At a time when Indians were merely red devils in the minds of most American settlers, Ernest Thompson Seton - the Chief - assumed the role of their steadfast advocate. Seton's high regard for Indians and their spiritual, peaceful relationship with nature was manifested in his "Woodcraft" youth activities, which were the basis for Scouting.
H. Allen Anderson's biography of Seton chronicles the life of a Western-styled Renaissance man: a prolific writer of animal tales, an artist-naturalist, a popular lecturer-a man of causes. He achieved wealth and celebrity status by proclaiming in his work that nature and the nontechnological way of life, like that which could be lived in the unsettled West, were superior to humans and the lifestyle made possible by the Industrial Revolution.
Born in 1860 to characteristically severe parents in Victorian England, Seton immigrated with his family to Canada in 1866. Years spent in the western provinces and in urban areas nurtured an appreciation for both nature and art, the latter leading him to schools in London and Paris. However, despite Seton's cultural talents and his tenacious claim to nobility, he considered the wilderness his perfect environment. Paradox permeated his life: he praised life in the wilderness but lived in mansions in the East and in New Mexico; he was wealthy and fraternized with society's elite, but he bathed only rarely and once wrote an essay entitled "Why Wear Clothes?"
Digging into journals, family correspondence, and numerous other sources, the author has revealed a complex, egotistical man driven by his love for the vanishing frontier. Readers will also recognize in Seton a folk hero to youth in his day - a prophetic activist for causes popular with the youth of a later generation.
H. Allen Anderson's biography of Seton chronicles the life of a Western-styled Renaissance man: a prolific writer of animal tales, an artist-naturalist, a popular lecturer-a man of causes. He achieved wealth and celebrity status by proclaiming in his work that nature and the nontechnological way of life, like that which could be lived in the unsettled West, were superior to humans and the lifestyle made possible by the Industrial Revolution.
Born in 1860 to characteristically severe parents in Victorian England, Seton immigrated with his family to Canada in 1866. Years spent in the western provinces and in urban areas nurtured an appreciation for both nature and art, the latter leading him to schools in London and Paris. However, despite Seton's cultural talents and his tenacious claim to nobility, he considered the wilderness his perfect environment. Paradox permeated his life: he praised life in the wilderness but lived in mansions in the East and in New Mexico; he was wealthy and fraternized with society's elite, but he bathed only rarely and once wrote an essay entitled "Why Wear Clothes?"
Digging into journals, family correspondence, and numerous other sources, the author has revealed a complex, egotistical man driven by his love for the vanishing frontier. Readers will also recognize in Seton a folk hero to youth in his day - a prophetic activist for causes popular with the youth of a later generation.
