Gordon, Clarence C.

Clarence C. Gordon was born in Seattle, Washington on July 26, 1928. While growing up in Seattle during the Great Depression and World War II, Gordon’s family had very little money and he was in and out of school during most of his youth. He favored hunting, fishing and other outdoors activities over spending time in the classroom, and this preference often resulted in suspensions and even expulsion. Despite these common absences and disciplinary problems, Gordon gradated from public high school in Seattle at the age of seventeen. He spent the next four years of his life as a commercial fisherman in Alaska, and then was drafted for a brief stint in the Korean War. Upon release from his military service, Gordon returned to commercial fishing until he met his future wife, Nancy Ward, while taking vocational training in seamanship. Deciding that commercial fishing would not be a favorable career for a married man with a family, Gordon enrolled at the University of Washington in Seattle.

After two years in pre-medicine at the University of Washington, Gordon switched his major to Mycology, the study of fungus, graduating with a Bachelor’s degree in 1956. Next, Gordon was accepted for gradate study at Washington State University in Pullman, where he remained until receiving a Ph.D. in Plant Pathology in 1960. He joined the faculty at the University of Montana-Missoula in the fall of 1960 as a professor in the Department of Botany. During his time as a professor at the University, Clancy Gordon was heavily involved with advancing the status of Environmental Studies on campus, founding the Environmental Studies laboratory in 1963 and helping to establish the Environmental Studies Gradate Program in 1970. He served as the first director of the new gradate program from 1970-1975. Gordon was a prolific author and researcher, often writing numerous articles and participating in a variety of research projects simultaneously. He was also a respected teacher who was able to communicate his message of environmental activism though informal and unconventional methods of instruction.

Clancy Gordon was equally active in the environmental movement outside of his capacity as a professor of Botany and Environmental Studies. Considered an expert on the effects of fluoride emissions and other air pollutants on plants, Gordon was an important witness in many legal cases and adversary hearings brought against major polluters during the 1960s and 1970s. His work involved him in controversial cases across Montana, the United States, Canada and even Europe, and pitted him squarely against such powerful corporations as the Montana Power Company, the Anaconda Company, Cominco, ASARCO, the Reynolds Metal Company, and the Virginia Electric and Power Company. His commitment to environmental activism earned him notoriety among the business community as a troublemaker, but his consistent professionalism, sense of humor and dedicated research also gained him the respect and loyalty of his colleagues, students and many of the public citizens he worked to protect from the dangers of pollution and environmental degradation.

Clancy Gordon died after a two-year battle with cancer on July 12, 1981, while still a faculty member at the University of Montana-Missoula. He was fifty-three years old.

From the guide to the Clarence C. Gordon Papers, 1932-1982, (University of Montana--Missoula Maureen and Mike Mansfield Library Archives and Special Collections)