the john muir exhibit - life -
john muir biography
-
john muir exhibit
John Muir: A Brief Biography
John Muir - farmer, inventor, sheepherder, naturalist,
explorer, writer, and conservationist - was born on April
21, 1838 in
Dunbar, Scotland. Until the age of eleven he
attended the local schools of that small coastal town. In
1849, the Muir family emigrated to the United States,
settling first at Fountain Lake and then moving to Hickory
Hill Farm near Portage, Wisconsin.
Muir's father was a harsh disciplinarian and worked his
family from dawn to dusk. Whenever they were allowed a
short period away from the plow and hoe, Muir and his
younger brother would roam the fields and woods of the rich
Wisconsin countryside. John became more and more the loving
observer of the natural world. He also became an inventor, a
carver of curious but practical mechanisms in wood. He made
clocks that kept accurate time and created a wondrous device
that tipped him out of bed before dawn.
In 1860, Muir took his inventions to the state fair at
Madison, where he won admiration and prizes. Also that year
he entered the University of Wisconsin. He made fine
grades, but after three years left Madison to travel the
northern United States and Canada, odd-jobbing his way
through the yet unspoiled land.
In 1867, while working at a carriage parts shop in
Indianapolis,
Muir suffered a blinding eye injury that would
change his life. When he regained his sight one month
later, Muir resolved to turn his eyes to the fields and
woods. There began his years of wanderlust. He walked a
thousand miles from Indianapolis to the Gulf of Mexico. He
sailed to Cuba
, and later to Panama,
where he crossed the
Isthmus and sailed up the West Coast, landing in
San Francisco in March, 1868. From that moment on, though he
would travel around the world,
California became his home.
It was California's Sierra Nevada and
Yosemite that truly claimed him. In 1868, he walked across the San Joaquin
Valley through waist-high wildflowers and into the high
country for the first time. Later he would write: "Then it
seemed to me the Sierra should be called no the Nevada, or
Snowy Range, but the Range of Light...the most divinely
beautiful of all the mountain chains I have ever seen." He
herded sheep through that first summer and made his home in
Yosemite.
By 1871 he had found living glaciers in the Sierra and had
conceived his then-controversial theory of the glaciation of
Yosemite Valley. He began to be known throughout the
country. Famous men of the time - Joseph LeConte, Asa Gray
and Ralph Waldo Emerson - made their way to the door of his
pine cabin.
Beginning in 1874, a series of articles by Muir entitled
"Studies in the Sierra" launched his successful career as a
writer. He left the mountains and lived for awhile in
Oakland, California. From there he took many trips,
including his first to Alaska in 1879, leading to his famous explorations of Glacier Bay.
In 1880, he married Louie Wanda Strentzel and
moved to Martinez, California
, where they raised their two
daughters, Wanda and Helen. Settling down to some measure of
domestic life, Muir went into partnership with his father-in-law
and managed the family fruit ranch with great
success.
But ten years of active ranching did not quell Muir's
wanderlust. His travels took him to Alaska many more times,
to Australia, South America, Africa, Europe, China, Japan,
and of course, again and again to his beloved Sierra Nevada.
.
In later years he turned more seriously to writing,
publishing 300 articles and 10 major books that recounted
his travels, expounded his naturalist philosophy, and
beckoned everyone to "Climb the mountains and get their good
tidings." Muir's love of the high country gave his writings
a spiritual quality. His readers, whether they be
presidents, congressmen, or plain folks, were inspired and
often moved to action by the enthusiasm of Muir's own
unbounded love of nature.
Through a series of articles appearing in
Century
magazine,
Muir drew attention to the devastation of mountain meadows
and forests by sheep and cattle. With the help of
Century's
associate editor, Robert Underwood Johnson, Muir worked to
remedy this destruction. In 1890, due in large part to the
efforts of Muir and Johnson, an act of Congress created Yosemite National Park.
Muir was also personally involved in
the creation of
Sequoia
,
Mount Rainier
,
Petrified Forest
and Grand Canyon national parks. Muir deservedly is often
called the "Father of Our
National Park System
".
Johnson and others suggested to Muir that an association be
formed to protect the newly created Yosemite National Park
from the assaults of stockmen and others who would diminish
its boundaries. In 1892, Muir and a number of his
supporters founded the
Sierra Club
to, in Muir's words, "do
something for wildness and make the mountains glad." Muir
served as the Club's president until his death in 1914.
In 1901, Muir published
Our National Parks
,
the book that
brought him to the attention of President Theodore
Roosevelt. In 1903, Roosevelt visited Muir in Yosemite.
There, together, beneath the trees, they laid the foundation
of Roosevelt's innovative and notable conservation programs.
Muir and the Sierra Club fought many battles to protect
Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada, the most dramatic being the
campaign to prevent the damming of the
Hetch Hetchy Valley
within Yosemite National Park. In 1913, after years of
effort, the battle was lost and the valley that Muir likened
to Yosemite itself was doomed to become a reservoir to
supply the water needs of a growing
San Francisco.
The following year, after a short illness, Muir died in a
Los Angeles hospital after visiting his daughter Wanda.
John Muir was perhaps this country's most famous and
influential naturalist and conservationist. He taught the
people of his time and ours the importance of experiencing
and protecting our natural heritage. His words have
heightened our perception of nature. His personal and
determined involvement in the great conservation questions
of the day was and remains an inspiration for environmental
activists everywhere.
Return to The Life and Contributions of John Muir
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