Although today it’s often an untouched topic by most, Geography has proven to a crucial subject to economics, politics, and science. It was largely in the interests of Geography that Lewis and Clark went on their famous expedition, or that Thomas Jefferson ordered a survey of the east coast. Geography was an important study when most of the New World was still poorly explored.
On this day July 11th, in 1781, Thomas Hutchins is appointed Geographer of the U.S. He was the first and only geographer of the U.S. He was an early advocate for Manifest Destiny, which Thomas Jefferson also famously supported.
Manifest Destiny was the belief that the U.S. was meant to expand all the way across the west, as if God had ordained it so. It was Hutchins idea to take control over Florida and Louisiana, which at the time were controlled both by Spain, and his dream would eventually come true by the Louisiana Purchase and the Spanish-American war.