Warren Upham

Background

Warren Upham was born at Amherst, New Hampshire, the son of Jacob and Sarah (Hayward) Upham, and a descendant of John Upham who emigrated from England to Weymouth, Massachussets, in 1635.

Education

He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1871.

Career

After his graduation, Upham was engaged on the geological survey of New Hampshire (1874 - 78), and on the geological survey of Minnesota and the United States Geological Survey (1879 - 95). He went to Minnesota in 1879.

From 1895 to 1914 he was secretary and librarian of the Minnesota Historical Society, and from 1914 to 1933 archeologist of the society. Upham's life affords the unusual example of a diligent scholar at the height of his career in one science changing his major field after the age of fifty. Before 1905 most of his work was in geology; after 1905, in archeology and history.

In 1896 Upham published his paper "The Glacial Lake Agassiz, " United States Geological Survey Monographs, vol. XXV, which included many of the principal results of his studies in Minnesota, North Dakota, and Manitoba. This monograph, a classic on the subject of post-glacial physiography, describes an ancient lake vastly greater than the present Lake Superior, its beaches, deltas, and other shore features that became wonderfully well exposed when the lake shrank to become the present Lake Winnipeg.

In 1896 Upham issued, jointly with G. F. Wright, a volume entitled Greenland Ice Fields and Life in the North Atlantic. His most important historical publications appeared in the Collections of the Minnesota Historical Society, among them "Groseilliers and Radisson, the First White Men in Minnesota" (vol. X, pt. 2, 1905), "Minnesota Biographies" (vol. XIV, 1912), which he compiled with Rose B. Dunlap, and "Minnesota Geographic Names" (vol. XVII, 1920). He was one of the editors of Minnesota in Three Centuries (1908).

He was particularly interested in the history of man before the period of the graphic arts, and published two noteworthy contributions on the subject: "Man in the Ice Age at Lansing, Kan. , and Little Falls, Minn. " (American Geologist, Sept. 1902), and "Valley Loess and the Fossil Man of Lansing, Kan. " (Ibid. , Jan. 1903). Although the conclusions of these discourses were not generally accepted as indisputable proof of the presence of man in North America during the Ice Age, Upham died with the conviction that man inhabited the region beyond the ice edge during at least a part of that period, and discoveries in Minnesota lend strong support to that theory. He died at St. Paul, Minnesota, where he had lived for many years.

Achievements

• An indefatigable and patient worker, Upham published almost two hundred papers on geology. Of these all but about twenty are on glacial geology and nearly related subjects, which were his principal fields of work. His greatest contribution to geology was contained in the fine series of county reports issued by the Minnesota Geological Survey, but his best known paper was "The Glacial Lake Agassiz".

Works

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  • Minnesota in Three Centuries, 1655-1908, Vol. 2 (Classic Reprint)

    (This volume of Minnesota in Three Centuries covers the pe...)

  • Minnesota in Three Centuries, 1655-1908, Vol. 1 (Classic Reprint)

    (At the beginning of this History of Minnesota, a descript...)

  • Minnesota in Three Centuries, 1655-1908, Vol. 3 (Classic Reprint)

    (This volume of Minnesota in Three Centuries, covers the p...)

  • Minnesota Place Names: A Geographical Encyclopedia

    (The names of places, the names that people give to the la...)

  • Catalogue of the Flora of Minnesota, Including Its Phaenogamous and Vascular Cryptogamous Plants, Indigenous, Naturalized, and Adventive

    (This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)

  • The Ice Age in North America and Its Bearings Upon the Antiquity of Man

    (This work has been selected by scholars as being cultural...)

  • Lake Agassiz: a chapter in glacial geology.

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

  • Minnesota Geographic Names, Vol. 17: Their Origin and Historic Significance (Classic Reprint)

    (Excerpt from Minnesota Geographic Names, Vol. 17: Their O...)

  • History of mining and quarrying in Minnesota

    (History of mining and quarrying in Minnesota. 30 Pages.)

  • GREENLAND ICEFIELDS: and LIFE in the NORTH ATLANTIC

    (Greenland Summer of 1894. 448 pages.)

Personality

Upham was courtly, modest, unobtrusive, almost retiring until his own field was mentioned; he then became alert, authoritative, and entertaining. He was endeared to all his associates by his modesty regarding his own attainments, his thoughtfulness for others, and his willingness to give without stint both his time and his knowledge.

Connections

On October 22, 1885, Upham married Addie M. Bixby of Aurora, Minnesota. There was one child, who died at birth.

Father:

Jacob Upham

Mother:

Sarah (Hayward) Upham

Spouse:

Addie M. Bixby