The Forgotten American Explorer Who Discovered Huge Parts of Antarctica

Charles Wilkes, the Forgotten Antarctic Explorer | Science | Smithsonian Magazine

It’s been 180 years since Charles Wilkes, a founder of the Smithsonian Collection, discovered the Antarctic continent

The early-1900s exploits of intrepid explorers like Robert Scott and Edward Shackleton captured the public imagination. With the benefit of cameras and deft handling of newspaper media, the Edwardian British explorers, alongside their Norwegian rival Roald Amundsen, established themselves as heroic polar pioneers. In the process, however, the south polar exploits of their American forerunner, Charles Wilkes, have been largely forgotten.

It was the round-the-world expedition by Wilkes—whose scientific collection constituted the first treasures of the infant Smithsonian—that first...

Charles Wilkes, the Forgotten Antarctic Explorer | Science | Smithsonian Magazine

It’s been 180 years since Charles Wilkes, a founder of the Smithsonian Collection, discovered the Antarctic continent

The early-1900s exploits of intrepid explorers like Robert Scott and Edward Shackleton captured the public imagination. With the benefit of cameras and deft handling of newspaper media, the Edwardian British explorers, alongside their Norwegian rival Roald Amundsen, established themselves as heroic polar pioneers. In the process, however, the south polar exploits of their American forerunner, Charles Wilkes, have been largely forgotten.

It was the round-the-world expedition by Wilkes—whose scientific collection constituted the first treasures of the infant Smithsonian—that first established the continental dimensions of Antarctica. But in a twist of 19th-century international politics, that claim to Antarctica was denied to the Americans by the pole-hungry British...