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Theodore Roosevelt: The Conservationist in the Arena
Symposium dates: October 9-11, 2008
The third annual symposium was opened by Theodore Roosevelt himself, who one hundred years ago called the first national Governors' Conference to address America's conservation and resource issues. The symposium examined his contributions to the American conservation movement by considering his life and work in the American West, his reading in conservation literature, and the friendships he forged that influenced his conservation ethic and legislative program.
The 2008 symposium included a discussion of the future of the Little Missouri River Valley in Roosevelt’s beloved Badlands, including representatives from private and federal conservation agencies, the ranching industry, oil and gas development, and tourism.
The event also featured a staging of selected scenes from “Old Four Eyes,” a Thomas M. Patterson drama depicting the life and adventures of Theodore Roosevelt in the Badlands from 1883 to 1886. This year marked the 50th anniversary of the play’s premiere at the Burning Hills Amphitheatre in
Medora, N.D.
A highlight of the symposium was a trip to Medora, where representatives from federal conservation agencies established by President Roosevelt presented a “report card” on their agencies’ activities in the past 100 years. Following the panel presentation, the hardiest participants braved an early North Dakota snow to hike in the Badlands with field guides from Theodore Roosevelt National Park.
Video Clips
Speakers
  DR. DOUGLAS BRINKLEY
A renowned author and distinguished professor
of history at Rice University in Houston, Tex.,
Brinkley has had five of his award-winning books
selected as New York Times Notable Books of the Year.
These include Dean Acheson: The
Cold War Years, The Reagan
Diaries, and The Great Deluge:
Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans,
and The Mississippi Gulf Coast.
The Chicago Tribune has called
him “America’s new past master” and he was named
2004 Humanist of the Year by the Louisiana Endowment
for the Humanities. Currently, he is writing a
book about Theodore Roosevelt, which is scheduled for
publication in March 2009. |
  ROBERT MORGAN
Morgan is Kappa Alpha Professor of English at
Cornell University and the author of numerous works
of fiction, non-fiction and poetry.
His newest book, Boone: A Biography, was a
finalist for the Los Angeles Times Literary Award. His
poetry collections include Zirconia
Poems, Land Diving, Trunk &
Thicket, Groundwork, and Green
River: New and Selected Poems.
Among his works of fiction are The Mountains Won’t Remember Us, The Hinterland,
The Truest Pleasure, and Gap Creek, which was selected
for the Southern Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction
for 2000 and was a New York Times bestseller. |
  DR. DONALD WORSTER
Worster holds the Hall Distinguished Professorship
Chair in American History at the University of
Kansas. His principal areas of
research and teaching include North
American and world environmental
history and the history of the American
West.
His publications include A
Passion for Nature: The Life of John
Muir, A River Running West: The Life
of John Wesley Powell, and eight other books, including
Rivers of Empire, which deals with the development of
water resources in the West, and which was nominated
for the Pulitzer Prize. |
DR. DAN FLORES
Flores is A.B. Hammond Professor of Western
History at the University of Montana-Missoula. He
specializes in Western environmental
history and is the author of
seven books, most recently Southern
Counterpart to Lewis & Clark:
The Freeman & Custis Red River
Expedition of 1806, The Natural
West: Environmental History in the
Great Plains and Rocky Mountains,
and Horizontal Yellow: Nature and History in the Near
Southwest. |
  CLAY JENKINSON
Symposium moderator Jenkinson is a Rhodes
and Danforth scholar, author and first-person
historical interpreter.
As a renowned humanities scholar, Jenkinson
travels widely, giving lectures on a variety of topics,
and performing as Thomas
Jefferson, Capt. Meriwether
Lewis and Theodore Roosevelt.
He adopts the persona of
Jefferson each week for his nationally syndicated radio
show, The Thomas Jefferson Hour®.
Jenkinson is the author of Theodore Roosevelt in the
Dakota Badlands, Message on the Wind, A Vast and
Open Plain, Becoming Jefferson’s People, The Character of
Meriwether Lewis, and A Lewis and Clark Chapbook. |
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