Document Type
Article
Publication Date
Winter 2017
Publication Title
Early American Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal
Volume
15
Issue
1
Pages
224-228
Abstract
At the tail end of his monumental trip of exploration and scientific discovery through Latin America from 1799 to 1804, the German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt visited President Thomas Jefferson in Washington. United by their common interests in the Enlightenment, they began a correspondence that endured until 1825. This contribution discusses a letter of 1811 by Humboldt to the former president, hitherto unpublished in English. Aside from closing a gap in their correspondence, the letter, although short, offers an illuminating insight into Humboldt’s personal, political, and scientific networks, which included such figures as Abbé José Correia da Serra and Joel Barlow, who were involved in his simple request for tobacco and seeds.
Identifier
15434273
Recommended Citation
Andress, Reinhard. A Short Letter by Humboldt to Jefferson. Early American Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 15, 1: 224-228, 2017. Retrieved from Loyola eCommons, Modern Languages and Literatures: Faculty Publications and Other Works,
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Copyright Statement
© The McNeil Center for Early American Studies 2017
Comments
Author Posting. © The McNeil Center for Early American Studies 2017. This article is posted here by permission of The McNeil Center for Early American Studies for personal use, not for redistribution. The article was published in Early American Studies, Winter, 2017, https://eas.pennpress.org/home/.