I became fascinated by mountaineering when I was 10 years old. I was at a summer camp in the Adirondacks. My counselor tried to lull us to sleep by reading aloud from James Ramsey Ullman’s High Conquest, published in 1941. It did not have a soporific effect on me. I was stimulated by hearing about all those unclimbed Himalayan peaks. A few years later I started frequenting the American Alpine Club library, after school. The library was only two blocks from my home on Manhattan’s upper east side. The longtime librarian, Helen Buck, was very welcoming, as were her succession of assistants. The club occupied an old fire house, once the property of an early member, Dr. William Ladd. The ground floor was large enough for gatherings and slide shows. The library was one flight up. I purchased a tall stack of old Appalachia magazines for 25 cents each. That is how I now have a whole century of them. By the time I was 14, I was determined to get to the big mountains. My path led through my extremely unathletic aunt and uncle. At a Montana dude ranch, they had become friendly with another couple, Miriam and Robert Underhill. On November 23, 1951, Miriam wrote my Aunt Matilda, who had told her that I was heading west to climb in the Tetons next summer: “Why doesn’t he start in this spring with some climbing club around New York City? [...] The only one I know I cannot put him into—the Appalachian Mountain Club—because the New York Chapter does all that themselves and are very fussy. They have to know the boy intimately for years, etc. But there are lots of others.”

Over the years I have parsed this message in many ways. Did Miriam mean that the New York Chapter was anti-Semitic? Did she know that I was Jewish? And all those other climbing organizations—did they exist?

The following March I received a phone call from Percy Olton, a prominent figure in the AMC New York chapter rock climbing group. Did I want to join an AMC beginners’ weekend in the Shawangunks? I thought that Miriam had come through after all, but the contact was probably the Tetons dude ranch owner, Betty Woolsey, who knew Percy. I was booked for August at her ranch.

So I began spending weekends with AMC in the Gunks. At 14, I was by far the youngest. I was treated very kindly and am deeply in the club’s debt.

I was a student at Harvard (I would graduate in 1959), Miriam Underhill was the editor of Appalachia, as Robert had been before her. She published my first contribution in 1958. She also printed a poem by my classmate, Arthur Freeman, but she had to reject another because a club officer thought it improper. Miriam wrote, “I never knew people could be so stuffy.”

I met Bob Underhill only once or twice. He was very friendly. The Underhills invited me to visit them in their Randolph, New Hampshire home in the late 1950s , but I was unable to do so. Miriam died in 1976, I sent Bob a condolence note, acknowledging that he might not remember me. He replied that he remembered me “very well indeed”and warmly thanked me for my concern.

In May, 2022, the American Alpine Club decided to remove the Robert and Miriam Underhill name from one of its awards, in response to reporting by climber and journalist Brad Rassler. Rassler cited a 1946 letter of Underhill’s which had been quoted in Fallen Giants (2008), as evidence of Underhill’s anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism was rife in his time, but Underhill’s prejudices were not ordinary—they were  virulent. And weird. His description of James Ramsey Ullman in his now notorious 1946 letter is astonishing: “[...] A lowgrade New York Jew [...] He says ‘thoid’ for ‘third,’ sucks his soup and dribbles oatmeal back into his bowl [...]. ” Ullman, who had only one Jewish grandparent, was very well-mannered. He would not have said “thoid” or sucked his soup! (I did meet him a number of times. He inscribed my copy of High Conquest.) He attended Andover and Princeton. His memorial services were held in the Old South Church in Boston and in the Unitarian Church of All Souls, Lexington Avenue and 80th Street, New York.

Now the AAC has renamed its Underhill award. I hope that the same fate will not come to the several mountain features named for him. The Underhill Ridge of the Grand Teton was first climbed by Robert Underhill. That’s historical fact. It’s also fact that Underhill pioneered some great climbs in the range and brought technical climbing to Yosemite. 

Robert Underhill was very kind to me. I hope he knew that I was Jewish.

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The above appeared in Appalachia, Winter/Spring, 2024 ... There is a lot of background.

The piece in its first form was a personal letter to the editor of Appalachia. She wanted to print it, revised. But the AMC hierarchy blocked it, without explanation. It seems they just didn’t want to publish anything about Underhill. That changed early in 2023, when the club selected a new president. She was unafraid.

Incidentally: the new president had been a club member for 20 years. That is 50 years less than me. She had understandably missed some of the history, including the 1984 struggle against the club’s proposed “major excursion” to South Africa in the midst of apartheid. (I have sent my relevant documents to the club archives in New Hampshire.)

Although my piece did not quite say so, there is no doubt that the AMC has a history of anti-Semitism. The evidence is abundant. For example, (from the New York Chapter archives):

In 1940 Nathaniel Nitkin wrote to inquire about membership. Marjorie Olton (Percy's wife) responded, asking among other things which church he belonged to. Mr. Nitkin replied that he was a reform Jew. A letter to him was drafted by “G.S.S.”:

“I am indeed sorry to have to inform you that the N.Y. chapter of the A.M.C. has a rule which does not allow us to admit members of the Jewish race [sic]. We would be glad to admit a person of your qualifications were it not for this rule of the A.M.C. I am sure you will fine [sic] many other clubs without this particular restriction.”

This letter was almost certainly not sent. Instead, Mr. Nitkin was regretfully informed that the chapter had no room for him, despite his qualifications.

On March 27, 1944: Russell Enliting, Bronxville, NY, wrote to Ruth Hardy: “I personally will not consider membership in the AMC particularly desirable if the Club commences to admit Jews.”

Then there was the woman who complained that a man on a Club event had been “pawing the ladies.” She said she didn’t know whether he was Jewish, but he had “many of the undesirable characteristics of that unfortunate people.”

There is more like this. I doubt that the Boston headquarters was any better. Underhill’s 1946 letter assures its recipient that Ullman, though an American Alpine Club member, would never have been accepted by the AMC.

---------------- Addenda:

In April, 1952, on my first ride to the Shawangunks, I sat next to Marjorie Olton. She did not ask which church I belonged to.

A change for the better:

Summer 2010: AMC Outdoors notes gifts in honor of the Bat Mitzvah of Abigail Herscovici.

2023: The new AMC president is a Jewish woman.

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