Bob Marshall (wilderness Activist) - Legacy

Legacy

A bachelor, Marshall left virtually all of his $1.5 million estate (equivalent to $25 million today) to three causes dear to him: socialism, civil liberties and wilderness preservation. Three trusts were established in his will. The first, focused on education related to "the theory of production for use and not for profit", received half of his estate; the second, aimed at "safeguarding and advancement of the cause of civil liberties", received one-quarter of his estate; and the third supported "preservation of the wilderness conditions in outdoor America", establishing what became the Robert Marshall Wilderness Fund. Trustees of the latter trust included Robert Sterling Yard, Bob Marshall's brother George, Irving Clark, Olaus Murie and Bill Zimmerman, early leaders of The Wilderness Society. He gave money to only one individual: $10,000 (equivalent to $165,106 today) to his old friend and guide, Herb Clark.

Marshall's posthumously published book Alaska Wilderness, Exploring the Central Brooks Range (1956), edited by his brother George, became a seminal work, inspiring the establishment of the Gates of the Arctic National Park. His Adirondack writings were published by Lost Pond Press in 2006, as an anthology titled Bob Marshall in the Adirondacks: Writings of a Pioneering Peak-Bagger, Pond-Hopper and Wilderness Preservationist. It was edited by Phil Brown, editor of the Adirondack Explorer news magazine. According to the publisher, the book includes "numerous accounts of his hikes in the High Peaks and the vast wild region south of Cranberry Lake, spirited defenses of the state's forever-wild Forest Preserve, a charming portrait of Herb Clark, and excerpts from an unpublished novel set partly in the Adirondacks".

Since its conception, The Wilderness Society has helped pass many bills and has contributed a total of 109 million acres (421,000 km2) to the National Wilderness Preservation System. Marshall's dream of permanent wilderness protection became a reality 25 years after his death when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Wilderness Act into law on September 3, 1964 in the Rose Garden of the White House. Written by Howard Zahniser, the bill enabled the United States Congress to set aside selected areas in the national forests, national parks, national wildlife refuges and other federal lands as units to be kept permanently unchanged by humans. In defining wilderness, Zahniser invoked Marshall and his contemporaries, stating that "in contrast with those areas where man and his own works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain." The act's signing was the most important event in the history of The Wilderness Society; members Mardy Murie and Alice Zahniser stood beside Johnson as he signed the legislation. With The Wilderness Act, the United States guaranteed permanent protection of wild and scenic natural areas for future generations. The Society's most prestigious honor, the Robert Marshall Award, is named in Marshall's honor; its first recipient was Sigurd F. Olson in 1981.