Carl Ritter: Biography And Contributions Of This German Geographer
Carl Ritter was a German geographer, considered one of the main founders of modern geography along with Alexander von Humboldt. Thanks to them, geography was recognized as a science, and it was taught as an academic subject in universities.
For Ritter, geography allowed us to know the interrelationships between living beings and the physical environment in which they live, placing greater emphasis on observation in historical processes and in the life of human beings in different physical environments than in mere observation of the physical phenomena of the environment in isolation.
In this biography of Carl Ritter we will review his life and his main contributions to the field of Geography.
Karl or Carl Ritter He was born in Quendlinburg (Germany) on August 7, 1779, into a wealthy family His father, FW Ritter, was a prestigious doctor who died when Carl was only 2 years old, leaving his wife widowed and responsible for 6 children, so the family went through a very difficult period.
Youth and years of academic training
From his first years at school, Carl Ritter was always characterized by being a dedicated student with a great interest in learning
A well-known pedagogue, named Christian G. Salzmann, founded Schnepfenthal, a school specialized in studies of natural sciences. He awarded a scholarship to Carl Ritter and one of his brothers, Johannes, with Guths Muths as tutor, a German teacher who has become famous for his important role in the development of physical education as a school subject.
At Schnepfenthal he studied for 11 years, and this period left an imprint on him for the rest of his life. Following his studies there, he retained a predilection for new teaching methods, including those of the German philosopher and theologian Johan Heinrich Pestalozzi. This was reflected in the fact that Most of Ritter’s writings are based on the three stages of teaching designed by Pestalozzi (acquisition, comparison and establishment of a general system).
On the other hand, Ritter was also a follower of the educational foundations of the German theologian Johann Gottfried von Herder about the relationship between human beings and their environment.
Upon finishing his training at Schnepfenthal, in 1878, Ritter He met Bethmann Hollweg, a banker from the city of Frankfurt, with whom he reached an agreement to be the guardian of his children. In turn, Hollwerg paid for Ritter’s studies at the University of Halle.
Main years of your professional career as a researcher
Carl Ritter He had a long and brilliant professional career that he developed mainly as a professor of Geography at the university and with his work as a researcher and disseminator on the geography of the different continents.
Even after graduating from the University of Halle, Carl Ritter continued as the tutor of the Hollweg children, becoming so for 15 years, during which he accompanied the family on their travels throughout Europe (Savoy, France , Italy, Switzerland, etc.) while being in charge of the education and care of the children.
In 1814, Ritter went to live in Göttingen, where he began to devote himself to the study of geography exhaustively and, during his years in that German city, he fell in love with Lili Kramer, a woman born in Duderstadt, whom he would marry some time later.
In 1819, Ritter began working as a history teacher at the Frankfurt City Lyceum, a school of education where he taught for only one year.
Shortly after, In 1820, he obtained the first chair of geography at the University of Berlin which he would keep until the day of his death in 1859. At the same time he began to teach at the city’s Military School.
However, even though he had a lot of work, he never stopped traveling during that time. So he continued visiting several countries in Europe, which helped him collect very valuable information to carry out various written works on geography.
Subsequently, He founded the Berlin Society of Geography and Comparative Geography with his colleague Humboldt which triggered the validation of geography as a scientific subject that allowed studying and making known a series of relationships between the environment and the living beings that inhabit it.
Works and contributions to science by Carl Ritter
Among Carl Ritter’s contributions to science and especially to geography, it is worth highlighting his most important work, which is titled “Die Erdkunde im Verhältniss zur Natur und zur Geschichte des Menschen” (“Earth sciences in relation to nature and the history of man”) where it explains the impact that the environment has on the activities of human beings, with the aim of exposing the influence of a country’s climate on the longevity of the people who live there, among other related factors.
This work was never completed; However, he wrote more than 20,000 pages, grouped in 19 volumes, which he developed from 1817 until his last days. The first volume focuses on the geography of Africa, whose work was recognized to such an extent that it allowed him to obtain a teaching position at the University of Berlin. In 1822 he published a revised edition of this first volume. Between the years 1832 and 1859, the year of his death, he dedicated himself to publishing new volumes of his work focused primarily on the geography of Asia.
Other very important works, which should be highlighted, are the following: between 1804 and 1807, he wrote his first works related to the geography of Europe ; in 1820, he published “Die Vorhalle europaeischer Voelkergeschichte von Herodot”; finally, in 1838, “Die Stupas, oder die architektonischen Denkmale an der indobaktrischen Königstrasse un die kolosse von Bamyan.”
A differentiating aspect between Alexander von Humboldt and Carl Ritter is that von Humboldt was a great explorer of new geographical territories, while Ritter was more of a geography scholar than an explorer, so he had extensive knowledge of the subject For this reason, Ritter is often recognized more as a historian of world geography than as an exploring geographer and he dedicated much of his work to geographical interpretation throughout history.
That is why, after his death, he received criticism from some geographers who considered that in his work geography was interpreted as a secondary element to history
Although there were some differences between the methods used when working by von Humboldt and Ritter, it should be noted that thanks to the work of both, geography was consolidated as a modern science and, in addition, Ritter, who erred 10 more years As a young man, he always considered von Humboldt as his teacher and that is why much of his works on geography follow the guidelines of von Humboldt’s ideas.
In some sources, Carl Ritter is considered the discoverer of ultraviolet rays that are part of the energy coming from the sun, reaching the Earth in the form of two groups of rays: UVA and UVB. However, there is a greater consensus that the discoverer of ultraviolet rays was the German physicist and chemist Johann Wilhelm Ritter in 1801. Since they have the same surname, it is understandable that this has led to confusion about the authorship of this discovery.
Recognitions to this geographer
Two foundations that were created in honor of Carl Ritter are located in the German cities of Leipzig and Berlin which show the great importance of their contributions to geography and their members are in charge of continuing the work of developing and consolidating geographical research and studies.
In Quendlinburg, the city where Ritter was born, a monument was built in 1864 in his memory.
Furthermore, on the moon there is a crater that has been named after Carl Ritter, as a way of recognizing his great scientific contributions.
