Scott Nearing
Scott Nearing (August 6, 1883 – August 24, 1983) was an American radical economist, educator, writer, political activist, pacifist, vegetarian and advocate of simple living.
Scott Nearing
August 6, 1883
August 24, 1983 (aged 100)
American
PhD in Economics (1909)
radical economist, educator, and writer
1905–1982
political activist, author, and advocate of simple living
Socialism, Communism
Nellie Marguerite Seeds Nearing;
Helen Nearing
2, including John Scott
Biography[edit]
Early years[edit]
Nearing was born in Morris Run, Tioga County, Pennsylvania, the heart of the state's coal country. Nearing's grandfather, Winfield Scott Nearing, had arrived in Tioga County with his family in 1864, at the age of 35, when he accepted a job as a civil and mining engineer. Before the end of the year he had assumed full control of mining operations as the superintendent of the Morris Run Coal Company, a position of authority which he held for the remainder of his working life.[1] An intense, driven man, Scott Nearing's grandfather studied science and nature, practiced gardening and carpentry, and regularly received crates of books from New York City, amassing a large personal library.[2] In his memoirs written late in his life, Scott Nearing would recall his grandfather as one of the four most influential figures in his life.[3] Nearing's upbringing was that of a young bourgeois, his mother employing a part-time tutor and two Polish servants to clean the gleaming white house atop a hill overlooking the town.[4] Scott's brother recalled that the citizens of Morris Run had treated the handsome and intelligent Scott "the way they would treat the heir to the nobleman. ... They all treated him with awe."[4]
Nearing's father was a small businessman and stockbroker, his mother a vigorous, energetic, and idealistic woman whom Nearing later credited with instilling in him an appreciation for the higher things in life: nature, books, and the arts.[5] Despite an upbringing in a life of privilege made possible in no small measure by the harsh anti-union policies of his patriarchal grandfather,[6] young Scott nevertheless developed a social conscience, which one of his biographers describes as "a burr under his skin that none of his relatives acquired and that no interpretation satisfactorily explains."[4]
Vegetarianism[edit]
Scott Nearing became a vegetarian in 1917.[59] Nearing was a vice president of the International Vegetarian Union.[60] He was a regular speaker at the conferences held by the International Vegetarian Union. He spoke at the events in the 1950-1960s,[61] in 1973 in Sweden, and in 1975 in Orono, Maine.[62]
At the 13th IVU World Vegetarian Congress 1953 in Sigtuna, Sweden his speech was growing "Food without Animal Residues."[63] In the summer of 1991, the North American Vegetarian Society inducted Helen and Scott Nearing into the Vegetarian Hall of Fame.[64]
In 2016, Portland Press Herald columnist Avery Yale Kamila reported: "In the 1977 documentary film "Living the Good Life," Scott Nearing stands in the couple's huge Maine garden and addresses a group of people interested in homesteading. He explains they use absolutely no "animal residues," such as manure or bonemeal, in their gardens. "As vegetarians, we are against the slaughter business," he tells the crowd, "and we don't want to participate in it.""[46]
Death[edit]
From his mid-nineties, Nearing's mental and physical health was declining and he could not upkeep his garden, with his wife stating that he “only began to be old in his 90s”.[67]A month before his death, he decided gave up food and his body gradually lost all strength. At first he consumed fruit juices and a week before his death he limited himself to only water.[68][67] Nearing died on August 24, 1983 in his home in Harborside, Maine, eighteen days after his 100th birthday. His wife Helen was present. Nearing was cremated and his ashes were spread over his farm.[69]