Hiram Bingham
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. [1]
Early 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.
Archaeology
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". [2]
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. www.yale.edu/peabody/ -
Bingham has been cited as one possible basis for the 'Indiana Jones' character.[3] His book Lost City of the Incas became a bestseller upon its publication in 1948.[4]
Marriage and family
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.
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."
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.[5]
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 position in the executive area of government afforded him the responsibility of watch-dogging incoming employees.
Death
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 United States Democratic in United States House of Representatives.
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
- ↑ http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/Senator_Censured_In_Lobbyist_Case.htm
- ↑ http://www.pubs.asce.org/ceonline/0101feat.html
- ↑ "The trail less trampled on" in USA Today by Gene Sloan, September 23, 2005: "The iconic mountaintop citadel, discovered less than a century ago by American explorer Hiram Bingham, the inspiration for Indiana Jones, is a thrilling reward after days of exertion."
- ↑ Lost City of the Incas biographical profile from the United States Senate website
- ↑ http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=b000470
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
Credits
New World Encyclopedia writers and editors rewrote and completed the Wikipedia article in accordance with New World Encyclopedia standards. This article abides by terms of the Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License (CC-by-sa), which may be used and disseminated with proper attribution. Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation. To cite this article click here for a list of acceptable citing formats.The history of earlier contributions by wikipedians is accessible to researchers here:
The history of this article since it was imported to New World Encyclopedia:
Note: Some restrictions may apply to use of individual images which are separately licensed.
