K. Ross Toole
Encyclopedia
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
historian
Historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...
, author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
, and educator who specialized in the history of Montana
Montana
Montana is a state in the Western United States. The western third of Montana contains numerous mountain ranges. Smaller, "island ranges" are found in the central third of the state, for a total of 77 named ranges of the Rocky Mountains. This geographical fact is reflected in the state's name,...
. Perhaps the best-known and most influential of the state's twentieth-century historians, Toole served as director of the state's historical society, authored several noted volumes of state history and social commentary, and was a popular professor at the University of Montana for 16 years. He supported environmental
Environmentalism
Environmentalism is a broad philosophy, ideology and social movement regarding concerns for environmental conservation and improvement of the health of the environment, particularly as the measure for this health seeks to incorporate the concerns of non-human elements...
protection for Montana's resources, and voiced strong support for labor unions and farm
Farm
A farm is an area of land, or, for aquaculture, lake, river or sea, including various structures, devoted primarily to the practice of producing and managing food , fibres and, increasingly, fuel. It is the basic production facility in food production. Farms may be owned and operated by a single...
ers over big business, especially targeting the railroad and mining industries. These views frequently came into conflict with those of the Anaconda Copper Company and some Montana politicians, most notably Governor J. Hugo Aronson
J. Hugo Aronson
John Hugo Aronson was an American politician from the Republican Party and the 14th Governor of the State of Montana.-Background:...
(served 1953-1961). Toole's views on the role of corporate dominance in Montana
Montana
Montana is a state in the Western United States. The western third of Montana contains numerous mountain ranges. Smaller, "island ranges" are found in the central third of the state, for a total of 77 named ranges of the Rocky Mountains. This geographical fact is reflected in the state's name,...
history were often controversial, and have been hotly debated by historians.
Biography
Toole was born and raised in Missoula, MontanaMissoula, Montana
Missoula is a city located in western Montana and is the county seat of Missoula County. The 2010 Census put the population of Missoula at 66,788 and the population of Missoula County at 109,299. Missoula is the principal city of the Missoula Metropolitan Area...
, to a family whose ancestors had been in the state since the mid-nineteenth century. After graduating high school, he studied at Georgetown University
Georgetown University
Georgetown University is a private, Jesuit, research university whose main campus is in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic university in the United States...
and the University of Montana before enlisting in the United States Navy
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...
during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. After the war, Toole returned to Missoula and obtained bachelor's and master's degrees in history at the University of Montana. He completed a Ph.D. in history at the University of California, Los Angeles
University of California, Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles is a public research university located in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA. It was founded in 1919 as the "Southern Branch" of the University of California and is the second oldest of the ten campuses...
in 1951.
That same year, Toole was appointed Director of the Montana Historical Society (MHS), based in Helena
Helena, Montana
Helena is the capital city of the U.S. state of Montana and the county seat of Lewis and Clark County. The 2010 census put the population at 28,180. The local daily newspaper is the Independent Record. The Helena Brewers minor league baseball and Helena Bighorns minor league hockey team call the...
. Toole did much to improve the stature of the Society during his tenure there, though he was frustrated by the political nature of the post. His relationship with state political and business leaders was further strained when Toole founded a short-lived periodical titled Montana Opinion, which featured articles exposing political corruption and economic injustice in the state.
Toole left MHS in 1957 and accepted a position as Director of the Museum of the City of New York
Museum of the City of New York
The Museum of the City of New York is an art gallery and history museum founded in 1923 to present the history of New York City, USA and its people...
. Two years later, he moved to Santa Fe
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Santa Fe is the capital of the U.S. state of New Mexico. It is the fourth-largest city in the state and is the seat of . Santa Fe had a population of 67,947 in the 2010 census...
to work as Director of the Museum of New Mexico
Museum of New Mexico
The Museum of New Mexico consists of six separate institutions in Santa Fe, New Mexico, including :* New Mexico Museum of Art* Palace of the Governors* Museum of Indian Arts & Culture/Laboratory of Anthropology* Museum of International Folk Art...
. He returned to Montana in 1963 and operated a ranch near the town of Red Lodge
Red Lodge, Montana
Red Lodge is a city in and the county seat of Carbon County, Montana, United States. It is part of the Billings, Montana Metropolitan Statistical Area...
.
Toole's passion for Montana and its history remained strong in the years following his departure from MHS, as evidenced by the 1959 publication of his book, Montana: An Uncommon Land. The volume was a seminal history of the state, firmly establishing Toole as the Montana's preeminent living historian, and outlining Toole's long-standing thesis that the state's history was strongly shaped by the exploitation of its natural resources by corporate outsiders. In this belief, Toole was expanding on ideas first published by Joseph Kinsey Howard
Joseph Kinsey Howard
Joseph Kinsey Howard was an American journalist, historian, and author, who wrote extensively about the history, culture, and economic circumstances of Montana...
, another of the state's leading historians, in his 1943 book Montana: High, Wide, and Handsome.
Following a heart attack and a physician's recommendation to avoid ranch work, Toole returned to the profession of history in 1965, accepting the position of A.B. Hammond Professor of Western History at the University of Montana (UM). He remained at the University until his death, and is best remembered there for teaching a class titled "Montana and the West," which drew several hundred students each year. His entertaining and often fiery class lectures made Toole's class the most popular of the University's offerings at the time, and his final series of class lectures remain available today on videotape.
Toole continued to write on Montana history topics while at UM, publishing Twentieth-century Montana: A State of Extremes in 1972. His concerns about corporate exploitation of the state's natural resources were discussed in his 1974 book, The Rape of the Great Plains. Toole also gained notoriety of a different sort in the late 1960s, when his frustration with student radicalism of the era resulted in his publication of a book with the cumbersome title, The Time Has Come to Say the Things that Need to be Said About Campus Violence, the Tyranny of a Minority, the Crusade of the Spoiled Children, the Parental Abdication of Responsibility, and the Lack of Courage, Integrity, and Wisdom on the Part of Our Educational Leaders. This book was based upon a letter to his brothers expressing his feelings about student activism and was popularly known as, "The Tyranny of Spoiled Brats."
Throughout his tenure at UM, Toole remained an outspoken advocate for environmental responsibility and political ethics. Though undergoing treatment for the lung cancer that ultimately killed him, he spent the first months of 1981 living in Helena, writing and "keeping an eye on the Legislature." His 1981 writing project remained unfinished, though, and Toole died in a Missoula hospital that August. He remains, however, the state's best-known academic historian, with an influence that continues to be felt today.
Principal Works
- A History of Montana (with Merrill G. Burlingame). New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Co., 1957.
- Montana: An Uncommon Land. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1959. ISBN 0-8061-1890-3.
- The Time Has Come. New York: William Morrow & Co., 1971.
- Twentieth-century Montana: A State of Extremes. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1972. ISBN 0-8061-0992-0
- The Rape of the Great Plains: Northwestern America, Cattle and Coal. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1976. ISBN 0-316-84990-1
- Montana: Images of the Past (with William E. Farr). Boulder, Colorado: Pruett Publishing Co., 1978. ISBN 0-87108-666-2.