Udall, Stewart Lee

Udall, Stewart Lee Udall, Stewart Lee yo?o ´dôl [key], 1920â€"2010, U.S. cabinet member and environmentalist, b. St. Johns, Ariz. After serving in World War II, Udall practiced law in Tucson until elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1954. As a member of the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs he gained a reputation as a conservationist and an advocate of public works. An early supporter of John F. Kennedy for the presidency, he became in Jan., 1961, the first Arizonan to hold a cabinet post. As secretary of the interior under both Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, he stressed government dam building to generate increased public power, presided over a vast enlargement of the national park system, and promoted laws protecting clean air and water, increasing land conservation, and preserving historic sites. He subsequently wrote a syndicated newspaper column, taught at Yale, and resumed his law practice. Udall wrote National Parks of America (1966), The Quiet Crisis (1963, repr. 1967) , 1976: Agenda for Tomorrow (1968), and The Myths of August (1994). His younger brother, Morris King Mo Udall, 1922â€"98, succeeded him in Congress (1961â€"91). His son Thomas Udall, 1948â€", was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from New Mexico in 1998 and has been a U.S. senator since 2009. Mo Udall's son Mark Udall, 1950â€", was also first elected to the House of Representatives, from Colorado, in 1998 and has been a U.S. senator since 2009. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. See more Encyclopedia articles on: U.S. History: Biographies