George
Rippey Stewart was a Professor of English at the University
of California at Berkeley, starting in the 1920's. He
used his excellent knowledge of literature to compose
some of the most remarkable works of the 20th century.
In those works, many still in print, Stewart worked
out a new paradigm for knowledge, applicable to the
21st Century.
He was born in Sewickley, Pennsylvania,
in 1895. Shortly, the family moved to Indiana, Pennsylvania,
where Stewart spent his boyhood. When he was 12, the
family moved to Azusa, California, where they had acquired
an orange ranch. Stewart developed a passion for California's
history, natural history, and landscapes.
Stewart spent a lifetime, wandering and
wondering. He loved to travel, by foot or road. When
his mother insisted that he attend Princeton, he traveled
there by riding the rods. After he married the
daughter of the President of the University of Michigan,
Theodosia Burton, he decided - in 1924 - to drive them
back to his new job at UC Berkeley. This first cross-country
trip was perhaps the most adventurous, since it happened
before there were many roads, but it was not the last.
Stewart wrote his favorite journeys into his books.
Stewart was a prodigious author, called
by his friend Wallace Stegner a "poet and precisionist."
He worked at UC Berkeley that being one of the most
remarkable wellsprings of ideas and institutions this
world has ever known: the National Park Service, founded
by UC graduates, had its educational headquarters there;
Lawrence split the atom; Starker Leopold would write
the classic report on wildlife in National Parks; Carl
Sauer was establishing new directions for geography;
and so forth. Stewart learned well from his colleagues,
then wove the knowledge into his works.
His
great paradigm was that of a multi-disciplinary perspective.
He wove human and natural sciences and history into
remarkable "Whole Earth" works long before Earth Day.
His works included, often, the perspective from space
- again, long before humans had been there. The popularity
and influence of his works is widespread: One of his
works, Earth Abides, is now in 27 languages.
Another, Storm, is the book which popularized
the practice of naming storms. So everyone knows what
Stewart did, although not many know his name.
U.S. 40, by Stewart, is a fine
example of his work. It uses the highway as a self-guiding
interpretive trail across the United States, a trail
which interprets humankind and the geography of this
land. The book has already produced an outstanding "descendant"
work, U.S. 40 Today, by Tom
and Geraldine Vale.
- Donald M. Scott
Stewart biography © 1996 by Donald
M. Scott
As Don's biography mentions, George
Sterwart left quite an imprint on the genre of highway
writing in America. His 1953 U.S. 40: Cross Section
of the United States of America (Houghton Mifflin)
provides readers with 92 photographic and narrative
essays depicting life during the Golden Age of Automobiling.
Stewart used two cross country treks to study the highway
and life along its right of way, one in 1949 with his
wife Theodosia and the second in 1950 with his son Jack.
During his two field trips, Stewart snapped about 1,000
pictures, recording the details of each scene in a collection
of 3x5 pocket notebooks.
Stewart followed U.S. 40 with
a sequel of sorts - N.A. 1 (1957, Houghton Mifflin).
That book provides the same coverage for the road that
extends from Circle, Alaska to Costa Rica - the drivable
limits of the mid 1950's.
For followers of U.S. 40, a comprehensive
50th anniversary update is in the works. I am completing
a book that provides a retrospective look at life along
Route 40 since the introduction of the Interstate Highway
System. All 92 essays and 114 photographs are updated
in the neew work, as well as chapters edited out of
the original book. Moreover, the golden anniversary
work will contain many previously unpublished photographs.
For followers of George Stewart's work,
most of his titles are listed in the George
R. Stewart bibliography; many can be found in the
virtual bookstore.
George
R. Stewart: The Man Who Named the Wind