the john muir exhibit - press_releases - son of the wilderness
by Linnie Marsh Wolfe
(
from the book's dust jacket
)
Son of the Wilderness: The Life of John Muir
by Linnie Marsh Wolfe
1978
University of Wisconsin Press.
Madison
Linnie Marsh Wolfe's Pulitzer prize-winning biography
of John Muir, long out of print, is available once again in
this popular paperback edition.
Working closely with Muir's family and with his
papers, Wolfe was able to create a full portrait of her
subject, not only as America's firebrand conservationist
and founder of the national park system, but also as
husband, father, and friend. All readers who have admired
Muir's ruggedly individualistic life style, and those who
wish a greater appreciation of the history of
environmental preservation in America, will be enthralled
and enlightened by this splendid biography.
The story follows Muir from his ancestral home in
Scotland
, through his early years in the harsh
Wisconsin
wilderness, to his history-making pilgrimage to
California
.
As Wolfe reaches back to Muir's native Scotland, she
creates a profile of his parents and grandparents that
goes far in explaining Muir's outspoken and often
rebellious love of liberty. Tracking the family's
emigration to Wisconsin, the author describes Muir's
stern boyhood life on his father's farm at Fountain Lake,
where his love of nature was fostered. The early days of
homesteading in Wisconsin are sketched vividly, giving
the reader a real sense of the ravage which westward
expansion would later wreak upon the land.
Muir's mechanical genius provided him with a means
of escape from endless toil and the harsh discipline of his
father. On the campus of the state university in Madison,
young Muir's knowledge and horizons expanded rapidly
until, after two and a half years of university life, he
grew restless. Upset by the Civil War and uncertain about
his course in life, he left Madison in 1864 to wander in
the Canadian wilderness. An accident in 1867 forced on
him a period of inaction, during which he came to a major
decision: He must always be free to roam the wilderness.
After recovering from his injuries, he set out on his life-long
journey, traveling both south and west. In 1868 he
arrived in San Francisco, and, from there, set out for the
Sierra Nevada
range. Although he later traveled widely, it
was in California that he spent most of the rest of his life.
Contrary to much popular opinion, Muir was more than
a wandering visionary or a "voice crying in the
wilderness." He was many things -- son, father, and
husband; inventor, geologist, farmer, naturalist, lecturer,
writer, and lobbyist; outspoken friend and formidable
adversary. His was a multifaceted character, shaped as
much by his stern and liberty-loving Scottish heritage as
by his love of all things wild and free. Through all his
wanderings, Muir retained a close affection and
responsibility for his mother, his brothers and sisters,
and his wife and daughters. His battles against the
encroachment of civilization were actually born of his
love for civilization, for he was one of the few to realize
that the destruction of the wilderness would diminish
man himself.
Both the general reader and the specialist will
welcome this opportunity to add a fascinating and
important volume to their collections. Linnie Marsh
Wolfe's work, originally published in 1945 and based in
large part on her personal interviews with those who
knew and worked with Muir, is on which could never be
written again. It is, and will remain, the standard Muir
biography.
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