Hovey, Edmund Otis, 1862-1924

Edmund Otis Hovey was a geologist and museum curator. He joined the American Museum of Natural History in 1894 as assistant curator in the Dept. of Geology and Paleontology, becoming associate curator in 1901 and curator in 1910. He was also acting administrator of the museum for two brief periods.

Hovey's main areas of interest were volcanoes, earthquakes and meteorites. He traveled all over the world, taking photographs and collecting specimens from major geological events, most notably to Martinique and Saint Vincent for the eruptions of Mount Pelée and Soufrière, 1902-1903, and the resulting destruction of the city of Saint-Pierre on Martinique; to San Francisco after the earthquake of 1906; and to Portland, Or., to study the Willamette meteorite. He also visited mines and caves in the U.S., including Luray Caverns in Virginia. Hovey's longest journey began in 1915, heading the museum's rescue effort for the members of the 1913-1917 Crocker Land Expedition. Due to ice conditions, Hovey was forced to spend the year of 1916 in Greenland. Hovey was also a productive writer and editor, with approximately 150 articles to his credit, and serving as editor of The American Museum journal (later Natural history magazine) during its first ten years from 1900 to 1910, and of the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences from 1908 to 1916. He was a delegate to several international geological congresses and secretary of the Geological Society of America from 1907-1922.