Making the Modern National Park Service

2022 ◽  
pp. 540-551
2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacqueline Vaughn ◽  
Hanna J. Cortner

2020 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 101-123
Author(s):  
Michael A. Capps

Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial is an example of one memorial site that has successfully managed to retain relevance for nearly one hundred years by adapting to changes in scholarship and the expectations of its visitors. Initially created as a purely commemorative site, it has evolved into one where visitors can actively engage with the Lincoln story. By embracing an interpretive approach to managing the site, the National Park Service has been able to add an educational component to the experience of visiting the memorial that complements its commemorative nature.


2021 ◽  
pp. 153270862199112
Author(s):  
Elena Tajima Creef ◽  
Carl J. Petersen

If one travels to Little Bighorn Battlefield National Park in late June, one can witness at least three events that simultaneously take place each year commemorating what has been called “one of the great mythic and mysterious military battles of American history” (Frosch, 2010). The National Park Service rangers give “battle talks” on the hour to visiting tourists. Two miles away, the privately run U.S. Cavalry School also performs a scripted reenactment called “Custer’s Last Ride”—with riders who have been practicing all week to play the role of soldiers from the doomed regiment of Custer’s 7th Cavalry. On this same day, a traveling band of men, women, and youth from the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho Nations who have journeyed by horseback and convoy from the Dakotas and Wyoming will reach Last Stand Hill to remember this “Victory Day” from 1876—one that historians have called the “last stand of the Indians” during the period of conflict known as the “Great Sioux War.” This photo essay offers an autoethnographic account of what some have dubbed the annual “Victory Ride” to Montana based upon my participation as a non-Native supporter of this Ride in 2017, 2018, and 2019.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily J. Wilkins ◽  
Peter D. Howe ◽  
Jordan W. Smith

AbstractDaily weather affects total visitation to parks and protected areas, as well as visitors’ experiences. However, it is unknown if and how visitors change their spatial behavior within a park due to daily weather conditions. We investigated the impact of daily maximum temperature and precipitation on summer visitation patterns within 110 U.S. National Park Service units. We connected 489,061 geotagged Flickr photos to daily weather, as well as visitors’ elevation and distance to amenities (i.e., roads, waterbodies, parking areas, and buildings). We compared visitor behavior on cold, average, and hot days, and on days with precipitation compared to days without precipitation, across fourteen ecoregions within the continental U.S. Our results suggest daily weather impacts where visitors go within parks, and the effect of weather differs substantially by ecoregion. In most ecoregions, visitors stayed closer to infrastructure on rainy days. Temperature also affects visitors’ spatial behavior within parks, but there was not a consistent trend across ecoregions. Importantly, parks in some ecoregions contain more microclimates than others, which may allow visitors to adapt to unfavorable conditions. These findings suggest visitors’ spatial behavior in parks may change in the future due to the increasing frequency of hot summer days.


2004 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-35
Author(s):  
Jenny Masur

Many cultural anthropologists have studied networks and how people reinterpret and attach symbols to these networks, pulling symbols from a grab-bag of collectively significant events and personages. As an ethnographer working for a new National Park Service program, I find myself involved in creating "networks" and affecting construction of "meanings," rather than studying the process as an outside observer. In the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom, created by Congress, my colleagues and I affect and effect relationships between groups previously unfamiliar with one another or previously not considered to fit under one umbrella. It would it be putting on blinders to analyze "transformations of popular concepts of the Underground Railroad" without considering the National Park Service and other cultural resource managers' role in public education, historic preservation, and use of memory in exhibits and publications.


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