COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES 21 basis for his undergraduate history honors thesis, which was awarded a Harmon Prize. Rock’s great-great-grandsons, David and Chris Grace, personally delivered photos, battlefield letters, diaries, journals that contain pressed plant clippings, maps of the border between Mexico and Guatemala in a leather-bound book and an autograph book from his time at Lehigh, signed by his friend Henry Sturgis Drinker, Lehigh’s fifth president, according to the library’s website. A highlight of the collection is Rock’s Civil War uniform, buttons intact. The collection has helped Kies relate to Rock on a more personal level. Despite more than 150 years between them, Kies, who was also raised on a farm in Pennsylvania (Bangor), found connections to Rock. “Like Miles Rock, I’ve always found myself drawn to the pursuit of a fairly specific field, much to the exclusion (for good or ill) of other aspects of day-to-day-life,” Kies says. He relates to Rock’s sense of humor, noting his “writings, whether in his diaries, letters or his memoir of his travels in Chile, are full of witty and relatable observations on social life, politics and science.” And yes, the Linderman Special Collections Group has discussed creating a Wikipedia entry for Miles Rock, Kies says. But in the meantime, Kies’ research is bringing Rock to life—and helping to cement his place in history bridging science and politics. ● Mapping the mountainous Guatemala-Mexico frontier was “treacherous,” Kies points out. “Disease and harsh conditions killed off several hundred indigenous laborers employed by the commission, and one Mexican boundary commissioner drowned in the early phase of the work.” Rock himself nearly drowned on one occasion that he mentions in his diary. Eventually, he was removed from the commission in 1895 “because he had acted on the orders of the Guatemalan government to forcibly remove an illegal timber operation in the disputed area,” explains Kies. “The Mexican government used this opportunity to call for his removal, which seemed to suit their interests in this case because Rock was a particularly ardent defender of the Guatemalan position on the border and embodied a direct connection to the world of North American diplomatic power.” Later, Rock ended up buying a coffee plantation for financial security for his family. He kept a family home in Washington, D.C., but was in Guatemala when he died on Jan. 29, 1901, at age 61, and was buried in Guatemala City. According to his obituary, hundreds of Guatemalans paid tribute. Kies believes that Rock’s work in Guatemala was the culmination of his varied interests and skills, combined with “his long experience (and education) in cartography and astronomy, with his personal qualities of determination, physical and moral courage and commitment to arduous and important work.” It also allowed him to pursue other interests, like meteorological observations in Guatemala in cooperation with the U.S. Naval Observatory and studying and lecturing on the subject of Guatemala’s forests. He photographed Guatemalan life and culture for the Smithsonian. This is not Kies’ first time working with Linderman Special Collection in researching a Lehigh alumnus. He catalogued the Frank Lunney Collection, archiving the work of Lunney, a Lehigh alumnus and a Hugo-nominated publisher of science-fiction fanzines who played an active role in the world of self-published science fiction. When the Miles Rock Collection arrived, Kies was brought back as a project archivist. As an undergraduate, Kies did historical research at Lehigh on the 19th-century Irish nationalist John Mitchel, the Miles Rock was introduced to science, astronomy and surveying at Lehigh, an education that made possible his career. CHRISTINE KRESCHOLLEK, CHRISTA NEU “ Like Miles Rock, I’ve always found myself drawn to the pursuit of a fairly specific field, much to the exclusion (for good or ill) of other aspects of day-to-day-life.”
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