Norman Maclean - 1902
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Hot Springs County High in Wyoming
I. Biography
Norman Maclean was born in Clarinda, Iowa on December 23, 1902. In 1909, his family moved to Missoula, Montana, where he grew up with his younger brother, Paul. Until 1913, he and his brother were educated by his father, a Scotch Presbyterian minister, instead of attending public schools.
For a short wile Maclean worked in logging camps and for the United States Forest Service. Maclean received his B.A. from Dartmouth in 1924, and served there as an instructor until 1926. He began graduate studies in English at the University of Chicago in 1928, where three years later he was promoted to instructor, and went on to receive three Quantrell Awards for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching. During this time Maclean married Jesse Burns, a redheaded Scots-Irish women from Helena. They later had two children, their daughter Jean, born in 1942, is now a lawyer, and their son, John, is now a journalist.
While he was instructing at the college, he wrote about some of the things that he had experienced while he lived in Montana. This started his professional writing. He wrote only a few books, but the books that he wrote were some of the best during that time. Some of the books that he wrote are: A River Runs Through It, and Young Men and Fire. These two books were the two most recognized. He wrote some other stories too. The book, A River Runs Through It, later was produced into a movie.
After Norman quit his writing, I think he moved back to Montana. Norman was truly a great author that really wrote some good stories.
II. Literary Works
A River Runs Through It (1992)
Young Men and Fire (1992
This essay was submitted by a student of Kevin Brooke, a teacher at Hot Springs County High in Thermopolis, Wyoming.