Explorers Club Archives II

  • 1881-84 International Physical Year US Expedition to Lady Franklin Bay (led by Adolphus Greely).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
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Lady Franklin Bay Expedition, EC2007-07 [Not all of these files have been carefully reviewed and some await further inspection.]

Fort Monmouth Communications Museum

Fort Monmouth, NJ.
  • 1881-84 International Physical Year US Expedition to Lady Franklin Bay (led by Adolphus Greely).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
 Preview 

An extensive collection of Greely material, much of it given to Fort Monmouth by Mrs. Stafford in March 1964, shortly before her and her brother’s gifts to the Explorers Club. This included chinaware from Fort Conger (brown floral design) and from the Proteus (2 eggcups), botanical specimens, other artifacts, and a good number of manuscripts and printed material. These were materials retrieved by Peary in 1899 and included letters, condensed meteorological and other observations, etc. The Collection was moved to the Aberdeen Proving Grounds, Maryland, in 2008.

Report on Lady Franklin Bay Expedition of 1883.

Garlington, Ernest A. Washington, DC: Signal Office, 1883. [Signal Service Notes No. X.].
  • 1881-84 International Physical Year US Expedition to Lady Franklin Bay (led by Adolphus Greely).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
 Preview 

p. 25, among supplies provided for the expedition: 45. 150 blank books. 46. 12 blank daily journals. 47. 280 star charts for auroras. 48. 750 forms No. 102 for self register. 53. 4 boxes pens. 54. 2 reams legal cap. 55. 4 reams letter paper. 57. 2 reams foolscap. 58. 4 quarts Arnold’s ink. 60. 1 reading glass. 69. 1 ream computing paper. 70-82. multiple copies of forms and instructions. 100-12. Various titles: Treatise on Aneroid Barometers; Admirlty Manual of Scientific Inquiry; Arctic Manual,1875; Vega’s Logarithms; Nautical Almnac, 1883 (2 copies); Nautical Almanac, 1884 (2); Chauvenet’s Astronomy; Chauvenet’s Trigonometry; Loomis’ Meteorology (2); Guyot’s Tables (2); Everett’s Deschanel; Bowditch Useful Tables; Negur on Chronometers (2). 135. Webster’s dictionary.

Ghosts of Cape Sabine. The Harrowing True Story of the Greely Expedition

Guttridge, Leonard F. New York, Putnam’s, 2000.
  • 1881-84 International Physical Year US Expedition to Lady Franklin Bay (led by Adolphus Greely).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
 Preview 

p. 41: He was just as meticulous about ordering ‘a hand atlas, well-bound with guards, so the maps while being of half size-when closed, will open smoothly and of full size.’ Harper and Brothers in New York would supply volumes on exploration, anthropology, medicine, and miscellaneous other subjects, besides a score of novels and some sixty magazines.

Arctic Meeting at Chickering Hall. Plan for Exploration of the Arctic Regions,

Howgate, Henry W. Journal of the American Geographical Society of New York 10 (1878) 276-98.
  • 1881-84 International Physical Year US Expedition to Lady Franklin Bay (led by Adolphus Greely).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
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Includes meeting commentary by William Cullen Bryant, Bayard Taylor, Lord Dufferin, and Isaac Hayes. Hayes approved Howgate’s plan but recommended the mouth of Smith Sound rather than Lady Franklin Bay because he wasn’t confident that the later could be reached every year. He was right.

Congress and the North Pole; An Abstract of Arctic Legislation in the Congress of the United States.

Howgate, Henry W. Kansas City, Mo.: Kansas City Review of Science and Industry, 1879.
  • 1881-84 International Physical Year US Expedition to Lady Franklin Bay (led by Adolphus Greely).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
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p. 22ff, discussion on April 16, 1856, by Congressmen of Kane’s Narrative, Mr Tyson recommending the purchase of “fifteen thousand copies for the use of Congress.”

Farthest North; Or, The Life and Explorations of Lieutenant James Booth Lockwood, of the Greely Arctic Expedition.

Lanman, Charles. New York: D. Appleton, 1885.
  • 1881-84 International Physical Year US Expedition to Lady Franklin Bay (led by Adolphus Greely).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
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A determined hagiography of Lockwood, based on his journals before his death towards the end of the Greely expedition. But Lockwood does come across here as one of the most level-headed participants in the expedition.

The Hazen Court-Martial: The Responsibility for the Disaster of the Lady Franklin Bay Expedition Definitely Established with Proposed Reforms in the Law and Practice of Courts-Martial.

Mackey, Thomas J. New York: Van Nostrand, 1885.
  • 1881-84 International Physical Year US Expedition to Lady Franklin Bay (led by Adolphus Greely).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
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Mackey held Secretary of War Robert T. Lincoln responsible for the tragedy by withholding necessary support because of his animosity to Hazen, Chief Signal Officer. Secondly he blamed Garlington for not following the plan as ordered, a plan on which Greeley depended for survival. (p. 7). On p. 6 Mackey refers to the North Pole as “the crown jewel of the Arctic dome.”

Adolphus Washington Greely,

Marshall, David J. in The Story of the U.S. Army Signal Corps. Edited by Max L. Marshall. (New York: Franklin Watts, 1965) p.90-111.
  • 1881-84 International Physical Year US Expedition to Lady Franklin Bay (led by Adolphus Greely).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
 Preview 

p. 96, at Fort Conger Greely organized a school: More informally, he delivered lectures on a variety of subjects. And every Sunday Greely conducted church services; a typical New Englander, tall, spare, and stern, he had a tender conscience and could preach a better sermon, it was said, than the average Army chaplain. For a certainty he was a great talker—at times, it would seem, unmercifully so. But he had worthwhile things to talk about, for Greely was also a great reader of books.

The Long Rescue.

Powell, Theodore. London: W. H. Allen, 1961.
  • 1881-84 International Physical Year US Expedition to Lady Franklin Bay (led by Adolphus Greely).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
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Re the Lady Franklin Bay expedition, its retreat to the South and its terrible trials. A rather romantic reconstruction, with no index. Author claims his work is based on NYPL sources. There are some bits of reading material in the book.

Diary, 1881 July 7—l883 Aug 2.

Rice, George W. Stefansson MSS. 186, Dartmouth College Library.
  • 1881-84 International Physical Year US Expedition to Lady Franklin Bay (led by Adolphus Greely).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
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A record of Rice’s experiences as photographer on the Lady Franklin Bay Expedition, 1881-1884. Unpaged but carefully dated throughout.

The Rescue of Greely.

Schley, Winfield Scott. By Commander W. Scott and Professor J. R. Soley. New York: Scribner’s, 1885.
  • 1881-84 International Physical Year US Expedition to Lady Franklin Bay (led by Adolphus Greely).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
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The author sums up the expedition on p. 142 as follows:

“Congering” the Past: The Books of the Lady Franklin Bay Expedition (1881-84), Before and After.

Stam, David H. In North by Degree. Edited by Susan Kaplan and Robert Peck. (Philadelphia, PA: American Philosophical Society, 2014). p. 240-56,.
  • 1881-84 International Physical Year US Expedition to Lady Franklin Bay (led by Adolphus Greely).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
 Preview 

An account of the library at Lady Franklin Bay, its planning under Henry Howgate, its active use under Adolphus Greely, and its disposition under Robert Peary.

Abandoned: The Story of the Greely Arctic Expedition, 1881-1884.

Todd, Alden L. Introduction by Vilhjalmur Stefansson. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1961.
  • 1881-84 International Physical Year US Expedition to Lady Franklin Bay (led by Adolphus Greely).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
 Preview 

A compelling account of the tragedies and muted triumphs of the Adolphus Washington Greely Expedition. Stefansson’s introduction is fascinating for its discussion of cannibalism and what he calls “rabbit starvation” or “protein poisoning” which makes the case that those who died were the more likely cannibals than the survivors. Todd himself calls his story “essentially one of the physical and moral courage displayed by a small group of men abandoned to hunger and cold in the distant, early days of Arctic work” (p. xix).

Chances for Arctic Survival: Greely’s Expedition Revisited.

Wesławski, Jan Marcin, and Joanna Legeżyńska. Arctic 55 4 (Dec. 2002) 373-79.
  • 1881-84 International Physical Year US Expedition to Lady Franklin Bay (led by Adolphus Greely).
  • Arctic Reading: United States
 Preview 

The caloric requirements of the expedition survivors could not have been met by their available resources exclusive of cannibalism.