Armin K. Lobeck

Lobeck was born in New York City on August 16, 1886, but his family moved to Haworth, New Jersey, three years later. Lobeck was 21 years old when he entered Columbia University in 1907 because he dropped out of high school to care for his family when his father became ill. In his senior year at Columbia, he took master's level courses in botany and architecture, and received his AB degree in 1911 and his master's degree in 1913. After working as a teacher at the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy from 1911-1914, he returned to Columbia University where he was awarded his Ph.D. in 1917. At the beginning of World War I, he enlisted in the US Army and was sent to Fort Dix, NJ, but he was soon transferred to the United States Department of State. He was assigned to The Inquiry, an organization under Colonel E. M. House to prepare for making peace at the end of the war. While there, he received a reasonable salary of $183.00 a month. At the war's end, he was assigned to the Geography Section of the American Commission to Negotiate Peace. His duty was to prepare physiographic maps of problem areas, such as the Balkans, the Istria, Albania, and other regions. Lobeck accepted a position as associate professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and worked there for 10 years from 1919-1929. His first physiographic map of importance was published as the large-scale "Physiographic Diagram of the United States", published by the Nystrom Company in 1921. In 1929 he returned to Columbia University as a full professor of geology, where he remained until his retirement in 1954. During World War II, Lobeck was employed by the Military Intelligence Service (United States), G-2, on the General Staff of the United States Army, and the Army Map Service. There he prepared sketch maps for the invasion of North Africa. He also prepared a series of European maps in sections for the use of the staff, that were combined after the war into a large physiographic map of Europe. Lobeck died in Englewood, New Jersey at the age of 71 on April 26, 1958.

Lobeck was awarded the Neil Miner Medal by the National Association of Geoscience Teachers in 1956. Lobeck and his wife were active in the affairs at Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. He became a director of the Camp Meeting Association in 1950, and later he was elected vice president of the association in 1956. Upon his recommendations, one of his graduate students, Ruth A. M. Schmidt, went on to become a pioneer for women in the sciences.

• Grandinetti, Fred. The Life and Thought of Armin K. Lobeck. Thesis (M.A.)--Southern Connecticut State College, 1973. • Lobeck, A. K. [Armin K. Lobeck, Biographical Materials]. Kremers Reference Files. 1913. Ebling Library, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI. • Lobeck's papers are held in at least three archives. Columbia University holds papers relating to his journey to Paris with the Inquiry, the National Archives contain his correspondence, maps, and papers relating to the inquiry and the American Commission to Negotiate Peace (the official name of the Inquiry in Paris), while the American Geographical Library in Milwaukee contains papers about his career more generally, including some correspondence while at sea on the way to Paris. • Smith, Guy-Harold. 1959. "Armin Kohl Lobeck, Geomorphologist and Landscape Artist, 1886-1958." Annals of the Association of American Geographers. Volume 49, Issue 1, pages 83–87, March 1959. • "Men of the Inquiry: Armin Lobeck."