Primary Resources on Stewart L. Udall

Stewart Lee Udall was born in St. Johns, Arizona, on January 31, 1920. He is the son of former Arizona Supreme Court Justice Levi S. Udall and Louise Lee Udall. His brother is former Congressman Morris "Mo" K. Udall. The University of Arizona Library, Special Collections, houses the papers of Stewart Udall (AZ 372) and other members of the Udall family including noted Church of Jesus Christ, The Latter-day Saints pioneer and church leader David King Udall (MS 294), and papers of both Levi S. Udall (MS 293) and Morris King Udall (MS 325).

Upon his graduation from high school, Stewart departed to attend the University of Arizona. He paused his studies first to serve two years as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ, The Latter-day Saints in New York and Pennsylvania, and then enlisted in the United States Army Air Corps serving as a waist-gunner aboard a B-24 Liberator Bomber operating in Europe for 50 missions during World War II.  Stewart was a member of the 1946 University of Arizona basketball team to play at the National Invitational Tournament at Madison Square Garden. Upon graduating from the University in 1948 with a BA in Law, Stewart started his own practice. Two years later, together, he and his brother Morris opened a firm in Tucson. Soon after, Udall began participating in public service which soon led him into politics.

In 1954, Udall was elected to Congress from Arizona [1954-1961] (District 2). He served on the United States House of Representatives Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs (1955-1960); the House, Education and Labor Committee (1955-1956); and the House Committee on Education and Labor (1957-1960). During the 85th Congress (1957-1958), Stewart served on a Joint Committee on Navajo Hopi Indian Administration.  He was instrumental in persuading Arizona Democrats to support Senator John F. Kennedy during the 1960 Democratic Nomination Convention. President Kennedy appointed him to serve as Secretary of the Interior, until 1963, when President Lyndon B. Johnson re-appointed him, a position he held until 1969, when he resigned.

As Secretary of the Interior, 1961-1969, Udall was forward thinking in terms of environmental issues and participated in diplomatic trips to Russia, the Middle East, Africa, and Venezuela. He was also a patron of the arts. During his tenure with the Department of Interior, Udall moved to restore the Ford Theater and supported, along with his wife Lee Udall, the creation of the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities. Highlights from his Cabinet career are: The Wilderness Bill; The Wild and Scenic Rivers Act; the expansion of the National Park System to include four new national parks, six new national monuments, eight seashores and lakeshores, nine recreation areas, twenty historic sites, and fifty-six wildlife refuges; and the creation of The Land and Water Conservation Fund.  

After leaving government service in 1969, Stewart went on to teach for a year at the Yale University School of Forestry as a Visiting Professor of Environmental Humanism. He continued his contributions as an author, historian, scholar, lecturer, environmental activist, lawyer, naturalist, and citizen of the outdoors. During the energy crisis in the 1970s, Stewart advocated the use of solar energy as one remedy to the crisis.

He pressed the courts and Congress to compensate uranium workers and their families for damage suffered by them while living near and working in uranium mines during the Cold War years. As a member of an environmental organization, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Stewart defended the Environmental Protection Agency against closure due to budgetary cuts. Stewart was elected to the Central Arizona Water Conservation Board and commissioned as a member of the Arizona Parks Task Force. 

Stewart and Lee Udall moved from Phoenix to Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1989 where Stewart maintained an active life of writing, travelling, hiking, and advocating for protection of the environment. His wife Lee, to whom Stewart was married for 55 years, died in 2001. Stewart and Lee had six children (4 boys and two girls). Their son Tom Udall served in the U.S. Senate from New Mexico in 2009--2021. In order to recognize and honor the important contributions of both of the Udall brothers, Congress enacted legislation in 2009 changing the name of the Morris K. Udall Foundation, located in Tucson, Arizona, to the Morris K. Udall and Stewart L. Udall Foundation. Stewart Udall died on March 20, 2010, at the age of ninety after having actively served his home state of Arizona and his country for 68 years.

The collection is predominantly composed of Stewart Lee Udall's professional and public papers. Items of the 84th, 85th, and 86th Congresses are organized into administration and legislation files. Administration includes routine office matters, requests, and correspondence relating to particular problems or issues. Legislation encompasses correspondence arranged by subject, related bills, hearings, clippings, speeches, and background materials. Audio-visual materials such as interviews, radio shows and public event; as well as twenty-five photographs of President Kennedy at various public functions are also present.