Copyright by Kristina Maria Doyle Lane 2006 The Dissertation Committee for Kristina Maria Doyle Lane Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: IMAGINATIVE GEOGRAPHIES OF MARS: THE SCIENCE AND SIGNIFICANCE OF THE RED PLANET, 1877 - 1910 Committee: Ian R. Manners, Supervisor Kelley A. Crews-Meyer Diana K. Davis Roger Hart Steven D. Hoelscher Imaginative Geographies of Mars: The Science and Significance of the Red Planet, 1877 - 1910 by Kristina Maria Doyle Lane, B.A.; M.S.C.R.P. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin August 2006 Dedication This dissertation is dedicated to Magdalena Maria Kost, who probably never would have understood why it had to be written and certainly would not have wanted to read it, but who would have been very proud nonetheless. Acknowledgments This dissertation would have been impossible without the assistance of many extremely capable and accommodating professionals. For patiently guiding me in the early research phases and then responding to countless followup email messages, I would like to thank Antoinette Beiser and Marty Hecht of the Lowell Observatory Library and Archives at Flagstaff. For introducing me to the many treasures held deep underground in our nation’s capital, I would like to thank Pam VanEe and Ed Redmond of the Geography and Map Division of the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. For welcoming me during two brief but productive visits to the most beautiful library I have seen, I thank Brenda Corbin and Gregory Shelton of the U.S. Naval Observatory Library, also in Washington. For hosting my extended research visit and responding cheerfully to many requests for materials stored in unlikely places, I owe sincere thanks to Peter Hingley of the Royal Astronomical Society Library and Archives in London. For facilitating a very efficient research visit, for sharing her office with me, and for even helping me buy last-minute train tickets in a pinch, I owe professional and personal thanks to Agnese Mandrino of l’Archivo Storico dell’Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera, in Milan. Of course, I never would have visited a single one of these rich archives without financial support, and I would like to gratefully acknowledge the generosity of several institutions. The project’s first phase was funded by a Robert E. Veselka v Endowed Fellowship provided by the Department of Geography and the Environment at the University of Texas and also by a George H. Mitchell Fellowship provided by the University Co-Op Society. The project’s second phase was funded by a Mellon Fellowship for Dissertation Research in Original Sources provided by the Council on Library and Information Resources. This generous fellowship was also supplemented by a series of very helpful workshops that greatly facilitated my understanding of how to approach archival research intelligently and efficiently. The project’s final writing phase was supported by the Department of Geography and Environment at the University of Texas through a Teaching Assistantship and Assistant Instructorship. Looking back on the research process, it seems that most of the project’s meaningful advances usually occurred as I was thinking about or responding to colleagues’ suggestions and questions. For offering valuable ideas and feedback at various points along the way, I would especially like to thank Scott Kubly, James Bryan, Molly White, Maggie Lynch, Kay Ebel, Amy Mills, Jim Housefield, Alba Newmann, Denis Cosgrove, Kathy Castle, Felix Driver, Steve Legg, David Lambert, Gerry Kearns, Matthew Edney, Denis Wood, Bernie Lightman, Paul Adams, Leo Zonn, and my graduate student colleagues in Geography at the University of Texas. For comprising the most perfectly rounded and most consistently supportive team of advisers I could have imagined, I thank my dissertation committee members Ian Manners, Roger Hart, Diana Davis, Steve Hoelscher, and Kelley Crews-Meyer. Ian Manners, in particular, has gone above and beyond all expectations in guiding the vi maturity and rigor not only of the dissertation project, but also of my own intellectual development. Finally, I sincerely doubt this project would have achieved any measure of completion without the constant support and encouragement of friends and family members over the last four years. For providing daily assistance and the occasional brisket, I thank DeeDee Barton. For ensuring a ready supply of healthy distractions, I thank all the wonderful women who have been my competitive teammates in Austin’s ultimate Frisbee community. For never once asking the dreaded “why don’t you just get a real job?” question when I was talking about my research plans and goals, I thank the Lane and Doyle families. For teaching me how to write and showing me how to make an outline when I was eight years old, I thank my dad Robin Doyle. For always reminding me to “listen to my teachers” and to set my own standards, I thank my mom Kris Doyle. For giving me a deadline I couldn’t ignore, I thank newborn Simon RED Lane. And for putting out all dissertation-related fires with his instinctive emergency-response techniques, ultimate thanks go to my partner and inspiration Matt Lane, who has always put my well-being and success ahead of all other concerns. vii Imaginative Geographies of Mars: The Science and Significance of the Red Planet, 1877 - 1910 Publication No. _____________ Kristina Maria Doyle Lane, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2006 Supervisor: Ian R. Manners Over several decades spanning the turn of the twentieth century, Western astronomers’ claims about the landscape and climate of Mars spurred widespread scientific and popular interest in the possibility that the red planet might be inhabited by intelligent beings far more advanced than humans. This dissertation challenges traditional interpretations of this episode – as an amusing example of science gone awry – with a critical re-investigation of the production of geographical knowledge about Mars in historical context. Based on extensive archival and documentary research, I offer a new explanation for the power with which the notion of an inhabited Mars gripped scholars and citizens alike, showing that turn-of the century scientific narratives about Mars derived much of their power and popularity from ties with the newly established discipline of geography. At the same time, the dissertation viii reveals the Mars mania to be integrally connected with the history of geography, suggesting that scientific and popular representations of Martian geography also helped circulate knowledge claims regarding the geography of Earth. Specifically, the dissertation examines astronomers’ use of geographical rhetoric, imagery, method, and themes, analyzing the extent to which these elements contributed to their scientific credibility and popular reputations. I first focus on the development of Mars knowledge through cartography, examining the evolution of cartographic conventions and styles used to portray Mars and revealing how an early geometric map established the authority to influence the cartography of Mars over the next several decades. I show, furthermore, that much of the power and longevity of the inhabited-Mars hypothesis derived from this map’s visual authority as a geographical representation, thus explaining why Mars maps were ubiquitous during the canal craze, with astronomers seemingly competing with one another to add cartographic detail. In addition to their deft manipulation of cartographic conventions, astronomers also often employed representational techniques from the popular travel narratives, explorer accounts, and geographical expeditions of the day to imagine a landscape they could never visit. Aligning themselves with the emerging observational geosciences, astronomers prioritized direct observation and rhetorically invoked a geographical gaze to establish legitimacy for their work, producing in the process a familiar, Earthlike picture of Martian geography that contributed to widespread interest in the planet’s possible habitability. ix These strong links between Mars astronomy and geographical science suggest that scientific claims about the red planet should be re-examined and re- contextualized in relation to terrestrial geographical knowledge production. Illustrating the value of this approach, the dissertation compares several Mars-related tropes with contemporaneous geographical descriptions of terrestrial landscapes and cultures. This analysis shows that Mars was constructed as an arid, irrigated, dying planet in many of the same ways that Earth’s own desert regions were portrayed in imperial narratives. As astronomers and science writers drew on various audiences’ understandings of arid landscapes, they also used Mars as a site of projection for geographical concerns regarding climate and landscape change. Similarly, dominant representations of Martian culture were influenced by Social Darwinist philosophy and the environmentally deterministic traditions of geographical writing about the non-Western Other. At the same time, however, the construction of a superior Martian in both scientific and popular texts and images indicates that the narratives surrounding Mars departed in significant ways from typical writing about the terrestrial world. The production of geographical knowledge regarding Mars is thus shown as a potential