Harold Gilliam (1918 – December 14, 2016) was a

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

based writer, newspaperman and environmentalist, a columnist for the ''

San Francisco Chronicle The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and Michael H. de Young. The ...

'' and ''

Examiner Examiner or The Examiner may refer to: Occupations * Bank examiner, a kind of auditor * Examiner (Roman Catholicism), a type of office in the Roman Catholic Church * Examinership, a concept in Irish law * Medical examiner * Patent examiner * Tr ...

'' newspapers. The Harold Gilliam Award for Excellence in Environmental Reporting, given by

The Bay Institute The Bay Institute(TBI) is a nonprofit research, education, and advocacy organization dedicated to protecting and restoring the ecosystem of the San Francisco Bay, the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, and the estuary's tributary rivers, streams, and w ...

, is named in his honor.

Early life and education

Gilliam was born in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...

and earned a bachelor's degree in

political science Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and la ...

from

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California ...

and a master's in

economics Economics () is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics analyzes ...

from

UC Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant uni ...

; he later studied under

Wallace Stegner Wallace Earle Stegner (February 18, 1909 – April 13, 1993) was an American novelist, short story writer, environmentalism, environmentalist, and historian, often called "The Dean of Western Writers". He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1972 and the U. ...

at the Stanford Writing Program. He served in the 11th Armored Division in Europe in World War II.

Career

Gilliam began his career in journalism as a

copy boy A copy boy is a typically young and junior worker on a newspaper. The job involves taking typed stories from one section of a newspaper to another. According to Bruce Guthrie, the former editor-in-chief of the '' Herald Sun'' who began work ther ...

at the ''Chronicle'', where he was soon made a reporter. In 1954 he became a freelancer, then in 1960 began an environmental column at the ''Examiner''; the following year he returned to the ''Chronicle'', where he continued his column, called "This Land", until retiring in 1995. ''San Francisco Bay'', his first book, was on ''The New York Times'' bestseller list for 19 weeks. It led to his being invited to be a founder member of Save the Bay. Gilliam was one of the first environmentalist journalists, and helped mobilize public opinion to save many features of the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Go ...

. In the 1960s, through an article and personal contacts, he helped achieve a Marin County ordinance forestalling the bulldozing of archaeological sites. His article "The Destruction of

Mono Lake Mono Lake ( ) is a saline soda lake in Mono County, California, formed at least 760,000 years ago as a terminal lake in an endorheic basin. The lack of an outlet causes high levels of salts to accumulate in the lake which make its water a ...

Is on Schedule", which appeared in the ''Examiner'' in March 1979, was one of the first public accounts of the then ongoing destruction of Mono Lake; in 1993 he was the first recipient of the Defender of the Trust award from the Mono Lake Committee.

named its Harold Gilliam Award in his honor. The group also gave him its Bay Education Award in 1995.

Personal life

Gilliam was married to Ann, with whom he co-wrote a book on

Carmel, California Carmel-by-the-Sea (), often simply called Carmel, is a city in Monterey County, California, United States, founded in 1902 and incorporated on October 31, 1916. Situated on the Monterey Peninsula, Carmel is known for its natural scenery and ric ...

; she died in 2001. They had two sons. Gilliam died in San Francisco in 2016 at the age of 98.

Bibliography

*''San Francisco Bay'' (1957) *(with Ann Gilliam, photographs by Fritz Busse) ''San Francisco: City At The Golden Gate'' (1959) *''The Face of San Francisco'' (1960) *''For Better or for Worse: The Ecology of an Urban Area'' (1972) *''Island in time: The Point Reyes Peninsula'' (1973) *''Between the Devil & the Deep Blue Bay: The Struggle to Save San Francisco Bay'' (1969) *''The San Francisco Experience: The Romantic Lore Behind the Fabulous Facade of the Bay Area'' (1972) *''The Natural World of San Francisco'' (1967) *(with Ann Gilliam) ''Creating Carmel: The Enduring Vision'' (1992) *''Weather of the San Francisco Bay Region'' (1962; 2nd ed. 2002)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gilliam, Harold 1918 births 2016 deaths American non-fiction environmental writers History of San Francisco University of California, Los Angeles alumni University of California, Berkeley alumni United States Army personnel of World War II