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University of Michigan Bentley Historical Library

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Alexander Winchell Papers, 1833-1891

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Summary

Creator:
Winchell, Alexander, 1824-1891
Abstract:
Professor of geology and paleontology at the University of Michigan, director of the Michigan Geological Survey, and chancellor of Syracuse University, popular lecturer and writer on scientific topics and as a Methodist layman who worked to reconcile traditional religious beliefs to nineteenth-century developments in the fields of evolutionary biology, cosmology, geology, and paleontology. Papers include extensive diaries, field notes and maps from travels and geological expeditions, correspondence, speeches, articles and other publications and photographs.
Extent:
23.5 linear feet (in 25 boxes)
1 oversize folder
Language:
English.
Call Number:
86321 Aa 2 AC
Authors:
Finding aid prepared by: Leonard Coombs, 1992

Background

Scope and Content:

The papers of Alexander Winchell are those of an orderly man who carefully documented his own life through well-organized correspondence, diaries, notebooks, and scrapbooks. Winchell kept thorough evidence of his activities, writings, lectures, and thoughts, for most of his life. The only area that seems poorly documented is his university teaching. The collection does not appear to include significant material relating to relationships with students in the classroom.

"Alexander Winchell, an editorial tribute," published in The American Geologist (Feb. 1892, MHC call number DB/2/W759/A512), includes a year-by-year account of Winchell's life, based on the papers, and probably written by his brother N. H. Winchell. Although there are no footnotes in this work, it provides a useful summary of Winchell's activities and clues to the existence of documentation in the collection.

The collection is divided into six major series: Biographical, Correspondence, Diaries and journals, Writings and lectures, Reference and research files, and Scrapbooks; and three smaller series: Visual materials, Processing notes, and Card files.

Winchell's bibliography is located in Box 1 (the most complete copy is in the "Permanent memoranda" volume), and drafts of many of his writings are found in Boxes 8-14. Copies of many, but not all, of Winchell's publications are found in the MHC printed collection. The card catalog includes details for all separately cataloged items. There are also three collections of pamphlets that are not inventoried: two slightly different bound sets prepared by N. H. Winchell after Alexander Winchell's death (MHC call numbers DA/2/W759/M678/Set A and DA/2/W759/M678/Set B) and a two-box collection of pamphlets collected by the University Library (MHC call number Univ. of Mich. Coll./J/17/W759).

Biographical / Historical:

Alexander Winchell was professor of geology and paleontology at the University of Michigan, director of the Michigan Geological Survey, and chancellor of Syracuse University, but he was most noted as a popular lecturer and writer on scientific topics and as a Methodist layman who worked to reconcile traditional religious beliefs to nineteenth-century developments in the fields of evolutionary biology, cosmology, geology, and paleontology.

Winchell was born December 31, 1824, in the town of North East, Dutchess County, New York. After studying medicine and teaching school as a teenager, he entered Amenia Seminary, also in Dutchess County, in the fall of 1842. In 1844 he enrolled at Wesleyan University, from which he graduated in 1847. Over the following years Winchell held a succession of teaching positions at Pennington Male Seminary in New Jersey, Amenia Seminary, Newbern Academy in Alabama, Mesopotamia Female Seminary in Eutaw, Alabama, and Masonic University in Selma, Alabama.

Masonic University opened its doors in the fall of 1853, with Winchell as president. Unfortunately a yellow fever epidemic forced the school to close shortly thereafter, and Winchell accepted an offer of the chair in physics and civil engineering at the University of Michigan. Two years later his appointment was changed to the chair in geology, zoology, and botany.

By the time Winchell arrived at the University of Michigan, he had already begun his output of scientific publications, beginning with "Solar Spots," published in the New York Tribune, November 5, 1849. Winchell was a prolific writer: his bibliography contains 565 works.

While teaching at the University of Michigan, Winchell lobbied for the revival of the Michigan Geological Survey, which had expired after the death of Douglass Houghton, the first state geologist, in 1845. In 1859 the legislature reestablished the survey. Winchell was appointed state geologist, while keeping his position at the University of Michigan. Winchell's survey concentrated on the geology of the Lower Peninsula, which coincided with his interest in the fossils found in the sedimentary rocks underlying that part of the state. A progress report was published in 1861 ( First Biennial Report of the Progress of the Geological Survey of Michigan, MHC call number EA/153/MG345/F527). With the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, the legislature discontinued funding for the survey, and officially disbanded it in 1863.

The Civil War brought Winchell an opportunity to return to the South for a time. In 1863 he took up a lease on a cotton plantation near Vicksburg, Mississippi, that had been seized from rebels. The venture brought him nothing but problems, however, and after Winchell returned to Michigan in 1864, his brother Martin, who was managing the plantation, was killed by guerrillas.

It was during the 1860s that Winchell seems to have developed his most original geological theory. Private surveys of a number of oil-producing areas resulted in Winchell's exposition of the anticlinal reservoir theory of petroleum storage, which was proven and developed further by others in later years.

Also in the 1860s Winchell first described the lake effect which moderates the climate of western Michigan, making the region suitable for orchard development. This discovery came as a result of a private survey of the Grand Traverse Bay region of Michigan.

By 1869, the Michigan legislature was once again prepared to fund the Geological Survey, and Winchell was appointed director of the survey. Winchell's plan for a comprehensive survey of the resources of the state was described in Report on the Progress of the State Geological Survey of Michigan, published in 1871 (MHC call number DB/2/W759/M678/Set B/v. 1), but he never completed the task. After disputes with the Geological Survey board and with the legislature, Winchell resigned his position with the survey in 1871.

Winchell kept his teaching position at the University of Michigan until 1873, when he was named the first chancellor of Syracuse University. Disappointed with the position, Winchell resigned the following year, but remained at Syracuse as professor of geology.

In 1876, Winchell accepted a position as professor of geology and zoology at Vanderbilt University, but was fired in 1878 in a dispute over the teaching of evolution. Shortly thereafter Winchell returned to the University of Michigan, where he remained, as professor of geology and paleontology, until his death in 1891.

The relationship between science and religion was an interest of Winchell's beginning at least in the late 1850s, when he published Theologico-Geology, or, The Teachings of Scripture Illustrated by the Conformation of the Earth's Crust, and Voices from Nature: Creation the work of One Intelligence and not the Product of Physical Forces (both in MHC call number DB/2/W759/M678/Set B/v. 4). His work in this area expanded in the late 1860s, when Winchell began to tour, giving popular lectures on scientific topics. In 1869, while Winchell was directing the Geological Survey and teaching at the university, he also gave 48 public lectures in 5 states.

Winchell's thinking on the relationship between science and religion was affected by the debate over Darwinism that raged in American scientific circles after the publication of On the Origin of Species in 1859. Winchell was never a Darwinist, but by the 1870s he seems to have accepted evolution without accepting the theory of natural selection.

Two topics seem to have given Winchell much trouble in his attempts to reconcile his scientific knowledge with his religious faith: the age of the earth and the origin of the human race. Winchell's geological and paleontological research convinced him of the great age of the earth, which he tried to reconcile to the seven days of the Genesis creation story by making each day of creation represent an epoch of great length. In describing the history of the human race, also, Winchell could not reconcile the age of humanity, as revealed by archeological discoveries and explained by evolutionary theory, with biblical chronology and genealogy. Winchell solved this problem by suggesting that Adam was not the first human, but that Africans and other non-whites had evolved separately and were living before Adam was created. This solution caused various difficulties, and was the immediate cause of Winchell's firing from Vanderbilt University.

Among other organizations in which Winchell was active, he was president of the Michigan State Teachers Association in 1858 and editor of the Michigan Journal of Education in 1859; an organizer of the University Musical Society of the University of Michigan and the Choral Union in 1879 and 1880; an organizer of the Geological Society of America in 1888 and its president in 1890.

Winchell married Julia F. Lines of Utica, New York, December 5, 1849. They had six children, only two of whom survived Winchell. Alexander Winchell died February 19, 1891, in Ann Arbor.

Acquisition Information:
The bulk of the collection was donated in 1937 by the Minnesota Historical Society (donor 150 ), which in turn received it in 1931 from Mr. and Mrs. I. Robert Campbell of Minneapolis. Smaller portions were received in 1936 from Alexander Newton Winchell (donor 28 ) and in 1991 from the University of Minnesota, University Archives (donor 7957 ).
Processing information:

This collection was originally processed in the 1930s. In that processing, the volumes that make up the bulk of the collection were arranged more by size than by content, obscuring Winchell's organization of his papers. Each volume and folder was numbered. In the 1992 reprocessing, the collection was returned as much as possible to Winchell's original plan. The imposed volume and folder numbers were ignored, as they conflicted with Winchell's original volume numbering. To aid researchers working with references to this collection made between 1931 and 1991, a concordance of the imposed volume and folder numbers and their current locations has been attached as Appendix II.

In preparing digital material for long-term preservation and access, the Bentley Historical Library adheres to professional best practices and standards to ensure that content will retain its authenticity and integrity. For more information on procedures for the ingest and processing of digital materials, please see Bentley Historical Library Digital Processing Note. Access to digital material may be provided either as a direct link to an individual file or as a downloadable package of files bundled in a zip file.

Arrangement:

The collection is divided into six major and three minor series:

  1. Biographical
  2. Correspondence
  3. Diaries and journals
  4. Writings and lectures
  5. Reference and research files
  6. Scrapbooks
  1. Visual Materials
  2. Processing notes
  3. Card file

Subjects

Click on terms below to find any related finding aids on this site.

Subjects:
Botany.
Education -- United States.
Evolution -- Religious aspects.
Fossils.
Geology -- Michigan.
Human beings -- Origin.
Meteorology.
Natural history.
Paleontology.
Religion and science.
Scientific expeditions -- United States.
Voyages and travels.
Weather -- Michigan.
Geology -- United States.
Dwellings -- Michigan -- Ann Arbor.
Fossils.
Geology.
Geology -- Michigan -- Maps.
Geology -- Minnesota -- Maps.
Formats:
Photographs.
Diaries.
Maps.
Poetry.
Photographs.
Scrapbooks.
Names:
Michigan. Geological survey.
Michigan State Teachers' Association.
Syracuse University.
University of Michigan. Dept. of Botany.
University of Michigan. Dept. of Geology.
University of Michigan. Dept. of Zoology.
University of Michigan -- Faculty.
University of Michigan. University Museum.
University of Michigan. University Musical Society.
Vanderbilt University.
Winchell family.
Winchell, Alexander, 1824-1891.
Whitfield, C. P.
Winchell, N. H. (Newton Horace), 1839-1914.
Agassiz, Alexander, 1835-1910.
Agassiz, Louis, 1807-1873.
Andrews, Edmund, 1824-1904.
Angell, James Burrill, 1829-1916.
Baird, Spencer Fullerton, 1823-1887.
Ball, John, 1794-1884.
Chamberlin, Thomas C. (Thomas Chrowder), 1843-1928.
Chandler, Zachariah, 1813-1879.
Cocker, Benjamin Franklin, 1821-1883.
Cooley, Thomas McIntyre, 1824-1898.
Cope, E. D. (Edward Drinker), 1840-1897.
Cummings, Joseph, 1817-1890.
Currier, A. O.
Dana, James Dwight, 1813-1895.
Dolbear, A. E. (Amos Emerson), 1837-1910.
Garfield, James A. (James Abram), 1831-1881.
Hall, James, 1811-1898.
Harrington, Mark Walrod, 1848-1926.
Haven, E. O. (Erastus Otis), 1820-1881.
Haven, Gilbert, 1821-1880.
Headley, C. B.
Henry, Joseph, 1797-1878.
Herrick, C. L. (Clarence Luther), 1858-1904.
Hitchcock, Charles H. (Charles Henry), 1836-1919.
Marcy, Oliver, 1820-1899.
Meek, Fielding Bradford, 1817-1876.
Newberry, J. S. (John Strong), 1822-1892.
Safford, James Merrill, 1822-1907.
Silliman, Benjamin, 1816-1885.
Steere, Joseph Beal, 1842-1940.
Stevenson, John James, 1841-1924.
Strong, Edwin Atson, 1834-1920.
Tappan, Henry Philip, 1805-1881.
Tyler, Moses Coit, 1835-1900.
Wadsworth, A. S.
Ward, Lester Frank, 1841-1913.
Watson, James C. (James Craig), 1838-1880.
White, Andrew Dickson, 1832-1918.
White, Charles A. (Charles Abiathar), 1826-1910.
Places:
Alabama.
Amenia Seminary (Dutchess County, N.Y.)
Ann Arbor (Mich.)
Grand Traverse Bay Region (Mich.)
Michigan -- Climate.
Michigan -- Geography.
Mississippi.
New York (State)
United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865.
Ann Arbor (Mich.) -- Dwellings.
Alcona County (Mich.) -- Maps.
Alpena County (Mich.) -- Maps.
Delta County (Mich.) -- Maps.
Genesee County (Mich.) -- Maps.
Grand Traverse County (Mich.) -- Maps.
Hillsdale County (Mich.) -- Maps.
Jackson County (Mich.) -- Maps.
Lenawee County (Mich.) -- Maps.
Mackinac County (Mich.) -- Maps.
Manistee County (Mich.) -- Maps.
Monroe County (Mich.) -- Maps.
Presque Isle County (Mich.) -- Maps.
Schoolcraft County (Mich.) -- Maps.
Shiawassee County (Mich.) -- Maps.
Washtenaw County (Mich.) -- Maps.
Alabama -- Maps.
Minnesota -- Maps.
New York (State) -- Maps.
Ohio -- Maps.
Ontario -- Maps.
West Virginia -- Maps.

Contents

Using These Materials

Info for Visitors

How to Request

Ordering Reproductions

Download PDF Finding Aid
RESTRICTIONS:

The collection is open for research.

USE & PERMISSIONS:

Donor(s) have transferred any applicable copyright to the Regents of the University of Michigan but the collection may contain third-party materials for which copyright was not transferred. Patrons are responsible for determining the appropriate use or reuse of materials.

PREFERRED CITATION:

item, folder title, box no., Alexander Winchell Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan

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Collection

Alexander Winchell Papers, 1833-1891
Call Number 86321 Aa 2 AC
Total components 515
Last indexed 2023-12-08