John Fraser Hart

Hart was born on April5, 1924 in Staunton, Virginia, The family moved to New York City in 1933 for his father to complete a doctoral degree at Columbia University through the end of 1934. Hart described it as a difficult year for them all especially in the time of the Great Depression. Once he had completed high school, Hart began taking college classes at Hampden–Sydney College, the same place his father had begun teaching at, but they moved in 1940 in the middle of his sophomore year to Atlanta. Instead of returning to school immediately, he spent a year working to get together enough money to attend Emory University, from which he received his Bachelor of Arts degree in classical languages, Latin and Greek, in 1943. During his time at sea, he took notice of the intelligence reports he was working with and that he knew so little about geography. This led to him desiring to take classes on the geography of the Pacific, which he frequently lamented never occurred among his numerous other geography courses. After the end of the war in 1945, Hart took several geography classes at the University of Georgia and met the head of the geography department Merle Charles Prunty who tutored him on the subject once a week. He also sent Hart to take some statistics courses because he knew that geographical knowledge needed to become more quantitative in the future. After a year of this, Hart went on to Northwestern University and studied under Malcolm Jarvis Proudfoot for his Master of Arts degree, which he completed in 1949, and then his Ph.D. in 1950 from the same university. ==Career==

As he was completing his Ph.D., Hart was asked by Prunty to return and work as a faculty member at the University of Georgia, which he agreed to in 1949 and stayed there until 1955. Several years later, Hart moved on to teach at Indiana University from 1955 to 1967. Afterwards, he made a final teaching position change to the University of Minnesota in 1967, where he continued to work for nearly 50 years. He did not plan on completely retiring from geographical work, however, as he noted his intention to continue progress on his next book, Fossils on the Prairie. Hart became an executive officer for the American Association of Geographers from 1965 to 1966, before becoming an editor for the Annals of the American Association of Geographers journal from 1970 to 1975. He then became second vice-president of the organization in 1977 and was the association's president from 1979 to 1980. A collection of Hart's writing was published in the book A Love of the Land: Selected Writings of John Fraser Hart that was edited by John C. Hudson. In total during his life, as of 2015, Hart has published 15 books and has taught more than 50,000 university students. He is noted by his students and colleagues to be unique in his lack of computer use of any kind, with a secretary managing his emails from his students that are printed out and a reply typed by Hart on an electric typewriter, before being retyped as a reply email by his secretary. ==Awards and honors==

The Meritorious Contributions award from the American Association of Geographers was given to Hart in 1969. Hart was presented, in 1971, with the Teaching of Geography at the College Level award by the National Council for Geographic Education. He received the 1987 Southeastern Division of the American Association of Geographers (SEDAAG) Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2001, he was awarded the Paul P. Vouras Medal from the American Geographical Society. The 2005 Lifetime Achievement Honors from the American Association of Geographers was presented to Hart. ==Personal life and death==

Hart lived in Edina, Minnesota, with his wife, Meredith. ==Bibliography==