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Loomis, Chauncey C., 1930-2009

 

Dates

  • Existence: 1930 - 2009

Biography

Chauncey Chester Loomis, Jr. was born in New York City in 1930. He received a B.A. from Princeton University in 1952, and an M.A. from Columbia University in 1955. He served in the U.S. Army during the Korean War before returning to teach English and American literature first at the University of Vermont and then at Dartmouth College, Hanover, where he remained from 1963 to his retirement in 1997. He served as chair of the department from 1977 to 1980. In 1968, he led an expedition to Greenland where he had permission to disinter the body of Charles Francis Hall, a Cincinnati journalist who had made two attempts (1860–63 and 1864–69) to find the grave of Sir John Franklin, and who himself died in the course of an 1871 attempt to reach the North Pole. This research expedition inspired "Weird and Tragic Shores: The Story of Charles Francis Hall, Explorer," published by Knopf in 1971. Loomis went on four more expeditions to the Arctic and was a member of the Arctic Institute of North America. He also wrote many essays about the Arctic. Loomis died in 2009.

Found in 1 Collection or Record:

Chauncey Loomis papers

 Collection
Identifier: Mss-206
Stefansson Mss-206
Date(s): 1964 to 1965
Abstract

Chancey C. Loomis (1930-2009), Arctic historian and Dartmouth College professor of English and Literature. Consist of the typescript and galley proofs of his biography of Charles Francis Hall entitled "Weird and tragic shores."

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