Home
William John McGee, LL.D. (1853 – 1912)

Powell’s Pals: W J McGee

William John McGee was an American inventor, geologist, anthropologist and ethnologist. He was born and raised in Farley, Iowa. He always referred to himself as W J McGee (note without periods). He is reported to have been one of Maj. John Wesley Powell’s only pals who stayed true to Powell’s legacy, hence this Witness Post about him. While serving as a minor character in the larger Powell saga, he was highly regarded in Wallace Stegner’s book, Beyond the Hundreth Meridian.[1] W J McGee is often credited, along with Theodore Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot, as the brains of the Conservative Movement in Washington, DC, at the turn of the 19th century.[3]

McGee Biography

While largely self-taught, McGee attended a rural one-room schoolhouse north of Farley, Iowa. He was in the classes during the four winter months from about 1858 to 1867. The other months he was helping his family on the farm. He devoted his early years to reading with a keen interest in the law. He also read abour conducting a survey. In his spare time he invented and patented several improvements on agricultural tools and gardening implements.[2]

According to Wikipedia, he subsequently turned his attention to geology. In 1877–1881, he executed a topographic and geological survey of 17,000 square miles (44,030 km2) in northeastern Iowa. He then undertook an examination of the loess of the Mississippi Valley, researched the great Quaternary lakes of Nevada and California and studied a recent fault movement in the middle Atlantic slope.[2]

He was appointed as a geologist for the United States Geological Survey (USGS) in 1881. In 1884 McGee authored the article Map of the United States exhibiting the present status of knowledge relating to the areal distribution of geologic groups for the USGS Journal. While with the USGS, McGee travelled with Clarence Dutton (a fellow Powell’s Pal) to Charleston, South Carolina, in 1886 to study the earthquake disturbances in its vicinity.[2]

McGee was a founding member of the Geological Society of America  and in 1890 was the first editor of The Geological Society of America Bulletin. McGee was the ethnologist in charge of the Bureau of American Ethnology from 1893 to 1903. In 1895, he explored the Isla del Tiburón, Gulf of California, home of the Seri Indians. In 1904 he was chief of the department of anthropology that organized the “Anthropology Days” at the 1904 Summer Olympics  /  Louisiana Purchase Exposition, during the 1904 World’s Fair, held in St. Louis, MO. In 1907 he was appointed a member of the Inland Waterways Commission by President Roosevelt.[2]

McGee’s other prominent positions were: acting president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1897–1898); president of the American Anthropological Association (1902–1912); and president of the National Geographic Society (1904–1905).[2]

Personal Life

McGee was married to Anita Newcomb McGee in 1888. Together they raised three children. He died of cancer in Washington, D.C., on September 4, 1912, at the age of 59.

Mount McGee in California is named in his honor.

Published Works

His publications include the following:

  • The Geology of Chesapeake Bay (1888)
  • The Pleistocene History of Northeastern Iowa (1889)
  • The Siouan Indians (1895)
  • Primitive Trephining (1897)
  • The Seri Indians (1899)
  • Primitive Numbers (1901)
  • Soil Erosion (1911)
  • Wells and Subsoil Water (1913)

References:

[1] Stegner, Wallace, Beyond the Hundredth Meridian, Penguin Books, New York, 1954.

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_John_McGee

[3] W J McGee was one of the men with whom John Wesley Powell found some of his strongest kinship. The exploration of the relationship is outlined and discussed in another Powell’s Pals post on McGee and eight other scientists and explorers from the Powell era.