Reid, Harry Fielding, 1859-1944

Harry Fielding Reid, professor at Case School of Applied Science in Cleveland, Ohio, visited Glacier Bay in 1890 with a party of five men. In 1892 he returned and continued to survey the area. Reid received his Ph. D. from Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, in 1894 and stayed to become professor of dynamic geology from 1896 until 1930 when he was appointed emeritus professor. His early work centered on glaciers but from 1906 he concentrated on seismology. In 1911, he developed the elastic rebound theory of earthquake mechanics. He was president of the Seismological Society of America in 1912 and 1913, chairman of the American Geophysical Union from 1924-1926, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. The Seismological Society of America renamed their highest honor, the Medal, after Reid. His most lasting work was "The Mechanics of the Earthquake," Vol. II of the Lawson report on the 1906 earthquake. His work made a fundamental contribution to the understanding of earthquake mechanics using observations from that earthquake. Reid died in 1944 at the age of 85. His diaries and glaciological papers were donated to the American Geophysical Union. [Source: Seismological Society of America, online, Encyclopedia Brittanica, online; personal letter from Wm. O. Field to Historical Collections.].

Biographical Note: Harry Fielding Reid was a professor of geology at The Johns Hopkins University and a geologist known for his contributions in the fields of seismology and glaciology.

He was born in Baltimore, MD in 1859 and received his bachelor's degree (1880) and his doctorate (1885) from Hopkins. Reid began his teaching career at the Case School of Applied Science and the University of Chicago but returned to Hopkins in 1889 as professor of geological physics. He retired as professor emeritus in 1930. As a scientist in the field, Reid surveyed and mapped several glacial areas in Alaska beginning in 1892. His reseach in seismology began after the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. He developed the elastic rebound theory of earthquakes and added to the knowledge of the seismograph. Harry Feilding Reid died in Baltimore in 1944.