Elisée Reclus

Ishill, Joseph. (1927). Elisée and Elie Reclus: In Memoriam.

Including: tributes, appreciations and essays by Elie Faure, Prof. Albert Heim, Jean Grave [and others] fragments, letters, and ... woodcuts by Louis Moreau. Compiled, ed. and printed by Joseph Ishill. Berkeley Heights, N.J.: Oriole Press.

Hidalgo, H. Spanish Biography.

Biographical entry from the 1911 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, pages 957-58.

Obituary from the London Telegraph, reprinted in the New York Times, July 24, 1905.

Timeline

1830 – born in Sainte-Foy-la-Grande, Gironde, France on March 15th
1831 – Father leaves Sainte-Foy and Reclus is left with his grandparents in Laroche
1838 – reunited with his family in Casteetarbes
1842 – travels to Neuwied, Germany for schooling and learns multiple languages at the multinational school of the Moravian Brothers
1844 – rejoins with his older brother Elie at the Protestant College of Sainte-Foy
1848 – moves ot Montauban to study theology with Elie
leaves Mantabaun and travels the Mediterranean after which he leaves for Strasbourg to study theology
1849 – teaches for the Moravian brothers in Neuwied
Jan 1851 – heads to the University of Berlin and attends many Carl Ritter lectures
Dec 1851 – returns to France to oppose Napoleon’s coup but he and his brother are then forced to leave to England
1852 – he works as a tutor in London and then Dublin and later he then travels to New Orleans.
In New Orleans he works as a dockworker and also as a tutor
1855 – leaves the US for Panama, from there he heads to Columbia via smaller ships
spends a year and a half planning a plantation venture
1857 – leaves for Paris
1858 – marries Clarisse Brian of Sainte-Foy and moves in with his brother Elie
1860’s – Reclus spends long amounts of time traveling and conducting research for many travel guides
during this time he was involved with the Freemasons, the Freethinkers, the International Brotherhood of Michael Bakunin, and a number of other anarchists groups
1865 – travels to Florence where he vists Bakunin and is introduced to a number of activists
1868 – Reclus gives an address, while participating in the Berne Congress, that promoted wide-ranging decentralization
1871 – Reclus is imprisoned in Versailles for the part he played in the Paris Commune
he is tried and sentenced to prison in New Caledonia
his sentence was mitigated by an international petition signed by many scientists including Charles Darwin
because of this he is exiled instead
1871 – he then moves to Clarens in Switzerland un till 1892
1894 – he completes and publishes his geographical volume titled Nouvelle Géographie Universelle
afterward he moved to Brussels, Belgium where he becomes a professor of comparative geography at the New University of Brussels
1893 and 1895 – he attends the Edinburgh Summer Meetings
July 4, 1905 – dies from heart disease in Thorout, Belgium at the age of 75