T91 Honoring Maynard M. Miller, Founder of the Juneau Icefield Research Program

Monday, 10 October 2011
8:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Room L100A-C

VIDEO DOCUMENTATION OF THE JUNEAU ICEFIELD RESEARCH PROJECT C. 1949, FROM THE ARCHIVES OF THE AMERICAN GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY

Paper number: T91-13
Program: Technical Sessions
Time: 10:55 AM – 11:10 AM

Authors

Abstract

The Juneau Icefield Research Project, a decade-long (1948-1958) program of glaciological research, was organized and sponsored by the American Geographical Society (AGS) of New York City. Conceived in 1946 and initially led by William O. Field, Director of the Society’s Department of Exploration and Field Research, and Maynard M. Miller, then working on a graduate degree at Columbia University, the Project was broadly concerned with fluctuations of glaciers and glacier ice in relation to climate change since the Last Glacial Maximum. Funded by the Office of Naval Research, its annual operations involved as many as 30 scientists and support staff. AGS involvement ended after the Third International Polar Year 1957-1958 (the International Geophysical Year). The program subsequently became more oriented to educational goals and adopted its present name, the Juneau Icefield Research Program. Although well documented in the scientific literature of the 1940s and 1950s, the role of AGS in formulating and executing scientific work on the Juneau Icefield is not well remembered in the glaciological community.

The AGS Archives, an extensive collection of correspondence, journals, artifacts, and other materials, has been underutilized since the move of the Society’s library to Milwaukee in 1978. During recent efforts to organize, conserve, and catalog the holdings of the archives, a large collection of materials related to the Juneau Icefield Research Project was found. Among them were several vintage films showing activities on the Icefield during the late 1940s and early 1950s. One of the films was selected for a pilot digitization project and forms the core of this presentation. The film shows airdrops from planes of the Kodiak Naval Air Station, mass-balance and meteorological measurements, scenes of downtown Juneau, construction of Camp 10, and close-up shots of Project scientists. It provides strikingly high-quality documentation of JIRP’s formative period.