National Geographic
For more than a century, the words "National Geographic" have conjured up images of natural wonders, bold exploration, and fascinating foreign cultures. Generations of Americans have looked to the National Geographic Society for information about the wider world, and millions of readers have paged through the familiar yellow-clad National Geographic Magazine to make contact with a world far beyond their immediate experience. Likewise, the editorial choices of the magazine have shaped the American vision of the outside world, whether via the exhibits in the Explorers' Hall at the Society's museum in Washington, D.C., or through its colorful magazine or its countless books and television documentaries.
The National Geographic Society was founded in January, 1888, when thirty-three members of the elite Cosmos Club in Washington, D.C. gathered there with the goal of founding a "society for the increase and diffusion of geographical knowledge." The end of the nineteenth century was a dynamic period of industrial revolution, immigration, discovery, and change. Curiosity about the world was much in evidence, and the founders of the National Geographic Society sought to feed that hunger for knowledge.
Though the men themselves were from the upper classes—lawyers, bankers, educators, and military officers—the society they formed was more democratic in philosophy than similar Royal Societies in Europe. Rather than posing restrictive requirements for members, the founders wished to attract a broad base of supporters. The first president of the Society, Gardiner Greene Hubbard, was a lawyer and financier who felt that his leadership would demonstrate to the public that membership in the Society was not limited to scientists or explorers.
Within the year, the Society published the first issue of National Geographic Magazine. Supporting the effort to gain a broad base of subscriber-members, the magazine was a departure from the dry, academic journals of other scientific societies in that it used dramatic color photographs to illustrate its stories. National Geographic be-came a pioneer in color photography techniques, and eventually became the first U.S. magazine to use an all-color format. For the first time in a scientific journal, photographs of bare-breasted native women were printed in an 1896 issue of National Geographic. For decades to follow, youngsters would seek the pages of National Geographic for titillation and sex education as well as maps and exploration. Never a purely geographical publication, the magazine offered a sweeping view of the world's wonders, whether geological, plant, animal, or human.
The Society also campaigned to attract public interest by funding several high-profile expeditions, which were then extensively reported in the magazine. In 1909, the Society funded Commodore Robert Peary's exploration of the North Pole and Hiram Bingham's expedition to Machu Pichu. In later years, the National Geographic Society would fund thousands of expeditions, including the work of such famous naturalists as Jacques Cousteau, Dian Fossey, and Jane Goodall, as well as anthropologists like Louis Leakey. Lavishly illustrated articles in National Geographic Magazine and, in more recent years, television shows and documentary films, have documented each study and exploration.
Though the years, National Geographic has been accused by social critics of portraying a romanticized view of the world, free of controversy and conflict. The journal has been slow to respond to such criticism, but in the socially aware era of the 1970s, it finally began to offer reportage on some of the less savory aspects of the world and its people by covering such issues as war, poverty, and pollution.
Founded by an elite group of philanthropists, the National Geographic Society has remained very much a family affair. G. G. Hubbard's successor as president was his son-in-law, Alexander Graham Bell, whose own son-in-law, Gilbert Grosvenor, likewise succeeded him. The next three presidents through the 1990s, have also been Grosvenors, sons following fathers, including Gil Grosvenor, who was serving at the turn of the century. Continuing the tradition of a popular rather than a scientific control over the society, the Board of Directors largely consists of corporate executives, educators, lawyers, and environmentalists. From its roots as a broad-based society to encourage geographical study, the Society has expanded to become the largest non-profit scientific and educational society in the world. With a subscriber-membership of more than nine million, it is one of the three largest membership organizations in the United States, the other two being the American Association of Retired Persons and the Roman Catholic Church.
The Society has also expanded its publications far beyond a little monthly journal with beautiful pictures. It is one of the world's largest producers of atlases and maps, turning out maps that were used by the military in both world wars as well as Viet Nam. The Society is the second largest producer, after the British Broadcasting Corporation, of documentary films for television, and has its own cable channel, as well as the National Geographic Kids Network, a closed-circuit network for use in schools. Along with National Geographic, which is also published in Spanish and Japanese editions, the Society publishes World Magazine for children and Traveler Magazine. It also produces a large variety of educational and teaching aids, and offers CD-ROM computer programs on many nature-related topics. In the 1990s it began to publish geographical books and children's books, plus the first fiction release in its history.
In the late 1980s, the leadership of the National Geographic Society was horrified to learn that adult Americans had little practicalknowledge of geography. Inspired by statistics showing that seventeen percent of U.S. citizens could not locate the United States on a world map and a full twenty-five percent could not find the Pacific Ocean, Society executives created the National Geographic Society Education Foundation, with the aim of improving geography education. Called the Society's "100th anniversary present to the American people," by Society president Grosvenor, the Foundation sponsored local geography organizations, offered inservice training for teachers, and promoted geography in the schools through a National Geography Bee and Geography Awareness Week.
Notwithstanding such philanthropic gestures, the Society is an extremely wealthy organization. Its many projects generate a gross income of around five hundred million dollars a year, which produces approximately thirty-five million dollars in profit. Because of the organization's non-profit status, none of this income is taxable, and the same is true for the roughly one hundred and sixty million dollars worth of real estate owned by the Society in the nation's capital. The Society's competitors in the cartographical and educational publishing fields have frequently protested, challenging its legitimacy as a non-profit organization. However, the Society is a venerable Washington institution, well-connected in the very government circles that make the decisions about its status, and so far, its tax-free designation is secure.
Alexander Graham Bell, the second president of the National Geographic Society once wrote, "The world and all that is in it is our theme." True to Bell's vision, the Society and its many publications and productions have made every aspect of the earth and its inhabitants a legitimate subject of study, wonder, and appreciation. From military cartography to computer atlas programs that play the language and music of different regions, National Geographic has mapped the planet. From the tops of the highest mountains to the sea floor, scientists funded by National Geographic have explored it. Even the cosmos has come under scrutiny as the Society has funded and reported on expeditions into the universe that surrounds us. The National Geographic Society and its publications are beloved American institutions because they have allowed many explorers who may never get far from their hometowns to savor the whole world.
Further Reading:
Bryan, C. D. B. The National Geographic Society: 100 Years of Adventure and Discovery. New York, Harry N. Abrams, 1987.
Cook, James. "The World Is Our Theme." Forbes. January 21,1991, page 42.
Patterson, Carolyn Bennett. Of Lands, Legends and Laughter: The Search for Adventure With National Geographic. Golden, Colorado, Fulcrum Press, 1998.
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