Up for auction "National Geographic" Frederick Vosburgh Hand Signed 3X5 Card. 

ES-6597

Frederick

Vosburgh, a former editor of National Geographic magazine and vice president of

the National Geographic Society, died of pneumonia Feb.16 at Shady Grove, Md.,

Nursing and Rehabilitation Center. He was 100. Mr. Vosburgh, who was the

magazine's editor for three years, retired in 1970 after 37 years with the

organization. He was known for devotion to scrupulous accuracy. According to an

internal history of the magazine, his exactitude and precision caused some colleagues

to say he had "an instinct for the capillary." When the July 1964

issue was being printed, Mr. Vosburgh, then the associate editor, halted the

presses because a restrictive comma had been omitted from an article. He

promptly inserted the punctuation, but the story of the $30,000 comma often

would be quoted as an example of his insistence on the accuracy of details. During

his editorship, the magazine comprehensively covered the first moon landing and

instituted a series of "traveler's maps." The December 1969 issue,

with a supplement LP of the Apollo 11 astronauts' radio transmissions, quickly

became a collector's item. Despite Mr. Vosburgh's trepidation over interjecting

the magazine into policy debates he consented to the calls of younger staff members

and published, as the cover story on his final issue, the magazine's first

extensive environmental report, "Our Ecological Crisis." Mr. Vosburgh

was born in Johnstown, N.Y. He spent seven years with The Associated Press in

New York and Washington before joining National Geographic in 1933. He became

assistant editor in 1951 and associate editor in 1957. He ascended to the

position of editor in 1967.