1998 Year of the Ocean Marine Education U.S.A.: An Overview 



HISTORICAL BACKGROUND 



It is only fitting that any discussion of marine education in the United States begin with a 

 recognition of the contribution that Benjamin FrankHn made as the pubUsher of the first chart of 

 the Gulf Stream in 1770. In order to speed up the delivery of mail and goods from America to 

 Europe, he urged that ships stay in the Gulf Stream to take advantage of the current. Based on 

 measurements of temperature he took in his Atlantic crossings in 1775, 1776 and 1785, he 

 advocated using regular temperature readings to ensure that the ship remained in the relatively 

 warmer waters of the Gulf Stream. Franklin's cousin, Captain Timothy Folger of Nantucket, 

 Massachusetts, provided essential information about the Gulf Stream and assisted in making the 

 first chart. Folger was an experienced whaling ship captain who was familiar with the North 

 Atlantic Ocean. 



In 1838, the first American scientific voyage of discovery was launched. The United 

 States Exploring Expedition, under the leadership of U.S. Navy Lieutenant Charles Wilkes, was 

 a four-year expedition which resulted in a final report of 1 9 volumes of maps, text, and 

 illustrations, including 241 new maps and charts. 



Earlier, on August 13, 1825, Midshipman Matthew Fontaine Maury had been assigned to 

 the USN Frigate, Brandywine, whose first duty assignment was to return General Lafayette to 

 France following the mourning of the simultaneous deaths of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams 

 on July 4, 1825. Maury kept a diary of his observations at sea, and his recordkeeping expanded 

 in 1831 when he became sailing master of the Falmouth. On October 17, 1839, Maury was 

 thrown fi-om a stagecoach in an accident and sustained multiple injuries that precluded his return 

 to sea. Fortuitously, Maury was reassigned as Superintendent of the U.S. Navy Depot of Charts 

 and Instruments, later to become Superintendent of the U.S. Naval Observatory. In these new 

 positions, he assiduously collected information from ships" logs. His first oceanography book. 

 The Physical Geography of the Sea, was published in 1854 and was followed by seven revisions. 

 The book was both popular and influential and is an important milestone in the history of marine 

 education in America. 



Two other popular books written in the 1 9th century by Americans also contributed to the 

 public's knowledge about the sea. Two Years Before the Mast, by Richard Henry Dana, 

 documented his voyage around Cape Horn from New England to California. It provided the 

 public with a true, first hand account of shipboard life and waves and weather across more than 

 100 degrees of lafitude in two oceans. The other book, Herman Melville's Moby Dick, while a 

 novel, described many aspects of the life of a whaler and much information about whales and 

 other sea life. Both books were important early sources of informafion for the public about the 

 sea. 



Science teachers in New England began receiving the first summer training in marine 

 biology in the late 1870s under the leadership of Harvard University's famous naturalist, 

 Alexander Agassiz. In addition to having founded the Museum of Comparative Zoology at 

 Harvard, he was also the founder of the first U.S. marine station, the Anderson School of Natural 



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