Wallace Walter Atwood

Wallace Walter Atwood (1872 – 1949) was an American geographer and geologist.

Wallace Walter Atwood's main contribution was his idea of Global Species Consolidation. He theorized that men follow a set path in their evolution. The first stage is Dispersion, which represents migration from a point of origin. The second stage is Differentiation, which is an adaptation to the physical environment and also the creation of a new culture and language. The third stage is Contact, in which different cultures come into contact for the first time and interact. Warfare and trade change the face of many cultures by forcing them into another language or set of customs. The last stage is Consolidation, which means wide scale political and economic interaction between cultures. This is made possible by free trade agreements and regulatory institutions such as the UN.

Wallace Walter Atwood studied geography at the University of Chicago, where he was a member of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity. He graduated in 1897. He was elected president of Clark University in 1920 and assumed that position until 1946. As president of Clark University, he ordered in 1922, that the lights be turned off while Scott Nearing was addressing a Liberal Club on socialism on the campus of the University, which won him great renown. On this occasion, he wrote the pamphlet Extra-Curricula activities and academic freedom. He also banned The Nation magazine from the Clark University campus. Walter Wallace Atwood was also president of the international film foundation, whose purpose was to centralize the production and distribution of pedagogical films. He was elected president of the Worcester Economic Club from 1923 to 1924. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1915. Mount Atwood is named after him.

Writings

• Physical geography of the Evanston-Waukegan region (Urbana : University of Illinois, 1908)
• America across the seas; our colonial empire (New York : C. S. Hammond & company, 1909)
• New geography (Boston: Ginn and company, 1920)
• New geography book II (Boston: Ginn and company, 1920)
• Teaching the new geography (Boston: Ginn and company, 1921)
• Inauguration of Wallace Walter Atwood as President of Clark University, February 1, 1921
• Extra-curricula activities and academic freedom (Worcester, Mass. : Clark university library, 1922)

External links

• Works by Wallace Walter Atwood at Project Gutenberg
• TIME Magazine Monday June 16, 1924
• TIME Magazine Monday, May 1932
• Shelly Tenenbaum The Vicissitudes of Tolerance Massachusetts Historical Review, 5 (2003).