Sketch of the Life of James Bernard Macelwane, S.J.

Accounts of the New Madrid Earthquakes: Personal Narratives across Two Centuries of North American Seismology

“…James B. Macelwane, S.J., was for much of the early to mid twentieth century a leader in seismology, researching and publishing on topics from microseismicity to the operation and design of seismometers to the seismic effects of local quarrying. As researcher, educator, and tinkerer, "Father Mac" introduced students to the work of making and reading seismograms and caring for seismic measuring equipment (Blum 1956;Byerly and Stauder 1958;Heinrich 1956, 14;Howell 1990, 131-2). During his tenure, the SLU department installed Wood-Anderson seismographs at their own array in 1927, and began operating Wood-Anderson seismographs in the 1930s in Little Rock, Arkansas, and Cape Girardeau, Missouri, to study New Madrid seismicity (Blum 1956, 10;Byerly and Stauder 1958; Saint Louis University Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences n.d.-a).…”

“…At the urging of fellow scientists at the National Research Council and the Carnegie Institution of Washington, as well as international Jesuit colleagues, Macelwane succeeded in reorganizing the defunct Jesuit network in 1925 into the Jesuit Seismological Association (Blum 1956;Byerly and Stauder 1958;Hodgson 1956; Saint Louis University Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences; Udías 2009, 140;Udías and Stauder 1991, 189). The SLU Central Station continued to amass and publish data and locate earthquake epicenters until the early 1960s, complementing reports by the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, the International Summary in London, and the Bulletin of the Central Seismological Institute in Strasbourg (Udías 2009, 140).…”