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R/V Agassiz

Naming the Agassiz

Louis Agassiz

The vessel is named for Louis Agassiz, a naturalist who led one of the first scientific explorations on Lake Superior, and his son, Alexander, who played a role in the Copper Country’s mining industry.

Louis Agassiz was born in 1807 in Switzerland. He decided at age 10 to become a naturalist despite family pressure to pursue a career in businessman or medicine.  He studied in Lausanne, Zurich, Heidelberg, and Munich, earning PhD and MD degrees. Agassiz worked under the internationally known scientists Cuvier and Humboldt and, at age 25, became professor of natural history at the University of Neuchatel in Switzerland. There he continued his work on the systematics of fishes, particularly through the study of fossils, and developed the idea of continental glaciation and an Ice Age. In 1846 Agassiz accepted an invitation to visit the United States and stayed on as a professor at Harvard where he founded the Museum of Comparative Zoology.  In the summer of 1848 he led an expedition to Lake Superior, sailing from the Soo along the north shore almost to Isle Royale and back.  He published a book, recording his observations on the geology and biology of the lake and became the first scientist to describe the amphibians, fish, and reptiles native to Lake Superior. Heavily involved in the politics of American science, he was instrumental in the founding of the National Academy of Sciences, what was to become Radcliffe College (with his wife Elizabeth Cary), and a summer institute near Woods Hole that became the prototype for Harvard's Marine Biological Laboratory. Until his death from a stroke in 1873, Agassiz continued collecting, lecturing, organizing, and traveling, including a voyage to Brazil and the Galapagos Islands in 1865.

Alexander Agassiz

Alexander Agassiz was born in Switzerland in 1835, coming to America in 1849, where he continued his education, receiving a degree in engineering from the Lawrence Scientific School at Harvard.  He sailed to California and collected for his father's museum for a year in 1859, returning to Boston to manage the Museum of Comparative Zoology and teach and teach at what would become Radcliffe College. Alexander’s sister married Quincy Shaw, a wealthy Bostonian, who later sent Alexander to Calumet, Michigan, to act as his representative with the Calumet & Hecla mining company.  Alexander divided his time between management of the mines, the Harvard museum founded by his father, and his outstanding work as a marine invertebrate biologist.  Alexander died in 1910.  His bronze statue sits today in Agassiz Park in Calumet.

Picture of Louise Agassiz from Louis Agassiz: A Life in Science by E. Lurie, University of Chicago Press, 1960. Used with permission.

Picture of Alexander Agassiz from Red Metal: The Calumet and Hecla Story by C. Harry Benedict, University of Michigan Press, 1952.