John Muir - Legacy

Legacy

During his lifetime John Muir published over 300 articles and 12 books. He co-founded the Sierra Club, which helped establish a number of national parks after he died and today has over 1.3 million members. Muir has been called the "patron saint of the American wilderness" and its "archetypal free spirit." Author Gretel Ehrlich states that as a "dreamer and activist, his eloquent words changed the way Americans saw their mountains, forests, seashores, and deserts." He not only led the efforts to protect forest areas and have some designated as national parks, but his writings gave readers a conception of the relationship between "human culture and wild nature as one of humility and respect for all life," writes author Thurman Wilkins.

His philosophy exalted wild nature over human culture and civilization, believing that all life was sacred. Turner describes him as "a man who in his singular way rediscovered America. . . . an American pioneer, an American hero." Wilkins adds that a primary aim of Muir’s nature philosophy was to challenge mankind’s "enormous conceit," and in so doing, he moved beyond the Transcendentalism of Emerson to a "biocentric perspective on the world." He did so by describing the natural world as "a conductor of divinity," and his writings often made nature synonymous with God. His friend Henry Fairfield Osborn noted that he retained from his early religious training under his father "this belief, which is so strongly expressed in the Old Testament, that all the works of nature are directly the work of God."

In the months after his death, many who knew Muir closely wrote about his influences: Robert Underwood Johnson, editor of Century Magazine, which published many of his articles, wrote, "The world will look back to the time we live in and remember the voice of one crying in the wilderness and bless the name of John Muir ... He sung the glory of nature like another Psalmist, and, as a true artist, was unashamed of his emotions." He added, "His countrymen owe him gratitude as the pioneer of our system of national parks ... Muir’s writings and enthusiasm were the chief forces that inspired the movement. All the other torches were lighted from his."