= Mary_Hunter_Austin =

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= Mary_Hunter_Austin =
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Introduction
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Mary Hunter Austin (September 9, 1868 - August 13, 1934) was an
American writer. One of the early nature writers of the American
Southwest, her classic 'The Land of Little Rain' (1903) describes the
fauna, flora, and people of the region between the High Sierra and the
Mojave Desert of southern California.

Early years and education
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Mary Hunter Austin was born on September 9, 1868, in Carlinville,
Illinois (the fourth of six children) to Susannah (née Graham) and
George Hunter. She graduated from Blackburn College in 1888. Her
family moved to California in the same year and established a
homestead in the San Joaquin Valley.

Marriage
======================================================================
She married Stafford Wallace Austin on May 18, 1891, in Bakersfield,
California. He was from Hawaii, a graduate of the University of
California, Berkeley, a United States General Land Office employee,
and, later, a Potash War lawyer.

Career
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For 17 years, Austin made a special study of the lives of the
indigenous peoples of the Mojave Desert. Her publications set forth
the intimate knowledge she thus acquired. She was a prolific novelist,
poet, critic, and playwright, as well as an early feminist and
defender of Native American and Spanish-American rights.

Austin is best known for her tribute to the deserts of California,
'The Land of Little Rain' (1903). Her play 'The Arrow Maker', dealing
with Indian life, was produced at the New Theatre (New York) in 1911,
the same year she published a rhapsodic tribute to her acquaintance H.
G. Wells as a producer of "informing, vitalizing, indispensable books"
in the 'American Magazine'.

Austin and her husband were involved in the local California Water
Wars, after which the water of Owens Valley eventually was drained to
supply Los Angeles.

When the battle was lost, after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake,
Stafford moved to Death Valley, California and Mary relocated to the
art colony at Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. There Austin was part of
the cultural circle that included Jack London, Ambrose Bierce, Harry
Leon Wilson, George Sterling, Nora May French, Arnold Genthe, James
Hopper, Alice MacGowan, Joaquin Miller, Gelett Burgess, Sinclair
Lewis, and Xavier Martinez. Two years after developing a friendship
with Austin in 1904, Sterling enticed her to join him in Carmel.

In 1906, she had a tree house constructed, that she called
“Wick-i-up”,
*http://www.pineconearchive.com/120210PCRE.pdf
*https://carmel.novusagenda.com/agendapublic/DisplayAgendaPDF.ashx?MeetingID=1172
*https://documents.coastal.ca.gov/reports/2023/7/W14a/W14a-7-2023-exhibits.pdf
*http://www.pineconearchive.com/090605PCRE.pdf
*https://books.google.com/books?id=vsfoKsxi4q4C&pg=PA57&lpg=PA57&dq=%22Wick-I-Up%22
*https://books.google.com/books?id=GtRzAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA142&lpg=PA142&dq=%22Wick-I-Up%22
*https://archive.org/download/wholeearthsummer00unse_4/wholeearthsummer00unse_4.pdf
*https://ci.carmel.ca.us/sites/main/files/file-attachments/homes_of_famous_carmelites_0.pdf?1564762654
built by M.J. Murphy, based on a design by San Francisco architect
Louis Christian Mullgardt. She wrote much of her writings from this
tree house. Austin hired Murphy in 1907 to create a Craftsman-style
cottage she called "Rose Cottage." The property is located at the
intersection of 4th Avenue and Monte Verde Street. The cottage has
gardens and two gates with paths leading to it. At this cottage, she
entertained her friends, including London, Sterling, and Lewis. Today,
the cottage is listed as the 'Mary Austin House' with the Carmel
Inventory Of Historic Resources, and was recorded with the Department
of Parks and Recreation as significant under California register
criterion as the home of one of the bohemian founders of the artist
colony at Carmel.

Austin was one of the founders of the local Forest Theater, where in
1913 she premiered and directed her three-act play 'Fire.' In July
1914, she joined William Merritt Chase, the distinguished New York
painter who was teaching his last summer class in Carmel, at several
society "teas" and privately in his studio, where he finished her
portrait. The well-known artist Jennie V. Cannon reported that he
began the painting as a class demonstration after Austin claimed that
two of her portraits, which were executed by famous artists in the
Latin Quarter of Paris, had already been accepted to the Salon.
Apparently, Chase was not deterred by Austin's "pushiness and claims
to extra-sensory perceptions", but was more interested in her
appointment as director of East Coast publicity for San Francisco's
Panama-Pacific International Exposition. On July 25, 1914, Chase
attended her Indian melodrama in the Forest Theater, 'The Arrow
Maker', and confessed to Cannon that he found the play dreary.
Apparently, Dr. Daniel MacDougal, head of the local Carnegie
Institute, paid for most of her production costs, because of his
not-so-secret love affair with the writer. In August 1914, one of
Chase's students, Helena Wood Smith, was strangled and buried on the
beach by her lover, art-photographer George Kodani, Austin joined the
mob who disparaged local authorities for their alleged incompetence.
After 1914 her visits to Carmel were relatively brief.

After visiting Santa Fe in 1918, Austin helped establish The Santa Fe
Little Theatre (still operating today as The Santa Fe Playhouse) and
directed the group's first production held February 14, 1919, at the
art museum's St. Francis Auditorium. Austin also was active in
preserving the local culture of New Mexico, establishing the Spanish
Colonial Arts Society in 1925 with artist Frank Applegate.

In 1929, while living in New Mexico, Austin co-authored a book with
photographer Ansel Adams. Published a year later, the book, 'Taos
Pueblo', was printed in a limited edition of only 108 copies. It now
is quite rare because, rather than reproductions, it included
photographs made by Adams.

Death and legacy
======================================================================
Austin died August 13, 1934, in Santa Fe.

Mount Mary Austin, in the Sierra Nevada, was named in her honor. It is
located 8.5 miles west of her long time home in Independence,
California.

The Austin home in Independence, California, designed and built by the
couple, became a California Historical Landmark.

* The California Historical Landmark reads:
:: 'CHL No. 229 Austin Home - Inyo NO. 229 MARY AUSTIN'S HOME - Mary
Austin, author of The Land of Little Rain and other volumes that
picture the beauty of Owens Valley, lived in Independence. "But if
ever you come beyond the borders as far as the town that lies in a
hill dimple at the foot of Kearsarge, never leave it until you have
knocked at the door of the brown house under the willow-tree at the
end of the village street, and there you shall have such news of the
land, of its trails and what is astir in them, as one lover of it can
give to another ..." excerpt from The Land of Little Rain.'

Her home in Santa Fe, at 439 Camino del Monte Sol, is listed on the
National Register of Historic Places as a contributing building in the
Camino del Monte Sol Historic District.

A biography was published in 1939.
A 1950 edition of 'The Land of Little Rain' and a 1977 edition of
'Taos Pueblo' each included photographs by Ansel Adams. A teleplay of
'The Land of Little Rain' was written by Doris Baizley and presented
on 'American Playhouse' in 1989; it starred Helen Hunt.

Selected works
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* 'One Hundred Miles on Horseback' (1887, 1963) (first published essay
1887, re-published posthumously).
* 'The Land of Little Rain' (1903), an account of the California
Desert.
:* [https://archive.org/details/landlittlerain01austgoog full-text
edition (Internet Archive)]
:* [http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gdc/calbk.vg17 'The Land of Little Rain']
at the Library of Congress (scanned images and text)
* 'The Basket Woman' (1904), a book of Indian myths and fanciful tales
for children.
* 'Isidro (book)' (1905), a romance of Mission days.
* 'The Flock' (1906), an account of the shepherd industry of
California.
* 'Santa Lucia' (1908), a novel.
*
* 'Lost Borders, the people of the desert' (1909).
* 'The Arrow Maker - A Drama in Three Acts' (1911).
* 'A Woman of Genius' (1912).
* 'Fire: a drama in three acts' (1914)
* 'The Ford' (1917).
* 'The Trail Book' (1918).
* 'The Young Woman Citizen' (1918).
* 'Outland' (1919).
* 'No. 26 Jayne Street' (1920).
* 'The American Rhythm' (1923).
* 'The Land of Journeys' Ending' (1924).
* 'Everyman's Genius' (1925).
* 'Cactus Thorn' (1927, 1988) (written ca. 1927, the novella was
published posthumously).
* 'Lands of the Sun' (1927).
* 'Taos Pueblo' (1930).
* 'Experiences Facing Death' (1931).
* 'Starry Adventure' (1931).
* 'Earth Horizon' (1932), autobiography.
* 'Non-English Writings II: Aboriginal' The Cambridge History of
American Literature Volume III Chapter XXXII pp. 610-634 (1933)
* 'Can Prayer Be Answered?' (1934).
* 'One-Smoke Stories' (1934).

Poetry (incomplete list)
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*'Rathers'
*'Prairie-Dog Town'
*'Signs Of Spring'
*'A Feller I Know'
::"His name it is Pedro-Pablo-Ignacio-Juan-Francesco Garcia y
Gabaldon, But the fellers call him Pete;"
*'San Francisco'
*'Caller of the Buffalo'
*'The Lighthouse And The Whistle-Buoy'

Further reading
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*http://npshistory.com/publications/deva/mis-v18n11-1965.pdf

*https://www.npca.org/articles/942-the-loneliest-land

*https://web.archive.org/web/20020405154410/https://www.owensvalleyhistory.com/mary_austin/page49.html

*

* Alaimo, Stacy. "The undomesticated nature of feminism: Mary Austin
and the progressive women conservationists." 'Studies In American
Fiction' 26, no. 1 (Spring 98 1998): 73-96.

* Baer, Morley, 'Room and Time Enough, The Land of Mary Austin',
Northland Press, Flagstaff, Arizona 1979,

* Becher, Anne and Richey, Joseph. 'American Environmental Leaders:
From Colonial Times to the Present' (2 vol, 2nd ed. 2008)
[https://archive.org/details/americanenvironm0001bech vol 1 online]
pp. 33-36.

* Hoffman, Abraham. "Mary Austin, Stafford Austin, and the Owens
Valley." 'Journal of the Southwest,' 53 (Autumn-Winter 2011): 305-322.

* Pearce, Thomas Matthews. 'Mary Hunter Austin' New York: Twayne
Publishers, Inc., 1965.

*[https://content.ucpress.edu/chapters/10520.ch01.pdf 'Mary Austin and
the American West' - Chapter 1] University of California Press

*[https://www.outsideonline.com/culture/books-media/mary-austin-mojave-nature-writer/
Mary Hunter Austin] @ Outside Magazine

*

*

* Savage Brosman, Catherine, 'Southwestern Women Writers and the
Vision of Goodness: Mary Austin, Willa Cather, Laura Adams Armer,
Peggy Pond Church and Alice Marriott', McFarland, 2016

*

*

*

External links
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*
[https://web.archive.org/web/20170209043610/https://www.inyocounty.us/ecmsite/Exhibits/mary-austin/exh-mary-austin.html
Mary Hunter Austin's life and work] - Inyo County Museum of Eastern
California
:: a permanent exhibition a block from the Austin's former house in
Independence, California
* [http://autry.iii.com/search/c=MIMSY%20MS.605 Mary Hunter Austin
Collection] at the Autry Museum of the American West
* [http://ohp.parks.ca.gov/default.asp?page_id=21422 The Austins'
house], California Historical Landmark 229

Encyclopedias
*[https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mary-Austin Mary Hunter Austin]
@ britannica.com
*[https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/mary-hunter-austin
Mary Hunter Austin] @ encyclopedia.com

Papers
*[https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c85t3ppq/ Austin (Mary
Hunter) Papers] - Online Archive of California
*Letter from Willa Cather to [https://cather.unl.edu/writings//let0840
Mary Hunter Austin], 26 June 1926
*[https://hub.catalogit.app/9821/folder/3b15fd70-c69f-11ed-9c90-6761d069a91a
'Mary Austin' collection] - Eastern California Museum

Works
*https://www.poetrynook.com/poet/mary-austin
*https://www.familyfriendpoems.com/poet/mary-austin/
*
*
*
*
* [http://www.wsu.edu/~campbelld/amlit/austin.htm Mary Austin page],
works and reviews @ wsu.edu
*[https://www.literaryladiesguide.com/author-biography/mary-hunter-austin/
Mary Hunter Austin (1868-1934)] @ 'Literary Ladies Guide'
* [http://westernamericanliterature.com/mary-austin/ Mary Austin] @
Western American Literature Journal

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=========
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Original Article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Hunter_Austin