Gannett–Gulf
Colorado, and Wyoming, and prepared reports and maps during winter offi ce seasons in Washington, D.C. In 1879, when the federally sponsored scientifi c ex- peditions directed by Hayden, Clarence King, and John Wesley Powell were folded into the newly formed U.S. G Geological Survey (USGS), the federal government was preparing to conduct its decennial census of population. Gannett, Henry. Henry Gannett was an American At the request of the superintendent of the census, Fran- geographer who is celebrated primarily for establishing cis Amasa Walker, Gannett joined the tenth U.S. census new institutions within the federal government to col- (1880) in the newly created position of geographer. As lect and present information depicting aspects of the na- the census’s fi rst geographer, he established geographic tion’s physical and human geographies. In doing this, he operations to collect information with a door-to-door transformed the existing fragmentary approaches into enumeration of households; to compile that information; a set of interrelated federal institutions that established and then to present it in substantive reports with maps, a framework for the creation of integrated geographic charts, and text. These programs included the creation information systems in the late twentieth century. of enumeration districts that were based on the nation’s Gannett was born in Bath, Maine, 24 August 1846. physical and human geographies for the fi rst time and He proved to be an academically gifted student, and af- dramatically improved the quality of census information. ter graduating from high school in 1864 went to sea un- Gannett served as geographer–assistant director of three til entering Harvard’s Lawrence Scientifi c School in the U.S.
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