Deckert, Friedrich Karl Emil b. February 26, l848;Taucha, Saxony d. October 1, 1916; Dornholzhausen, Hesse
German geographer of North America.
Before entering the University of Leipzig to study geography, Emil Deckert worked as a teacher. In 1883, he finished his graduate studies with the defense of his doctoral thesis on the creation of railway networks in Germany.
After having received his doctoral degree, Deckert dedicated himself to research on trade and colonial geography. In 1885 he published his book Die Kolo- nialreiche und Kolonisationsprojekte der Gegenwart (Colonial Empires and Colonial Projects of Our Days). From 1884 to 1885 he embarked on his first extensive trip through North America. Once home in Germany, he resumed teaching and then later published the popular science magazine Globus from 1888 to 1890. Herein Deckert published several articles about the United States on topics such as North American caves and the Great Salt Lake. In 1891 he decided to return to North America, this time accompanied by his family. Until 1899 he moved around, acquainting himself with the subcontinent. While still in North America he published several regional-cultural studies (e.g., Die neue Welt [The New World], 1892; Cuba, 1899) and several essays about the climate, geomorphology, hydrography, and cultural, infrastructural, and economic-geographical aspects of life in North America, Mexico, and the West Indies. In 1892, Deckert reprinted a selection of his earlier articles in his book Die Neue Welt: Reiseskizzen aus dem Norden und Suden der Vereinigten Staaten sowie aus Canada und Mexiko (The New World: Travel Sketches from the North and South of the United States, Canada, and Mexico). Deckert was recognized by his colleagues as the “best German expert on North America,” and Wilhelm Sievers asked him to write the part on North America for his All- gemeine Landerkunde (General Regional Geography, 1904). This particular volume, first published in 1904 and reprinted several times, became the standard German work on North America. As such, it enabled Deckert to pursue an academic career. In 1906 he was appointed professor for economic geography (Wirtschaftsgeographie) at the Academy of Social and Economic Sciences in Frankfurt am Main, where he taught until his death in 1916. Before his death, he published his last book, Die Lander Nordamerikas in ihrer wirtschaftsgeo- graphischen Ausrustung (The Geographic- Economic Character of North America’s Countries, 1916). No other German geographer before World War I devoted himself so intensively to the exploration and investigation of North America.Heinz Peter Brogiato
See also Sievers, Wilhelm
References and Further Reading
Maull, Otto. “Emil Deckert.” Geographische Zeitschrift 23 (1917): 57-62.
Roemer, Hans. “Friedrich Karl Emil Deckert.” Neue Deutsche Biographie. Berlin: Duncker andand Humblot, 1957, 3:549.