fielding Reid
1933
Alaska, United States
Dr. H.F. Reid in Southeastern Alaska. Photo by Charles Will Wright.
Glacier Bay, Alaska, United States
Candid photograph of Reid at approximately 32 years old with John Muir and some other men at Glacier Bay, Alaska.
Harry Fielding Reid (May 18, 1859 – June 18, 1944) was an American geophysicist.
Harry Fielding Reid
Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, United States
Reid entered Johns Hopkins in 1876 and received his Ph.D. there in 1885.
Widener University, Chester, Pennsylvania, United States
Reid attended and graduated from the Pennsylvania Military Academy.
https://www.amazon.com/Report-Expedition-Muir-Glacier-Alaska/dp/1340551322/?tag=2022091-20
1892
geologist geophysicist glaciologist scientist seismologist
Harry Fielding Reid was born on May 18, 1859, in Baltimore, Maryland, the son of Andrew and Fanny Brooke (Gwathmey) Reid. Reid's mother was a descendant of Betty Washington Lewis, sister of the first US President; his father was a successful sugar merchant.
Reid's early education took him for at least one year to Switzerland; he is also known to have attended and graduated from the Pennsylvania Military Academy. Reid entered Johns Hopkins in 1876 and received his Ph.D. there in 1885. Reid studied under physicist Henry Rowland and mathematician J. J. Sylvester, two of the original Johns Hopkins professors. In February 1885 Reid was granted his doctorate with a dissertation on the spectra of platinum.
After receiving his Ph.D. in 1885, Reid proceeded to Case School of Applied Science as a professor of mathematics and later was a professor of physics. In 1892 he returned and continued to survey the area. Reid received his Ph. D. from Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, in 1894 and stayed to become a professor of dynamic geology from 1896 until 1930 when he was appointed emeritus professor. His early work centered on glaciers but from 1906 he concentrated on seismology. In 1911, he developed the elastic rebound theory of earthquake mechanics. He was president of the Seismological Society of America in 1912 and 1913, chairman of the American Geophysical Union from 1924-1926, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. The Seismological Society of America renamed their highest honor, the Medal, after Reid. His most lasting work was "The Mechanics of the Earthquake," Vol. II of the Lawson report on the 1906 earthquake. His work made a fundamental contribution to the understanding of earthquake mechanics using observations from that earthquake.
After Reid's death in 1944 at the age of 85, his diaries and glaciological papers were donated to the American Geophysical Union.
Reid’s greatest contribution to geophysics was undoubtedly his masterful exposition of the “elastic rebound theory” of the immediate source of earthquake waves - the cause of earthquakes. The theory states that elastic strain accumulates slowly in the earth’s rocky crust as a result of forces, presumably acting from below the crust, of uncertain origin. When this strain becomes too great for the crustal rocks to bear, they break along faults. The frictional grinding of the two sides of the fault against each other produces the elastic wave motion which we call an earthquake. The association of some earthquakes with surface fault breaks was recognized early, but many felt that the fault breaks were the result of an unspecified sudden catastrophe at depth.
The theory was generally adopted in the United States, but it took sixty years for it to be widely accepted in Japan and in Europe. Reid was on the committee appointed by the governor of California to report on the earthquake of 1906.
He recognized the significance of the changes in position of various bench marks of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey both before and during the earthquake. His careful analysis of this somewhat sparse data, plus his knowledge of mechanics and perhaps intuition, led him to the statement of the “elastic rebound” theory.
(Volume Three)
1899(Volume 15)
1925Reid's family spent some time in Switzerland when he was a child, and this led to a lifelong love of mountains and to his great interest in the mechanics of glaciers. In his early manhood glaciology was his principal interest.
Reid was a member of the Societe Helvetique des Sciences Naturelles, of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences, and of the National Academy Sciences. He was also a member of the American Philosophical Society and of the Seismological Society America (president 1913).
On a climb, Reid was a natural leader, for his sound judgment and all-round skill quickly came into play in the operation of a party. The peaks and snowfields seemed to banish his usual reserve, leaving him an ideal mountaineering companion.
Harry Fielding Reid married Edith Gittings on November 22, 1883. They had a son and a daughter Francis Fielding and Doris Fielding.
born in 1892
born in 1895
1861–1954
