I: Young Man Gould
Lacota, Michigan? Date unknown.
Laurence McKinley Gould was born in Lacota, Michigan on August 22, 1896, the son of Herbert and Anna (Updike) Gould. This photograph, labelled "Old Times" in a family photo album, is the earliest image of Larry Gould we have been able to locate.
c.1914.
Gould finished from high school in South Haven, Michigan in 1914. His immediate
ambition at that time was to spend a year or two teaching school to earn money to
attend the University of Michigan, where he expected to study law.
Boca Raton, 1914-16.
Not yet 18, Gould moved to south Florida in the summer of 1914 to teach grades one through eight in a one-room "little red schoolhouse."
With his students, Boca Raton, 1914-16.
Evidence that Larry's penchant for loud ties began early...
Boca Raton, 1914-16.
Gould taught two years in Boca Raton. He also drove the school "bus", organized community gatherings, helped found a Sunday School class, and with his students published The Boca Raton Semi-Occasional Newspaper, believed to be the first paper published in that community.
Florida, 1914-16.
In Boca Raton Gould boarded with a local family, the Chesebros. He is known to have enjoyed visits to the ocean and hunting in the Everglades.
Florida, 1914-16.
Decades later, Gould recalled in a letter that the two years he spent teaching in the Boca Raton school "were amongst the most productive of my whole educational career. I liked the Florida crackers as the natives were sometimes called. There I made life-lasting friendships with people whom I loved and respected."

In the fall of 1916, Gould enrolled as an undergraduate at the University of Michigan. An acquaintance made that year with glacial geologist William Hobbs, then chairman of Michigan's Geology Department, led to his developing an interest in that subject. However, Gould's academic career was temporarily interrupted the following year when he enlisted in the Army ambulance corps following U.S. entry into World War I.
1917-19.
From July 1917 to March 1918 Gould trained in boot camp near Allentown, Pennsylvania. From a letter written Oct. 30, 1917: "I should be very glad to get another pair of socks like you can make....We sleep out in pup tents and need something to keep our feet warm."
Posing in a gas mask, 1917-19.
From a letter Jan. 3, 1918: "A man told me that they had the coldest weather in 37 years. The thermometer has been way below zero at times and it still continues in the neighborhood of zero." One wonders what Gould would have thought had he known then that 10 years later he would be leading an antarctic sledge journey and braving temperatures of 40-60 degrees below zero!
Gould's World War I Army Helmet
1917-19.
Sergeant Gould went to Europe in 1918, serving first in Italy, then France, where he took part in the St. Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne offensives, and finally in Germany with the army of occupation.
Gould in Italy, 1918.
That's Larry in the front row, 4th from left.
Cited for action in France, 1918.
A close look reveals that Gould is wearing this medal in the accompanying photograph.
Koblenz, Germany, Jan. 8, 1919.
While serving in the army of occupation.
Koblenz, 1919.
Gould at work in the Chief Surgeon's office.
A civilian again, 1919.
Following his military discharge Gould returned to Michigan as a student of geology.
1921.
This experiment with sideburns was short-lived, and not repeated.
c.1921.
In 1921 Gould graduated with a B.S., a magna cum laude member of Phi Beta Kappa and Sigma Xi. Two years later he had his M.A., and in 1925 earned his D.Sc. His dissertation concerned the geology of Utah's La Sal Mountains.
Gould's Phi Beta Kappa key, presented at the University of Michigan, 1921.
Michigan, early 1920s.
Gould was hired by his alma mater as a geology instructor following completion of his B.S. in 1921. He would be advanced to assistant professor in 1926, and to associate professor in 1930.
A young instructor.
Gould's enthusiasm for teaching was high. He later recalled of his first formal lecture: "I got all excited and told them everything I knew about each phase of geology -- and then discovered that I had the last quarter of the class period and the rest of the semester to go."
1926.
In the summer of 1926 Gould got his first taste of arctic travel, serving as assistant director and geologist with the University of Michigan Greenland Expedition led by Professor Hobbs. This was Gould's passport photo that year.
1926 Greenland Expedition.
A party of six scientists sailed from Nova Scotia on the Morrisey, a two-masted fishing schooner. While in Greenland a group of the scientists and native Greenlanders made a lengthy trek inland. This party discovered "a beautiful ice-dammed lake half a mile wide backed by vertical cliffs of ice," which they named Lake Laurence M. Gould.
1927 Putnam expedition to Baffin Island.
The following summer Gould was geographer and topologist for George Palmer Putnam's expedition to Baffin Island in the Canadian arctic. Here he consults with expedition leader Captain Bob Bartlett.
Summer of 1927.
This expedition surveyed Baffin's coast, finding that the island was some 5,000 square miles smaller than had been thought. By the way, Gould did not continue his pipe smoking for very long. In later life, he liked to relate a story about going to the doctor for a physical exam. The doctor advised him to give up smoking and start drinking. "Best damned advice I ever had!" Larry would declare.
1928.
With two Arctic expeditions now on his resume, Gould was introduced to Commander Richard E. Byrd at a dinner in Ann Arbor. The impression must have been favorable, for Byrd subsequently asked Gould to join his forthcoming expedition to Antarctica as geologist and geographer. This portrait ran with the Associated Press report of Gould's appointment.

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