Richard Hartshorne

Richard Hartshorne (December 12, 1899 – November 5, 1992) was a prominent American geographer, and professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who specialized in economic and political geography and the philosophy of geography. He is known in particular for his methodological work The Nature of Geography, published in 1939.

Born in Kittanning, Pennsylvania, Hartshorne completed his undergraduate studies at Princeton University in 1920, and his doctorate at the University of Chicago in 1924

Hartshorne taught at the University of Minnesota from 1924 to 1940, and at the University of Wisconsin-Madison from 1945 to 1970. In the war-time interruption from 1941 to 1945 he established and ran the Geography Division in the branch of Research and Analysis of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS).

Hartshorne was president of the Association of American Geographers in 1949. The association gave him its top award in 1960. He was also awarded a Doctor of Laws (honoris causa) from Clark University, April 17, 1971, and the Victoria medal from the Royal Geographical Society in 1984.

He died of cancer at his home in Madison, Wisconsin. Among his brothers was the prominent American philosopher Charles Hartshorne.

Hartshorne's 1939 book The Nature of Geography: A Critical Survey of Current Thought in the Light of the Past, reflected his concern that geographers, as scientists and scholars, should familiarize themselves with, and take account of, past work in their field. The book itself became a standard in the field and remained in print for decades; the seventh edition was published in 2000.

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