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Overview
“I loved this book in a way that I haven’t loved a book in some time.” —James Welch, author of Fools Crow
In the spring of 1898, A. E. (Alexandria) Bartram—a spirited young woman with a love for botany—is invited to join a field study in Yellowstone National Park. The study’s leader, a mild-mannered professor from Montana, assumes she is a man, and is less than pleased to discover the truth. Once the scientists overcome the shock of having a woman on their team, they forge ahead on a summer of adventure, forming an enlightening web of relationships as they move from Mammoth Hot Springs to a camp high in the backcountry. But as they make their way collecting amid Yellowstone’s beauty, the group is splintered by differing views on science, nature, and economics.
Brimming with humor, excitement, and the romance of the Yellowstone landscape, Letters from Yellowstone is a love letter to the joys of scientific discovery and America’s majestic natural beauty, as well as a thoughtful reflection on environmentalism, Native American displacement, and feminism at the dawn of a new century.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780140291810 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Penguin Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 06/01/2000 |
| Edition description: | Reissue |
| Pages: | 256 |
| Sales rank: | 267,734 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.27(w) x 7.93(h) x 0.56(d) |
| Age Range: | 18 Years |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Chapter One
A. E. Bartram
Cornell University
Ithaca, New York
March 10, 1898
Prof. H. G. Merriam
The Agricultural College
of the State of Montana
Bozeman, Montana
Dear Professor,
Dr. Philip Aber of the Smithsonian made a presentation on campus last week in which he discussed your planned field study in Yellowstone National Park. Although I have studied medicine during my tenure here, I prefer the study of botany over anything else. I have a personal collection of over 5,000 specimens, some of which I inherited from a distant relative on my father's side, and have worked extensively on classification. For the last three years I have summered in Philadelphia studying the Lewis expedition, and have initiated an illustrated documentation of their collection, specializing in the Rocky Mountain species, e.g., Lupinus argenteus, Linum Lewisii, Clarkia pulchella, and, of course, Lewisia rediviva.
I have found this work to be immensely satisfying, but it has, of necessity, focused on studying species out of place and time. I am indebted, as we all are, to the earliest collectors, but am equally interested in exploring the complexities of plant life in their natural environs, and contributing to a scientific understanding of the plant kingdom. I am young, single, and without any engagement to confine me here. With your expressed interest, I could reach Montana by May 15; May 30 at the latest. Please advise at your earliest convenience as I am most anxious to make plans.
Sincerely,
A. E. Bartram
Howard Merriam, Ph.D.
The Agricultural College
of the State of Montana
Bozeman, Mont.
April 2, 1898
A. E. Bartram
Cornell University
Ithaca, New York
Dear Dr. Bartram,
Your letter arrived at a most fortuitous time. I am indeed planning a scientific expedition into the Yellowstone. My goal is threefold: to study Rocky Mountain specimens in their native setting and to initiate a collection of those specimens for a research herbarium I wish to establish here at Montana College. Based on this work, I plan to prepare a complete enumeration of Yellowstone and other Montana species.
As you may know, aside from Coulter's preliminary work, little has been done to systematically collect, classify, and analyze the plant life of the northern Rocky Mountains, and much must be done if we are to better understand the region and its potential. I have selected the Nation's Park as a starting point for my investigations because it shelters a diversity of virtually undiscovered plant life in what could very well be the last uniquely wild place in America. But that will not last, given the tourism promotion of the U.S. government and its railroad friends. Sadly, the situation throughout the West is much the same. Agriculture may be the future of this region, but it will destroy the land as we know it. Needless to say, there is much to be done and very little time before a wealth of native species is lost to us forever.
We will establish a camp of operations at Mammoth on or about May 1, weather permitting. I suggest you plan to meet us there as soon as possible after that date. You are welcome to pursue your own interests in plant life and the environment. I ask only that you contribute to both the Montana and Smithsonian Institution's research collections, and provide me with a copy of your field notes.
Although the high-mountain country around the Park warms slowly (and this has been an unusually severe winter), I plan to start my work in the areas around Mammoth Hot Springs and other geothermal activity so we should not be too delayed. Having collected extensively around the hotpots of Northern California while a graduate student at Berkeley, I look forward to comparing the species in these northern climes.
You, too, may find this unusual environment of interest. Thanks to a federal program of road construction, the Park is rapidly becoming overrun with tourists and other travellers—they say more than 10,000 last year alone!—but I think you will find that most of the natural systems and wildlife which have evolved in concert with the geothermal areas, and which can add to an appreciation of plant life in this region, are still firmly in place. I do not know the Park well, but I assume you will also find ample opportunity to investigate the bitterroot in all its unusual stages of development—if not in Mammoth and environs then in the higher backcountry once weather and other conditions improve.
I notice that in your letter you did not call out the Lewis monkeyflower. Perhaps a specimen did not survive the multiple owners and travels back and forth between Europe that the Lewis collection reportedly made before finding its permanent home in Philadelphia. You may wish to refer to Pursh's illustrated Flora for additional information. The monkeyflower is, if I may say so, a lovely specimen. To encounter it at 9,000 feet is to share in some of the adventure of that first great American naturalist as he reached the elusive headwaters of the Missouri. Those compact petals and almost sensuous corolla lobes lilting along the creekbeds must have been as joyful a sight then as they are now. As you can tell, I, too, am devoted to the work of Meriwether Lewis and look forward to learning more about your studies.
Dr. Bartram, before closing I fear I must be perfectly frank with you. Although you appeal for no commitment, I would be remiss to ask you to travel such a great distance without some word about your prospects once you are here. I can reimburse you, of course, for your travel to and from Montana. I can, naturally, provide for your room and board in the field. I can also offer a small stipend, but only upon successful completion of the work, and only if the expedition proceeds as scheduled. Since you are a collector yourself, you know the financial and other hazards that await us in the field. Please understand that I cannot afford to finance any unexpected expenditures out of my own pocket. Such expenses must come from my very limited expedition funds. I had hoped to be joined by my colleagues here at the college, which would have cost me little, but due to a marriage, a death, and a trip to our nation's capital, those plans have not been realized. Thus, I find myself embarrassingly short of funds to adequately support and reward your participation.
Additionally, although there will be much classification to be accomplished during the fall and winter months, I cannot guarantee a position to you upon completion of our field work. Although I have great plans to establish a botanical research herbarium, these plans are not shared by the college president, who believes the study of botany is somehow in conflict with the educational and agricultural missions of the college. That agriculture is the growing of plants and that botany is the systematic study of those plants seems to have escaped him altogether. He is, you must understand, an historian, and as such more interested in building monuments named after the dead (dead naturalists at that!) than exposing students to living, breathing science in the here and now. But I digress.
I do hope you will consider my offer. If, under the circumstances, you feel that you are unable to do so, I will understand completely and will continue to hold you in the highest regard for your expressed interest in my work.
I remain,
yours most humbly,
Howard Merriam, Ph.D.
p.s. I cannot help but remark upon your name. If you are indeed a member of that prestigious family of botany, I can only say how pleased I would be to have you join our group, and I pledge to do my utmost to find an appropriate position for you here at the college. If not, be assured that the offer still stands. HGM
* * *
WESTERN UNION TELEGRAM
APRIL 16, 1898 PROFESSOR SORRY TO HEAR ABOUT THE UNFORTUNATE
TIMING OF THE MARRIAGE THE DEATH AND THE TRIP TO
OUR NATIONS CAPITAL HOPE THESE CALAMITIES DID
NOT BEFALL THE SAME PERSON YES I AM A DISTANT
BARTRAM BUT CLOSE ENOUGH THAT MY FATHER WANTED
TO NAME ME AFTER DARWIN MY MOTHER WISELY
DEMURRED NOT YET A PHYSICIAN HOWEVER HAVING
ALLOWED MY NATURALIZING TO SUBSUME MY MEDICAL
STUDIES WILL MEET YOU AT THE MAMMOTH SPRINGS ON
OR ABOUT MAY 1 AGREE TO YOUR TERMS AS STATED
YOURS AE BARTRAM
* * *
Howard Merriam
Bozeman, Mont.
April 19, 1898
Dear Mother,
You said you were praying for me. Well, your prayers have been answered. I have just heard from a medical student and young botanist at Cornell University who is willing to join the expedition, and will do so with little or no financial commitment on my part. And, he is a Bartram at that!
I may have told you that Miller bailed out. Too many commitments he says, now that he is married. It was a disappointment, but fortunately my work does not depend on a cartographer. That aspect of the Park has been fairly well documented by the government by now. But Gleick has been making similar rumblings, and now informs me that he is off to Washington for a month. I think his reservations are more related to the increasing severity of the president's highwaymen reports than to any time commitment at the Smithsonian. Gleick lost a friend to some sort of holdup when they were surveying for the railroad, and I do not think he has ever recovered. His lack of interest is a real loss for me. Gleick is a surgeon by training, a crack shot, and he knows the land. Besides, he believes in the value of science and is the only true ally I have on campus.
There is Peacock, of course, but he will disappear into his private world of beetles once we reach the Park. The only thing I can count on from him will be the o-too!!," "can't act," "nothing great—but nice face," "great looking but awful reading: too bad," "heavy in legs," "big in fanny," "not strong enough," "not outstanding," "not for us," "a little too worldly," "pregnant."
Mike McLean had seen hundreds of young actresses and Bob and Saul had interviewed several, but their Liesl still had not been found. The six other children had already been cast, as had Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer, and they were already in rehearsal. So Bob and Saul were at a point where they had to find the actress for the part. Saul fought hard for me: "Let's give her a try."
Bob Wise finally agreed that Saul could give me a screen test to see how my eyes looked. But a soundstage wouldn't be available for my test for two weeks. Saul hired me without a contract, telling me I was temporarily Liesl and warning me that I wouldn't be permanently cast unless I passed the screen test two weeks down the road.
Despite this caveat, I was thrilled. I quit my job at the doctor's office that very afternoon and the next morning drove to the Fox lot, fresh and exuberant. Even though I only had the job conditionally, I was excited. I had a job as an actress in a movie!
Whether or not I would ultimately become Liesl, however, hinged not on how well I could sing or dance or act, but on how my blue eyes would look on film. Life is like that sometimes—determined by things you can't control, like who your new governess turns out to be, or the color of your eyes. All we can do is look straight into the lens and let fate lead us where it will.
Reading Group Guide
INTRODUCTION
It is the spring of 1898, and Cornell medical student Alexandria Bartram is on her way to the wilds of Montana to pursue her life's passion—botany. Bright and independent-minded, Alex has found that despite her family's hopes for her medical career, she is more interested in plants than in patients. The previous March, she heard about a Smithsonian-sponsored summer field study in Yellowstone National Park and immediately wrote to the trip organizer, Professor Howard Merriam. He accepted her proposal, and Alex anticipates an edifying summer.
What Alex doesn't know is that Merriam's expedition is riddled with problems. "I have put together the barest bones of an expedition," the professor writes to a friend. There is little project funding, still less support from the president of Merriam's college, and two key members of the field party have bailed out at the last minute. The professor, a quiet intellectual who readily admits to weak "people skills" ("I barely get along with my colleagues, let alone understand their true natures," he writes to his mother), is now faced with a small, makeshift field party that consists of an eccentric entomologist, an alcoholic agriculturist, two student interns, and a driver with an attitude problem. On top of all this, Merriam thinks that his Cornell medical student, whom he has never met, and who signs her letters "A. E. Bartram," is a man.
These profound misperceptions form the basis of Diane Smith's unique and warmhearted novel about naturalists and nature at the turn of the century. The story is told entirely through correspondence—an unusual style for a late-twentieth-century novel, but a common one in the nineteenth century, when letters and the telegraph were the most vital forms of personal communication. Smith's elegantly crafted writing bestows each character with a distinctive voice, and through a wide variety of interactions—from Alex and Merriam's debates over scientific methods to Rutherford's determined attempts to teach his pet raven to talk—readers gain insight into the novel's many disparate characters. In their letters to friends, family, and colleagues, Alex, Merriam, and the others describe events from contrasting perspectives, a kaleidoscopic effect that unites the fragments of multiple viewpoints into a multifaceted whole.
The relationship between parts and the whole is crucial to the development of the novel, which begins with a group of strong-minded strangers—each with his or her own separate purpose—who are forced into a partnership that proves more fruitful than any of their personal goals. As the field study progresses through the summer, botanical discoveries, snowstorms, sabotage, and a pivotal Fourth of July celebration are among the many events that compel the group members to cooperate and eventually lose their preconceived ideas about each other.
Throughout the novel, the characters' letters touch on pressing issues of the era, many of which are still with us today, from conservation to Native American displacement to feminism. The story is also a coming-of-age novel, not only for Alex, but for Merriam and the others as well, as they confront their fears and conquer them or, in a few tragic cases, are conquered by them. Brimming with humor, excitement, and the romance of the Yellowstone landscape, Smith's enlightening novel shimmers with discoveries—both human and scientific—that beckon the dawn of a new century.
ABOUT DIANE SMITH
Diane Smith has lived most of her adult life and a few years of her childhood in Montana, with only brief interruptions to live in San Francisco and London. She studied western and environmental history at the University of Montana, and now specializes in science writing, with an emphasis on public understanding of science and the reform of science education. She also does some travel writing, which often integrates her interests in history and the environment. In her free time, she visits the national parks, volunteers on archaeological and paleontological digs, explores the back roads of Montana, and tries to learn all she can about the natural history of the West.
A CONVERSATION WITH DIANE SMITH
What made you decide to write your novel completely in the form of correspondence? What were the challenges and rewards of writing in this format? Would you do it again?
I originally opened Letters from Yellowstone with a traditional narrative, following Professor Merriam as he prepares for the expedition and ending the first chapter with the arrival of the letter from Miss Bartram. However, once I wrote that letter, it was clear that the book was coming to life in a way that the preceding 50 or so pages simply had failed to do. I was also interested in investigating the characters' various perspectives on the science of nature—and the nature of science. The letter format allowed the characters to express his or her point of view—as well as their consternation with the beliefs of their colleagues. And yes, I am integrating some letters into my next novel, but since Professor Merriam and his party have been invited back, I hope to revisit the Park with them again sometime in the future. I assume if I write such a book it would once again be told entirely in the form of letters.
Do you maintain correspondences via letters today? Many people see parallels between the e-mail correspondences of this decade and the relationships that blossomed through the epistolary correspondences of the past. How do you feel about this?
I have to respectfully disagree that communicating electronically is the same as corresponding by mail. Although writing down your thoughts and beliefs and experiences can be revealing to oneself and to others regardless of the medium, I view electronic mail simply as a fast and convenient way to transfer information and data asynchronously. I am a regular user, preferring it to the telephone in most cases because it is so nonintrusive and efficient for getting things done. But electronic mail is not what I would call a reflective medium. We've become so conditioned to having information on demand that, I believe, many of us have lost the simple joy of anticipating the arrival of a letter, and the leisure to consider our reply. And yes, for the last year, I have benefited from such an antiquated correspondence, which I have found to be immensely rewarding. I feel fortunate indeed to have a friend who is even more atavistic than I am when it comes to letter writing.
How did your background in science and the environment help inform your approach to the novel?
Certainly the characters in Letters from Yellowstone reflect many of the experiences I have had working in science and engineering, although the specifics of the novel are entirely imagined. My interaction with scientists and mathematicians also provided me with the confidence to teach myself new disciplines, and to open my eyes to the natural world in much the way the characters in the book open themselves to Yellowstone National Park and its environs. I think it's important to point out that I have no training as a scientist. I believe all of us can, and should, develop a very basic understanding and appreciation of science and mathematics. At their heart, both are exquisitely simple and elegant if you can get past the scientific jargon. On the other hand, in the natural world in particular, botanical and other scientific nomenclature can help enrich our understanding. So I agree in general with the statement widely attributed to Linnaeus (although apparently first written by Isidore of Seville) that who knoweth not the names, knoweth not the subject. I guess in the end, I'm sympathetic with both Professor Merriam's and Miss Bartram's points of view.
The novel touches on many late-nineteenth-century political and cultural concerns such as the growth of the railroad, conservation concerns, and Native American issues. How did you research these issues?
I studied nineteenth-century western and environmental history in graduate school, and to this day have a keen interest in the subject, having read and enjoyed a wide variety of historians from Frederick Jackson Turner to contemporary feminists. Aubrey Haines wrote a two-volume history of Yellowstone Park, which helped inform some of the issues debated in the book, while other details were drawn from the many excellent books written by Park archivist Lee H. Whittlesey. In addition, there are a number of great books on the late-nineteenth-century environmentalist movement and on the interpretation of nature; the one which comes to mind first is The Nature Fakers: Wildlife, Science and Sentiment by Ralph Lutts. This one covers a slightly later period of time, but is still relevant to the issues of my book. And I will always be deeply indebted to Vine Deloria, whose work questioning the traditional assumptions of science and academia has helped me see the world in new ways.
What made you choose early botanical research in a U.S. national park as the topic for your first novel?
On an unrelated project, working in the special collections library at Montana State University-Bozeman, I discovered photographs of Teddy Roosevelt and John Burroughs in Yellowstone National Park. To this day those images stay with me and, based on seeing those, I started reading about the history of the Park. The Hayden expedition was of particular interest to me. Around the same time, a writer friend suggested botany as a topic, since it was one of the few scientific fields in which women were accepted during the Victorian age. A Hayden-like expedition in the Park seemed a natural extension of those two seemingly disparate ideas and interests.
Andrew Rutherford grows from a blustery curmudgeon to an interesting and sympathetic character during the course of the novel. Did you plan his development from the outset or did he take on a life of his own as you wrote?
I have heard writers say this happens, but I never really believed it until I started writing about Andrew Rutherford, Ph.D. I always envisioned him as being sympathetic by the end of the book, but my initial vision of him was nothing like the character he grew into over the course of writing about that summer in the Park.
Who is your favorite character in the novel? Why?
That's a difficult question, since I feel a certain affinity with all of them—with the possible exception of the mountain man driver. I think I relate best to Miss Bartram and Professor Merriam, but the so-called minor characters—Rutherford, Miss Zwinger, Mrs. Eversman, and even Peacock—never failed to amaze me when I was writing about them. Clearly, I was quite fond of Rutherford's bird, having once been amazed myself by a turkey-gobbling raven in the Park.
What are you working on now?
I am currently at work on another novel tentatively entitled Evolution. It, too, uses a unique format to relay the story and is set in the Montana Territories in the late 1800s.
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