William Channing Woodbridge

William Channing Woodbridge (December 8, 1794 – November 9, 1845) was an American geographer, educational reformer, and the author of many geography textbooks.

Woodbridge's father, William Woodbridge, was a Yale University graduate, minister, and a major advocate for educational change in Connecticut. The senior Woodbridge wrote textbooks on grammar and spelling, and was the first preceptor of Phillips Exeter Academy. He worked with his son on some of the younger Woodbridge’s projects. His mother was Ann Channing, the aunt of Bostonian Unitarian theologian William Ellery Channing.

William Channing Woodbridge was born in Medford, Massachusetts. His family soon moved to Connecticut, where his parents taught him Latin, Greek, chemistry and mathematics. Throughout his life, he suffered from what was then called scrofula, which today would probably be diagnosed as tuberculosis.

In June 1808, Woodbridge entered Yale as the youngest member of his freshman class. Here, he was inspired by Yale College's president, Timothy Dwight IV. Woodbridge developed an interest in both the American landscape and in the publication of geographies, and was a member of the Society of Brothers in Unity. Many of the values later reflected in his publications were those of Yale at this time. Woodbridge was a true son of the Enlightenment, believing in the importance of reason and observation. However, like Dwight he remained a committed evangelical Christian. Woodbridge rejected the Unitarian ideas which were then influencing so many of his friends and relatives. He believed passionately in science, but he was certain that this knowledge of the material world could only lead people closer to God and to a firmer morality. He believed in the essential unity of all humans. After discussing the location of the various races of mankind, his 1830 edition of Rudiments of Geography reminds readers, “The scriptures inform us that all of these races are brethren of the same family; the children of the same first parents.”

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