notbob1959: In 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt posed with John Muir for pictures on Overhanging Rock at the top of Glacier Point and camped in a hollow there to awake to five inches of snow, which delighted Roosevelt. Roosevelt had sent Muir a letter asking to meet him in Yosemite: “I want to drop politics absolutely for four days and just be out in the open with you.” At their meeting, Muir spoke of environmental degradation, like development, and asked for another layer of protection as a national park to improve management. Muir convinced both Roosevelt and California Governor George Pardee, on that excursion, to recede the state grant and make the Valley and the Mariposa Grove part of Yosemite National Park. This joining together of the 1864 state grant lands with the 1890 national park lands occurred during Roosevelt’s presidency in 1906.
problynotkevinbacon: John Muir is the coolest vagabond in history. So much of his writing and poetry wonderfully captures the absolute beauty in the American West.
BudgetBinLaden: Teddy was a bada**, a true outdoorsman, naturalist and conservationist.
binturbara: Teddy was a total badass. Once he got shot in the chest during a speech… and finished the rest of the 90 minute speech, but only after saying “Friends, I shall ask you to be as quiet as possible. I don’t know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot—but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose.”
saunter-o-dimm: Crazy that people used to do strenuous hiking in clothes that I would only begrudgingly put on for a job interview or a wedding
Randolm: Pretty much every photo I’ve ever seen of him is beyond cool & begs for the backstory. I could imagine heaven including some campfire nights with Teddy telling these stories around a campfire with some adult beverages.
SnowblindAlbino: This is, without question, one of the most published photos ever from 1903. And of John Muir. And likely of TR. I actually used this in a powerpoint in my history class this morning, then had another slide showing how often it has been used in books, on posters, and elsewhere. Yet it never gets old.
I think the original is in the archives at Berkeley?
Domesticated_Redneck: TR once made 21 national forests overnight to go with many more he already made. He made the National Park Service and be US Forest Service. 230 million acres of land is under some protection because of him, land that I hold most dear. I generally lean conservative but Republicans wanting to divest these lands, it’s right on their damned website, is a fucking travesty. They didn’t carve TR’s face into a mountain for nothing. If you care about TR’s legacy, about space for wildlife, clean air, clean water, outdoor recreation, the list goes on, please get involved with protecting these lands.
Braxxar: Way too few comments about John Muir. Guy would climb redwoods in storms just to study and capture nature in his diary.
Fucking badass is a complete understatement.
John Muir mountaineer trail leads to the top of the highest mountain in the continental US. John founded that shit (Mt. Whitney). Love this guy.
_AlreadyTaken_: Bully!
MicroBrewz: Anyone else notice how dark Teddy’s skin is? Is that a tan?
bowyer-betty: And they said Obama was the first black president.
Veganpuncher: ‘To destroy this invisible Government, to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day. This country belongs to the people. Its resources, its business, its laws, its institutions, should be utilized, maintained, or altered in whatever manner will best promote the general interest. This assertion is explicit… Mr. Wilson must know that every monopoly in the United States opposes the Progressive party… I challenge him… to name the monopoly that did support the Progressive party, whether… the Sugar Trust, the US Steel Trust, the Harvester Trust, the Standard Oil Trust, the Tobacco Trust, or any other… Ours was the only program to which they objected, and they supported either Mr. Wilson or Mr. Taft’
Can you imagine any POTUS candidate saying that today?
Trusty_: BELLIN THROUGH THE MOTHA FUCKIN STREET YALL
Disrupturous: **JoHn Muir
Spawnacus: God, I hope Red Dead 2 doesn’t suck..
L1ghtf1ghter: Y’all gotta watch Ken Burns’ The Roosevelts. Teddy, or T. R. as he was known in his day, was a beast, a singular president, and very much his own man. He was born into a wealthy upper class family in NYC (his dad helped found the Met), went to Harvard, and had embarked on a promising career in politics in the NY State Assembly only to leave it all behind after his wife died, opting instead to go be a cowboy out west and handle his grief away from everything, in the wilderness. His lifelong love for the outdoors and natural beauty likely found its roots there, and very much colored his policy and positions thereafter. As a true progressive and conservationist, we can today still enjoy the approx. 230 million acres of undeveloped land Roosevelt had placed under federal protection.
NotJosephJoffre: Roosevelt was the most American president since Grant. No care towards party politics. Only what was good for the world and his nation. Gave a middle finger to the people who tried to buy him and didn’t give a rip about big business. I dare say no president since has been as great.
OrangeSmoothie22: I’d like to see this photo colorized…
afewskills: Now THAT is TR. Thank you.
Kittenkerchief: Thanks for posting the authentic pic.
TheJucheisLoose: Goddamn, Teddy Roosevelt was a bada** dude.
PeacockSocks: Definitely Ron Swanson
Brianphase90: Teddy is the shit. Went to Mount Rushmore this year and heard some of his comments. He may be one of my favorite presidents ever.
civil_set: just listened to a podcast — Teddy Roosevelt — while in his 20s — spent several years in the Badlands of the Dakota Territory. In many ways, this was the last remaining untamed wilderness of the US. He didn’t know what he was doing going in to it — after witnessing his wife and his mother die on the same day in 1884. (left his infant daughter with a relative but I guess that was ok back then?). Anyway — came out of the badlands a few years later a changed man — later went on to the Presidency.
Whaddaya Say?