Samuel G. Hermelin (452)

Samuel Gustaf Hermelin (4 April 1744–4 March 1820) was an industrialist, diplomat, and a member of the American Philosophical Society, elected in 1785. Hermelin studied mining at Uppsala University before relocating to the United States to study industrialization. While there, he helped give rise to a budding diplomatic relationship between the United States and Sweden. Ever the venture capitalist, upon his return to Sweden, Hermelin began the massive undertaking of establishing industry in the remote Swedish Lapland. Much of this northernmost territory was uninhabited and unmapped, so Hermelin’s first task was to survey the region, which he began pursuing in 1797. A prominent fellow of the Academy of Science, he financed multiple expeditions of expert cartographers and naturalists who then took meticulous scientific inventory of the region under his patronage. These efforts eventually led to a National Atlas of Sweden, which was completed in 1818. Industrializing Lapland, however, would not become lucrative until railroads were installed. Some time after Hermelin’s death, trains began transporting the necessary resources en masse through even the harshest of weather, enabling Sweden to colonize and industrialize the Lapland region.