Joseph LeConte

Joseph Le Conte (alternative spelling: Joseph LeConte) (February 26, 1823 – July 6, 1901) was a physician, geologist, professor at the University of California, Berkeley, early California conservationist, and eugenicist.

Early life

Of Huguenot descent, he was born in Liberty County, Georgia, to Louis LeConte, patriarch of the noted LeConte family, and Ann Quarterman. He was educated at Franklin College in Athens, Georgia (now the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Georgia), where he was a member of the Phi Kappa Literary Society. After graduation in 1841, he studied medicine and received his degree at the New York College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1845. (In 1844 he travelled with his cousin John Lawrence LeConte for over one thousand miles along the Upper Mississippi River in a birchbark canoe.) After practising for three or four years in Macon, Georgia, he entered Harvard University and studied natural history under Louis Agassiz. An excursion made with Professors J. Hall and Agassiz to the Helderberg mountains of New York developed a keen interest in geology.

Career

After graduating from Harvard, Le Conte in 1851 accompanied Agassiz on an expedition to study the Florida Reef. On his return he became professor of natural science at Oglethorpe University, which was located in Midway, Georgia, at the time, and from December 1852 until 1856 professor of natural history and geology at Franklin College (the sole college at the University of Georgia at that time). From 1857 to 1869 he was a professor of chemistry and geology at South Carolina College, which is now the University of South Carolina.