Pehr Kalm was a Finnish botanist, explorer, and agricultural economist. He was one of the most important apostles of Carl Linnaeus, and also achieved international fame with his account of his voyages to North America, Russia, Ukraine and Canada.
Background
Ethnicity:
Kalm's father was Finnish, and his mother was of Scottish ancestry.
Pehr Kalm was born on March 6, 1716, in Angermanland, Sweden, where his parents, Gabriel Kalm, curate of Korsnas Chapel in Narpes parish, county of Ostrobothnia, and Katarina Ross, had taken refuge from Finland during the Great Northern War. The father died in Angermanland, and the mother returned to Finland after the Treaty of Nystad in 1721.
Education
Kalm was educated at Vaasa Grammar School, and in 1735 he entered the Royal Academy of Turku. At the Academy, he studied mineralogy under the professor of medicine Herman Diedrik Sporing, and attended lectures in natural history given by Johan Browallius and Carl Fredrik Mennander.
In 1740 Kalm enrolled at the University of Uppsala on Browallius' recommendation, where he heard the lectures of the noted scientists Andres Celsius. His studies at this university made possible by support from Baron Sten Carl Bielke, Justice of the Turku Appeal Court. From 1741 he was a friend and student of Linnaeus. Under the influence of Bielke and Linnaeus, Pehr Kalm developed a strong interest in utilitarian botany, that is, botany as applied to problems of agriculture and industry. This institution had great importance in his career.
Kalm did field research in Sweden, Russia, and Ukraine from 1742 to 1746, when he was appointed Docent of Natural History and Economics at the Royal Academy of Turku. In 1747 the Academy elevated him to Professor of Economics, and he taught there until 1771.
The great event in his life was his journey, sponsored by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, to North America and Canada to discover useful plants capable of withstanding the Scandinavian climate. Kalm landed in Philadelphia in September 1748. Benjamin Franklin and two correspondents of Linnaeus, John Bartram and Cadwallader Colden, the latter lieutenant-governor of the New York colony, became helpful friends. Both of them were keen botanists admired by Kalm and Linnaeus. When this part of the country had been explored, Kalm departed in May 1749 for New York, Albany, Lake Champlain, and Canada, where French officials received him in princely fashion and paid his traveling expenses within the colony. He returned to Philadelphia in October. A second journey to Canada was undertaken in 1750 (the diary from which has been lost). In February 1751 Kalm left Philadelphia for Stockholm going thence to Abo, where he remained for the rest of his life.
Kalm was ordained vicar of Piikkio in December 1757. As well as religious reasons, there were undoubtedly economic motives behind this appointment, as Kalm received added income from this salaried post. As vicar of Piikkio, he also became an active member of the Turku Cathedral.
Politics
Clear political views were presented in Kalm's dissertations. Thus, for example, there is a discussion of whether war or economics contributes more to improving a country's economy and the assertion that government by a system of Estates is better than an absolute monarchy.
Membership
In 1745 Kalm became a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
,
Sweden
1745
Personality
Kalin’s biographer, the eminent Swedish botanist Carl Skottsberg, called him a descriptive naturalist of the first rank, cautious, penetrating, and precise as an observer.
Connections
In the winter of 1749-1750 Kalm married Anna Margareta Sjoman, the widow of Johan Sandin, who had been the pastor of the Swedish colony at Raccoon. Anna had a daughter, then less than two years old, from her marriage to Sandin. Together the couple had two sons, Johan Pehrsson and Pehr Gabriel; the latter died the next day after his birth.