Measuring Ice: How Swiss Peasants Discovered the Ice Age

Abstract

The discovery of the ice age was arguably one of the most important scientific breakthroughs of the nineteenth century, resulting in a reconceptualization of the climate as mutable and volatile. Until the end of the eighteenth century, the possibility that there was once a much colder period was a radical idea that diverged from popular scientific belief and biblical thought. The ice age was hypothesized only after scientists realized that glaciers once covered much of the earth’s surface—and this would have required a cooler climate. Scientific and cultural histories celebrate Louis Agassiz, Johann von Charpentier, and Goethe as the discoverers of the ice ages. But these early naturalists did not make sense of the so-called “Gletscherwelt” themselves. Instead, they learned from “gute Leute,” as Goethe names them in Wilhelm Meister, who long lived in the Alps. These hunters, farmers, and peasants possessed specialized knowledge and data about the mountains and the ice that covered them. This article recovers the folk and indigenous voices that contributed to the discovery of the ice age. How did local knowledge get woven into the narratives that we celebrate as leading to the discovery of the ice ages? How did their voices disappear? Based on close readings of representative texts, this article examines the ways that early glaciologists engaged with Alp dwellers and analyzes the manner in which the most famous naturalists used the same knowledge. It concludes by asserting the importance of reaffirming the place of indigenous epistemologies in broader cultural studies.