Joseph LeConte

Joseph Le Conte (alternative spelling: Joseph LeConte) (February 26, 1823 – July 6, 1901) was a physician, geologist, professor at the University of California, Berkeley, early California conservationist, and eugenicist.

Early life Of Huguenot descent, he was born in Liberty County, Georgia, to Louis LeConte, patriarch of the noted LeConte family, and Ann Quarterman. He was educated at Franklin College in Athens, Georgia (now the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Georgia), where he was a member of the Phi Kappa Literary Society. After graduation in 1841, he studied medicine and received his degree at the New York College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1845. (In 1844 he travelled with his cousin John Lawrence LeConte for over one thousand miles along the Upper Mississippi River in a birchbark canoe.

On January 14, 1846, he married Caroline Nisbet, a niece of Eugenius A. Nisbet. The couple had four children grow to adulthood: Emma Florence Le Conte, Sarah Elizabeth Le Conte, Caroline Eaton Le Conte, and Joseph Nisbet Le Conte.

During the Civil War Le Conte continued to teach in South Carolina. He also produced medicine and was involved in research and development operations of the Confederate Nitre and Mining Bureau, associated with the Confederate Secret Service. In his autobiography he wrote that he found Reconstruction intolerable. He referred to "a carpet-bag governor, scalawag officials, and a negro legislature controlled by rascals" and stated that the "sudden enfranchisement of the negro without qualification was the greatest political crime ever perpetrated by any people".

Discouraged by unsettled postwar conditions at the University of South Carolina, in 1868 he accepted an offer of a professorship at the newly established University of California. In September 1869, he moved west to Berkeley, California. His older brother John had come to California in April 1869, also to join the faculty of the new university as a professor of physics. Joseph was appointed the first professor of geology and natural history and botany at the university, a post which he held until his death.

He was elected as a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1873.

He published a series of papers on monocular and binocular vision, and also on psychology. LeConte endorsed theistic evolution.

Legacy

In 1874, he was nominated to the National Academy of Sciences. Le Conte is also noted for his exploration and preservation of the Sierra Nevada of California, United States. He first visited Yosemite Valley in 1870, where he became friends with John Muir and started exploring the Sierra. He became concerned that resource exploitation (such as sheepherding) would ruin the Sierra, so he co-founded the Sierra Club with Muir and others in 1892. The Sierra Club built the LeConte Memorial Lodge in his honor in 1904. The Le Conte Glacier, Le Conte Divide, Le Conte Falls, Le Conte Mountain and Mount Le Conte were named after him. LeConte Hall, which houses the Department of History at the University of Georgia, was named for him and his brother. LeConte College, which houses the Department of Mathematics and Statistics near the Horseshoe at the University of South Carolina, Le Conte Middle School in Hollywood, and Le Conte Avenue in Berkeley also honor the two brothers.

Leconte and fellow Sierra Club founder Stanford President David Starr Jordan were advocates of white supremacy and supporters of the eugenics movement in the United States. In 2016 the Sierra Club renamed LeConte Memorial Lodge the "Yosemite Conservation Heritage Center" after considering LeConte's racist views. The elementary school at 2241 Russell Street in Berkeley was named for Joseph LeConte from 1892 until 2018, when it was renamed due to concerns regarding his views on race.

Another building at UC Berkeley was also renamed, as announced on July 7, 2020, due to the LeConte brothers' support of white supremacy and vigorous white supremacy writings in that regard.