One of the most influential intellectuals of the 19th century, Alexander von Humboldt was a Prussian polymath, geographer, naturalist, explorer, and proponent of Romantic philosophy and science who visited the United States in 1804 specifically to meet President Thomas Jefferson, whose writings Humboldt had taken to heart.
Preferring democracy to European monarchy, Humboldt used his influential voice to urge the United States to live up to its democratic ideals, especially the innate equality of all people. Smithsonian American Art Museum curator Eleanor Jones Harvey, author of Alexander von Humboldt and the United States: Art, Nature and Culture, illuminates Humboldt's efforts to influence American cultural values through the visual arts, sciences, literature, and politics.
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