Salisbury, Rollin D., 1858-1922

Professor of geology and physical geography, University of Chicago.

Rollin D. Salisbury (1858-1922), a native of Spring Prairie, Wisconsin, graduated from Beloit College (Ph.B., 1881) as a student of Thomas Chrowder Chamberlin, professor of geology. When Chamberlin resigned his post at Beloit in 1882 to become chief of the Glacial Division of the U.S. Geological Survey, Salisbury assumed his position on the faculty, completed a second degree (A.M., 1884), and remained at Beloit until 1891 teaching geology, zoology, and botany. In 1891, Chamberlin, as president of the University of Wisconsin, brought Salisbury to Madison as a professor of geology with a concentration in geographic geology. Their joint tenure at Wisconsin was brief, however, for in 1892 both left to join the faculty of the recently organized University of Chicago, Chamberlin as first Head Professor of the Department of Geology, and Salisbury as Professor of Geographic Geology in the Department.

Once in Chicago, Chamberlin and Salisbury turned their energies to the formation of the new Department and the launching of a professional publication, the Journal of Geology, which Salisbury served as managing editor and editor for geographic geology. Salisbury's abilities soon brought him other University positions as well: he was named Dean of the University Colleges (1894-1896), University Examiner (1895-1898), and Dean of the Ogden Graduate School of Science (1899-1922), a post giving him general administrative supervision of the University's graduate programs in physics, chemistry, biology, geology, and astronomy. In 1903, Salisbury's duties as professor and dean were enlarged by his appointment as the first Head of the Department of Geography, the first graduate department of its kind at an American university. Patterned after a proposal submitted by J. Paul Goode in 1902, the Department marked a decisive step in the development of academic geography from a specialization within geology to an independent discipline with its own field of inquiry. Drawing on his work in the geographic and physiographic aspects of geology, Salisbury recruited faculty and guided the curriculum of the Department of Geography for the next fifteen years, while continuing to offer courses both there and in the Department of Geology and Paleontology as Professor of Geographic Geology. In 1919, with the retirement of Chamberlin, Salisbury assumed the position of Head of the Department of Geology and Paleontology, an administrative post he held until his sudden illness and death in 1922.

lthough Salisbury's most substantial contributions were in teaching and administration, he also devoted himself to a wide range of field projects in geology and geography. During the school year 1887-1888, while on leave from Beloit to study at the University of Heidelberg, he traveled extensively in Germany and made careful notes on Pleistocene formations in the north German lowlands. In 1895, having been recommended by Chamberlin, he was able to make further observations on glacial activity as geologist with the Peary Relief Expedition in northern Greenland. He served for many years as assistant geologist (1882-1892) and geologist (1892-1910) with the U.S. Geological Survey, and for much of that time (1891-1910) was supervisor of the Pleistocene Division of the Geological Survey of New Jersey. In 1919, as a result of his considerable experience, Salisbury was named a member of the Board of Commissioners of the Illinois State Geological Survey. Publications generated by his field and survey work included the “Preliminary Paper on the Driftless Area of the Upper Mississippi Valley” (1885) written with Chamberlin; a series of reports on the geology of New Jersey which appeared from 1892 to 1917; a text in the American Science Series, Geology (3 vols., 1904-1906), written with Chamberlin; and Physiography, a text issued in five editions between 1907 and 1919.

Salisbury's specialization in geographic geology and his direction of the first graduate department of geography gave him important responsibilities in the development of professional geography. The first president of the Geographic Society of Chicago (1898-1899), Salisbury was also a charter member (1904), vice-president (1908), and president (1912) of the Association of American Geographers, and a chairman and vice-president (1917) of Section E (Geology and Geography) of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. His most lasting impact on geography, however, was felt through the work of his students, who in the early decades of the twentieth century composed nearly a third of the membership of the A.A.G. and included such figures as Wallace Atwood, Wellington Jones, Charles Colby, Harlan Barrows, Robert Platt, and Carl Sauer. While these scholars, all leaders in the first generation of academic geography, produced theories and methods that eventually diverged widely from Salisbury's model, they nevertheless remained faithful to the spirit of his weekly student-staff seminars and found their careers shaped by his insistence on the importance of rigorous field research.