History Commons^™

The John Muir Newsletter, Spring 2015, The John Muir Center

Muir Center Newsletters, 1981-2015

SPRING 2015 jJui JMaaaa, JL^aXAXaa, V>P , THE JOHN MUIR CENTER Reflections on John Muir— One-hundred years after his death Bill Swagerty, Co-Director, John Muir Center During 2014, many institutions honored John Muir's legacy with an event associated with the centennial of his death on December 24, 1914. It was also the fiftieth anniversary of passage of the Wilderness Act by Congress in 1964 and the 150th anniversary of the Yosemite Act, transferring the core of what would become Yosemite National Park from the State of California to the federal government. Pacific hosted the 60th California History Institute from …

The John Muir Newsletter, Spring 2014 Special Symposium Edition, The John Muir Center

Muir Center Newsletters, 1981-2015

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Page 2 (continued from page 1) was founding Director of the Edinburgh's Environment Center, which pioneered environmental education in Scotland from 1979 until 2001. In the 1980s he served on the Education Committee of the John Muir Trust in Scotland and in 1986, proposed that a John Muir Award should be established by the Trust in the UK as a national scheme for people of all ages; over 150,000 people have now completed the Award in the UK. He is author/ editor of: The Scottish Environmental Handbook; The Nature of Scotland - Landscape Wildlife and People; …

The John Muir Newsletter, Spring 2013, The John Muir Center

Muir Center Newsletters, 1981-2015

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PAGE 2 F o Andrea Wulf unding Garden Speaks e r s " AT o N P A C I F I C On February 27, prize-winning author Andrea Wulf spoke on the subject of "Founding Gardeners: How the Revolutionary Generation Created an American Eden." The talk was sponsored by Phi Beta Kappa, the University Library, and John Muir Center and attracted more than eighty faculty, staff, students, and community members, many of the latter members of Master Gardeners. Born in India of German parents on assignment to the equivalent of our own Peace Corps, Wulf …

The John Muir Newsletter, Spring/Summer 2012, The John Muir Center

Muir Center Newsletters, 1981-2015

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PAGE 2 'Women as History-Makers In California" Symposium The 59th California History Institute was held this past March at University of the Pacific. This year's theme was "Women as History-Makers in California." The event was planned and co- organized by Edith Sparks (Senior Associate Dean of the College), Jennifer Hel- gren, Assistant Professor of History, Corrie Martin, Director of the Women's Resource Center, and W. Swa- gerty, Director of the John Muir Center. On Friday, March 23, twenty students and faculty motored to Sacramento to tour the California Museum. Exhibits on "California's Remarkable Women," "Women and …

The John Muir Newsletter, Fall/Winter 2011/2012, The John Muir Center

Muir Center Newsletters, 1981-2015

Fall/Winter 2011/2012 ; LA--/*. ; oJW J\\AAAA, uLwtiAjU)OlGA, THE JOHN MUIR CENTER SPECIAL POINTS OF INTEREST: The present is the key to the past. Muir would apply geological formation and specifically the action of glacial ice to the handiwork of God. Muir chose to live "to entice people to look at Nature's loveliness." In the beginning and to the end botany was the foundation upon which Muir's work as a preservationist grew and glacial studies were seamlessly connected to his study of plants. An Essay P h e n o m on John E N A L S C I …

The John Muir Newsletter, Spring/Summer 2011, The John Muir Center

Muir Center Newsletters, 1981-2015

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PAGE 2 LEGACY Exploring John Muir' Through Photography and Film :::.':: i: :::: in Catherine Tatge & Claudia Hanna On April 13, around 150 gathered in Pacific's Janet Leigh Theatre for a special program celebrating Muir and his legacy. Photographer Scot Miller of Fort Worth discussed the many backcountry trips he took retracing Muir's route that led to his book, My First Summer in the Sierra, published in 1911. The centennial edition, published by Houghton-Mifflin, Muir's original press, features Miller's photographs in the Sierra. Miller also shared a video of his trips in the Sierra with …

The John Muir Newsletter, Winter 2010/2011, The John Muir Center

Muir Center Newsletters, 1981-2015

Page 1 transcription missing

PAGE 2 John Muir Back and Newsletter Going Digital After a year, we are back! Last year we announced that we would become an "occasional" newsletter, projecting two issues per year. We only released one issue this past year. In an age of high cost of reproduction and mailing we have decided to follow the trail of other newsletters by going digital. Those with e mail can continue to receive at no charge the newsletter as part of a web serve list. Simply e mail us at iohnmuir@pacific.edu and we will include you in our future …

The John Muir Newsletter, Fall 2009, The John Muir Center For Environmental Studies

Muir Center Newsletters, 1981-2015

THE JOHN MUIR NEWSLETTER FALL 2009 UNIVERSITY OF THE PACIFIC STOCKTON, CALIFORNIA Muir Center Has a New Home & New Staff This past June, Marilyn Norton, Administrative Assistant and Budget Accountant for the Division of Social Sciences, retired after fifteen years at Pacific. She and her husband, Dan, along with pets Abbey and Bear live in Mokelumne Hill, where they remain active in Restore Hetch Hetchy, Yosemite Associates, and many conservation issues. We wish her the best in the years ahead as she explores more of the high country so familiar to Muir. During August, John Muir Center was moved …

The John Muir Newsletter, Spring 2008, The John Muir Center For Environmental Studies

Muir Center Newsletters, 1981-2015

John Muir Newsletter University of toe Pacific, Stockton, CA Vdlume,18, Number 2 Spring 2008 _EI Reflections on Muir's 1868 Walk from Oakland to Gilroy A Study in Literature and Environment Howard Cooley Belmont, California "See how God writes history. No technical knowledge is required; only a calm day and a calm mind. " Yellowstone National Park Atlantic Monthly, April 1898 John Muir wrote extensively about his 1869 walk to Yosemite from Snelling in the Central Valley of California, and this was the story that was published as My First Summer In The Sierra in 1911; thus it is also the …

The John Muir Newsletter, Winter 2007/2008, The John Muir Center For Environmental Studies

Muir Center Newsletters, 1981-2015

Muir SLETTEB YfeRSnY OF THE PACIFIC, STOCKTON, CA Volume 18, Number 1 Winter 2007/20081 John Muir's World Tour (part VI) Introduction by W.R. Swagerty Director, John Muir Center In this, the sixth and final segment of John Muir's World Tour, 1903-1904, we complete his journey from March 2 to May 27, 1904 from open waters in the Tasman Sea to San Francisco. Muir continues writing in his Collin's Paragon Diary, 1904, purchased in Australia and reflecting the calendar for the Southern Hemisphere. This form of "journal" allowed the author to enter one page per day. If he needed more space, …

The John Muir Newsletter, Fall 2007, The John Muir Center For Environmental Studies

Muir Center Newsletters, 1981-2015

John Muir Hanna: A Biography Bill Hanna, Napa, California FAMILY John Muir Hanna was born on March 15, 1909 in Oakland to Wanda Muir and Thomas Rae Hanna. He was the second child of six. His older brother was Strent (Strentzel) who was born in 1907. His younger siblings were Richard, Robert, Jean, and Ross. His grandfather was the naturalist and preservationist John Muir and his grandmother was Louie Strentzel Muir whose parents had settled in Martinez in 1853. John's mother, Annie Wanda Muir, was the elder daughter of John Muir and Louie Strentzel. She and her sister, Helen, were …

The John Muir Newsletter, Spring/Summer 2007, The John Muir Center For Environmental Studies

Muir Center Newsletters, 1981-2015

The John Muir University of the Pacific, Stocktoi, CA BER2/3 Sprint; Summer 2< John Muir's World Tour (part V) Lex Chalmers, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand Preface by W. R. Swagerty, Director, John Muir Center This past spring, I had the good fortune to travel to New Zealand and Australia through sponsorship of the J. William Fulbright Program of the U.S. State Department. At University of Waikato in Hamilton, New Zealand on the North Island, Dean Daniel Zirker introduced me to Professor Lex Chalmers, a distinguished geographer and researcher on his faculty. It turns out that Professor Chalmers had plans to travel to the United States on family business. After learning my interest in following John Muir's trail from his 1904 visit to New Zealand, Lex agreed to help with this project. In May, Chalmers visited us in Stockton and spent time in the John Muir Papers, clarifying the route and obtaining pertinent transcripts and details from the manuscripts. The document that resulted is his excellent work, not mine. I am indebted to Chalmers and the University of Waikato for the time spent helping the world better understand Muir's unpublished travels in New Zealand from the difficult-to-read notebooks that he kept while traveling abroad, and from Linnie Marsh Wolfe's transcriptions from the 1940s or 1950s. We are planning a more extensive academic publication from this preliminary work and share with you the fifth of six segments in the piece that follows. WRS John Muir's remarkable 'World Tour' began on May 29, 1903 with his departure from New York, and ended almost exactly a year later when he arrived back in San Francisco on May 27,1904. For most of this time Muir maintained a detailed daily journal, commenting on the botany, geomorphology and the patterns of human occupance that he encountered. These journals, closely written in pencil and often illustrated, are held in the Holt-Atherton Collection at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, Ca. The collection also holds some of Muir's correspondence written during his travels, and part of the Library collection he established. The journals have attracted scholarly attention, most notably in the transcription work undertaken by Linnie Marsh Wolfe to support her commentaries and 1946 biography of John Muir (Son of the Wilderness: The Life of John Muir). Wolfe's biography, not without its critics, place her at the forefront of commentators on John Muir's contribution to conservation, and her work was recognised by the award of the Pulitzer Prize for biography. Her typescript records of John Muir's journals are an important contribution and they provide the best research source for (Continued on page 6) page 1

Jews John Muir in the New World Proposed Film Documentary with Director Catherine Tatge PRESS RELEASE Source: Global Village Media/PRNewswire/USNewswire New York, July 18, 2007 The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has awarded a grant of $80,000 to Global Village Media in support of their new documentary, "John Muir in the New World." The grant will be used during the scripting phase of the project. John Muir is one of the tall trees in environmentalism and western ecological thinking. He was one of the first conservationists …

The John Muir Newsletter, Winter 2006/2007, The John Muir Center For Environmental Studies

Muir Center Newsletters, 1981-2015

The John Muir EWSLETTEB Two California Lions: John Muir & Luther Burbank by Roberta M. McDow, Stockton, CA I have long wanted to know you," John Muir wrote from his home in Martinez, California on January 6, 1910. "Strange how people so near are so long kept apart."1 His message accompanied a receipt dated December 29, 1909 for five dollars, about one hundred in today's currency, contributed to the Society for the Preservation of National Parks.2 A day later, Muir's letter arrived at its destination in Santa Rosa. The recipient was Luther Burbank. Burbank had lived in the area since …

The John Muir Newsletter, Fall 2006, The John Muir Center For Environmental Studies

Muir Center Newsletters, 1981-2015

The John Muir pr/- FEB UNlVfeHSnY 0F THE PACIFIC, STOCKTON, CA VOLUME 16, NC1MBKX 4 Fall 2006 John Muir's World Tour (part IV) Introduction by W. R. Swagerty Director, John Muir Center Edited by John Hurley and W.R. Swagerty In Part IV of John Muir's unpublished World Tour, we follow Muir from Egypt to Ceylon (Sri Lanke) to Australia. Notebook "# 51" begins with a description of Suez as a "queer old town" followed by praise for the oasis-environment that produces so many palms and bananas. Much of the notebook focuses on Muir's touring of the Pyramids, those "stupendous monuments …

The John Muir Newsletter, Spring/Summer 2006, The John Muir Center For Environmental Studies

Muir Center Newsletters, 1981-2015

John Muir's World Tour (part III) Introduction by W. R. Swagerty Director, John Muir Center In this issue, we resume John Muir's unpublished notebooks from his World Tour, 1903-1904. This double issue covers the dates August 18 through November 2, 1903, all recorded in notebook number fifty of the John Muir Papers at University of the Pacific. The transcription by Pulizer-prize winner and Muir-biographer Linnie Marsh Wolfe (1881-1945) is part of her papers, also at Pacific in Holt-Atherton Special Collections, a subset of.. ' the Muir Papers. The Wolfe Papers are described thus in the on-line catalog to Holt-Atherton Department …

The John Muir Newsletter, Winter 2005/2006, The John Muir Center For Environmental Studies

Muir Center Newsletters, 1981-2015

Radical Transcendentalism: Emerson, Muir and the Experience of Nature by James Brannon Palo Alto Center for Science and the Humanities, Palo Alto, CA ©2006 The uniquely American Transcendentalist School which formed in Harvard-influenced 1830's Cambridge brought a New Idea regarding man, spirit, and nature to a young country struggling to find its own voice. As its chief proponent, Ralph Waldo Emerson conveyed a philosophy that was considered radical in its time. The young John Muir, raised in an environment of harsh Puritan sensibilities and Christian dogma, took strongly to the Transcendental ideas as he was introduced to them at the …

The John Muir Newsletter, Fall 2005, The John Muir Center For Environmental Studies

Muir Center Newsletters, 1981-2015

The John Muir pnr h VJ-& r? 5? UNIVERSITY OF THE PACIFIC, STOCKTON, CA Volume 15, Number ■ YMJLMQt John Muir's World Tour (part II) Introduction by W. R. Swagerty Director, John Muir Center In the last issue of this newsletter, we introduced John Muir's World Tour of 1903-04. We continue that story here, told by Muir himself by way of his unpublished journal, a part of the John Muir Papers held by the University of the Pacific's Holt- Atherton Department of Special Collections. Part II begins where Part I ended with Journal # 48 (out of eighty-four extant in …

The John Muir Newsletter, Summer 2005, The John Muir Center For Environmental Studies

Muir Center Newsletters, 1981-2015

EjOi HVfeRSnY OF' THE PACIFIC, STOCKTON. CA : Volume 15, Numbers Summer 2005::= r ORLD IOUR Introduction by W. R. Swagerty Director, John Muir Center John Muir's World Tour of 1903-1904 is not well known for good reason. The journals from this trip have never been published and Muir wrote no specific book from his European travels. The manuscript journals are part of the John Muir Papers within Holt-Atherton Special Collections here at Pacific. The journals are lengthy and were transcribed by Muir scholar, Linnie Marsh Wolfe, sometime in the 1940s or 1950s. They have also been microfilmed as part …

The John Muir Newsletter, Spring 2005, The John Muir Center For Environmental Studies

Muir Center Newsletters, 1981-2015

OHN NEWi r^' T/W ______ TEE UNIVERSITY OF THE ET JO>A «^ KTON, fc* Volume 15, Number 2 SPRING 2005: A Wealth of Muir on Wealth by Michael Wurtz Archivist, Holt-Atherton Special Collections University of the Pacific Library (/ gf>9 a life km mm o^i-iL., Perhaps one of John Muir's earliest understandings about the measurement of wealth may have come as he heard his father calling down the well to him, "get in the bucket!" This fateful moment had come about because his father would not spend the money for a professional well digger and blaster. Why hire …

The John Muir Newsletter, Winter 2004/2005, The John Muir Center For Environmental Studies

Muir Center Newsletters, 1981-2015

Newsletter UNiVfeftsnY or the Pacific, Stockton, cA Volume 15, Number 1 Winter 2004/2005 Black Sheep of the in Muir's Motivations for Yosemite National hi] Jeimij Krone ERRA: GREAT! Park (he expansive 760,000-acre Yosemite National Park consists of meadows, forests, and mountains that presently awe over three million visitors annually.1 Yosemite Valley became the second national park in 1890 after an intense nationwide conflict that most tourists neglect to acknowledge when scaling the glacial-smoothened sides of Half Dome or navigating woodlands of sugar pines and giant sequoias. John Muir, a foremost figure in the early conservation movement, spearheaded the proposal and …

The John Muir Newsletter, Fall 2004, The John Muir Center For Environmental Studies

Muir Center Newsletters, 1981-2015

University of the Pacific, Stockton, C. Volume 14, Number 4 Fall 2004' OHM nUlKS C^ONNECTIOri WITH THE CREATIOM OF PREFACE by W.R. Swagerty, Director, John Muir Center ne of the earth's unique geological wonders, the ) Grand Canyon of the Colorado River was home to ancient Native Americans long prior to its first description by a Spanish exploratory party in 1540. Intimidating in its depth, width, and length, the canyon seemed impenetrable to newcomers peering down from the rim until Major John Wesley Powell successfully navigated his way through "the Great Unknown" in 1869.' Even then, few took careful notice …

The John Muir Newsletter, Spring/Summer 2004, The John Muir Center For Environmental Studies

Muir Center Newsletters, 1981-2015

News feSITY OF' THE PACIFIC, STOCKTON, CA Volume 14, Number 2/3 SPRING/SUMMER-2004 The Dim Dark Sea of the Norther John Muir's Exploits into the Pacific Northwest by Shane M. Hetzler (Editor's note: A native ofBeaverton, Oregon, Shane Hetzler graduated from Pacific in May, 2004, with a double major in Histoiy and French as well as a minor in Environmental Studies. This paper was researched as an Independent Study research project utilizing the unique resources of the John Muir Papers on campus.) 7ti the Pacific Northwest of today, many people do not wonder why they are able to enjoy wild and …

The John Muir Newsletter, Winter 2003/2004, The John Muir Center For Environmental Studies

Muir Center Newsletters, 1981-2015

Newsletter ^ERSnY OF THE PACIFIC, STOCKTON. CA Volume 14, Number l Winter 2008-2004 John Mum and Civilization Corinne Wong, Clackamas, Oregon (Editor's note: Corinne Wong is a graduating senior double majoring in Environmental Studies and Geosciences. In addition, Wong is a student athlete in women's basketball at the University of the Pacific. This paper was prepared in the Fall of 2002 for an undergraduate course, "John Muir and the Environment.") J-ohn Muir was very much a man of nature. He was a geologist, botanist, mountaineer, nature writer, and, as most commonly recognized, a conservationist. His love for nature is a …

The John Muir Newsletter, Fall 2003, The John Muir Center For Environmental Studies

Muir Center Newsletters, 1981-2015

LETTER UwiVfeRsnYoFTHfi Pacific, Stockton, CA- Volume 13, Number 4 Fall 2003! uir & his Reading Interests by Ronald Limbaugh (Editor's note: Ronald Limbaugh retired in 2000 after thirty-four years at the University of the Pacific, serving concurrently as director of the John Muir Center for Regional Studies and Rockwell Hunt Professor of California History) ven without considering his published works, John Muir's surviving journals and private correspondence demonstrate that he was a voluminous writer with unusual gifts. With his family and friends— and with himself— he carried on an effusive dialog, describing events, recalling anecdotes, lecturing and philosophizing, opening a …

The John Muir Newsletter, Summer 2003, The John Muir Center For Environmental Studies

Muir Center Newsletters, 1981-2015

JOHIMUI Newsletter UNlVfeRSnYOFTffi Volume 13, Number 3 Summer 2003; The Tramps by Edmund Herlihy, Mission Viejo, CA (Editor :s note: Edmund Herlihy is an Environmental Studies major at the University of the Pacific. This paper was prepared in the fall of 2002 for an undergraduate course, "John Muir and the Environment") 7magine a vast expanse of raw untamed land where a man might make a fortune as quickly as he might be scalped — the American West during the late 1800's was the frontier where one could pack up and start a whole new life west of the great Mississippi. …

The John Muir Newsletter, Spring 2003, The John Muir Center For Environmental Studies

Muir Center Newsletters, 1981-2015

E JOHM MUI Volume 13, Number 2 Newsletter oYofthe Pacific. Stockton* CA Spring 2003 John Mum a t Big Basin: Some Unrecognized Chronology in the Early Preservation of California's Coastal Redwoods by Howard R. Cooley, San Jose, CA " The battle we have fought, and are still fighting . . . is part of the eternal conflict between right and wrong, and we cannot expect to see the end of it. " The National Parks and Forest Reservations, Sierra Club Bulletin, January 1896 Shasta.' It was perhaps during his stay in San Francisco that he made one of his visits …

The John Muir Newsletter, Winter 2002/2003, The John Muir Center For Environmental Studies

Muir Center Newsletters, 1981-2015

University of the Pacific, Stockton, CA Volume 18, Number l Wri\ - 102/0.3 (6 Go TO theMountatns! " Helen Hunt Jackson bv Bonnie Johanna Gisel • I—4 elen Hunt Jackson, poet, author oiA Century of JL -L. Dishonor: A Sketch of the United States Government's Dealings with Some of the Indian Tribes (1881) and Ramona: A Story (1884), and Special Commissioner to the "Mission Indians" of southern California (1883), wrote to her friend Jeanne C. Carr and to John Muir in 1885. She was seeking a place in the mountains of California where she could rest and recover from an …

The John Muir Newsletter, Fall 2002, The John Muir Center For Environmental Studies

Muir Center Newsletters, 1981-2015

The John Muir NeWi pr FER UNlVEESnY OF THE PACIFIC, STOCKTON, CA V( ilume 12, Number 4. Fall 2002; John Muir and the Civil War by Millie Stanley 7- suppose you have heard that they have drafted up in Marquette County and will be anxious to hear who are drafted you may be glad you were not taken."l Annie Muir penned these words in November, 1862, to her brother John who was a student at Wisconsin State University in Madison. Two years before, when he was twenty-two years old, John had traveled from his farm home in Marquette County to …

The John Muir Newsletter, Summer 2002, The John Muir Center

Muir Center Newsletters, 1981-2015

o NEWSLETTER John Muir's Aunt Mary by Roberta M. McDow ost people acquainted with the life of John Muir are probably aware that his father Daniel and Daniel's sister Mary were orphans. In 1885, John wrote in his obituary for his father: His mother was English, his father Scotch and he was born in Manchester, England in the year 1804. When he was only six months old his mother died and he lost his father also a few months later when an elder sister became a mother to him and brought him up on a farm that belonged to a …

The John Muir Newsletter, Spring 2002, The John Muir Center

Muir Center Newsletters, 1981-2015

\f Volume 12, Number 2 NEWSLETTER Nature's Temple: John Muir's Spiritual Home by The Rev. Chris Highland, Marin County (Edited from an original paper delivered at the California History Institute/University of the Pacific John Muir Conference; May, 2001.) "In our best times everything turns into religion, f;lj all the world seems a church and the mountains altars. " ~ My First Summer in the Sierra homeless person told me recently that he wasn't homeless. He was tired after a long walk; his clothes were a little dirty; his hair and bushy beard were messed up and he reacted against a …