Departments

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National Parks

  • 9/26/2021

    The Roots of the Politicization of the National Parks Service

    by Nick DeLuca

    The National Park Service has never been totally independent of politics. But a 1996 law requiring Senate approval of the NPS Director, combined with the Trump administration's use of acting directors, has created uncertainty. Approving Biden's nominee Chuck Sams is a key step to putting the National Parks on solid footing. 

  • SOURCE: New York Times
    9/20/2021

    Park Rangers Bring Black History to Life in the Great Outdoors

    As Americans consider the racist views of John Muir and the legacy of exclusion from national parks spaces, the Times highlights the work of African American workers in the national parks service and the Black history they help preserve "for the benefit and enjoyment of people." 

  • SOURCE: The Atlantic
    4/12/2021

    Don’t Cancel John Muir (But Don't Excuse Him Either)

    Reckoning with John Muir's legacy of racial prejudice isn't just about imposing moral purity, it's about rethinking the conservation movement to include the broad coalition of humanity needed to protect natural resources. 

  • SOURCE: National Parks Traveler
    2/25/2021

    Op-Ed | Confederate Memorials Serve A Role In National Parks

    by Harry Butowski

    "The removal of existing statues in our Civil War parks will not change our history, but make it more difficult to confront and examine our history. National parks are the great American classroom where American history is taught."

  • SOURCE: National Parks Traveler
    2/22/2021

    The Future Of Confederate Monuments

    by Kim O'Connell

    “The Park Service needs to ask, ‘Who’s coming to your site and who’s not coming to your site?’” says Denise Meringolo, a professor of public history at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. “Those monuments are a barrier to significant portions of the audience, for whom they are not simply inaccurate or annoying. They are traumatizing.”

  • SOURCE: Gettysburg Connection
    5/15/2020

    Thavolia Glymph Appointed to Gettysburg Foundation Board

    Duke University Professor Thavolia Glymph joins the board of the foundation, which partners with the National Parks Service to preserve and promote historical sites near Gettysburg related to the Civil War battlefield and to the military career of Dwight D. Eisenhower.

  • SOURCE: National Parks Conservation Association
    5/1/2020

    "An Honest Reckoning"

    Hundreds of people were once enslaved at the opulent  Hampton estate, but for decades after the site became part of the National Park System, their stories remained hidden.  That is changing. 

  • SOURCE: AP
    2-22-13

    National park cuts detailed in memo

    The towering giant sequoias at Yosemite National Park would go unprotected from visitors who might trample their shallow roots. At Cape Cod National Seashore, large sections of the Great Beach would close to keep eggs from being destroyed if natural resource managers are cut.Gettysburg would decrease by one-fifth the numbers of school children who learn about the historic Pennsylvania battle that was a turning point in the Civil War.As America's financial clock ticks toward forced spending cuts to countless government agencies, The Associated Press has obtained a National Park Service memo that compiles a list of potential effects at the nation's most beautiful and historic places just as spring vacation season begins......Even Declaration House in Pennsylvania, the place where Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence, wouldn't be spared. Nor would comfort stations on the Natchez Trace Parkway in Mississippi...