Forbes College

The international symposium “Man’s Role in Changing the Face of the Earth”, organized by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research and held at the Princeton Inn from June 16 to June 22, 1955, was one of the first interdisciplinary efforts to understand the impact of human activity on the environment. Motivation for the symposium emerged largely from the fields of anthropology and human geography, with the goal of evaluating what people had done to their habitat to transform it from its natural condition to its present state and to try to forecast what the future might hold. There was no political agenda, no desire to issue resolutions or policy recommendations. Its purpose was simply to bring together the most eminent scholars in the world to assess the state of knowledge of human environmental impact, which areas need further study, and what is the scope and rate of environmental change caused by human activity.

Planning for the symposium began in 1952, and between June 1954 and March 1955, 97 invitations were extended to scholars all over the world. All this was long before e-mail and the Web, and even intercontinental phone calls were extremely difficult, so virtually all of the symposium’s planning was done by mail. The Wenner-Gren Foundation covered the costs of each participant, which included transportation to Princeton and lodging and meals at the Princeton Inn. About 40% of the participants were in the geosciences, 28% in biological sciences, 12% in the social sciences, and 20% in applied fields like administration, urban planning, and the like. Those from outside the U.S. came from Canada, England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Belgium, Germany, Egypt, Israel, and India.

Planning for the symposium began in 1952, and between June 1954 and March 1955, 97 invitations were extended to scholars all over the world. All this was long before e-mail and the Web, and even intercontinental phone calls were extremely difficult, so virtually all of the symposium’s planning was done by mail. The Wenner-Gren Foundation covered the costs of each participant, which included transportation to Princeton and lodging and meals at the Princeton Inn. About 40% of the participants were in the geosciences, 28% in biological sciences, 12% in the social sciences, and 20% in applied fields like administration, urban planning, and the like. Those from outside the U.S. came from Canada, England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Belgium, Germany, Egypt, Israel, and India.

The chairmen of the symposium were three of the leading scholars of the time: Carl O. Sauer of the University of California at Berkeley, an influential geographer; Marston Bates of the University of Michigan, a distinguished zoologist and environmental scientist; and Lewis Mumford, a renowned humanist from the University of Pennsylvania known for his analyses of technology, architecture, and urban life. Other prominent scholars who participated included F. Frasier Darling, a Scottish wildlife biologist and author of the landmark study A Herd of Red Deer; E. Estyn Evans, a geographer and archaeologist from Northern Ireland and author of Irish Folk Ways; Kenneth Boulding, the professor of economics at the University of Michigan and author of numerous books, and Sir Charles Darwin, grandson of the famous naturalist and a distinguished physicist in his own right. Interestingly, the participation of individuals associated with Princeton University appears to have been minimal. Only Professor John Tukey, an influential Princeton statistician (credited with coining the term “software”), appears in the list of participants.

Six days of presentations and wide-ranging discussions covered topics such as anthropogenic climate change, the ecology of wastes, urban and industrial demands on land, and the history of human modifications of the environment. Among the 52 formal talks were ones by Omer Stewart of the University of Colorado on the human use of fire for landscape modification; Eugene Ayres of Gulf Research on fossil fuels, Bates on human agency in the spread of organisms, and Luna Leopold of the U.S. Geological Survey on land use and sediment yield. The sessions were divided into three groups: Retrospect, a look at the human impact on the world through history, archaeology, and historical geology; Process, dealing with the current activities of humans and their impact on the environment; and Prospect, looking forward at the potential for further human modification of the environment and the problems and opportunities that it presented. The tone of Prospect is a mixture of cautious optimism and pessimistic caution. Atomic energy was only a decade old and already it is possible to discern the conflicted views of its benefits and threats. Mumford concluded his summary remarks on Prospect in his characteristically poetic way: “Only when love takes the lead will the earth, and life on earth, be safe again. And not until then.”

The lasting result of “Man’s Role in Changing the Face of the Earth” was an immense volume with the same name, edited by William L. Thomas, Jr. of the Wenner-Gren Foundation and published by the University of Chicago Press. Thanks to the establishment of an editorial office at the Princeton Inn, it was possible for the authors to provide final versions of their papers quickly and for the publication to appear within months, a remarkable accomplishment given that it was the era of manual typewriters and mechanical typesetting. The authoritative papers it contains were important in shaping the research agenda of the environmental and social sciences over the next several decades, and they are relevant and interesting even today.

Peter Bogucki                                                                  John Hodgson
School of Engineering and Applied Science             Dean of Forbes College

Addendum: During the symposium, one of the participants, Dr. Vincent J. Schaeffer (the person who, more than any other, invented the method of seeding clouds with dry ice to cause precipitation), wrote (on Princeton Inn letterhead) a letter about the proceedings to his mentor, Dr. Willis Rodney Whitney, the founder of the GE Research Lab. His personal note gives an informal glimpse into the atmosphere of the conference:

Dear Doc -- I am halfway through a series of fascinating Symposia entitled "Man's Role in changing the World." . . . There are about 50 of us with men from most parts of the free world having a very stimulating experience. There are many arguments but in general a few basic facts are slowly taking shape. The papers and discussions will be published within the next year and I believe will serve as an interesting example of what a group of men from many different fields, believe in man's role and destiny.

For information on the photographs and more photographs from the symposium (including many taken in the living room and on the terrace, and some taken at the Dinky station) Please click here.

Photographs used with permission from the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved by the Wenner Gren-Foundation for Anthropological Research