Cleveland Abbe (1838-1916), the first person in America to successfully provide regular, practical weather forecasts for the public, was one of the more distinguished residents of the house that is now home to the Arts Club of Washington! Biographer Sean Potter leads us on Abbe’s journey from lower Manhattan, where he was born and raised, to Cincinnati, where the young astronomer oversaw the city’s fledgling observatory, to Washington, D.C., where Abbe lead the forecasting efforts at the nation’s newly established weather service. Cleveland and his wife Fanny cherished their home at 2017 I Street, NW, where they raised their three sons while living there from 1877 to 1908. Decades of diaries and correspondence from the Cleveland Abbe Papers at the Library of Congress, as well as first-person accounts, illuminate this biography of a mild-mannered family man whose thirst for knowledge drove him to become a giant in an emerging scientific field.
About the Author Sean Potter is a meteorologist, science writer, and weather historian, whose career in weather and communications has included work for ABC News and the National Weather Service. He holds certifications from the American Meteorological Society in both consulting and broadcast meteorology and is a contributing editor of Weatherwise magazine, where his column, “Retrospect,” explores the intersection of weather and history. The illustrated talk by the author and discussion following will be live online via Zoom. You must register to receive access. Copies of the biography may be purchased from The University of Chicago Press website at:
The Arts Club of Washington is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization. located at 2017 I Street N.W., Washington D.C. 20006
