Kohl, Johann Georg b.April 28, 1808; Bremen d. October 28, 1878; Bremen
From Russians to Native Americans, from Irish to Swiss, Johann Georg Kohl wrote about an astonishing number of peoples in ethnographic travel accounts between the 1830s and 1870s.
As a collector of maps relating to the history of North America, he caught the interest of the United States Coast Survey. He created maps of the West Coast for the Survey, but did not obtain a permanent post. After his five years in North America (1853-1858), of which he spent nearly half a year among the Ojibway south of Lake Superior, he returned to his native Bremen, where he served as director of the state library. He built up an extensive collection devoted to maps, travel, and ethnography, including much about North America.Kohl’s father had a wine trade business in the port city of Bremen that allowed his son to study law in Gottingen, Heidelberg, and Munich. His father’s early death forced Kohl to end his studies after three years and become a tutor to aristocratic families in the Baltic region. With his savings he traveled extensively in the Baltic states and western Russia. Settling in Dresden in 1838, he composed a series of descriptive ethnographic travel reports that sold well to the increasingly literate and affluent German bourgeoisie.
Kohl hoped to write a comprehensive account of the discovery of America. He traveled to Gotha, Weimar, Berlin, Paris, and London, among other cities, to study archival materials and maps. He became interested in the story of exploration as told in successive maps and began his own collection. In 1853 he finally set sail for America where he had a brother in New York. Again, the prolific writer produced a series of travel reports. In 1856 Travels in [Eastern] Canada appeared. A Descriptive Catalogue of Maps Relating to America Mentioned in Hakluyt's Great Work followed in 1857. Next came Travels in the Northeast United States in 1858, followed by Kitchi- Gami or Stories from the Upper [Great] Lakes in 1859, and Travels in Canada and through the States of New York and Pennsylvania in 1861. Most were published in German and translated into English.
A number of cartographic studies followed, but due to illness Kohl’s output declined during the 1870s. In the meantime he produced several studies on aspects of the cultural history of Bremen and theoretical works about the influence of geography on humans.Kohl’s cartographic work, especially his collecting, and his writings about the lifestyle and beliefs of the Ojibway have received much attention in North America. The American geographer Charles Deane supposedly asserted that Kohl had been the greatest geographer of his generation. The historian Samuel Morrison claimed him to have been a foremost Americanist. Boston University honored the correspondent of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow with a doctorate. While his work has been largely overlooked or discredited in Germany, a large exhibition at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., during 1993 demon-
strated the extent of his learning and his contribution to German American exchanges. Kohl’s more than 500 maps and copies of maps are housed at the Library of Congress.
Dieter K. Buse
See also Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth; Travel Literature, German—U.S.
References and Further Reading
Koch, Hans-Albrecht, ed. Progress of Discovery: Johann Georg Kohl. Graz, Austria: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1993.
Trautmann, Frederick. “Glimpses of Michigan in 1855: The Travels of Johann Georg Kohl.” Michigan History 67 (1983): 33—39.
------. “Wisconsin through a German’s Eyes in 1855: The Travels of Johann Georg Kohl.” Wisconsin Magazine of History 67 (1984): 263-278.