Wilbur Zelinsky was born in Chicago on December 21, 1921. After graduating from high
school, Zelinsky briefly attended college in the Chicago area before he studied
cartography at Columbia Technical Institute in Washington, D.C. from 1941-1942.
During World War II, he worked as a map draftsman for various government agencies
and other private sector organizations, but he also continued his studies in
geography at various universities. Eventually Zelinsky earned a BA in geography from
the University of California, Berkeley in 1944. He then earned an MA from the
University of Wisconsin in 1946. While working towards this degree, Zelinsky spent
the six months working as a terrain analyst for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in
Occupied Germany. When Zelinsky returned to the U.S., he began work on his doctoral
degree in geography, which he earned from UC-Berkeley under Carl Sauer in 1953.
During his career, Zelinsky taught at various institutions, including the University
of Georgia (1948-1952), Wayne State University (1955-1959), and Southern Illinois
University (1959-1963), before settling at The Pennsylvania State University. He
began teaching there in 1963, was head of the geography department from 1970-1976,
and earned professor emeritus status in 1987. Throughout his career, he also worked
as a visiting professor, research assistant, consultant, and analyst for other
various organizations and institutions. Zelinsky was also involved with establishing
the Population Issues Research Office at Penn State, of which he was the director
from 1972 to 1974.
Interested particularly in population geography and cultural geography, Zelinsky
wrote numerous articles, reviews, reports, and books, such as The Cultural Geography of the United States (1973), Exploring the Beloved Country (1994), and Not Yet A Placeless Land (2011). He was also the
recipient of numerous awards and honors, including a Guggenheim Fellowship from
1981-1982, the Cullum Geographical Medal from the American Geographical Society in
2001, and the Association of American Geographers (AAG) Presidential Achievement
Award in 2006. Zelinsky served as president of the AAG from 1972-1973, a member of
the Executive Committee for the American Name Society, and was also a member of
several editorial boards. Zelinsky died on May 4, 2013.
