100 Heroes: Alexander von Humboldt
The gay man who shaped the field of botanical geography.
Alexander von Humboldt was a polymath, geographer, naturalist, explorer, and influential proponent of Romantic philosophy and science.
Early life and education
Humboldt was born in 1769 in Berlin - the city was then part of Prussia.
His father was a military officer, and the family were well-connected.
While studying at the university in Gottingen, he met Georg Forster, a naturalist who had been with Captain James Cook on his second voyage.
Forster's influence appears to have encouraged Humboldt to pursue his passion for scientific exploration.
Humboldt traveled with Forster in Europe, and also to England. In England, he met Sir Joseph Banks, president of the Royal Society, who had also traveled with Captain Cook. Banks became an important friend and supporter of Humboldt's subsequent work and expeditions.
Why is he notable?
Humboldt’s quantitative work on botanical geography laid the foundation for the field of biogeography. Humboldt’s advocacy of long-term systematic geophysical measurement laid the foundation for modern geomagnetic and meteorological monitoring.
Between 1799 and 1804, Humboldt travelled extensively in the Americas, exploring and describing them for the first time from a modern scientific point of view. His description of the journey was written up and published in an enormous set of volumes over 21 years.
Humboldt was one of the first people to propose that the lands bordering the Atlantic Ocean were once joined - his particular focus was on the connections between South America and Africa.
Humboldt resurrected the use of the word cosmos from the ancient Greek and assigned it to his multivolume treatise, Kosmos, in which he sought to unify diverse branches of scientific knowledge and culture. Kosmos outlined a holistic perception of the universe as one interacting entity.
He was also the first person to describe the phenomenon and cause of human-induced climate change, in 1800 and again in 1831, based on observations generated during his travels.
Personal life
Humboldt destroyed his private letters so we don't have a lot of insights into his feelings and emotions, but third-party accounts of his relationships and encounters paint a vivid picture of a passionate man.
He never married. He was known for surrounding himself with men, and his relationships with men were widely acknowledged.
One of his early passions - while he was a student - was with Wilhelm Gabriel Wegener. Wegener was studying theology and received numerous letters from Humboldt in which Humboldt expressed his "fervent love".
At the age of 25, Humboldt met Reinhardt von Haeften. Haeften was 21 at the time. Haeften lived with Humbolt for two years and the two travelled extensively together. Haeften ended the relationship when he married a woman.
Aimé Bonpland was another important relationship - he travelled with Humboldt in the Americas for five years.
In 1802, Humboldt met Don Carlos Montúfar. The two men met in Quito - Montúfar was an Ecuadorian aristocrat. Montúfar travelled to Europe with Humboldt and lived with him for a time.
Other important relationships included Joseph Louis Gay Lussac, and also François Arago.
Contemporaries criticised Humboldt for frequenting brothels and associating with “obscene dissolute youths”.
Humboldt died in 1859, aged 89.
Towards the end of his life, Humboldt lived in Berlin with Johann Seifert. Humboldt left his entire estate to Seifert.