Middle School
Worksheets
James Ramsey Ullman
James Ramsey Ullman was an American writer and adventurist, especially when it came to climbing mountains. His writings, which originally began as articles and guide books, eventually evolved into novels largely related to mountaineering. Despite having urban roots, Ullman wrote about and lived numerous adventures throughout most of his adult life.
Ullman, son of Alexander F. Ullman, was born in New York in 1907. When he was a boy, he attended Phillips Academy located in Andover, Massachusetts. Upon graduation, Ullman attended Princeton University where he later graduated in 1929. After graduation, he moved to Brooklyn and began his career in journalism, working as a newspaper reporter and feature writer. Ullman later decided to try producing in the theater. He produced such plays as Faraway Horses, Men in White, Blind Alley, and The Milky Way. There were many other plays, all of which Ullman either authored or coauthored. Unfortunately, none of the plays he helped produce ever made it to Broadway.
Eventually Ullman chose to leave the theater following a number of failed productions. He decided to rethink his career path and chose to leave the United States and travel to the Amazon in hopes of satisfying a growing desire for travel and adventure. After his return to America, Ullman's Amazon trip stayed with him and ultimately inspired him to write The Other Side of the Mountain, a travelogue narrative.
Once he was back in America, Ullman took a job with the Federal Theater, but he also began work as a freelance writer creating short stories and articles that emphasized mountain climbing. Mountain climbing started as a hobby for Ullman, but it would eventually lead to a passion. Ullman felt a need for adventure, so he hoped that mountain climbing would help satisfy this need.
In 1938 Ullman decided to climb the Canadian Rockies along with his friend, J. Monroe Thorington. Thorington was a doctor but also a mountaineer who climbed extensively and wrote guide books about the Canadian Rockies. Later, in 1941, Ullman took a trip to the Tetons in Montana where he climbed first with a guide and later with Paul Petzoldt. This adventure was probably the inspiration for Ullman's first book about mountain climbing, High Conquest (1941), which later became a film in 1947. This was Ullman's first of nine books published through J.B. Lippincott. Many of these books later became films.
