Stephen Sargent Visher

Stephen Sargent Visher (1887-1967) was an American regional geographer and eugenicist. He spent most of his academic career as Professor of Geography at Indiana University, Department of Geology. His interests included the geography of intelligence, ecology and the historical geography of Indiana – on which he wrote prolifically (C. Lavery, 2015). After his death he was called the “Mr Geography of Indiana” as a result of the many articles and books he wrote concerning the Hoosier State (J. Rose, 1971). His interests in eugenics influenced in the work of Ellsworth Huntington, while his geographical work and stories of eastern travel was one of the main reasons Pulitzer Prize winning war correspondent Ernie Pyle began traveling to the Far East (O. Johnson, 2011).

Visher was born in Chicago to a second generation Dutch immigrant (father) and a New Hampshire native (mother). Irregular school attendance did not diminish his interest in the physical environment, human settlement and animal and plant ecology (C. Harris, 1968). His early interest in these fields laid the foundations for his later research into the influence of the environment on humanity (C. Lavery, 2015). He spent most of his teenage years living between South Dakota and Chicago – where he attended the Lewis Institute to pursue a course in geology and biology. He was then awarded an undergraduate degree in botany and a master's degree in geology at the University of Chicago in 1910.

Visher’s early geographical work was heavily influenced by Ellen Churchill Semple’s widely-read Influences of Geographic Environment (1911) – so much so that he introduced much of Semple’s thinking into his geography course at Indiana University in 1919 (Keighren, 2010). He was particularly interested in the fields of anthropogeography and environmental determinism. He borrowed from these geographical trends to help explain, for example, the historic development of urban areas and the ‘geography of notables’ (S. Visher, 1928). In addition, the works of ecologist Harlan Barrows and sociologist George Vincent stirred Visher’s interests in social evolution, educational attainment, civic sciences and the spatial nature of intelligence (C. Lavery, 2015).

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