The National Park Service: Groveling Sycophant or Social Conscience: Telling the Story of Mountains, Valley, and Barbed Wire at Manzanar National Historic Site

2003 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 73-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
FRANK HAYS
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
National Park ◽  
National Park Service ◽  
Japanese Americans ◽  
Japanese American ◽  
Historic Site ◽  
Social Conscience ◽  
Park Service ◽  
Relocation Centers ◽  
The Many

Manzanar National Historic Site was established to protect and interpret the resources associated with the internment of Japanese Americans at one often War Relocation Centers during World War II. One of the many challenges facing the National Park Service (NPS) at Manzanar is determining how to tell the story of the internment. Opinions about the role of the NPS in managing and interpreting the site range from suggestions that the NPS needs to serve as the social conscience of the nation to cautions that the NPS not become a ““groveling sycophant”” to the Japanese American community. To address this issue, the park sought diverse forums to engage the public in the management of the site. This paper details how public engagement has affected a number of management decisions.

Evaluating the Effectiveness of Live Interactive Virtual Explorations Involving a Hard-to-Reach Native American Earth Lodge and a Pacific Island Volcanoes Site

2011 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kimberly Mann Bruch ◽  
Hans-Werner Braun ◽  
Susan Teel
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
National Park ◽  
National Science Foundation ◽  
High Performance ◽  
National Park Service ◽  
Washington Dc ◽  
Historic Site ◽  
Park Service ◽  
Research And Education ◽  
Education Network

For several years, National Park Service scientists, historians, and educators have been working with National Science Foundation-funded High Performance Wireless Research and Education Network (HPWREN) researchers on developing, implementing, and evaluating Live Interactive Virtual Explorations (LIVE) at several sites. The LIVE activities utilize computers with headsets and microphones to link National Park Service sites with an array of audiences. The two case studies in this paper examine the effectiveness of LIVE activities that allow Washington, DC, inner-city youth to explore two hard-to-reach National Park Service sites: Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site in North Dakota and the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.

Introduction

2011 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 9-12
Author(s):  
Martin Blatt
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Native Americans ◽  
National Parks ◽  
National Park ◽  
National Park Service ◽  
Critical Discussion ◽  
World War ◽  
Natural Park ◽  
Park Service ◽  
National Park System

Abstract These four essays critique Ken Burns's PBS documentary series The National Parks: America's Best Idea. Burns has over the last several decades established himself as the central producer of PBS multi-part documentaries, addressing such topics as the Civil War, baseball, jazz, and World War II. National Park Service (NPS) leadership recognized the promotional opportunities for the NPS and aligned themselves closely with Burns and PBS. Critical discussion in the essays focuses in three areas: the treatment of Native Americans; the reverential treatment of “nature” in the national parks, and the distorted focus on the natural park in the West as the embodiment of the National Park system.

scholarly journals Understanding Visitor Motivations at Jimmy Carter National Historic Site: A Principal Components Approach

Heritage ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 328-334
Author(s):  
Zachary Miller ◽  
William Rice ◽  
B. Taff ◽  
Peter Newman
Keyword(s):  
National Park ◽  
National Park Service ◽  
The United States ◽  
Jimmy Carter ◽  
Historic Sites ◽  
Historic Site ◽  
The People ◽  
Natural Parks ◽  
Visitor Experiences ◽  
Park Service

National park sites draw tourism all across the United States. Although large natural parks see much attention, most national park units are actually designed to protect and interpret unique cultural and historic resources. As an example of this, the National Park Service administers numerous presidential historic sites. However, we know very little about the people who visit them. Understanding visitor motivations to presidential historic sites can help to provide for better visitor experiences of presidential resources. This research uses intercept surveys at the Jimmy Carter National Historic Site in Plains, Georgia, to gain an understanding of visitor motivations. From the results, seven motivation types are identified. The information in this article can be used to better understand public values related to presidential resources, and to help the managers of these resources to improve on-site experiences by addressing visitor motivations.

Transfigured Patterns: Contesting Memories at the Manzanar National Historic Site

2003 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 51-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
ROBERT T. HAYASHI
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Los Angeles ◽  
The United States ◽  
Japanese Americans ◽  
Legislative Process ◽  
United States Congress ◽  
World War ◽  
Historic Site ◽  
Park Service ◽  
A Site

On February 18, 1992 the United States Congress passed legislation establishing the Man-zanar National Historic Site, an act that would turn the neglected site of a former American concentration camp for Japanese Americans into a site of national remembrance for all Americans. This article discusses the legislative process involving Manzanar's designation as a National Historic Site and how it reveals the ongoing tendency to equate American Nikkei history with only the World War II period. The creation and subsequent interpretation of the site also highlighted the complications of identifying a place with only one layer of its history. The recognition and interpretation of Manzanar threatened the maintenance of local histories and led to contestations between California residents, Japanese Americans, the National Park Service, and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.

““Of Exceptional Importance””: The Origins of the ““Fifty-Year Rule”” in Historic Preservation

2007 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 81-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOHN H. SPRINKLE
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Historic Preservation ◽  
National Park ◽  
National Park Service ◽  
Historic Site ◽  
Heritage Sites ◽  
The Past ◽  
Park Service ◽  
Site Significance ◽  
National Historic Preservation Act

The ““fifty-year rule”” is one of the most commonly accepted principles within American historic preservation: properties that have achieved significance within the past fifty years are generally not considered eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic places. An often misunderstood chronological threshold, the fifty-year standard was established by National Park Service historians in 1948. Until the advent of the ““new preservation”” with the National Historic Preservation Act in 1966, the standard of exceptional importance had only been applied to presidential and atomic heritage sites. Operating as a filter to ward off potentially controversial decisions about the nature of historic site significance, understanding the origins of the fifty-year rule reveals how Americans have constructed the chronological boundaries of a useable past through historic preservation during the twentieth century.

scholarly journals SUMMARY OF RESEARCH ACTIVITIES WITHIN THE NATIONAL PARK SERVICE AREAS COOPERATING WITH THE U.W.-N.P.S. RESEARCH CENTER, 1986.

1986 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 243-274
Author(s):  
University of Wyoming National Park Service Research Center
Keyword(s):  
National Park ◽  
National Park Service ◽  
Research Center ◽  
Historic Site ◽  
National Monument ◽  
Zion National Park ◽  
Research Activities ◽  
Service Areas ◽  
Park Service ◽  
Recreation Area

This section contains a summary of research activities within the National Park Service areas cooperating with the U.W.-N.P.S. Research Center in 1986, including Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area, Canyonlands National Park, Capitol Reef National Park, Custer Battlefield National Monument, Dinosaur National Monument, Fort Laramie National Historic Site, Glacier National Park, Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, Grand Teton National Park, Jewel Cave National Monument, Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site, Theodore Roosevelt National Park, Wind Cave National Park, Yellowstone National Park and Zion National Park.

scholarly journals Summary of Research Activities within the National Park Service Areas Cooperating with the U.W.-N.P.S. Research Center, 1984.

1984 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 141-159
Author(s):  
University of Wyoming National Park Service Research Center
Keyword(s):  
Yellowstone National Park ◽  
National Park ◽  
National Park Service ◽  
Research Center ◽  
Glacier National Park ◽  
Historic Site ◽  
National Monument ◽  
Research Activities ◽  
Service Areas ◽  
Park Service

This section contains a summary of Research Activities within the National Park Service Areas cooperating with the U.W.-N.P.S. Research Center in 1984, inclucing Badlands National Monument, Devils Tower National Monument, Fort Laramie National Historic Site, Fossil Butte National Monument, Glacier National Park, Grand Teton National Park, Wind Cave National Park and Yellowstone National Park.

World War II: Defending Park Values and Resources

2007 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 15-33
Author(s):  
JANET A. McDONNELL
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
National Park ◽  
National Park Service ◽  
Responsibility To Protect ◽  
Valuable Resource ◽  
World War ◽  
Consumptive Use ◽  
Park Service ◽  
The Military ◽  
Trust Responsibility

Abstract This article focuses on the way in which the National Park Service (NPS) resisted demands for the consumptive use of park resources during World War II primarily through the use of carefully crafted arguments and powerful rhetoric, but also by enlisting the support of conservation groups and adopting compromise measures. These compromise measures allowed the military to use the parks for recreation, rehabilitation, training, and maneuvers, and in a few instances authorize some exploitive use of parks by timber, mining, and farming interests when necessary. Faced with wartime demands, the NPS was forced to articulate its purpose and mission as never before. As NPS leaders articulated their arguments, they developed and publicized several major themes: that park values were a valuable resource; that the NPS had a trust responsibility to protect the parks; and that the parks represented the restorative and inspirational power of nature. Its vigorous campaign in defense of park values and resources, along with the willingness to compromise, played an important role in ensuring the preservation of irreplaceable park resources.

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