BRINGING GEOGRAPHY TO BOOK: Ellen Semple and the Reception of Geographical Knowledge

(Huntington used to buy published reviews of his books by the pound weight from "clipping" services, a practice Semple embraced, though whether she purchased by the pound weight is not known.) Author Keighren makes special mention of the Oxford University summer schools, managed by A. J. Herbertson and his authorwife, F(anny) L. Dorothy, from 1908 to 1914 which did much to foster American and British friendships of geographers, perhaps attributable in part to the fact that earlier Herbertson had arranged to take a post in American geography. [...] with the slow but gradual expansion in number of binomial and sole departments pursuant to termination of World War I, study of the history of the field came to be considered a significant if not required part of the scholar's knowledge; and some considered Semple's book part of the ongoing quest for knowledge of the structure of a discipline under construction.