Hiram Bingham

Hiram Bingham III, born in Honolulu, Hawai'i, served as Governor of Connecticut and United States Senator.

Hiram Bingham, formally Hiram Bingham III, (19 November 1875 – 6 June 1956) was an American academic, explorer and politician. He rediscovered the Inca settlement of Machu Picchu in 1911. Later, Bingham served as Governor of Connecticut and a member of the United States Senate (1924-1933). When former Senator Hiram Bingham died in 1956, it was said that the Connecticut Republican "had crammed many careers into his lifetime, any one of which might have sufficed for most men." Over the course of his 80 years, Bingham had been a scholar, explorer, aviator, businessman, and politician. Hiram Bingham, was considered the inspiration for Indiana Jones, and His book Lost City of the Incas became a bestseller.

Life

Bingham was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Hiram Bingham II (1831-1908), an early Protestant missionary to the Kingdom of Hawaii, the grandson of Hiram Bingham I (1789–1869), another missionary. He attended Punahou School and Oahu College in Hawaii from 1882 to 1892. He returned to the United States in his teens in order to complete his education, entering Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, from which he graduated in 1894. He obtained a degree from Yale University in 1898, a degree from the University of California, Berkeley in 1900, and a degree from Harvard University in 1905. While at University, Bingham was a member of Acacia Fraternity. He taught history and politics at Harvard and then served as preceptor under Woodrow Wilson at Princeton University. In 1907, Yale University appointed Bingham as a lecturer in South American history. He married Alfreda Mitchell, granddaughter of Charles L. Tiffany, on November 20, 1899, and had seven sons, including: congressman Jonathan Brewster Bingham (1914-1986); diplomat Hiram Bingham IV (1903-1988); Charles Tiffany (1906-1993) (physician), Brewster (1908-1995) (minister), Mitchell (1910-1994) (artist), Woodbridge (1901-1986) (professor) and Alfred Mitchell Bingham (1905-1998) (lawyer). After a divorce he married Suzanne Carroll Hill in June of 1937.On June 6, 1956, Bingham died at his Washington, DC home. He was interred at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia. His son Hiram Bingham IV was a diplomat and World War II hero, while another son, Jonathan Brewster Bingham, served as a Democrat in Congress. In 1982 Temple University Press published Char Miller's doctoral dissertation on the Bingham family titled "Fathers and sons : the Bingham family and the American mission."

Archaeology

View of Machu Picchu from Huayna Picchu, showing buses carrying tourists to and from the town of Aguas Calientes

It was during Bingham's time as a lecturer — later professor — at Yale that he rediscovered the largely forgotten Incan city of Machu Picchu. In 1908, he had served as delegate to the First Pan American Scientific Congress at Santiago, Chile. On his way home via Peru, a local prefect convinced him to visit the pre-Columbian city of Choqquequirau. Bingham was thrilled by the prospect of unexplored Incan cities, and in 1911 returned to the Andes with the Yale Peruvian Expedition of 1911.The city of Machu Picchu, once the royal estate of a powerful Inca emperor,lay hidden in the mountains of Peru until 1911, when Hiram Bingham, a professor of history at Yale, introduced to the world its ruins. Some of the narrow bridges spanning the precipices of mount Machu Picchu, located about 2350 meters above sea level, needed to be forged on hands and knees. Since then, it has become perhaps the most important archaeological site in the Americas. On 24 July 1911, a mestizo guide led Bingham to Machu Picchu, which had been largely forgotten by everybody except the small number of people living in the immediate valley, and the young explorer had his "lost city".

Bingham returned to Peru in 1912 and 1915 with the support of Yale and the National Geographic Society. In speaking of the countryside around the Lost City of the Incas, Bingham writes "I know of no place in the world which can compare with it. Not only has it great snow peaks looming above the clouds more than two miles overhead, gigantic precipices of many-colored granite rising sheer for thousands of feet above the foaming, glistening, roaring rapids; it has also, in striking contrast, orchids and tree ferns, the delectable beauty of luxurious vegetation, and the mysterious witchery of the jungle."

Machu Picchu has become one of the major tourist attractions in South America, and Bingham is recognized as the man who brought the site to world attention, although many others contributed to the archaeological resurrection of the site. The switchback-filled road that carries tourist buses to the site from the Urubamba River is called the Hiram Bingham Highway.

Hiram Bingham wrote more than a dozen books related to South American geography and history. One can find photos of Mr. Bingham scaling the mountain with donkey in lead at the Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA.

Bingham has been cited as one possible basis for the 'Indiana Jones' character. His book Lost City of the Incas became a bestseller upon its publication in 1948.

Military

Bingham achieved the rank of captain of the Connecticut National Guard in 1916. In 1917, he became an aviator and organized the United States Schools of Military Aeronautics. He served the Aviation Section of the United States Army Signal Corps and attained the rank of lieutenant colonel. In Issoudun, France, Bingham commanded a flying school.

Politics

In 1922, Bingham was elected Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut, an office he held until 1924.

In November 1924, he was elected Governor. On December 16, 1924, Bingham was also elected as a United States Republican Party to serve in the United States Senate to fill a vacancy created by the suicide of Frank Bosworth Brandegee. Now both Governor-elect and Senator-elect, Bingham served as Governor for one day, the shortest term of any Connecticut Governor.

Bingham was reelected to a full six-year term in the Senate in 1926.

Senator Bingham was Chairman of the Committee on Printing and then Chairman of the Committee on Territories and Insular Possessions. In 1929, Bingham was censured by the Senate on charges that he had placed a lobbyist on his payroll.

President of the United States Calvin Coolidge appointed Bingham to the President's Aircraft Board during his first term in the Senate; the press quickly dubbed the ex-explorer "The Flying Senator" He organized the United States schools of military Aeronautics in May l917.

Bingham failed in his second reelection effort in the wake of the 1932 Democratic landslide following the Great Depression and left the Senate at the end of his second term in 1933. [1]

During World War II, Bingham lectured at several United States Navy training schools. In 1951, Bingham was appointed Chairman of the Civil Service Commission Loyalty Review Board, an assignment he kept through 1953. This board is composed of outstanding U.S. citizens. The Government has a great stake in these loyalty proceedings. The Government, as the largest employer in the United States, must be the model of a fair employer. It must guarantee that the civil rights of all employees of the Government shall be protected properly and adequately. It is in this spirit that the loyalty program will be enforced.

Legacy

Having uncovered one of the greatest archaeological finds, Machu Picchu, Hiram Bingham has become an American hero. Today other adventurous souls have attempted to develope the site. Some are now searching for the water source for Machu Picchu's elaborate fountains. Tourists can make the trek by bus to visit the ruins." People can also travel to the museum at Yale University and see and extensive display of the work and dedication that was part of Mr. Bingham's research. Unveiling the "Mystery of the Incas," the largest exhibition on the Incas ever assembled in the United States, opened at the Peabody Museum January 26, 2003. The exhibition is visitor friendly. Drawing on the latest technology, visitors will travel into the past, first to Machu Picchu with Hiram Bingham and the 1911 Yale Peruvian Scientific Expedition. Central to the exhibition are some of the finest surviving examples of Inca art, many of them recovered from Machu Picchu, including over 400 gold, silver, ceramic, bone and textile artifacts, along with photographs and other memorabilia. These materials are used as a springboard for a discussion of archaeological science and the way in which knowledge of relevant aspects of ecology, astronomy, metallurgy, human biology and other scientific subjects have proved to be critical in understanding the purpose of Machu Picchu and why it was abandoned.

Publications

• October,2003. Phoenix Press."Lost City of the Incas: The Story of Machu Picchu and Its Builders". ISBN 1842125850

• January, 1999. Chelsea House Publications, Library Binding edition. "The Ancient Incas: Chronicles from National Geographic (Cultural and Geographical Exploration.)". ISBN 0791051048

• June 1976. "The Monroe Doctrine(Latin America in the Twentieth Century Series)". ISBN 0306708337

• December, 1979. Hacker Art Books; New Ed edition "MacHu Picchu:A Citadel of the Incas". ISBN 0878172521

• June, 1981. Charles E Tuttle Co."A Residence of Twenty-One Years in the Sandwich Islands". ISBN 0804812527

Bingham Biographies

When Sky Fell: In Search of Atlantis by Rand Flem - 1997 Hiram Bingham, Lost City of the Incas (New York: Dueil, Sloanan d Pearce, 1948), 35. 38. ... and written by Anna Sofaer (narrated by Robert Redford). 39. ... A Biography of the Anthropologist Hiram Bingham by Deacon Thomas www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/information/biography/abcde/bingham_hiram.html - 14k - Early History of Michigan - by Stephen D. Bingham - 745 pages American Educational Biography - by Henry Barnard - 526 pages An Account of the Private Life and Public ... - by Robert Bruce Warden - 838 pages

External links

• Works by Hiram Bingham. Project Gutenberg
• Selection from Bingham's The Lost City of the Incas
• Machu Picchu on the Web - The Discovery
• Inca Land, by Hiram Bingham

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