http://kulturarvsdata.se/SMVK-EM/name/3248452
type: Entity
ksamsok version: 1.3.0
service name: name
service organization: SMVK-EM
service organization full: Statens museer för världskultur - Etnografiska museet
build date: 2026-08-03
url: https://collections.smvk.se/carlotta-em/web/object/3248452
subject: culturalHistory
data quality: raw
item super type: agent
item type: person
first name: Swanton
surname: Platt
item label: Platt, Robert S.
item description: ItemDescription
  type: Beskrivning
  desc: Robert S. Platt, geograf.
item description: ItemDescription
  type: Tidpunkt / födelse
  desc: 1891
item description: ItemDescription
  type: Tidpunkt / död
  desc: 1964
item description: ItemDescription
  type: Beskrivning / engelska
  desc: Robert Swanton Platt (1891-1964) was born in Columbus, Ohio, studied at St. George's School and the Hotchkiss School, and graduated from Yale in 1914. After teaching for a year at Yale in China at Changsha, he returned to the United States to enter the Department of Geography of the University of Chicago in 1915. Despite the interruption of military service during World War I, he completed his Ph.D. and was appointed an instructor in the Department in 1920. For the next thirty-seven years, Platt remained at the University of Chicago as assistant professor (1921-1927), associate professor (1927-1939), professor (1939-1957), and chairman (1949-1957) of the Department of Geography. The central concern of Platt's work as a geographer was the intensive field study of small geographical areas that could provide data to support broader theoretical generalizations on the interrelation of landforms and human occupancy. Beginning in 1920 and continuing for more than thirty years, Platt led graduate students in his field courses on annual summer trips to Ellison Bay, Wisconsin, the upper Great Lakes region, and along the U.S.-Canadian border from Manitoba to Quebec. Conclusions drawn from these studies were distilled for presentation at the annual meetings of the Association of American Geographers and subsequently published as a regular series of articles in professional journals. Platt followed a similar procedure in surveying Central and South American geography. On seven trips to the Caribbean and Latin America between 1922 and 1941 (each lasting from two to six months), Platt and his wife, Harriet, alternated lengthy traverses of continental regions with careful micro-studies of specific villages and farms. These studies, which eventually numbered nearly one hundred, formed the basis for Platt's monographic text, Latin America: Countrysides and United Regions (1942). In later years, Platt utilized the field methods developed in the 1920's and 1930's to examine a variety o… @en
item name: ItemName
  type: Visat namn
  name: Platt, Robert S.
item number: ItemNumber
  type: Libris-id / samma som
  number: - id -
context: Context
  context type: start
  context super type: create
  country: us
  country name: USA
  from time: 1891
  to time: 1891
context: Context
  context type: stop
  context super type: cease
  from time: 1964
  to time: 1964
item license: cc0
item license url: http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/
presentation: 1.3.0 2026-08-03 Platt, Robert S. Rådata 3248452 name Statens museer för världskultur - Etnografiska museet SMVK-EM Namn http://kulturarvsdata.se/SMVK-EM/name/3248452 - id - Robert S. Platt, geograf. 1891, 1964, Robert Swanton Platt (1891-1964) was born in Columbus, Ohio, studied at St. George's School and the Hotchkiss School, and graduated from Yale in 1914. After teaching for a year at Yale in China at Changsha, he returned to the United States to enter the Department of Geography of the University of Chicago in 1915. Despite the interruption of military service during World War I, he completed his Ph.D. and was appointed an instructor in the Department in 1920. For the next thirty-seven years, Platt remained at the University of Chicago as assistant professor (1921-1927), associate professor (1927-1939), professor (1939-1957), and chairman (1949-1957) of the Department of Geography. The central concern of Platt's work as a geographer was the intensive field study of small geographical areas that could provide data to support broader theoretical generalizations on the interrelation of landforms and human occupancy. Beginning in 1920 and continuing for more than thirty years, Platt led graduate students in his field courses on annual summer trips to Ellison Bay, Wisconsin, the upper Great Lakes region, and along the U.S.-Canadian border from Manitoba to Quebec. Conclusions drawn from these studies were distilled for presentation at the annual meetings of the Association of American Geographers and subsequently published as a regular series of articles in professional journals. Platt followed a similar procedure in surveying Central and South American geography. On seven trips to the Caribbean and Latin America between 1922 and 1941 (each lasting from two to six months), Platt and his wife, Harriet, alternated lengthy traverses of continental regions with careful micro-studies of specific villages and farms. These studies, which eventually numbered nearly one hundr…