Edward Ullman, A Geographer Searching for Spatial Science

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role played by Edward Ullman in the Quantitative Revolution with special reference to the environment of American geography in the pre-to post-World War II period, using as evidence the tenor of his referee's comments on Schaefer's (1953)“exceptionalism”paper. Ullman well knew the low status of geography, underrated by scholars in other disciplines, through his experience of wartime service in World War II. In addition, he was deeply impressed by the nature of disciplinary prejudice toward human geography, in particular at Harvard University, his alma mater where he obtained employment after the war. Ullman, who had twice experienced the underratedness of geography, was thus driven to innovate the subject, make it more practical and improve its overall social visibility following the closure of the geography section at Harvard. The democratization of the Association of American Geographers after the war might well have provided a favorable environment for Ullman's endeavours in this regard.
His drive to innovate geography never occurred suddenly in those days, but was rather rooted in the earlier concern with urban studies in terms of the functional (theoretical) perspective as an alternative paradigm to environmental determinism and/or micro regional geography. His theoretical studies, especially those on the location of cities, were quite epochmaking in prewar to wartime American geography. His early intercourse with scholars in other disciplines, such as economists and sociologists, is also one reason why his academic attitude was progressive.
As part of the postwar trend to a significant shift in emphasis from regional geography to systematic geography, Ullman, specializing in transportation geography, conceived geography as spatial science and elaborated the concept of spatial interaction; the Chicago school, on the other hand, represented by Platt, tried to demonstrate the identity of geography with the functional regional approach, in order to compete with emerging area studies. Ullman did not readily agree with the other spatial science Schaefer had advocated at the same time, in that Schaefer's spatial science could be linked to environmental determinism and micro regional geography in terms of a naive way of thinking and a simple methodology of map overlay, respectively. In addition, this was likely to call to mind a science of static distribution which Ullman planned to overcome. Schaefer's (1953)“exceptionalism”paper, which resorted to the authority of discourses by senior German geographers in a different sense from Hartshorne's (1939) The Nature of Geography, was not attuned to Ullman's academic approach which always demanded originality. Ullman appeared to be self-confident in his spatial science since it could be more rightly located in the context of wartime to postwar American geography than Schaefer's spatial science which was based on exegetical discussions of German geography. Such discussions, which were developed in the first half of the“exceptionalism”paper, were difficult to judge for American geographers. It seems as though Ullman continued to disregard the“exceptionalism”paper throughout his academic life, as suggested by the fact that he never cited that paper.
In any event, Ullman individually obtained research funds from the ONR, made an effort to secure necessary flow-data, and ultimately proposed a conceptual model explicating spatial interaction. Thereafter, he no longer deepened this research theme, and oriented himself toward applied research, such as regional development, in order to practice his own geography for the benefit of society. The theory-orientedness on which Ullman laid much stress was nonetheless succeeded by the Washington School headed by William Garrison, and resulted in the Quantitative Revolution.