Al Runte holds a Ph.D. in American Environmental History from the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the author of five critically acclaimed books on national parks, railroads, and the natural environment, including National Parks: The American Experience, considered standard in the field. He was a principal consultant to Ken Burns during production of the PBS documentary "The National Parks: America's Best Idea," and appeared in all six episodes of the Emmy Award-winning series.
Al Runte was nominated in 2005 by 62,500 Seattle voters for the office of Seattle Mayor. Although not a politician, he emerged from a field of six other candidates in his first bid for public office. Nationally and regionally, he has been an outspoken advocate for the preservation of America's wilderness landscape against urban and industrial blight.
Reflection
On Thursday, November 12, 2020, A.P.E.X. Events was pleased to welcome national park and public lands scholar Al Runte to our beautiful university. Runte is the author of five critically acclaimed books on national parks, railroads, and the natural environment, including “National Parks: The American Experience,” considered standard in the field. He was a principal consultant to Ken Burns during production of the PBS documentary "The National Parks: America's Best Idea," and appeared in all six episodes of the Emmy Award-winning series. Nationally and regionally, he has been an outspoken advocate for the preservation of America's wilderness landscape against urban and industrial blight. Runte was introduced to the stage by SUU’s Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences, Dr. Jean Boreen.
Al began his speech with an introduction about how the United States is the only country in the world to have as many 550 million acres of natural public land, and went into the history of the natural parks, beginning with Thomas Jefferson standing for the natural beauty of the land of the newly formed United States. Runte showed the audience a picture of the painting, “Kindred Spirits,” by Asher Brown Durand, which depicts the painter Thomas Cole and the poet William Cullen Bryant, in the Catskill Mountains; alongside Frederic Edwin Church’s “Twilight in the Wilderness,” and a few other paintings, Runte described to the audience how the natural beauty of the United States influenced art. He also talked about the great Niagara Falls, and how just after the Civil War, the waterfall was becoming a developed industrial site, taking away from the natural beauty of Niagara Falls. Runte then shared a story of how the national parks in the U.S. came to be, as the idea of artist George Catlin, who thought part of the country be preserved as a national park, as Runte put it, “...containing man and beast and all the wild and freshness of their nature's beauty.”
Later on in his presentation, Runte showed various ads showcasing the popularity of the national parks in American culture and tells stories associated with many of the country’s national parks, such as Yosemite and Yellowstone, which he urged the audience to go and visit. Runte also spoke on the future of the national parks, and what the political Green New Deal could mean for the parks and how he hopes to see an alternate solution to wind turbines, as they destroy the landscape. Runte finished his presentation reflecting on the impact of his time as a National Park Ranger and urged members in the audience to do so themselves or support the conservation of our country’s natural beautiful landscape.
- By Emily Sexton
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