Annie Smith Peck

Annie Smith Peck (October 19, 1850 – July 18, 1935) was an American mountaineering mountaineer, adventurer, Pan-Americanism Pan-Americanist., classical scholar, professor, lecturer, writer, and suffragist. In 1927 the Geographical Society of Lima renamed Huascarán's northern peak as Cumbre Aña Peck in her honor. She was one of only three women who reached the summit of the Matterhorn during the nineteenth century. (The first was Lucy Walker (climber) Lucy Walker and the second was Meta Brevoort.) Quotes ... The conquest in 1895 of the grand old Matterhorn, and the unmerited notoriety attained thereby, spurred me on to the accomplishment of some deed which should render me worthy of the fame already acquired. The most feasible project seemed to be the ascent of Pico de Orizaba Orizaba in Mexico, its summit the highest point which had been reached in North America. This became, under the auspices of the New York World, in 1897, the easy goal of my ambition and gave me temporarily the world's record for women. Foreword A Search for the Apex of America: High Mountain Climbing in Peru and Bolivia Including the Conquest of Huascaran, with Some Observations on the Country and People Below New York Dodd, Mead & Company 1911 https://books.google.com/books?id=VyBbAAAAMAAJ&pg=PR10 ix–xii (quote from p. x) Fortunate the traveler, who, 7 or 8 miles below Las Cuevas, has at the head of a side valley at the north a glimpse of colossal Aconcagua 15 miles away, a long ridge of snow arching into two domes, with a sheer drop of 10,000 feet on its black southern wall; and farther on a sight of Tupungato, 30 miles away at the south: both mountains first climbed in 1897 by the Edward FitzGerald (mountaineer)#Aconcagua expedition Fitzgerald Expedition, though he unfortunately was compelled by Altitude sickness mountain sickness to forego the satisfaction of attaining either summit himself. The first to reach the supposed apex of the Western Hemisphere, the top of Aconcagua, according to the latest measurement, 22,817 feet, was Mathias Zurbriggen Matias Zurbriggen, the celebrated Swiss guide, who in almost every land has led English and Americans to the summits of noted mountains. Alone, January 14, 1897, he gained this height, and there erected a stone man as is the custom where possible. In April of the same year, the first ascent of Tupungato, 21,451 feet, was made also by Zurbriggen, and the Englishman, Vines. The South American Tour 2nd New York George H. Doran Company 1913 https://books.google.com/books/about/The_South_American_Tour.html?id=HcQEg44UBOMC&pg=PA201 201 (1st edition 1913) Interest was heightened by the knowledge that the 162,000 acres of land already cultivated in the Department of Lambayeque State of Lambayeque, where Pimentel District Pimentel is located, were to triple through a great irrigation project inaugurated by Augusto_B._Leguía President Leguía. In 1930 it was well under way when the project was abandoned. An American engineer, Charles W. Sutton, long in the service of Peru, was adding to his fame and usefulness by undertaking to bring from the Huancabamba River, tributary to the Amazon, by means of a tunnel through the mountains, water to supplement the service of the coastal streams. Flying Over South America: Twenty Thousand Miles by Air New York Houghton Mifflin 1932 1st part of quote 2nd part of quote last part of quote Quotes about Annie Smith Peck ... this woman, now nearly sixty, with graying hair and steel-rimmed glasses, was a monster of persistence. She was determined to become the first known human to ascend the summit of the forbidding Huascarán, which she hoped would prove to be the highest in the Western Hemisphere, the "apex of America."And so she went on to reach Huascarán's summit on her sixth onslaught. Her achievement was heralded by Harper's Magazine as "one of the most remarkable feats in the history of mountain-climbing." Upon her death at eighty-four, the The New York Times New York Times called her the most famous of all women mountain climbers. Elizabeth Fagg Olds, Annie Smith Peck 5–70 Women of the Four Winds: The Adventurers of Four of America's First Women Explorers Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 1999 0395957842 https://books.google.com/books?id=dVs4RIZatyMC&pg=PA8 (quote from p. 8; 1st edition 1985) After years of climbing, she made New Hampshire’s Mount Madison her final ascent in 1932. She was 82 years old. On her gravestone in Providence, Rhode Island Providence is written: “You have brought uncommon glory to women of all time.” Charles T. Robinson, Annie Smith Peck New England's Gifts Yankee Magazine (newengland.com) October 30, 2015 https://newengland.com/yankee/magazine/annie-smith-peck/ External links Joseph Adelman, Famous Women: An Outline of Feminine Achievement Through the Ages with Life Stories of Five Hundred Noted Women John L. Rogers 1928 Annie Smith Peck https://books.google.com/books?id=xpYYAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA292 292–293 Category:1850 births Category:1935 deaths Category:Women academics from the United States Category:Climbers] Category:Feminists from the United States Category:Non-fiction authors from the United States Category:Women authors from the United States Category:Women born in the 19th century Category:Women's rights activists