Beyond the Hundredth Meridian: John Wesley Powell and the Second Opening of the West

Beyond the Hundredth Meridian is not just a biography; it is a profound exploration of a particular type of man and a vision that shaped an era.

Stegner discovered in John Wesley Powell the perfect embodiment of several highly praiseworthy types that were prevalent in the 19th and early 20th centuries. He was the quintessential American, deeply connected to the spirit of the nation. He was also a true Westerner, influenced by the unique environment and challenges of the West. Additionally, he was a dedicated public servant, committed to the betterment of society.

Stegner meticulously details Powell's early life and the inspirations that drove him. He takes us on Powell's pioneering trip down the Green and Colorado River, a feat that showcased his courage and determination. We also learn about his leadership of the U.S. Geological Survey and his far-reaching plan for Western development and agricultural/environmental policies, which was initially rejected but later vindicated.

Of the Western type, Stegner writes, "the men [the West] produced over a period of several generations showed such a family resemblance that until immigration drowned them under they constituted a strong regional type." Powell, although not as famous as a Lincoln or a Mark Twain, was of that persuasion. He was made by a combination of factors: wandering, hard labor, the Bible, an outdoor life in small towns and on farms, the optimism and practicality and democracy of the frontier, the occasional man of learning and the books he encountered, country schools and the teachers who taught him, the academics and colleges with their shortcomings and their industry and hope, and the Methodism of his father and the prevailing belief that success came from work and only to the deserving.

Understanding how Powell was made is not only fascinating but also provides valuable insights into the making of a remarkable individual and the forces that shaped the West.

A nearly perfect blend of biography and history, this book stands out as one of three on the American West that historian Dale Morgan wished he'd penned himself. As Stegner delves into the life of Powell, he simultaneously unfolds the origins of American science and government exploration. His use of language is truly wonderful, allowing him to be expansive while still maintaining a firm grip on his subject. The book's subject is really the West rather than just Powell, which gives Stegner the freedom to explore widely.

If there is a weakness in the book (and let's face it, every book has one), it lies in the fact that it leans more towards history than biography. It focuses on Powell's times to a greater extent than on Powell himself. However, this weakness is more than compensated for by the profound insights it offers into an American willfulness that blatantly ignores geographic and geological reality. The West is distinct from the East and cannot be treated, settled, or managed in the same way. Although Stegner wrote many other valuable works about the West, this one perhaps provides the best broad context for all of them. I truly wish I could write with such skill and depth.

I truly only had a deep affection for the first third of the book.

This part comprehensively dealt with his initial expedition down the Colorado River.

However, I particularly valued the last two-thirds of the book.

It imparted a vast amount of knowledge to me regarding Powell and the enormity of the undertakings that lay before him.

Just attempting to fathom how he aspired to map the entire topography of the U.S. and establish irrigation agriculture in the West makes my head ache.

He was confronting something far too colossal for him.

States and squatters desired their rights before allowing the federal government to determine how the land could be divided so that no one would face starvation in the arid region.

Powell was ahead of his era in anticipating the problems that would arise if reservoirs, dams, rivers, and streams were not all organized into irrigation patterns in advance.

Moreover, his job became increasingly arduous as the lands became more populated, and some government officials would tell absurd lies about the conditions in the West to encourage settlement.

Overall, it is a highly educational book.

So far, I have delved into two Wallace Stegner novels and this remarkable work. Among the three, this book encompassing geography, cartography, ethnology, and American politics stands out as the clear favorite. My affinity for geology writing was unexpectedly unearthed during my student days while reading "Basin and Range" by John McPhee. Regrettably, I sold it in a frenzy to afford ramen noodles.

John Wesley Powell, emerging one-armed from the Civil War (having served under Grant), assembled a diverse crew to traverse the Colorado River. Although others had attempted it before, Powell's approach was more scientific. He was a self-taught scientist and university professor. In fact, he made two expeditions under the aegis of the U.S. government. The first expedition was marred by numerous mishaps, including overturned and destroyed boats in the rapids, resulting in the loss of food supplies, clothing, oars, scientific instruments, and notes and diaries. Near drownings also hampered data-gathering.

Not fully understanding the nature of the Colorado River's rapids, Powell designed his boats blindly for the first expedition. They proved to be ill-suited, too heavy and lacking in maneuverability. The going was so rough that the boats required nightly recaulking and repair. Before the final set of rapids on the first expedition, the men were extremely anxious. Powell gave them a choice: ride the rapids and finish the journey or hike up and out of the canyon and quit. Three of the ten or so men chose to hike, but unfortunately, they were mistaken for three white men who had molested a Shivwit squaw and were shot with arrows as they slept. Powell, not one to hold a grudge, met with the Shivwits and smoked a peace pipe to learn what had happened to his men. He also used the opportunity to record Shivwit vocabularies, as he did for other tribes. Along with mapping, ethnology was one of his favorite pursuits.

The next chapter of Powell's life involved persuading the U.S. government and the western states that the lands west of the 100th meridian were arid and that the homesteading law needed to be changed. The standard 160 acres allotted to a homesteader for farming could not be arable without irrigation, and once irrigated, it would require more than one family to farm. Powell repeatedly clashed with Congress, both in seeking funds for his scientific researches and in trying to convince Western congressmen of the aridity of their states. Much like today, the Congressmen of the 1870s-1890s were not always receptive to science, believing only when it suited them. They refused to accept that their states received only a certain amount of annual rainfall, despite evidence to the contrary.
I was already aware of the fallacy of this reasoning from reading "The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl" by Timothy Egan. These two books have piqued my curiosity, making me eager to learn everything there is to know about homesteading, irrigation, farming, and water rights in the western two-fifths of the U.S. As an example of Stegner's nonfiction writing, the following paragraph is堪称完美:

In the West the winter of 1886 clenched and loosened and clenched in blizzard and cold snap and January thaw, cold again, blizzard again. Sometimes after sundown the sky was the clear green of forty below, and sometimes wind reached down out of the north to whine across the flats. Snow moved before it, dry as sand, light as smoke, shifting in long ropy trails, and white coned against clumps of grass and the broken clods of fields, long cone and dark hollow formed in furrows and the ruts of wagon trails, and deeply, with edges like scimitars, around the corners of shacks and soddies. In some of the shacks, after five days, a week, two weeks, a month, of inhuman weather, homesteaders would be burning their benches and tables and weighing the chances of a desperate dash to town - lonely, half-crazed Swedes, Norwegians, Russians, Americans, pioneers of the sod-house frontier. Sometimes they owned a team, a cow, a few chickens; just as often they had nothing but a pair of hands, a willingness to borrow and lend, a tentative equity in 160 acres of Uncle Sam's free soil, a shelf full or partly full or almost empty of dried apples, prunes, sardines, crackers, coffee, flour, potatoes, with occasionally a hoarded can of Copenhagen snus or a bag of sunflower seeds. More than one of them slept with his spuds to keep them from freezing. More than one, come spring, was found under his dirty blankets with his bearded grin pointed at the ceiling, or halfway between house and cowshed where the blizzard had caught him.

John Wesley Powell's adventures in the great Mountain West are truly captivating. Justin and I developed a keen interest in learning more about him after our visit to the Grand Canyon last month. Fortunately, this book has been a great source of information, quenching my thirst for knowledge. The detailed day-to-day account of Powell and his team rafting through the Grand Canyon is simply amazing. It's fascinating to read about Powell's interactions with Brigham Young and Jacob Hamblin (as in THEE Jacob Lake). Although the beginning of the book is a bit factual and perhaps a little dry, it soon starts to flow better. As I continue to read, I find myself more and more immersed in Powell's world and his remarkable discoveries.

John Wesley Powell's biography is truly phenomenal. Before delving into this book, I knew very little about him, aside from his remarkable trip down the Grand Canyon and his exploration of a significant portion of the Colorado River. However, as I read on, I discovered that this part of his life represents less than one-third of the book. There is so much more to his story that I was completely unaware of.

For instance, I didn't know that he founded the USGS (which happens to be my favorite government organization), as well as the Bureau of Ethnography and the Bureau of Irrigation. In fact, my entire geology field camp in Dillon, Montana, during the summer of 2018, would not have been possible without his topographical work.

There is a school of thought that argues we glorify old white guys too much and that their achievements overshadow the accomplishments of indigenous people or those who came before the historical famous figures. This perspective is entirely valid. However, as a geologist and a natural enthusiast of good history books, I must say that this does not hold true for Major Powell. He was far more than just an explorer. He actively sought to debunk the myth of manifest destiny, which he believed was destructive. He also worked hard to preserve disappearing languages and cultures. Moreover, he fought passionately to protect water resources and firmly believed that all citizens should have access to learning science, rather than it being confined to academia and mining monopolies.

In many ways, he could be considered the father of American geology. I highly encourage anyone with an interest in western history or geology to learn more about Major Powell. It is truly unfortunate that most people are not more familiar with his contributions. I wholeheartedly believe that he was a good man and a great advocate for science in a world that often seems to be anti-science.

Wow, what an amazing book! I must say that this is truly one of the best and most significant books on US History that I have ever had the pleasure of reading. In today's context, with the ongoing and severe drought in a large part of the American West, its importance has become even more pronounced.

I teach a unit on the settling of the Great Plains to my 8th graders every year. As I was reading this book, I found myself repeatedly thinking, "I will definitely change the way I teach this or that part of the unit because of what I've learned here."

I'm certain that if I were to study this topic at the graduate school level, there might be other works published since the 1950s that have corrected and enhanced certain aspects of Stegner's scholarship. However, I highly doubt that they could have been written as beautifully as his. This was my first encounter with Stegner's work, and it will most definitely not be my last.

It's difficult for me to know where to start when explaining why I appreciated this book so much. But as someone who wrote my master's thesis about an American in the late 19th century, this book addressed many of my interests and connected numerous dots. Firstly, I discovered that Powell attended my alma mater, Wheaton College, before it had that name. That alone made me feel an immediate connection.

The story of the exploration of the Colorado River is thrilling. The discussion of Powell's work on ethnology with Native Americans is fascinating. Although much of what he believed and wrote would be considered problematic and racist today, in his own time, it did contribute to advancing at least some level of genuine interest and study of Native Americans.

His analysis of the workings of the American democratic system, especially how Congress functions, is incredibly sharp. I often reflect on how a major problem throughout our nation's history is our lack of political will to see necessary policies or reforms through before they are abandoned because something else catches the voters' attention and helps a Congressman stay in office. If anyone needs to be convinced of the truth of this pattern in our nation's history, they should read this book.

The fact that Powell (and clearly Stegner) loved the landscape of what Abbey calls "4 corners country" like few other Americans is also significant. You could read this book simply to study an aesthetic appreciation of natural beauty.

Moreover, the highlighting of Powell's prescient understanding of the nature of the water problem in the West is crucial. America continues to do its best to ignore this issue, despite repeated failures and disasters. The Dust Bowl need never have occurred if people had studied Powell's work more closely earlier on.

Beyond the historical content, Stegner is an outstanding writer. He can summarize something very complex with a perfect turn of phrase. His metaphors are deeply meaningful. He is quotable and profound without being extreme or exaggerated. It's clear that he was someone who did extensive research and was extremely wise. I looked up a list of the authors he trained while teaching at Stanford, and it's like a who's who of American western authors of the 20th century. Now I understand why.

I plan to read one of Stegner's works of fiction next.

As a former Grand Canyon river boatman, I had a profound interest in the man who initiated it all.

Years ago, I read his account of the exploration of the river, which left a lasting impression on me. However, I was completely unaware of the significant contribution he made to the canyon, the West, and the entire country during his many years of government service.

It is truly disheartening to note that his great systematic and scientific mind had carefully laid out the best course of action for the settlement of the west, yet greed and politics prevailed over logic and science.

Even more tragic is the fact that these forces still hold sway in decision-making processes, when a simple recourse to Powell's expertise and experience could have easily made things better.

Why should we sell it all cheaply to those who are driven by the lust for power and wealth? What kind of legacy do our children really need anyway? Powell fought tenaciously for a brighter future. We should have heeded his words and should continue to listen.

His ideas and vision are still relevant today and could potentially lead to more informed and sustainable decisions for the benefit of all.