The History of the Sierra Club 1892–1970 by Michael P. Cohen (review)

Reviews The History of the Sierra Club 1892-1970. By Michael P. Cohen. (San Fran­ cisco: Sierra Club Books, 1988. 550 pages, $29.95.) With two purposes in mind—to bring mountaineers together and to defend and implement the creation of a Yosemite National Park—Warren Olney, John Muir, and 283 charter members from the Bay Area established the Sierra Club in 1892. Nearly a century later, Club membership has topped 500,000 and its activities have embraced tactics unimagined by the founders. “To explore, enjoy, and protect the wild places of the earth; to practice and promote the responsible use of the earth’secosystems and resources; to educate and enlist humanity to protect and restore the quality of the natural and human environment; and to use all lawful means to carry out these objectives,” read the revised by-laws of the 1980s. Michael Cohen’s The History of the Sierra Club traces that activist evolution. First Cohen outlines the beginnings. Drawing on the work of early Club historian Holway Jones and other published sources, The History of the Sierra Club establishes those movements that will define and drive the Club in later years—outings and exploration, the publications program, and amateur conservationism . Then Cohen moves to the heart of his research. Using Club archival materials, extensive interviews, and personal papers, he follows a generation of Club leaders and details the course that propelled the Club into national prominence. He calls hishistory an “inside narrative,” meaning its point ofview belongs to the insiders, the board of directors, a perspective without benefit of opinions and judgments from the outside. The insiders themselves provide enough conflict to display the multiplicity of agendas followed by American wilderness supporters. A list of the projects undertaken by the Club and described by Cohen reads like a list of all the important twentieth-century environmental battlegrounds—Hetch Hetchy, Dinosaur and the Colorado Plateau, the Three Sisters, Deadman Summit, multiple use, clear-cutting, energy, pesticides, the Redwoods, the North Cascades, Grand Canyon, Mineral King, Diablo Can­ yon. Decade by decade, The History of the Sierra Club documents the politics of wilderness preservation, protection, and enjoyment. It also documents, just as directly, the uneasy politics of human relationships. Indeed, Cohen has done a singular job of analyzing a milieu remarkable for its disagreements and clashes. Writing a book on a series of controversial issues while many of the principals are still active cannot have been a simple task. Cohen has done it successfully, with tact and good taste but without 158 Western American Literature compromising his own reliability. The History of the Sierra Club is a first-rate book, a model of archival research, critical imagination, objective analysis, and judicious appraisal. It belongs on the shelf of anyone interested in the course of environmentalism both yesterday and today. ANN RONALD University of Nevada, Reno Old Utah Trails. By William B. Smart. No. 5 in the Utah Geographic Series. (Salt Lake Citv. Utah: Utah Geographic Series, Inc., 1988. 133 pages, $28.95/$17.95.) This is my second reviewing assignment for the Utah Geographic Series. (The first was Utah Wildlands, No. 3, by Stewart Aitchison). I must say that I’m sorry not to have gotten to review the entire series. I find the books very well done. The author of this fifth volume, a former editor for the Deseret News of Salt Lake City, bases his chapters on Father Escalante, Jedediah Smith, The Old Spanish Trail, The Hasting Cutoff, The Mormon Trail, The Forty-Niners, The Pony Express, and The Hole-in-the- Rock Expedition. Although none of these subjects can be treated in depth, the scope of each chapter is really quite amazing. In addition to the adventures of the trailblazers, there are also inter­ esting comments about what has happened to the trails since their opening. The chapter on the Mormon Trail, for instance, warns that condominiums and vandals have all but obliterated the section of trail leading into Salt Lake City. And the chapter on the Pony Express congratulates David Bagley of remote Callao, Utah for assembling at his own expenses a “small desert-andPony -Express museum” (117). Indeed, this is an active history, committed...