John Muir

Michael P. Branch (University of Nevada, Reno)

Ed. by Emory Elliott, University of California, Riverside
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.1.1: Canadian Writing and Culture (Anglophone): Colonial and The Nineteenth Century, 1783-1900.
Vol. editors: Glen Nichols (Mount Allison University), Wendy Roy (University of Saskatchewan), Denis Salter (McGill University), Karis Shearer (University of British Columbia), Cynthia Sugars (University of Ottawa)

Dates

Born 21 Apr 1838
Died 24 Dec 1914
Activity 1867-1914

Places

Born in Scotland
Active in Canada; United States

Activities

Primary

Botanist
Explorer (scientific)
Geologist
Historian / Chronicler
Natural scientist
Story-writer
Travel writer

Resources

Muir's Works

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Naturalist, explorer, writer, and environmental preservationist John Muir was born in Dunbar, Scotland, in 1838, and was eleven years old when his family emigrated to the Wisconsin prairie in 1849. After more than a decade of hard labor on the family farm, he attended the University of Wisconsin for three years before taking his first major botanical excursion, to Canada in 1864. Muir rambled and worked odd jobs until 1867, when he was blinded in an industrial accident in the Indianapolis carriage-wheel factory where he was then working. This blinding proved a turning point in his life, for as Muir lay in darkness he pledged that, should God restore his sight, he would devote the rest of his life to the study and protection of the natural world.

Muir did regain his vision, and he solemnly

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990 words

Citation: Branch, Michael P.. "John Muir". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 08 January 2001 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=3244, accessed 23 November 2024.]