On the centennial anniversary of Wallace Stegner’s birth, U faculty and students are reflecting on the environmentalist’s immense legacy on campus and throughout the American West.
“Having his name and teachings of his writings as the backdrop to our center has been a great inspiration,” said Robert Alder, associate dean for academic affairs and a faculty member with the Wallace Stegner Center in the S. J. Quinney College of Law.
Robert Keiter, the Wallace Stegner Center director and a professor, said he founded the center in order to promote natural resources and environmental law at the U law school. Since the center’s establishment, the U’s natural resources and environmental law program has consistently ranked in the top 20 of 200 environmental law programs nationally, Keiter said.
During his time at Stanford University, Stegner taught prolific and prominent American West writers, such as Edward Abbey, author of The Monkey Wrench Gang, and he continues to influence how students in the Western United States think about the environment.
“Stegner was a giant in the West,” said Lincoln Davies, a law professor whose own studies were influenced by Stegner. “Stegner was not just a writer, but a thinker of what it means to live in the environment, and Wendell Berry definitely carries on that tradition.”
Tori Ballif, a senior in history who is participating in a legal think-tank class studying Stegner’s work, said the idea of Manifest Destiny and westward expansion is a big part of American consciousness.
“I think as Westerners, we exploit that in the traditional industries of the rural west: energy extraction, farming and mining,” she said. “Stegner was such an advocate for cooperation and dialogue. You don’t want go in and tell people their way of life is bad and they need to change. But in a few years, if we keep going in the way that we’re going, there won’t be any room for discussion.”
In 1960, Stegner wrote the “The Wilderness Letter,” which was used in 1964 to challenge the development of pristine lands for recreational use. Keiter said Stegner’s letter had a direct impact on how the American West looks today. It ensured the passage of the Wilderness Act of 1964, which established the National Wilderness Preservation System and includes more than 104 million acres of conserved wilderness.
Marcus Hall, an environmental history professor, said Stegner should be understood in his own social setting and the international application of his ideas might be limited by the geographical specificity of his writings.
“Western historians both new and old agree that he was a decisive voice on the American West,” Hall said. “Stegner’s forte was talking about place. Has anyone heard of Stegner outside of the United States? Does anyone read Edward Abbey in different languages? Can he even be translated?”