9:15 AM - 9:30 AM
[MZZ42-02] The Edmund Naumann documents in the Gotha Research Library at the University of Erfurt
Keywords:history of geoscience, history of geography, archival materials, Perthes collection, Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen, cartography
In the field of the history of science, archival materials are as important sources of information as published materials. This presentation aims to introduce new archival materials on Edmund Naumann who is hailed as the founding father of geology in Japan. The already known archival materials on Edmund Naumann are those held by the National Archives of Japan and the Archives of the University of Munich. The former is related to Naumann’s career as an academic advisor to the Meiji Government. The latter is concerned with his doctorate and habilitation from and his career as a Privatdozent at the University of Munich. The new archival materials are deposited in the Gotha Research Library at the University of Erfurt. They consist of handwritten and typed letters, postcards, manuscript maps and so on, most of which were sent to the Justus Perthes Geographische Anstalt based in Gotha, one of the leading geographical publishing houses in the world from the late nineteenth to early twentieth century. Especially, Justus Perthes was famous for its academic journal dedicated to geography in its broadest sense, Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen. Both Alfred Wegener’s theory of continental drift and Vladimir Koeppen’s scheme of climate classification appeared first in Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen, and Edmund Naumann also contributed several papers to this journal. The enterprises of Justus Perthes and its successor in Gotha came to an end in 1992. The University of Erfurt took over the remaining books, periodicals, maps, and archival materials and renamed them as the “Perthes collection.” The Edmund Naumann documents are also included in this collection and they need to be scrutinized closely and thoroughly in the near future.