Great-grandson of Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Dallas Bache, was born in Philadelphia, PA on July 19, 1806. During his 24 years as Superintendent of the United States Coast Survey he led the organization in mapping out the eastern seaboard of the U.S. by establishing observation stations which were also used to gather meteorological data.
Bache’s scientific ambitions extended far beyond simple mapmaking, as he used the Coast Survey to quietly build America’s first federal empire for scientific research. By convincing Congress that accurate naval charts were vital for the young nation’s global trade, he secured massive budgets that allowed him to employ and fund the country’s top astronomers, mathematicians, and naturalists. His vast network of coastal stations did more than prevent shipwrecks; they collected the massive baseline data sets on tides, geomagnetism, and weather that ultimately transformed American oceanography and meteorology from a collection of amateur hobbies into a disciplined, internationally respected professional science.
Image via Wikimedia Commons, public domain
