John Muir

Muir, John - 1838–1914, American naturalist, b. Dunbar, Scotland, studied at the Univ. of Wisconsin. He came to the United States in 1849 and settled in California in 1868. In recognition of his efforts as a conservationist and crusader for national parks and reservations, Muir Woods National Monument was named for him. He made extended trips throughout the country, often on foot; he also Read More...

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John Muir

1 .

John Muir: Rediscovering America
by Frederick Turner. 418 pgs.

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In his stirring biography, Frederick Turner, the distinguished writer and cultural historian, captures the legendary scale of the life of an American icon. Immigrant, inventor, botanist, and founder of the conservation movement, John Muir (1838-1914) truly led those of his time -- and now ours -- to rediscover the natural beauty of this land. From his harsh childhood in Scotland and on a Wisconsin pioneer farm, to his rugged, solitary explorations all over America and especially in the Sierras, to his passionate battle, in person and in his writings, to save and celebrate our wilderness, Muir was a heroic figure. Turner's biography is every bit as monumental and inspiring as its subject.

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Title Page

Contents

Acknowledgments

Chronology

Prologue:: Peru Again

PART I: Apprenticed to the Land

The Lessons of a Long-Distance Runner

Terms of Challenge

PART II: Into His Own

Books of Life, Drums of Death

The Eye Within

The Thousand-Mile Walk

PART III: Rediscovering America

First Summer

The Secret Pass

Civilization and Its Discontents

Home

PART IV: A Legacy

Against the American Grain

The American Forests

Other Yosemites

Notes on Sources

Index
2 .

The Story of My Boyhood and Youth
by John Muir. 296 pgs.

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Contents

Illustrations

I: A Boyhood in Scotland

II: A New World

III: Life on a Wisconsin Farm

IV: A Paradise of Birds

V: Young Hunters

VI: The Ploughboy

VII: Knowledge and Inventions

VIII: The World and the University

Index
3 .

Travels in Alaska
by John Muir. 332 pgs.

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Title Page

Preface

Contents

Illustrations

Part I: The Trip of 1879

Chapter I: Pugetsound and British Columbia

Chapter II: Alexander Archipelago and the Home I Found In Alaska

Chapter III: Wrangell Island and Alaska Summers

Chapter IV: The Stickeen River

Chapter V: A Cruise in the Cassiar

Chapter VI The Cassiar Trail

Chapter VII: Glenora Peak

Chapter VIII: Exploration of the Stickeen Glaciers

Chapter IX: A Canoe Voyage to Northward

Chapter X: The Discovery of Glacier Bay

Chapter XI: The Country of the Chilcats

Chapter XII: The Return to Fort Wrangell

Chapter XIII: Alaska Indians

Part II: The Trip of 1880

Chapter XIV: Sum Dum Bay

Chapter XV: From Taku River to Taylor Bay

Chapter XVI: Glacier Bay

Part Iii The Trip of 1890

Chapter XVII: In Camp at Glacier Bay

Chapter XVIII: My Sled-Trip on the Muir Glacier

Chapter XIX: Auroras

Index
4 .

Steep Trails
by John Muir, William Frederick Bade. 391 pgs.

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Editor's Note

Contents

Illustrations

Steep Trails

II: A Geologist's Winter Walk

III: Summer Days at Mount Shasta

IV: A Perilous Night on Shasta's Summit

V: Shasta Rambles and Modoc Memories

VII: A Great Storm in Utah

VIII: Bathing in Salt Lake

IX: Mormon Lilies

X: The San Gabriel Valley

XI: The San Gabriel Mountains

XII: Nevada Farms

Xiiii: Nevada Forest

XIV: Nevada's Timber Belt

XV: Glacial Phenomena in Nevada

XVI: Nevada's Dead Towns

XVII: Puget Sound

XVIII: The Forests of Washington

XIX: People and Towns of Puget Sound

XX: An Ascent of Mount Rainier

XXI: The Physical and Climatic Characteristics Of Oregon

XXII: The Forests of Oregon and Their Inhabitants

XXIII: The Rivers of Oregon

XXIV: The Grand CaÑon of the Colorado

Index
5 .

My First Summer in the Sierra
by John Muir. 278 pgs.

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CONTENTS

Illustrations

Chapter I: THROUGH THE FOOTHILLS WITH A FLOCK OF SHEEP

Chapter II: IN CAMP ON THE NORTH FORK OF THE MERCED

Chapter III: A BREAD FAMINE

Chapter IV: TO THE HIGH MOUNTAINS

Chapter V: THE YOSEMITE

Chapter VI: MOUNT HOFFMAN AND LAKE TENAYA

Chapter VII

Chapter VIII: THE MONO TRAIL

Chapter IX: BLOODY CAÑON AND MONO LAKE

Chapter X the Tuolumne Camp

Chapter XI: BACK TO THE LOWLANDS

INDEX
6 .

The Environmental Debate: A Documentary History ("Document 68: John Muir, James Phelan, and the Battle over the Flooding of the Hetch Hetchy Valley (1908-1913)" begins on p. 131)
by Peter Rhoades Mott, Peninah Neimark. 323 pgs.

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This unique collection of primary documents examines the evolution of concern about environmental degradation, pollution, and resource conservation in America from the colonial period to the end of the twentieth century. These documents, ranging from government reports and court cases to the writings of naturalists, economists, and novelists, offer a broad array of perspectives about such major environmental issues as population growth, air pollution, land and water use, toxins and waste disposal, and the use of timber and mining resources. The historical introductions to each part and to each document provide a context for analyzing each document and will aid readers of the book to better understand the various debates over how, why and if our environment needs to be protected. Students and other interested in environmental problems are encouraged to consider all sides of these complex issues before drawing their own conclusions.

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Title Page

Advisory Board

Contents

Series Foreword

Preface

Acknowledgments

Significant Dates in American Environmental History

Introduction

Part I Foundations of American Environmental Thought and Action

Document 1: Biblical Views of Nature and Humanity

Document 2: Virgil's Pastoral View of Nature (c. 50 B.C.E.)

Document 3: Christopher Columbus Inventories the New World's Natural Resources (1493)

Document 4: Jean Ribaut Discovers the Natural Abundance of Terra Florida (1563)

Document 5: Baltasar de Obregon's Account of the Riches of New Mexico (1584)

Document 7: William Bradford on Life in the Wilderness (1620, 1621)

Document 8: Francis Bacon on Science and Technology (1629)

Document 9: Regulating the Herring Run in the Town of Plymouth (1637, 1638, 1639, 1662)

Document 10: Predator Control and Game Hunting Regulation in Rhode Island Colony (1639, 1646)

Document 11: Thomas Hobbes's Social Contract Theory (1651)

Document 13: William Penn Contracts to Set Aside Timbered Lands (1681)

Document 14: John Locke on Property and Labor (1690)

Document 15: John Ray on Gardens and Wilderness (1691)

Document 16: Jonathan Edwards on God and Nature (1739)

Document 17: Peter Kalm on Land Management (1753)

Document 18: William Blackstone's On the Rights of Things (1765-1769)

Document 19: John Bartram on Reclaiming Florida's Wetlands (1767)

Part II Politicians, Naturalists, and Artists in the New Nation, 1776-1840

Document 20: Thomas Jefferson on Agrarianism and Industrialization (1785, 1816)

Document 21: James Madison on Population and Property (1786, 1788)

Document 22: Philip Freneau's Noble Savage (1788)

Document 23: William Bartram on the Human Impact on the Environment (1791)

Document 24: Benjamin Rush on Saving the Sugar Maple (1791)

Document 25: The Founding Fathers on the Care of the Land (1793, 1818)

Document 26: Thomas Malthus's Essay on the Principle of Population (1798)

Document 27: Meriwether Lewis on the Slaughter of Buffaloes (1805)

Document 28: Act Establishing the First Federal Forest Reserve (1817)

Document 30: James Fenimore Cooper Laments the Disappearance of Unregulated Wilderness (1823)

Document 31: George Catlin's Proposal for a National Park (1832)

Document 32: Black Hawk on the Indians and the Land (1833)

Document 33: John James Audubon on the Senseless Destruction of Fish, Birds, and Quadrupeds (1833)

Part III The Origins of Environmental Activism, 1840-1890

Document 34: Thomas Cole's "Lament of the Forest" (1841)

Document 35: John James Audubon on the Decimation of the Bison Herds (1843)

Document 36: Ralph Waldo Emerson on Nature (1844, 1884)

Document 37: William Cullen Bryant's Proposal for a Great Municipal Park (1844)

Document 38: Andrew Jackson Downing Talks about Public Parks and Gardens (1848)

Document 39: Swamp and Overflow Act (1850)

Document 40: The Shattuck Report's Recommendations for Sanitary Improvement (1850)

Document 41: Rebecca Harding Davis on Smoke and Soot in a Mill Town (1861)

Document 41: Rebecca Harding Davis on Smoke and Soot In a Mill Town (1861)

Document 43: George Perkins Marsh's Man and Nature (1864)

Document 44: Henry David Thoreau on the Value of Living Things (1864)

Document 45: Act Granting Yo-Semite Valley to California (1864)

Document 46: the Citizens' Association of New York On Sewage and Disease (1865)

Document 47: John Muir on the Spirituality of Nature (1866)

Document 48: Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux on Creating Parks to Serve the Public (1866, 1872)

Document 49: Charles Darwin on the Similarity between Humans and Other Animals (1871)

Document 50: Act Establishing Yellowstone National Park (1872)

Document 51: Mining Act (1872)

Document 52: Carl Schurz on the Need for Federal Forest Conservation (1877)

Document 53: Henry George on Land Development (1879)

Document 54: Act Establishing the Adirondack Forest Preserve (1885)

Document 55: American Ornithologists' Union's Model Law (1886)

Document 56: George Bird Grinnell and Cecelia Thaxter on the Audubon Society Cause (1886)

Document 57: Constitution of the Boone and Crockett Club (1887)

Document 58: John Wesley Powell on the Lands of the Arid Region (1890)

Document 55: American Ornithologists' Union's Model Law (1886)

Document 59: Forest Reserve Act (1891)

Document 60: Frederick J. Turner on the Disappearance of the Frontier (1894)

Document 61: Rivers and Harbors Act (1899)

Document 62: Theodore Roosevelt on Forest Conservation and Land Reclamation (1901)

Document 63: Reclamation Act (1902)

Document 64: Upton Sinclair on the Adulteration of Processed Food (1906)

Document 65: Ellen Swallow Richards on Sanitation and Human Ecology (1907)

Document 66: Theodore Roosevelt on the Conservation and Use of Natural Resources (1907)

Document 67: Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., on the Smoke Nuisance (1908)

Document 69: Richard Ballinger on the Development of the West (1909)

Document 70: Report of the National Conservation Commission (1909)

Document 71: WJ McGee on Conservation (1909)

Document 72: Jane Addams on Garbage (1910)

Document 73: Gifford Pinchot on Conservation and the National Interest (1911)

Part V Rethinking Our Relationship to Nature, 1920-1960

Document 74: Pennsylvania Coal Company V. Mahon Et Al. (1922)

Document 75: Village of Euclid Et Al. V. Ambler Realty Company (1926)

Document 76: Henry Beston on the Human Relationship with Nature (1928)

Document 77: Franklin D. Roosevelt on the Conservation of America's Forests (1930)

Document 78: Stuart Chase on Waste in the Machine Age (1931)

Document 79: Arthur Kallet and F. J. Schlink on the Dangers of Manufactured Products (1932)

Document 80: Luther Standing Bear on Native Americans and the Rights of Other Living Things (1933)

Document 81: Arthur Tansley on the Concept of the Ecosystem (1935)

Document 82: H. V. Harlan and M. L. Martini on the Loss of Genetic Diversity (1936)

Document 83: Lewis Mumford on Regional Planning (1938)

Document 84: John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath (1939)

Document 85: Marjory Stoneman Douglas on the Everglades (1947)

Document 86: Roger Tory Peterson on Bird Population (1948)

Document 87: Fairfield Osborn on the Relatedness of All Living Things (1948)

Document 88: Aldo Leopold's Land Ethic (1949)

Document 89: President's Materials Policy Commission on Economic Growth and Resource Policy (1952)

Document 90: Samuel H. Ordway, Jr., on Limits to Growth (1953)

Document 91: J. Robert Oppenheimer on the Use of Science (1953)

Document 93: Clean Air Act (1955)

Document 94: John Kenneth Galbraith Asks, "How Much Should a Country Consume?" (1958)

Document 95: David Brower Demands Support for the Wilderness Act (1959)

Part VI The Heyday of the Environmental Movement, 1960-1980

Document 96: The Surgeon General's Report on Environmental Health (1960)

Document 97: Lorus J. Milne and Margery Milne on the Balance of Nature (1960)

Document 98: Murray Bookchin on the Synthetic Environment (1962)

Document 99: Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (1962)

Document 100: Stewart L. Udall on the Land Ethic (1963)

Document 101: John F. Kennedy on the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (1963)

Document 102: Scenic Hudson Preservation Conference V. Federal Power Commission (1965)

Document 103: California Land Conservation Act (1965) and Article XXVIII of the California Constitution (1966)

Document 104: Kenneth E. Boulding on the Spaceship Economy (1966)

Document 105: Lynn White, Jr., on Western Religions and the Environmental Crisis (1966)

Document 106: Paul Ehrlich's The Population Bomb (1968)

Document 107: Garrett Hardin on Controlling Access to the Commons (1968)

Document 108: John Teal and Mildred Teal on the Productivity of the Salt Marsh (1969)

Document 109: Ian Mcharg on the Fitness of Ecosystems (1969)

Document 110: National Environmental Policy Act (1969)

Document 111: Richard Nixon on the Need For Environmental Regulation (1970)

Document 112: Clean Air Act Amendments (1970)

Document 113: Dennis Puleston on the Founding of the Environmental Defense Fund (1971)

Document 114: Barry Commoner on Nature, Man, and Technology (1971)

Document 115: Clean Water Act (1972)

Document 116: Christopher Stone Proposes Legal Rights for Natural Objects (1972)

Document 117: Sierra Club v. Morton (1972)

Document 118: Stockholm Declaration on the Human Environment (1972)

Document 119: Endangered Species Act (1973)

Document 120: Ernest Callenbach's Ecotopia (1975)

Document 121: Edward Abbey's the Monkey Wrench Gang (1975)

Document 122: Greenpeace on the Need for Radical Action (1976)

Part VII Confronting Economic and Social Realities, 1980-2000

Document 123: Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (1980)

Document 124: Mark Sagoff on the Public Interest (1981)

Document 125: Lester R. Brown on Building a Sustainable Society (1981)

Document 126: Julian L. Simon on Population Growth (1981)

Document 127: Coastal Barrier Resources Act (1981)

Document 128: Arne Naess on Deep Ecology (1982, 1984)

Document 129: United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (1983)

Document 130: Bernard Cohen on Nuclear Energy and Risk Assessment (1983)

Document 131: Bob Graham on Restoring the Kissimmee River--Lake Okeechobee--Everglades Ecosystem (1983)

Document 132: Edward O. Wilson on the Need for Conservation and a Conservation Ethic (1984, 1998)

Document 134: United Nations Convention (1985) and Protocol (1987) on Ozone Depletion

Document 135: United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice on Toxic Waste and Race (1987)

Document 136: Dixy Lee Ray Asks, "Who Speaks for Science?" (1990)

Document 137: Roger Smith on Industry and the Environment (1990)

Document 138: California Air Resources Board Lowers Its Vehicle Emissions Standards (1990, 1996)

Document 139: John P. Holdren on Energy and Human Well-Being (1990)

Document 140: Barry Lopez on a Sense of Place (1990)

Document 141: Albert Gore on the Ecological Perspective (1992)

Document 142: United Nations Convention (1992) and Protocol (1997) on Climate Change

Document 143: Carl Safina on the Decline of Fishes (1995)

Document 144: Edward Tenner on Shifting Liability (1996)

Document 145: Jane Lubchenco on Environmental Issues for the Twenty-First Century (1997)

Document 146: Jeremy Rifkin on Biotechnology and the Environment (1998)

Appendix I: Landmarks in U.S. Environmental Legislation

Appendix II: Major International Agreements Relating to the Environment

Notes

Glossary

Further Readings

Index

About the Editors

Primary Documents in American History and Contemporary Issues
7 .

Gifford Pinchot, John Muir and the Boundaries of Politics in American Thought, in Polity
by John M. Meyer. 17 pgs.

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8 .

The Value of a Tree: Public Debates of John Muir and Gifford Pinchot, in The Historian
by Michael B. Smith. 21 pgs.

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9 .

The Life and Letters of John Muir, Vol. 1
by William Frederic Bade. 402 pgs.

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Title Page

Preface

Contents

Chapter I: The Ancestral Background

Chapter II: Life on a Wisconsin Farm 1849-1860

Chapter III: As a Questioner at the Tree of Knowledge

Chapter IV: The Sojourn in Canada 1864-1866

Chapter V: From Indiana to California 1866-1868

Chapter VI: Following the Sheep 1868-1869

Chapter VII: First Yosemite Years 1869-1870

Chapter VIII: Tosemite, Emerson, and the Sequoias

Chapter IX: Persons and Problems

Chapter X: Yosemite and Beyond 1872-1873
10 .

Dreamers & Defenders: American Conservationists (Chap. 4 "John Muir")
by Douglas H. Strong. 302 pgs.

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Title Page

Contents

Illustrations

Preface

Introduction

Chapter 1: the Forerunners: Thoreau, Olmsted, Marsh

Chapter 2: John Wesley Powell

Chapter 3: Gifford Pinchot

Chapter 4: John Muir

Chapter 5:Stephen Mather

Chapter 6: Aldo Leopold

Chapter 7: Harold Ickes

Chapter 8: Rachel Carson

Chapter 9: David Brower

Chapter 10: Barry Commoner

Conclusion

Notes

Bibliographical Essay

Index
11 .

The Quiet Crisis (Chap. IX "Wild and Park Lands: John Muir")
by Stewart L. Udall. 209 pgs.

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Title Page

Foreword

Contents

Introduction

Chapter I: The Land Wisdom Of the Indians

Chapter II The Birth of a Land Policy: Thomas Jefferson

Chapter III The White Indians: Daniel Boone, Jed Smith, And the Mountain Men

Chapter IV The Stir of Conscience: Thoreau And The Naturalists

Chapter V The Raid on Resources

Chapter VI The Beginning of Wisdom: George Perkins Marsh

Chapter VII The Beginning of Action: Carl Schurz And John Wesley Powell

Chapter VIII The Woodlands: Pinchot And The Foresters

Chapter IX Wild and Park Lands: John Muir

Chapter X Men Must Act: The Roosevelts and Politics

Chapter XI Individual Action: Organizers And Philanthropists

Chapter XII Cities in Trouble: Frederick Law Olmsted

Chapter XIII Conservation And The Future

Chapter XIV Notes on A Land Ethic for Tomorrow

Acknowledgments

Index
12 .

Genesis and John Muir, in Re-vision
by J. Baird Callicott. 17 pgs.

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13 .

Four Land Ethics: Order, Reform, Responsibility, Opportunity, in Environmental Law
by Fred Bosselman. 72 pgs.

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14 .

Protestantism, Capitalism, and Nature in America ("Paradise Lost: John Muir" begins on p. 143)
by Mark Stoll. 276 pgs.

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Environmentalists have often blamed Protestantism for justifying the human exploitation of nature, but the author of this cultural history argues that, in America, hard-boiled industrialists and passionate environmentalists sprang from the same Protestant root. Protestant Christianity Calvinism especially both helped industrialists like James J Hill rationalise their utilisation of nature for economic profit and led environmental advocates like John Muir to call for the preservation of unspoiled wilderness. Biographical vignettes examine American thinkers, industrialists, and environmentalists Benjamin Franklin, Joseph Smith, William Gilpin, Leland Stanford, Gifford Pinchot, Aldo Leopold, and others whose lives show the development of ideas and attitudes that have profoundly shaped Americans' use of and respect for nature. The final chapter looks at several contemporary figures James Watt, Annie Dillard, and Dave Foreman whose careers exemplify the recent Protestant thought and behaviour and their impact on the environment.

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Contents

Preface

INTRODUCTION: The Lumbermen of Eden

Book 1: Protestantism, Capitalism, and Nature

One: Beauty and Wonder, Dominion and Stewardship

Two: Capitalists and Militants, Rationalists and Ascetics

Book Two: Protestants, Capitalists, and Nature

Three: God, Nature, and the Puritans

Four: Nature's God in the Age of Reason

Five: Conquest and Contemplation

Six: Steam and Steel and Christian Civilization

Seven: Progressive Gospels of Nature

Eight: The Twentieth Century

Index
15 .

Inhabited Wilderness: Indians, Eskimos, and National Parks in Alaska (Discussion of John Muir begins on p. 6)
by Theodore Catton, Elliott West. 290 pgs.

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A history of the national parks in Alaska and how they protect the natural ecosystems while allowing certain populations to use the parks to maintain their cultural traditions.

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Contents

Illustrations

Preface

One: Land Reborn

Two: The Privileged and the Dispossessed

Three: Fallen Indians

Four: A Game Country Without Rival in America

Five: The Saga of the Seventy-Mile Kid

Six: Bob Marshall's Alaska

Seven: The Lost Tribe

Eight: We Eskimos Would LIke To Join the Sierra Club

Conclusion:: The Burden of Alaska Wilderness

Index
16 .

Biographical Dictionary of American and Canadian Naturalists and Environmentalists ("Muir, John" begins on p. 563)
by Keir B. Sterling, Richard P. Harmond, George A. Cevasco, Lorne F. Hammond. 942 pgs.

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Casting a wide net, this volume provides personal and professional information on some 445 American and Canadian naturalists and environmentalists, who lived from the late 15th century to the late 20th century. It includes explorers who published works on the natural history of North America, conservationists, ecologists, environmentalists, wildlife management specialists, park planners, national park administrators, zoologists, botanists, natural historians, geographers, geologists, academics, museum scientists and administrators, military personnel, travellers, government officials, political figures and writers and artists concerned with the environment. Some of the subjects are well known. The accomplishments of others are little known.

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Title Page

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Notes

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

R

S

T

U

V

W

Y

Z

Appendix

Selected Bibliography

Index

About the Editors and Contributors

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