Wallace Stegner and the American West by Philip L. Fradkin

Author:Philip L. Fradkin
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780307268600
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2008-02-12T00:00:00+00:00

WHO WAS THIS man through whom Stegner narrated the history of the American West in the second half of the nineteenth century and who briefly became, or so Stegner believed, more powerful over this vast domain than any president? By stating up front that he was interested in Powell’s career but not his personal life, Stegner was not only declaring his intention for the book but also his model for biographies in general.

As the story of the “small, maimed, whiskery” explorer, scientist, and bureaucrat unfolded, Powell gained form and substance, as did his biographer. There were striking similarities between Powell and his amanuensis. Place shaped the main character, as it had the writer. Powell was “made by wandering,” hardship, and deprivation, the frontier of the Middle West, “an outdoor life in small towns and on farms,” country schools, and a homemade education “of a special kind,” wrote Stegner. Powell did not know enough to be discouraged and was “as single-minded as a buzz saw.” The result was “the culmination of an American type.” The parallels were carried further. An East versus West theme emerged when Powell was compared with Henry Adams and Clarence King. Powell “started low and West,” whereas Adams “started high and East.” Clarence King “failed for lack of character, persistence, wholeness,” qualities that distinguished Powell and that Stegner admired.28 Government science was headquartered in Washington but practiced in the West.

The book is part rousing adventure story and part political morality play. Four boats and ten men departed from Green River, Wyoming, on May 24, 1869. Two boats holding six men emerged from the canyons on August 30. Four men had left the foundering expedition; three of them were killed by Indians or Mormons or their own foolishness in the Utah desert. The remainder survived near drownings, fire, loss of supplies and clothing, crippling heat, and always the fear of the unknown. Stegner drew on his firsthand experience to write of the journey:

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