Raoul Blanchard (4 September 1877 – 24 March 1965) was a French geographer. He taught at the

University of Grenoble The Université Grenoble Alpes (UGA, French: meaning "''Grenoble Alps University''") is a public research university in Grenoble, France. Founded in 1339, it is the third largest university in France with about 60,000 students and over 3,000 re ...

from 1906 and devoted most of his research to

Alpine Alpine may refer to any mountainous region. It may also refer to: Places Europe * Alps, a European mountain range ** Alpine states, which overlap with the European range Australia * Alpine, New South Wales, a Northern Village * Alpine National P ...

and

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

geography.

Early life

The son of an inspector of the Department of Water of

Orléans Orléans (;"Orleans"
(US) and Louis Gallouédec. He was admitted to the Ecole Normale Superieure in 1897, he became excited by geography, which was taught by Paul Vidal de La Blache. Blanchard received his ''

agrégation In France, the ''agrégation'' () is a competitive examination for civil service in the French public education system. Candidates for the examination, or ''agrégatifs'', become ''agrégés'' once they are admitted to the position of ''profe ...

'' in 1900 and became a professor at the school of

Douai Douai (, , ,; pcd, Doï; nl, Dowaai; formerly spelled Douay or Doway in English) is a city in the Nord département in northern France. It is a sub-prefecture of the department. Located on the river Scarpe some from Lille and from Arras, Dou ...

, France. He prepared a thesis on the regional geography of Flanders, which he defended in 1906 under the title ''Flanders, Geographic Study of the Flemish Plain in France, Belgium, Holland''.

Grenoble

A few months after his successful defence, he was appointed to the Faculty of Arts of the

. In 1907, he founded a research centre on the

French Alps The French Alps are the portions of the Alps mountain range that stand within France, located in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur regions. While some of the ranges of the French Alps are entirely in France, others, such as ...

of which very little was then known. The Alpine Geography Institute was endowed in 1913, and its journal began in 1920 and became the ''Revue de géographie alpine'' (Alpine Geography Review). Blanchard collaborated with the institute and its journal for 50 years, and both still exist today. He was appointed professor in 1913 and became known as the head of geography at the University of Grenoble. His 12 volumes on the French Alps are considered his chief work. He taught at the University of Grenoble until his retirement, in 1948.

North America

Blanchard was appointed an instructor at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...

, in

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut Massachusett_writing_systems.html" ;"title="nowiki/> məhswatʃəwiːsət.html" ;"title="Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət">Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət'' En ...

, in 1917 and was named a full professor from 1928 to 1936, which gave him the opportunity to spend a few months a year in

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and th ...

. In 1929, he grew interested in the geography of French-speaking

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by to ...

. Given the Francophone roots in the Canadian province of

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirte ...

and the facilities available there, Blanchard enjoyed researching the vast area, which had not been the subject of geographical study. Until 1960, he visited Quebec 15 times. He began to produce documents about Quebec with a strictly-geographical method. Grlakes lawrence map

During his five autumn trips (1929 to 1933), he travelled to the

Gaspé Peninsula The Gaspé Peninsula, also known as Gaspesia (; ), is a peninsula along the south shore of the Saint Lawrence River that extends from the Matapedia Valley in Quebec, Canada, into the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. It is separated from New Brunswick ...

twice on foot and by car. He also went to the north shore of the t. Lawrence River and the

Natashquan River The Natashquan is a river in the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador. It flows south into the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. Geography The river has its source just south of the boundary between the Atlantic and Saint Lawrence ...

. As a man accustomed to Europe, he was very interested in the novelty of Quebec culture. In 1930, he published ''Gaspé Peninsula'' in his journal, the first in a long series of articles about Canada, especially Quebec. Blanchard then became a part-time lecturer in Montreal. In 1947, he agreed to found an Institute of Geography of the

University of Montreal A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, th ...

, which in 1962 became the Department of Geography. The institute offered courses that took place in Gaspé,

New Brunswick New Brunswick (french: Nouveau-Brunswick, , locally ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. It is the only province with both English and ...

, and

Nova Scotia Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland". Most of the population are native Eng ...

according to the method that had been used in his 1929 study. Blanchard was appointed the first director of the institute until illness struck, when one of his students, Pierre Dagenais, took over. At the 1939 founding of the Geographical Society of Montreal, Blanchard was appointed honorary president, and in 1952, he became president of the Association of Geographers. In 1958, he was elected to the

Académie des sciences morales et politiques An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosop ...

(Academy of Moral and Political Sciences). In 1964, a year before his death, his last book was published at Porte de Paris, in Quebec City. The great Quebec economic historian Albert Faucher praised Blanchard's work in Quebec by writing in 1962:

He never claimed to be an economist historian and yet, in his investigations, he never neglected the temporal dimension of the spatial phenomena he studied. His works abound in historical insights. The historian will be able to criticize it, he will never finish consulting it or quoting it. Perhaps we will say of him what Talleyrand said of Jeremy Bentham: no matter how much they plunder him, he remains rich.

Death and legacy

Blanchard died on 24 March 1965 in Paris. He is considered the father of modern geography in Quebec. To thank him for his many contributions, the Commission de Toponymie du Québec gave his name to a mountain near Quebec City reaching 1,181 m above sea level, the highest peak in the Laurentian Mountains. In addition, the geography department of the University of Montreal honoured him by naming its largest classroom after him. As of 2020, he is the only geographer to have received the CNRS gold medal (1960). In 1966, the Association des Amis de l'Université de Grenoble published ''Raoul Blanchard (1877-1965): in memoriam'', which contains a biography. In the centre of

Grenoble lat, Gratianopolis , commune status = Prefecture and commune , image = Panorama grenoble.png , image size = , caption = From upper left: Panorama of the city, Grenoble’s cable cars, place Saint- ...

is rue Raoul-Blanchard. Collège Raoul-Blanchard is in

Annecy Annecy ( , ; frp, Èneci or ) is the prefecture and largest city of the Haute-Savoie department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of Southeastern France. It lies on the northern tip of Lake Annecy, south of Geneva, Switzerland. Nickname ...

. A spatial analysis laboratory named after him is in

Nice Nice ( , ; Niçard: , classical norm, or , nonstandard, ; it, Nizza ; lij, Nissa; grc, Νίκαια; la, Nicaea) is the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes department in France. The Nice agglomeration extends far beyond the administrative ...

. Since June 5, 1954, a street is named after him in

Koksijde Koksijde (; french: Coxyde ; vls, Koksyde) is a town and a municipality in Belgium. It is located on the North Sea coast in the southwest of the Flemish province of West Flanders. The municipality comprises apart from Koksijde, the villages of ...

Selected bibliography

He wrote about 290 works covering a wide range of subjects such as

Flanders Flanders (, ; Dutch: ''Vlaanderen'' ) is the Flemish-speaking northern portion of Belgium and one of the communities, regions and language areas of Belgium. However, there are several overlapping definitions, including ones related to cultu ...

, the

Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabian Peninsula, Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Anatolia, Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Pro ...

and

(especially

). * ''La Flandre. Étude de géographie de la plaine flamande, en France, Belgique et Hollande'', Armand Colin, Paris, 1906 * « L’Habitation en Queyras », ''La Géographie'', 1909 * « Sur quelques géants américains », ''Journal de la Société des Américanistes de Paris'', Paris, 1909. * ''Grenoble, étude de géographie urbaine'', Armand Colin, Paris, 1911 * ''Rapport général de l'exposition internationale de la houille blanche'', Grands établissements de l'imprimerie générale, Grenoble, 1925 * ''Les Alpes françaises'', Armand Colin, Paris, 1925 * « Asie occidentale », ''Géographie universelle'', Paris, 1929 * « La presqu'île de Gaspé », ''Revue de Géographie Alpine'', Grenoble, 1930 * « Les Problèmes du Canada français », Académie des sciences morales et politiques, Paris, 1932 * « L'Amérique du Nord : États-Unis, Canada et Alaska », Fayard, Paris, 1933 * « Géographie de l'industrie », 1934 * ''L'Est du Canada français, Province de Québec'', 2 vol., Montréal, 1935 * ''A geography of Europe, together with Raymond E. Christ, Henry Holt, New York, 1935 * ''Grenoble, étude de géographie urbaine'', 3rd edition, Librairie Didier & Richard, Grenoble, 1935. * « Géographie de Québec », ''Bulletin de la Société de Statistique'', Grenoble, 1935. * ''Les Alpes occidentales'', 1937; 1958 * ''Géographie générale'', 1938 * ''Le Centre du Canada français'', 1947 * ''Montréal: esquisse de géographie urbaine'', 1947. * ''Le Québec par l'image'', 1949 * ''La Mauricie'', 1950 * ''Les Alpes et leur destin'', Fayard, Paris, 1953 * ''L'Ouest du Canada français'', 5 vol., Montréal, 1953-1954. * ''Réflexions sur les hautes vallées alpestres'', Grenoble, 1958 * ''Le Canada français'', 1960-1964 * ''Le Canada français'', 3rd edition, Presses universitaires de France, Paris, 1970

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Blanchard, Raoul Scientists from Orléans 1877 births 1965 deaths École Normale Supérieure alumni Members of the Académie des sciences morales et politiques Winners of the Prix Broquette-Gonin (literature) French geographers French mountain climbers Grenoble Alpes University faculty Harvard University faculty Sportspeople from Isère