Wallace Stegner in California, 1945-1993
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Syracuse University SURFACE Dissertations - ALL SURFACE June 2019 The Most Beautiful Place on Earth: Wallace Stegner in California, 1945-1993 Matthew Dougall Stewart Syracuse University Follow this and additional works at: https://surface.syr.edu/etd Part of the Arts and Humanities Commons Recommended Citation Stewart, Matthew Dougall, "The Most Beautiful Place on Earth: Wallace Stegner in California, 1945-1993" (2019). Dissertations - ALL. 1056. https://surface.syr.edu/etd/1056 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the SURFACE at SURFACE. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations - ALL by an authorized administrator of SURFACE. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Abstract This dissertation explores the life and work of the writer Wallace Stegner (1909-1993) and his intellectual efforts to create, clarify, and defend the contours of a “geography of hope” in the American West. Chapter 1 begins with Stegner’s move to California in 1945. In the context of his developing regional vision as expressed in early articles and books, it traces Stegner’s attempts to build a range of institutions in California as well as his first writings that either adopted the state as its subject or used it as a setting for fictional work. Chapter 2 explores a research project that Stegner undertook with funding from the Wenner-Gren Foundation and as a member of the Stanford Center for Advanced Studies in Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) in the mid-1950s. This project reflected Stegner’s understanding of western history and his own past in more comprehensive terms and the chapter traces his growing commitment to fiction as a resource for addressing the questions he thought most important to explore in his historical moment. The subsequent three chapters include close readings of three novels: All the Little Live Things (1967), Angle of Repose (1971), and The Spectator Bird (1976). The novels are united by location, themes, and a first-person narrator who opens the book with ruminations and something of a thesis. Two of these three books won major awards, so they also marked the summit of Stegner’s national recognition as a writer of American fiction. Each of the readings reveals ways that Stegner and his readers addressed the cultural changes of the 1960s, adding nuance to the historiography of an era that has more often been marked by an emphasis on polarization. The conclusion is focused on Greensboro, Vermont, the place where Stegner chose to have his ashes spread after his death. Greensboro served as a realistic but still at times utopian foil for Stegner’s exploration of the western “formless non-communities” that are the focus points of the previous chapters. Together, these chapters illuminate the different ways that Stegner attempted to understand the limits of community in the American West while deepening understanding of the era and the theme of place in American history more broadly. THE MOST BEAUTIFUL PLACE ON EARTH: WALLACE STEGNER IN CALIFORNIA, 1945-1993 by Matthew D. Stewart B.A., Geneva College, 2005 M.A., University of Wyoming, 2009 M.Phil., Syracuse University, 2017 Dissertation Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History. Syracuse University June 2019 Copyright © Matthew D. Stewart, 2019 All Rights Reserved Acknowledgements After barely surviving a blizzard during the winter of 1906-1907, Wallace Stegner’s greenhorn cowboy Rusty Cullen decided he “did not think that he would ever want to do anything alone again, not in this country.” While I did not exactly risk frostbite in the completion of this dissertation, I am most grateful to the people who were willing to trek along with me. Without them I would be stuck in a drift somewhere, but the errors that remain are certainly my own. The Syracuse University History Department and the Maxwell School challenged me and offered great support, both intellectual and financial. Thanks especially to Susan Branson, Martin Shanguhyia, Osamah Khalil, Michael Ebner, Mikkel Dack, Norman Kutcher, Sarah Hamersma, Patti Bohrer, Faye Morse, and the late Ralph Ketcham. I’m especially grateful to my dissertation committee: Grant Reeher, Tara Penry (of Boise State University), Jeffrey Gonda, Bob Wilson, and Mark Schmeller. Thanks also to my fellow graduate students at Syracuse for challenging discussions and for the good word in the grad bay, especially: Charlie Goldberg, Giovanna Urist, Shauna Soljour, Scarlett Rebman, Jesse Hysell, Davor Mondom, Phil Erenrich, Elissa Isenberg, Michael Britton, John Barruzza, Bob Searing, Jonathan Wilson, Nick Mason, Torie Fritz, Sarah Stegeman, Eunyoung Gay, Francis Akouwah, Humphrey Mensah, Jacob Hall, and Jerry Robinson. The seeds of this dissertation were first watered in a writing group that was one of the highlights of my time at Syracuse. Thanks to Paul Arras and Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn for organizing, to Michael Ebner for support, and to Tom Guiler, Namhee Lee, Andrea Catroppa, Sravani Biswas, Dave Wolken, Yoshina Hurgobin, and Alex Elias for such rich conversations at Phoebe’s. v Christina Leigh Docteur was a tremendous encouragement during my two years of working with her in the grants development office in the attic of the Maxwell School. For helpful support, thanks also to Dan Olson-Bang and Glenn Wright from the Graduate School, and to Grant Reeher, Sunju Raybeck and Kelley Coleman at the Campbell Institute for Public Affairs. The Syracuse Humanities Center, Humanities New York, and Onondaga Earth Corps provided me with a wonderful opportunity to run a series of book discussions in Syracuse as a Public Humanities Fellow with HNY. Thanks especially to Vivian May, Aimee Germain, Greg Michel, Saptarshi Lahiri, and Adam Capitanio. The Friends of the Marriott Library at the University of Utah generously supported two trips to Utah. In Special Collections, thanks to Greg Thompson and Judy Jarrow for helpful assistance and for sharing their Stegner lore. In one of the most serendipitous moments of this process, the Idaho Humanities Council chose “Wallace Stegner and the Consciousness of Place” as the theme for their 2017 Summer Teacher’s Institute. Special thanks to Rick Ardinger for hiring me as a facilitator, and to Tara Penry, Dick Etulain, Jenny Emery Davidson, Judy Austin, Mike Branch, and Cindy Wang, in addition to all of the teachers who participated, for making it a fun and stimulating week. Thomas Gowen, John Stegeman, Jeff Bilbro, Paul Arras, and Nick Smith came along at various stages of the dissertation to read drafts and pull me out of ruts. I am grateful to call them friends. Eric Miller, Robert Corban, and Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn have been with this dissertation since before it existed, and it will always remind me of them and of my gratitude for their friendship. Betsy has been a model advisor. I am most grateful to her for how patiently she vi listened and prodded until we found our way to Stegner. Thanks also to Ray Lasch-Quinn for good work days with the Tacoma. My in-laws, Kelly and Marline, have read Stegner with me and graciously hosted us in their home for the last year of dissertation work. My siblings and siblings-in-law, and their kids, made our trips to Maryland, Idaho, and Virginia fantastic adventures. Thanks to Becca and Scott, Taylor and Melanie, Brent and Lindsay, Tim and Ali, and Sam, Cynthia, Dylan, Bradley, Annie, Grayson, Ellie, Jack, Hattie, Evelyn, Caroline, Mae, and Maren. I did not need to study someone with as tumultuous a childhood as Wallace Stegner to know how wonderful my parents are. Thank you, Mom, and thank you, Dad. To Donovan, Lucy, and Robert: my heart is full, and I hope you will enjoy reading this someday. I am happily indebted to Katie for more than I can repay in the life we share together. She makes it easy to believe the words we etched on our wedding rings almost a decade ago: “to love and live beloved is the soul’s paradise, both here and in heaven.” vii THIS IS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL PLACE ON EARTH. There are many such places. Every man, every woman, carries in heart and mind the image of the ideal place, the right place, the one true home, known or unknown, actual or visionary. A houseboat in Kashmir, a view down Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, a gray gothic farmhouse two stories high at the end of a red dog road in the Allegheny Mountains, a cabin on the shore of a blue lake in spruce and fir country, a greasy alley near the Hoboken waterfront, or even, possibly, for those of a less demanding sensibility, the world to be seen from a comfortable apartment high in the tender, velvety smog of Manhattan, Chicago, Paris, Tokyo, Rio, or Rome—there’s no limit to the human capacity for the homing sentiment. —Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness,1968 viii Table of Contents Acknowledgments v Prologue 1 Introduction: The Geography of Hope? 13 1 To Los Altos Hills 46 2 Village Democracy 92 3 Community, and Its Consequences 138 4 The Amputated Present 183 5 Growing Old in the New West 231 Conclusion 260 Bibliography 264 Curriculum Vita 286 ix Prologue After all, what are any of us after but the conviction of belonging? —Wallace Stegner, 19591 WALLACE STEGNER (1909-1993) SPENT THE FORMATIVE YEARS of his childhood on a desolate prairie in Saskatchewan without any modern conveniences. He lived most of his adult life in what is now one of the most luxurious places in the world: Los Altos Hills, California, right in the heart of what would become Silicon Valley, formerly the Valley of Heart’s Delight.2 He traversed western spaces by foot and horseback, and by bicycle, raft, car, train, and plane.