• DOI:10.1111/J.1931-0846.2006.TB00523.X
• Corpus ID: 161868821

Douglas R. McManis (1932–2006), Editor and Scholar

@article{Mikesell2006DouglasRM,
  title={Douglas R. McManis (1932–2006), Editor and Scholar},
  author={Marvin W. Mikesell},
  journal={Geographical Review},
  year={2006},
  volume={96},
  pages={696 - 699}
}

• M. Mikesell
• Published 1 October 2006
• History
• Geographical Review

Douglas McManis served with distinction for seventeen years as editor of the Geographical Review. He will also be remembered as the author of books and articles devoted to American historical geography and a wide range of other interests. He grew up in Stow, Ohio, had his undergraduate education at nearby Kent State University, and sampled the central-place amenities of Akron. It would be difficult to imagine an environment more notably different from the Midtown Manhattan he experienced and enjoyed in his mature years. After earning a master's degree at Kent State in 1955, McManis was employed briefly as a high school teacher and engineering aide in Ohio, and then as a geography instructor at the University of Cincinnati and the Covington branch of the University of Kentucky. In 1958 he began doctoral work at the University of Chicago and immediately elected to specialize in American historical geography. Most of his fellow students at that time were attracted to other fields, most commonly urban geography, resources management, or cultural geography in areas outside the United States. McManis's doctoral dissertation, completed in 1964, was a richly documented study of the early use of the Illinois prairies. He was especially interested in the idea, then widely held, that prairie settlement had been delayed until invention of the self-scouring steel plow in 1833 permitted rapid cultivation of the thick prairie sod. He was able through use of contemporary accounts to demonstrate that the "delayed prairie settlement" thesis was a misleading interpretation. His work earned praise from a prominent member of the University of Chicago Department of History, William Hutchinson (editor of several volumes of The Papers of James Madison), who called attention to his extensive and effective use of primary sources. During the four years of his dissertation research he taught at Butler University in Indianapolis. After earning his doctorate he moved to Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, where he produced (1965) a welcome bibliography of American historical geography. In 1966 he accepted what seemed to be a promising opportunity at Teachers College, Columbia University (TCCU). This experience did not prove to be very satisfying for him. He regretted especially that the well-entrenched position of "social studies" at TCCU meant that geography could not be more than a minor field. Restless and looking for other opportunities, in 1974 McManis accepted the offer made to him by Sarah Myers, then editor of the Geographical Review, to serve as the journal's volunteer book review editor. The Audubon Terrace headquarters of the American Geographical Society (AGS) soon became more attractive to him than Morningside Heights, home of TCCU. In 1978, when Myers, who also holds a University of Chicago doctorate in geography, decided to relinquish the editorship in order to devote all of her energy to her duties as director of the AGS, he became the fourth full-time editor of the Geographical Review. On the occasion of his retirement from this responsibility in 1995 much praise was offered for his efforts to maintain the high standards of the journal and his skill in identifying and nurturing younger authors. In 2001 he was the well-deserving recipient of the AGS'S Samuel Finley Breese Morse Medal for "the encouragement of geographical research." As editor of the Geographical Review for nearly two decades McManis was undoubtedly a stabilizing force in the changing community of geographers. He seems from all accounts to have been able to avoid the frustration inherent in being at the focal point of a communication network and the conveyor to prospective authors of bad as well as good news. He had, I think, a rare ability to judge and edit manuscripts from the perspective of potential readers. He was not an intrusive editor, for his concern was more structural than stylistic. He had a keen awareness of the progression of an article. …