Collection context
Summary
- Creators:
- Clyde, Norman, 1885-1972.
- Abstract:
- The Norman Clyde Papers document the climbing adventures of, and offer insights into the life of, one of California's greatest mountaineers, and one of the foremost chroniclers of the Sierra Nevada range. They also help to preserve the history of mountaineering in the High Sierra. The bulk of the papers consist of various drafts of Clyde's narratives about the Sierra Nevada range, as well as mountains in Arizona, the Canadian Rockies, Idaho, Montana, Southern California, Washington, Wyoming, and numerous national parks. Clyde's writings include stories and articles about entire ranges, specific peaks, climbs, first ascents, rescues, wildlife, fishing, skiing, and mountaincraft. Many of his stories have been published, but most of those in this collection have not. Clyde's contemporaries in the climbing world recognized the contributions he made to mountaineering and his place in the history of the exploration of the High Sierra. Other significant materials in the collection reflect this recognition. There is a draft manuscript of, and correspondence and notes related to, a Sierra Club book project dedicated to Clyde's life and writings. Though Clyde spent much of his time alone, he had a great many friends and admirers. His personal and professional correspondence records his communications with them, as well as with editors, environmental organizations, and climbing clubs. Some of these friends and colleagues, including Hervey Vogé, Bruce Kilgore, Jules Eichorn, and Fred Fertig, interviewed Clyde in December, 1967 and January, 1968. Transcripts of these interviews, in which Clyde recounts his 50-plus years of climbing history, are also in the collection. Materials dated after Clyde's death in 1972 were compiled by others.
- Extent:
- Number of containers: 5 cartons, 1 box Linear feet: 5.42
- Language:
- Collection materials are in English
Background
- Scope and content:
-
The Norman Clyde Papers document the climbing adventures of, and offer insights into the life of one of California's greatest mountaineers, and one of the foremost chroniclers of the Sierra Nevada Range. They also help to preserve the history of mountaineering in the High Sierra. The bulk of the papers consists of various drafts of Clyde's narratives about the Sierra Nevada Range, as well as mountains in Arizona, the Canadian Rockies, Idaho, Montana, Southern California, Washington, Wyoming, and numerous national parks. Clyde's writings include stories and articles about entire ranges, specific peaks, climbs, first ascents, rescues, wildlife, fishing, skiing, and mountaincraft.
Many of his stories have been published, but most of those in this collection have not. Clyde's contemporaries in the climbing world recognized the contributions he made to mountaineering and his place in the history of the exploration of the High Sierra. Other significant materials in the collection reflect this recognition. There is a draft manuscript of, and correspondence and notes related to, a Sierra Club book project dedicated to Clyde's life and writings. Though Clyde spent much of his time alone, he had a great many friends and admirers. His personal and professional correspondence records his communications with them, as well as with editors, environmental organizations, and climbing clubs. Some of these friends and colleagues, including Hervey Vogé, Bruce Kilgore, Jules Eichorn, and Fred Fertig, interviewed Clyde in December 1967 and January 1968. Transcripts of these interviews, in which Clyde recounts his 50-plus years of climbing history, are also in the collection. Materials dated after Clyde's death in 1972 were compiled by others.
Series 1, Correspondence, includes incoming and outgoing correspondence of both a professional and personal nature. The date range spans nearly 50 years of Clyde's life, from 1923, when he climbed a record-breaking 36 peaks in 36 days in Glacier National Park in Montana, to his death in 1972. Topics include climbing, rescues, publishing, and personal news. Handwritten annotations provided by the collections' donors, David Bohn and Mary Millman, help researchers identify correspondents, dates, and subject matter. Researchers may also consult the Appendix (available in the Bancroft Reading Room), which provides a detailed description of some of Clyde's correspondence and some of the articles about him.
Series 2, Manuscripts, forms the bulk of the collection. Clyde often wrote numerous drafts of stories and articles. Typically he wrote them by hand, had them typed, and then made additional changes to the typescripts. Unannotated exact duplicates have been discarded, but the drafts that have been retained offer researchers important insight into Clyde's writing process. Ria Sachs, working under the supervision of one of the donors, Mary Millman, divided Clyde's writings into a number of subject sub-series. These existing subdivisions were retained, along with their folder titles. Researchers may need to consult more than one sub-series, as there is substantial geographical overlap between them. They can review the container list--which lists all manuscripts by title--for topics of interest. The archivist added new subdivisions to accommodate additions to the collection, including notebooks and materials relating to a proposed Sierra Club book project about Clyde.
Series 3, Interviews, includes the transcripts of six reel-to-reel tapes recorded with Clyde between December 20, 1967 and January 7, 1968. Topics covered include climbing experiences on Mt. Whitney and other peaks, wildlife, search and rescue expeditions on Mt. Banner and elsewhere, and camping. Researchers interested in listening to the original recordings should consult the Related Collections section of this finding aid for the Bancroft Library call numbers.
Series 4, Biographical Materials, includes newsclippings from the 20s and 30s, and biographical research on Clyde collected in 1992 and 1993 by Michael R. Slater, a member of the Friends of the Bancroft Library. The bulk of the clippings are contained in a scrapbook that Clyde compiled himself. It documents his record-setting "Mountain a Day" feat in Glacier National Park in 1923. The materials compiled by Slater include copies of records and newsclippings that date from 1915 to 1974. These include an interview with Omie Mairs, one of the students involved in the 1928 Halloween incident, and minutes of the Owens Valley Union High School Board meeting regarding the episode.
The donors found some folding files among Clyde's possessions at his Baker Creek Ranch house. These files were the remains of Clyde's own idiosyncratic system for organizing his stories and correspondence. According to Millman, these files date from approximately 1927-1945. These files contained correspondence, new narratives, and different versions of stories that existed in other places. Their contents were integrated into the Correspondence and Manuscripts series.
The vast majority of Clyde's manuscripts were not dated. He kept lists of his submissions and his publications, and these were used to help determine dates. Clyde probably wrote his stories while he was experiencing his adventures. Though he often rewrote them specifically for publication, researchers should note that virtually all of the manuscript dates are approximate.
Ria Sachs listed each manuscript Clyde wrote individually in the container list. Stories found in the additions to the collection were added to the list. When additions are clearly drafts of existing articles, the formats--manuscript, typescript, or published article--are noted in parentheses. Researchers should note that these distinctions were only made for stories that were added to the original collection. Some of these stories have the same title (in which case both are listed on one line, with the document types in parentheses); others have different titles (in which case each gets its own line). Clyde sometimes used the same title for stories narrating different trips in the same place. Roman numerals were used to distinguish these different narratives from each other.
There are some photographs in the collection. Most were attached to the particular manuscripts that they illustrate; others were placed in manuscript folders with similar subject matter. This arrangement provides context for the researcher.
- Biographical / historical:
-
Norman Asa Clyde was born on April 8, 1885, in Philadelphia, the son of Charles and Isabel "Belle" Clyde. He was the oldest of their nine children. The family moved to Ohio when he was three. His father, an itinerant Presbyterian clergyman, rarely stayed at one parsonage for more than a year. In 1897, when Clyde was 12, the family moved to Canada, near Ottawa. There Clyde became an expert hunter and fisherman. His father educated him at home, schooling him in Greek and Latin. After his father's death in 1901, his mother moved the family back to Western Pennsylvania. There Clyde attended Geneva College, graduating with a degree in classics in 1909.
After graduation, Clyde moved west, working as a teacher in rural areas, including small schools in North Dakota and Utah. In 1911, in order to advance his career as a teacher, he enrolled in the University of California, Berkeley. Clyde spent two years at Berkeley, but frustrated at the thought of writing a thesis no one would ever read, he left school without completing his master's degree.
Details of the next dozen years of Clyde's life are sketchy. He taught at small schools in Northern and Central California, in Mt. Shasta, Weaverville, and near Stockton, and spent his summers and weekends climbing in the mountains. In 1914, Clyde joined the Sierra Club, led their annual outing, and made his first of 50 ascents of Mt. Whitney. Clyde married Winifred "Winnie" May Bolster, a registered nurse who worked in Oakland, in 1915. She died of tuberculosis in 1919. Her death appears to have affected Clyde greatly, and he did not like to talk about it. Indeed, few people knew he was married, as Clyde did not often speak about this period of his life. Shortly after Winnie's death, Clyde moved to the Eastern Sierra and became absorbed in mountain climbing.
In 1924, Clyde became principal of the Valley High School in Independence, California, in the Owens Valley, at the foot of Mt. Williamson. He spent every weekend making first ascents of new peaks and discovering new routes up others. Residents of the valley were not impressed by Clyde's climbing feats; they wanted their principal to act like a respectable teacher and spend more time in the community. In 1928, after Clyde fired warning shots to deter local youths from vandalizing school property on Halloween, enraged parents demanded that charges be brought against him. Instead, Clyde resigned and, unencumbered by a regular job, devoted himself fully to exploring and writing about the High Sierra. He spent his summers hiking in the backcountry and guiding parties to the summits of challenging peaks; he spent his winters as the caretaker of lodges in such places as Yosemite and Sequoia National Parks. Clyde began writing prolifically, and published the first version of his famous Close Ups of the High Sierra in 1928. He supplemented his meager income by lecturing and selling stories and photographs to various publications.
Clyde made first ascents of 100 peaks in the High Sierra and Montana between the years 1914 and 1939. In fact, he managed more first ascents in the Sierra than Clarence King, John Muir, and William Brewer combined. Clyde set a world's record for climbing 36 peaks in as many days in Glacier National Park in August and September of 1923; 11 of the peaks were considered first ascents. He gained a reputation for rescuing or recovering the bodies of lost climbers, and finding missing airplanes, and stories about his exploits appeared in numerous publications. In 1939, Geneva College, awarded him an honorary doctorate in recognition of his writings about the mountains. Clyde was known for carrying such huge backpacks that some people called him "the pack that walked like a man."
In his later years, Clyde lived in a ranch house, without electricity or plumbing, on Baker Creek, near Big Pine, California. He continued to lead private climbing parties into the High Sierra and act as a guide on Sierra Base Camp trips well into his 70s. He was still leading nature walks at 83. Clyde died on December 23, 1972. Several friends, including mountaineers Smoke Blanchard and his son, Bob, Jules Eichorn, and Nort Benner, scattered Clyde's ashes on a peak that he could see from his house, one that eventually bore his name--the Norman Clyde Peak on the Palisade Crest.
Published works by Norman Clyde:
Clyde, Norman. Close Ups of the High Sierra. Bishop, Calif.: Spotted Dog Press, 1998.
Clyde, Norman. Norman Clyde of the Sierra Nevada: Rambles Through the Range of Light: 29 Essays on the Mountains. [San Francisco]: Scrimshaw Press, 1971.
Clyde, Norman. Twenty-five Letters from Norman Clyde, 1923-1964. Los Angeles: Dawson's Book Shop, 1998.
- Acquisition information:
- The Norman Clyde Papers were given to The Bancroft Library by Mary Millman and Dave Bohn in 1978. Additions were made in June 2003.
- Physical location:
- Many of the Bancroft Library collections are stored offsite and advance notice may be required for use. For current information on the location of these materials, please consult the Library's online catalog.
- Rules or conventions:
- Finding aid prepared using Describing Archives: a Content Standard
Access and use
- Location of this collection:
-
University of California, Berkeley, The Bancroft LibraryBerkeley, CA 94720-6000, US
- Contact:
- 510-642-6481