wilderness society for some few decades or more, and as of 2014, serves as vice chair of the organization's governing townsy. -- council. my own role working with the national parks service goes back to the first collaborative agreement signed in 1994-95 when i was president of oah and i've worked in philadelphia with the independence national historic parks and others and was one of the co-authors of imperilled promise that i'll speak about after bob stanton talks, and i was a member of the second century commission which delivered the report to congress on the state of affairs in the national parks service. so with those introductions, i'll turn to bob stanton, who's going to reflect on all these years in the parks service and some of the problems he sees. >> he or she is a better citizen with a keener appreciation of living here in the united states, who has toured the national parks. steven mather, the first director of the national parks service. good afternoon. it's a pleasure to be with you. and let me hasten to thank bill and gary, two pillars, if you will, two scholars and two outstanding friends of your national parks and your national parks service, that have known and worked with these gentlemen for many, many years. but also, to thank the leadership of the organization of american historians for the gracious invitation to be with you. when i think about it, scholars among all of you, and coupled with the opportunity to speak about an agency that i've been associated with directly and indirectly for over half of a century, it's difficult to discipline my long windedness, because it is something that i cherish the opportunity to share the richness of the national parks and the responsibilities of the park service with such an audience. but i will attempt to be brief, because we want to allow for some opportunity to interact with you ladies and gentlemen. i spoke earlier about steven mather, recognizing the benefits, one of the intangible benefits of the national parks, that they provide an experience for us to become better citizens. so assuming that each of you have visited a national park, i must conclude that i'm in the company of good citizens. and for those who have not toured the parks, we'll chat afterwards. it would be important to briefly just reflect on the growth of the national parks system and the increased responsibilities of your national parks service. we reflect on 1872, prior to there being states of montana, wyoming, and idaho. they were territories at the time that yellowstone was established, as we often said, the first park in the world. from yellowstone in 1872, up until august 25, 1916, something like 30 parks, monuments, memorials had been created. but there was not a single agency that could be held accountable for their stewardship. so many outstanding leaders, john muir, jay mcfarland, steven mather and others advocated, that there should be one agency responsible for administering these rich natural and cultural resources. so they prevailed, and congress did, over a period of sessions, marked up a bill signed into law by president woodrow wilson. establishing within the department of the interior the national parks service. but i should have said before there was a national parks service, the secretaries of the interior had a lot of difficulty in maintaining these areas and protecting them. tried it with civilian work force. but he said well, i need to turn to an organization that has a lot of personnel, a lot of help. so obviously there was the department of war that we know today as the department of defense. so the department of defense secretary said, i'm willing to help you if congress says it's okay to do that. and congress authorized at the request that if the secretary of the interior requests it, the department of war would provide the service, so founded the cavalry before the parks service. so for you ladies and gentlemen who have served or are serving in the military forces of the united states, all of us owe an applause to your predecessors, for they were the first stewards of the national parks. so i applaud you. fast forwarding. the parks system continued to grow at the bequest of the american people, and in 1933, president roosevelt authorized a major reorganization that in essence tripled the national parks system overnight with some 60 new parks being added. not new parks, but monuments transferred from the department of war, agriculture department, to the national parks system. fast forward again. there was somewhat of a hold on the creation of new parks during the depression, world war ii, the korean war. and then after that, they were brought out of the mothball by connie ward. so today, through difficult times, the american people still set aside these special places, the national parks system today represents more than 400 areas. every state has a park area. american samoa guam, puerto rico, and obviously washington, d.c. but i might just add, that when the national park service was established in 1925, it had responsibility of administering one act. organic act of 1916. plus a policy directive from secretary lane in 1918. today, your national park service has the responsibility and accountability of responding to no less than 100 individual pieces of legislation of public laws, perhaps almost the same number of executive orders to the clean water ability, environmental policy act, the historic preservation act, endangered species act. every law has to be attended to by your parks service. and i would conclude that the scope of the responsibilities of the park service is it is beyond that of administering the 400-plus areas. it also administers the land and water conservation fund. long distance trails. national heritage areas. all enrich us because they represent the broad diversity. your national parks service is a great organization. but it will not exist, it would not be successful without the american people, and the american people have consistently provided support to the parks service. and the greatest joy that i had as the director, concluding 35 years with the parks service, was to recognize that we were trustees of a great legacy given to us by the american people. and one of the greatest personal joys that i had was to work with the finest men and women of any federal agency, the men and women of the national parks service, plus the almost 200,000 volunteers. [ applause ] >> i think bill will respond to what i'm going to tell you about this imperilled promise, the state of history of the national parks service, and i'll just read the very brief underlying premises of this report. it's built on about 1,500 electronically sent questionnaires sent out to everyone who had a history related job in the parks service and we had a very good response, over a third. so this report is really based on the view from the belly of the beast. marlon miller. so here we said at the very beginning, understandings of what we were about. or in a sense our view of what needed to be done as the park service moves forward. expand interpretive frames beyond existing physical resources. emphasize kexs of parks with the larger histories beyond their boundaries. highlight the effects of human activity on natural areas.their. highlight the effects of human activity on natural areas. acknowledge it's dynamic and always unfinished. recognize the park service's own role in shaping every park's history. attend to the roles of memory and memorialization at historic sites. highlight the open-endedness of the past. forthrightly address conflict and controversy both in and about the past. welcome contested and evolving understandings of american civic heritage. envision doing history as a means of skills development for civic participation. share authority with and take knowledge from the public. and finally, better connect with the rest of the history profession and embrace inner disciplinary collaboration.inte. so those were a set of injunctions, if you will, that we were able to agree on, and our report was read, revised, vetted at seven different conferences with focus groups and so on. so we tried to get as much civic engagement in creating this report. and you'll find it online, free access online, both the oeh website and the national parks service website. just type in imperilled promise, the state of history in the national parks service. >> what i'd like to do is talk a little bit about the session and its goals and why i'm here. we really are missing joan benson, who is the one who organized this session in many ways. i asked her to e-mail me her questions, which i will mix into the conversation. but we were asked to have a conversation with bob stanton in front of all of you, and then invite you guys to ask questions of -- i think especially of him, but of any of the three of us up here about the issues that we'll be talking about. that is, as i'm sure any of you who have ever been asked to do something like this, a rather awkward assignment, which means we're feeling our way toward what exactly we have to share up here that will be of interest to you out there. so be thinking as we talk, what are the thematic areas about the national parks that you think you'd most like to hear especially from bob about? my background with the national parks is some of you in this room knows go a long way back. they're actually not that related to my work in changes in the land or nature's metropolis, but have a lot to do with my childhood. bob and i discovered in our conversation before we started here that his very first job as a seasonal ranger at grand tetons in 1962-63 corresponded probably with the very first trip i made to grand tetons when i would have been i think at that time 8 or 9 years old in one of those famous baby boomer road trips that played such an important role in defining not just my childhood, but the childhoods of lots of people of my age group. i teach the history of i teach the history of the national parks in my environmental history courses. they are i think a really important locus for thinking about a topic that matters a lot to me as an environmental historian, nature and the meaning of nature in the united states. but the challenge of the parks as a place where nature is interpreted is complicated for reasons that bob gestured at when he gave you that very helpful timeline. let me just remind you of a couple of benchmarks he pointed at and put them into the frame of environmental history so that we can then think about how the environmental history project of the national parks are connected to other kinds of heritage histories that are also in the remit of the national park service. as he explained to you, the parks service, whose 100th anniversary we're celebrating this year, did not come into being until a good 30, 40 years after there were national parks and arguably even longer than that if you count yosemite in 1864 as a federal land designation for a state wildland park. and even before that the one we forget, 1832, the arkansas hot springs, which was set aside as a reserve that really is the beginning of the process of this creation of protected lands that were symbolically important in one way or another for the american people. yellowstone, you will remember, in its organic act was set aside as a, in quotes, public park and pleasuring ground. think about that phrase. public park and pleasuring ground. what those words mean have been much debated and are part of the challenge of the national park service. i would say actually the pleasuring ground part of the national parks has been a challenge for the national parks service for many, many years. what exactly does that mean? what does the recreational aspect of the national parks? the parks that were created in the late 19th and early 20th century were large for the most part wildland parks on old indian territory right at the moment that native peoples were being removed from those lands. so the creation of reservations in the american west was more or less simultaneous with the creation of national parks in that landscape. that's one of the reasons why it was the department of war that was responsible for administering those lands in the opening decades and why some of the soldiers who engaged in that were buffalo soldiers, so that some of the first african-american leadership and stewardship of the national parks dates to those military days. bob is from a generation much later when stuart udall, and he should tell you this story, led the process of introducing african-americans into leadership roles in the parks in the early 1960s. but the point i want to make to this audience for the organization of american historians, gary has reminded you that the organization of american historians has a long history of wanting to engage with the national parks on the interpretation of american history in one of the most important venues where most ordinary americans encounter history in their lives, in the k-12 classrooms, in undergraduate classrooms, in museums and parks, especially in national parks. so how the parks represent history is really important to the quotation he read at the very beginning from the very first director of the national parks service, that going to the parks is about becoming a better citizen. and what does that mean? what does it mean to become a better citizen? and how can going to a park promote that? there i would argue, actually, that the 1916 act, which creates the agency, is profoundly complicated by that 1933 reorganization act that roosevelt put in place because it was that act that added to those wildland parks the civil war battlefields for the most part and gave the parks service this very complicated mandate of on the one hand protecting nature, nature as a park and pleasuring ground, and protecting cemeteries, protecting battlegrounds, protecting sites of heritage. and that tension between historical heritage, the memorialization of historical heritage, and the protection and stewardship and interpretation of, in quotes, nature has led to a very complicated bureaucratic culture in the agency that has been one of the challenges of leading that agency for everyone since stephen mather and bob i'm sure has more experience than anyone in this room with the tensions that exist within that space. so we're here to kind of explore what's the relationship of the discipline of american history, a subject is that everybody in this room cares about no matter -- what the place of where we work or how we practice it or how we explore that. what's the relationship of that to these protected lands that this agency plays an outsized role in preth for the american people? so what we're going to do is ask questions of bob and dialogue a little bit, again, feeling our way toward territory that will be of interest to all of you. and i thought one of the things to start with, as somebody who has interacted with the park service multiple times, both professionally as an advocate, as you heard gary say, i have sat on the governing council of the wilderness society since 1995, the wilderness society has a long complicated history with the park service. it came into being as part of a criticism of the park service because the founders of the wilderness society loathed, loelth loathed, loathed, loathed the high country roads like trail ridge road, the blue ridge parkway, those kinds of highways being built into the high mountains of the appalachians and the rockies. and didn't think those roads should be built and became advocates for this peculiar word roadlessness which would become a defining attribute of wilderness in the united states. nonetheless, the park service is one of the most important holders of designated wilderness in the united states along with the forest service. i thought the question i would ask bob as a kind of pump primer for this conversation is both i'd love to hear him tell the story of what it was like for a young african-american man to find himself as a seasonal park ranger, one of the very first in the middle to late 20th century at grand tetons, how that story came to pass and what he has to share from us about that. and then i want to couple that with a question of i think it's really important for him to share with us who tend to put history first in the way we think about this, for him to talk about just how complicated it is to manage this agency. it's an enormous agency with very complicated mandates that congress has given this agency, and just have him reflect for a little bit about that management problem. >> i appreciate that very much. difficult really to think about the national parks program of the national parks service without framing it in the context of perhaps one of the most sweetest, one of the most inclusive pronouns in the english language. simply "we." that is the very first word of the preamble to the u.s. constitution. w we. there's been an attempt to make that inclusive. but we as a nation have injured ourselves. and sometimes it's most difficult to heal self-inflicted wounds. slaver slavery. the separate but equal doctrine of 1896, which persisted in part to 1954. so while we have the national park system, the beautiful preamble we the people of that document ratified in either 1786 or '87. we just weren't ready to live up to it. but what has happened and what has been encouraging, and bill and gary alluded to this, if you were to take a look at the areas that have been added to the park system over the past two, three, four decades, they represent some of the steps and some of the stumbles that we have had moving towards that we. some of the parks represent what all the adults expected of their children, is that they can mature. and maturity also would indicate that we can recognize that we've made mistakes. manzanar, sand creek massacre, central high, selma, montgomery, brown versus board. we made mistakes. but now we put them on the forefront to saying that we can learn from the mistakes so that we'll not repeat them. that is what your national park system is telling you today. we are maturing. and these places will be there in perpetuity, giving us lessons, giving us encouragement. we are maturing. and one day we will be at that we. but it wasn't until 1964 that i could enter the front door of a small cafe where my mother was a short order cook with bill at my side. prior to 1964 i could not enter the front door in my segregated home state of texas. but before the civil rights act of '64 president kennedy appointed a very courageous young, just a kid really, i think 42 or 43, secretary of the interior in her third term as a member of congress. he said, well, i know what shall be done. even though the law did not dictate it. he said we will recruit. historically black colleges and universities in the south. so that was a beginning. and that was a courageous effort on the part of stuart lee udall. and the building which the secretary goes to each day, the director of the park service, john jarvis, authorized by an act of congress, is known as the stuart lee udall department of there are. a legendary director, secretary, who had that courage. and i would just like to leave this thought with you as i look at the cover of this folder. it ought to show legendary leaders. not industrialists. not computer founders. there's something -- there's a message here. chavez. shirley chisholm. dr. king. mr. gonzalez. and let me just leave you my definition of leadership as i think about stewart udall. leadership demonstrates an unwavering philosophical underpinning of service to others. anchored in humility, courage, humanity, and gratitude. and if you were to take a look at those whom we have honored as a people in your national park system, there's a lesson there. there are those who have given of themselves, who have given of themselves, that in the end as the people of the nation, those are whom we honor most of all. it's interesting. just take a look at those individuals by name. those have been of service to others. that is the american legacy. to honor those who have given to others. lastly, before we open it up to questions, on this centennial. yes, august 25th is a big day. and i know you historians like to traffic in facts. so contrary to popular belief, i was not there for the signing of that act in 1916. i've been around a long time but not that long. with respect to the centennial and the next park service has posted a number of activities on its website, and connecting with all america to their national parks is one of the main goals. the other is surely to accent the importance of the engagement of our young people. there's nothing more important than those of us in position or have been in position of responsibility than to connect our young people. obviously, the preservation of the national and cultural heritage at the higher standards and certainly to engage scholarly organizations such as the organization of american historians and others, in developing presentation for education, interpretive programming is a must. the park service should be the truth bearer in any interpretive or educational program, and without the scholarship that cannot be done. and scholarship is only one half of it. it's also the park service has to have the courage to tell the truth when you visit a national park. may it be with the natural resources or with the cultural. again, on behalf of those who have been beneficiary of the work on behalf of these ladies and gentlemen and the organization it enriches all our experiences as we tour the parks to become better citizens. >> i want to make a couple of remarks, and we're going to open this up to all of you out there shortly. the national park service is sometimes described as the world's largest classroom, outdoor classroom usually. but it's not just where an awful lot of americans learned something about history that they didn't learn in school. but if you've been to the liberty bell or independence hall in philadelphia or if you've been to yosemite or canyon lands, you know that there are several million visitors from abroad who get their first lesson in american history from their national park service experience. >> true. >> think of the weight of that on the rangers. >> that's right. >> but it does create impressions. and they come with very little knowledge of american history. they come with open minds. so they're empty vessels for the most part into which park rangers are pouring something. and it's a great weight of responsibility to try and get history right as possible, balanced as possible. and one other thing. in the recommendations of the second century commission and the o.a.h. promise, one of the things everyone notices is the park rangers are not a diverse lot. they do not look like the american people. and it's always been a problem to attract people like bob stanton into the park service and even attract african-americans on vacation to the parks. or latino americans. or asian americans. one day the commission on the second century sat on the beach in the marin headlands on the north side of the golden gate bridge where about 100 kids came to the beach. they were from san jose and oakland. and it was the first time they'd seen the ocean. they were there for three days and three nights for a camping experience to march through the headlands, to learn about marine biology, to learn about the park service. the questionnaires from the students typically said i was bored after day one, i was excited after day two, and after day three i wasn't going home. it's that kind of experience. and the park service, one of the recommendations of both commissions was to try to muscle up the junior ranger program and the youth corps in a way because it creates experience that's come through the san jose and oakland kids who first come to the baenks recruiting them into the parks and introducing them to the big world, natural world out there. so it goes on and on. it's limitless what the park service has to offer. and they're all trying to do it on a budget that's just not adequate. >> i'd be curious to hear bob talk a little bit, and i'd actually invite people in the audience to share thoughts about this one as well, that it's very, very clear that if in fact the parks are partly classrooms and clarmsz for young people to learn about the nation or learn again to invoke that complicated word citizenship, visitation to the parks is down in some areas. and one thing i'm very conscious of is that over the last 30 years, really since the deregulation of the airline industry in the 1970ss and the fall of airline ticket prices that happened as a result of that deregulation, many, many, many more families now fly to the destinations of their vacations if they vacation in that way than used to drive. and there are a great many nps units that were visited primarily by families looking for way stations on their way to yellowstone, their way to yosemite, their way to the end point destination who now fly to a ski resort or to a major metropolitan area to one of the big parks and who no longer see all of the things that are along the way. so the road trip as a family phenomenon that helped define middle-class baby boomers has not vanished but significantly diminished in the experience of american childhood. and we also have of course a whole group of inner city kids who have no way of accessing those big western parks. the big yellowstone-type places at all. and then to add a third element to the ways in which the experience of childhood is altering the experience of the parks, there are of course these things. and the video games and all the ways in which virtual reality is now far more vivid, far more seductive, far more all-encompassing and engaging than those long boring trips to get to these cold wet places where you sit around and wait to turn on your phone. so the challenge of how do you engage a generation that is now having such a mediated experience of the world is something that the park service is not alone in facing. but it's a really important challenge. so my broad question to you, bob, and again, i'd invite when we turn to q & a reflections from the audience about this one, is what do the parks look like in the 21st century, especially for young people? especially for young people from families that do not have historical experience of visiting parks as part of their family culture. huh do the national parks and other parks as well remain relevant to american children whose experience of childhood is radically different than it was 50 years ago. >> you alluded to a number of possible causes in terms of the level of visitation. i am pleased to note, however, that as more areas come into the park system that reflect the richness and the diversity of our people and of our nation that's beginning to get more attention. i do see a larger number of asian americans, american indians, latinos and african-americans visiting parks as it relates to their individual history. but if you were to take a look at some of the larger destination parks, if you will, you do not find a i substantial increase in visitation. and i don't think there's any substitute for a personal visit, notwithstanding that one can reap a lot of information via the internet and social media and what have you. and what has taken place now is a number of non-profit as well as for-profit organizations underwriting youth experiences in national parks. i've been at grand teton national park twice this year for two major youth programs underwritten by organizations that want to give the young people an in-depth orientation to the parks in grand teton. grand teton's a good park to start with. so that's beginning to take place. one of the things that i really want to evaluate and haven't dealt with it extensively, bill mentioned the family trips. and i remember interacting with a lot of my colleagues that used to take additional trips with their family in the station wagon. and vacationing for me was a very foreign thing. i was either in the corn fields or cotton field or what have you during the summer months. so we didn't have vacations. but the other thing is that i'm not quite sure we have psychologically overcome some barriers in terms of additional vacations because when i worked at the station in grand teton there are families who have been coming in and out of teton and yellowstone for decades and their kids and their grandkids come. that was not true, particularly in the african-american community. how would i dare get in my car in fort worth and drive to yellowstone before 1964? i would have to worry about where am i going to sleep, where am i going to eat? i was refused service in jackson, wyoming in '62, '63 because they were not compelled to open their doors under the doctrine of separate but equal. and they could do that legally. so there has not been a tradition of traveling because you were not accommodated in places. and that's beginning to break down now. there's a little more comfortable avocation by families to travel. these places are open to you. but it wasn't until 1945 that if i were to have gone into shenandoah there would have been a campground for colors and a campground for white. talk about courage again. harold ickes, franklin delano roosevelt, secretary of the interior issued a secretary order in 1945 saying that all facilities in the national parks, whether you're in the deep south or not, will be open and available to all. can you just imagine with the surrounding community, you mean you're going to let those black folks go in there, eat beside of me, sleep beside of me in the park and they can't do that outside of the park? so if in 1945 i was exiting at that time, my parents wouldn't dare take me to that kind of circumstance. why would they? we have inflicted some wounds on ourselves. they began to heal. so to the extent we can make our young people aware of the richness and say that you will be accepted in the neighboring communities and in the parks that would go a long way because they cannot get experiences from their grandparents. they don't have a frame of reference. they did not express themselves. these are facts, ladies and gentlemen. we don't talk about it a lot, but these are facts. we still have quite a bit to overcome. >> all right. it's your turn. please, we have microphones at the front of both aisles. step right up and please give us your name and your institution. and stand and deliver. >> i'm linda izerman, an educational historian at wheaton college just up the road here. my very first job out of college was with the national park service. i was an editor for the national register of historic places. >> excellent. >> so i'm very aware of what you're saying, that not everything in the park service is yosemite. >> that's right. >> or grand teton. and when i think about your question about how to bring younger people into the parks i do think the schools have a big role to play. i've always lived in cities, and i know those rangers in the brown shirts. my question for you, though, from a practitioner point of view, director stanton, but also from scholars is about financing. over time you've just been incredibly passionate about some of the ways in which we opened the parks and not. but over time what has been successful with congress, what arguments have worked, when have we said let's expand the park service, let's give more money, so it's either over time or it might be over the type of parks we're trying to open and create. so from your own experience or for bill and gary, what have we found has been successful at opening up congressional appropriations? >> next question. [ laughter ] i appreciate that very much and appreciate your work with the national registry. the folks in that office had developed what they call teaching with historic places. lesson plans that teachers can use in the classroom that speaks to the richness of some of these areas. that question and that debate about how we as a people finance a fund, programs, operations, development of the park in a sustainable way because it's a given from my perspective that the american people will continue to add parks, heritage areas, long-distance trails and what have you, as a part of the portfolio of the park service. and funding has not kept pace with that major, major responsibili responsibility. i would salute congress in this sense, that they have given some new authorities to the park service in terms of revenues. in addition to the direct appropriation, which takes place on an annual basis. all fees, recreational fees, campground fees, entrance fees, every last penny is authority by congress for the national park service to keep. that generates probably between 150, $180 million. concessions operating on a permit or contract with the anational park service, and some are major operations such as the hotels in yosemite or on the south rim of grand canyon. they are obligated to pay a fee, a percentage of their gross, to the national park service. the park service by law now is authorized to keep all franchise fees paid by the concessioners. many, many years ago if you were to see a movie, for instance, "spencer's mountain" was filmed in the teton valley with henry fonda and maureen o'hara when i was there. the only choice who hollywood, in this case warner brothers, was to give credit, that the film was filmed in grand teton. and that was a practice adopted many years ago to promote the parks. now through some evaluative process when hollywood comes in or any other motion picture producer comes in to the park and big benefit of the scenery or what have you, they have to pay a fee. the fee is retained by the national park service. but even with those new authorities and the direct appropriation, there isn't that much money. i mean there isn't enough money. then in 1997 the park -- congress established the national park foundation, which is the philanthropic corporate arm, if you will, of the park service to raise money and in kind services from corporate america. they're doing a bang-up job. and the american people, very generous, make donations. over 200,000 volunteer their services. philanthropy has been one of the mainstays. people donating lands, buildings. aught month booel automobiles. but the park service would be authorized to accept donations i'd be standing outside the door at the end of the session. but i appreciate that question. the thing that's interesting is when -- i've got a little tally from the legislative office two or three weeks ago. i think on the average starting with president clinton up to this time when president obama said -- president bush, president obama i think over that span of time. 24 years. i guess between six to seven new parks per year have been added. or heritage areas. but when a park is authorized and is placed on the direct supervision of the park service, unless it's written in the operational law of the appropriation it doesn't come with new money. each new park has to compete with the yellowstone and the yosemites and the roger williams providence, or the john haffey heritage area here in rhode island. so i know where i am. i hope you visit thaez parese p while you're in rhode island. we just need more money. >> what i would add to that, because i think it's a really complicated question, important question, is the history of partisan politics in the united states over the last 30 or 40 years has really changed the fiscal challenge not just actually of the national park service but of all the land holding agencies of the united states government, that actually the park service does better relative to congress than any of the other land agencies which of course include fish and wildl e wildlife, blm, and usda, the forest service, as well as don't forget the d.o.d. owns quite a lot of land as well. but we don't usually count that as one of the land-holding departments of the united states government. you know, there was up until the early 1970s a pretty strong bipartisan consensus between the democratic and the republican parties about this kind of work and the park service more than most of the other agencies retains some of that support so when the government shuts down in a battle between the white house and congress over a budget bill, probably the pain at the national park service, this is the origin of the old washington monument strategy, you shut down the washington monument to make the taxpayers unhappy. >> and we did it. >> that brings more money into the park service. that's a strategy that works. but i worry a lot that the consensus over what does it mean to be a better citizen and is the park service educating young people and americans toward citizenship, the fact that the two parties now have rather different perspectives on what does it mean to educate for citizenship, means that the consensus between those parties about what an entity like the park service should be doing for citizenship is a challenge. so just to name two legislative items you should be aware of. the landon county conservation fund, which is one of the really great achievements of 1960s land conservation, signed into law by lyndon johnson on the very same day that the '64 wilderness act was signed into law actually expired last fall before being salvaged from its expiration. that's an interesting example of a political compromise in congress whereby offshore oil drilling revenue was allowed and then directed toward land conservation purposes to support things like the national parks. and notice another legislative feature of it. there's probably not a congressional district in the united states that hasn't benefited from flow of money over the last 50 years. so the fact that it's broadly -- the benefits of it are broadly diffused across the entire congress and over the entire electorate is one of the things that produces political support for such a thing. ironically, probably at the end of earmarks in the budget process has actually weakened the support of delegations for that kind of land conservation. who knew? a kind of unintended consequence at the end of earmarks was an erosion of this kind of politics that used to benefit the creation of parks. the last thing i'll name is i would say the antiquities act has been one of the great engines of the creation of national monuments in the united states since 1906 is one of the two parties is pretty deeply committed to if not the elimination of that law, the radical cutting back of that law. and i'm not sure how easy it will be to rebuild a consensus around the antiquities act. its loss will be grievous. when you think about all t protected lands in the united states and parks athat were created by that act. we live in perilous times i would say. >> thank you very much for that presentation. i'm bridget nelson of the german historical inside tootitute and fan of the national parks. i had the good fortune to visit many of them with my kids. but two things, and my issues are also financial. first of all, saying of course the breaking down of segregation and other things have brought more minorities to the parks but i wanted to bring up the issue that visiting these parks is also a matter of class because you have to have the leisure time to be able to do a road trip or even just go there physically. you need paid time off. and i'm always -- as a german with six weeks of paid vacation i'm totally shocked how little vacation time americans have. the average is two. that means for any one of my friends who have four or five there are lots of americans who do not have any paid vacation. so what can one change in terms of having a bigger, broader program to bring kids from families whose parents do not have paid vacation into the parks? the other issue is financially too i just recently heard a program on npr saying that just the repair backlog in the national parks is literally hundreds of millions of dollars and that as you were pointing out earlier the complete budget has not really been increased for decades while the number of parks have increased all the time. so the national park service is facing despite all these little efforts that we're mentioning a financial catastrophe. and i heard that now debates are being made internally at several parks to sort of privatize things. outsource things or basically sell off the rights to run campgrounds to private companies, for-profit companies. and especially in vuft idea of making it more accessible for not middle-class wealthy people, i think that's a very worrisome development and i wonder what you think of that. thank you. >> the exclusivity, if it exi s exists, on the basis of economics perhaps is a consideration. if you were to take a look at secretary lane's letter of 1918 he directed stephen mather to work with the railroads and it was the railroads that were the principal sponsors of visitation or encouraging visitation to the large parks because of the ridership and these companies that built the large hotels in glacier, yellowstone, and grand canyon. there's obviously some economic benefit for those who have the wherewithal to pay for a train trip to these large parks. so you're right. there still is some perception that these parks are sort of off base if you don't have the economic means. one would hope that the rates being charged pursuant to contracts or permits by concessioners for overnight lodging, horseback riding, boat riding, are within the financial range of those visiting the parks. then the question of parks being so remote, i don't feel there's a substitute a person experiences. and there was some debate that maybe there needed to be a larger role on the part of the federal government via the national park service to provide quality outdoor nature, history, recreati recreational opportunities, experiences close by that you could walk to or bike to. and that debate was raging quite heavily during the early '70s. and out of that was created golden gate and san francisco gateway in new york. some of the other urban centers -- well, that should be good for us. so we have chattahoochee. we have cuyahoga. santa monica. in los angeles. most of them carved out of these -- the two gateway out of surplus military bases. so they are now larger recreational areas within walking distance in high density urban areas. but that still is not a substitute of getting people into the larger destination of a park. i don't have a solution to that. yes, sir. >> my name is steve talitson. i'm at purdue university northwest. the newest urban park in the national park system is a half hour from our campus in indiana. and i've been taking my students from my post-1877 u.s. history class there for 16 years. so i was very pleased when last year it was made a national park. but when i took my students there last saturday, there was still no federal presence there. there was not a single park ranger there with what you were saying a little earlier. does that mean you're going to have to wait for a while as one of the newest parks for the national park system. then my second question is i've been an academic adviser as well as history professor and when i had students who wanted to become history majors and said i don't want to teach, what other jobs would there be, i had always said to them presumably you might be attracted to the national park system to be a ranger at a battlefield park or some other historic park. in fact, can you tell us whether or not the next park system does hire very many history majors to be park rangers? >> you referenced the new national monument in chicago proclaimed by president obama under the antiquities act of 19 1906. i think there's two responses. one is that obviously for the new areas they have to compete for money to get the kind of uniform presence. but i think just in terms of public positions for historians and others i think there has to be more done. and this is true of all the directors that we try to group with and it's a mandate in the organic act establishing the park service. the agency thus established shall promote and regulate. we have an obligation to promote every unit in the national park system. unfortunately, when i say national park service what conjures up is some of the larger parks. they don't think about roger williams, if you will, john chafee or mcleod bethune memorial. we've got to do more to promote every unit in the park system. the other is, and we've dealt with this for years, is that the park service in terms of this workforce is more than the range or the interpreter, maybe the biologist or others that are on the front line. and we haven't -- i still say we. the park service hasn't done the best job possible in talking about the breadth of career opportunities. engineers, landscape architects, historians, typists, photographers, graphic artists. almost every discipline under the sun is represented in the workforce of the park service save perhaps a neurosurgeon. but that is not the concept i want to apply to the park service. we need to do a better job telling the young people you don't have to go out there and hug a tree to be a park service steward. you can be an engineer or landscape architect. appreciate that. >> i'll try to be brief since i think we're probably getting low on time. i was driving through -- staying in shenandoah national park last summer and it was a very hot day. >> which park? >> shenandoah. >> okay. yeah. >> hot day. and i went into the visitor center and discovered a history exhibit in there which was possibly one of the most remarkable museum history experiences i've had. it's a phenomenal exhibit. it talks about how land was appropriated to create the park, it talks very critically about the creation of skyline drive, it talks about segregation in the park and watching children in this exhibit with their parents was a very emotional moment for me. i really flts like something i do professionally was connecting to the public in a very deep and meaningful way. and it got me thinking about that space is an indoor space. and most people go to the parks for outdoor experiences and there seems to be some sort of dissonance there. i didn't know it existed at all. i'd read 48 hours about which direction i should hike the old rag loop in but i had no idea even though i'm a historian that there was this thing here. i guess my question is two sides of the same coin, on the one hand how do we make these visitor centers, these indoor spaces become an essential part of every visitor's experience, how do we make it the first hit when they google shenn dough o., auf got to see the visitor center. then on the other hand how do we incorporate this sort of public history with the outdoor experience as well? there are a lot of placards at pulloffs and things, most of them seem very dated to me any experience but they're also not very interactive are there any efforts under way to either make the visitor centers more central experience or to make outdoor spaces? >> my esteemed colleague friends will answer that. i remember speaking to some group about the importance of the educational experience in the parks. said the hell with that, i just come here to have fun. it is sort of the mindset that some people don't want to avail themselves to the educational richness of that experience, i just want to go out and have fun. i don't know. the parks accept volunteers and you can volunteer to help resolve that problem. but it's a real one. >> what i would add is that the shenandoah exhibit is a remarkable exhibit and it points to several things. one is that the history of the agency itself is a really fascinating history. and that exhibit is one that makes it so striking is it is as much a criticism of nps -- >> and it's embodied in the truth. >> it's embodied in the full complexity of all the things that happened in that space. and so inevitably any bureaucratic agency, especially one with as strong a culture as nps. nps has one of the strongest cultures of any federal bureaucracy i know, and i mean that as praise. but any agency whose employees take great pride in the work they do and the work of their agency, it's kind of complicated to figure out how to tell a story in which the agency is not the hero of the story or if it's the hero it's a pretty complicated hero. bob's been gesturing at those kind of themes in american history with everything he said. but how to tell those stories is not trivially easy. it's actually easier for academics to do it than it is for public agencies that have to serve the whole range of the american political spectrum. one of the questions i was going to ask bob but i don't think i will is so the voters who are currently voting for donald trump and the voters who are currently voting for bernie sanders and the voters who are voting for ted cruz and hillary clinton, represent very different swaths of the american electorate. all are supposed to be served by the national park service. all are supposed to recognize in the national parks some anchoring symbols of the value of what they care about in their nation, that they feel good about what it means to be an american or if not always feel good about what feels good to be an merngs at least feel, huh, this is my experience, i need to engage -- i need to take responsibility for what i experienced. what i just said is not trivial. it's a very difficult thing. finally, i'll raise this thing again, and to say i think we could be doing way more, and not just in the national parks but all of our public history settings to make sure the indoor experience of the museum and the outdoor where the environmental historian speaks, where this can actually help me navigate the outdoors and bring the outdoors indoors. that's actually what the virtual is good for. we are way behind in doing that. the park service website is web 1.0. it's about as far behind where it ought to be as it's possible to imagine. but without appropriations, to go to that earlier question -- >> redesign right now. >> i know that. all good. but it's been around for a long time in an unredesigned state. remember, the antiquities act allows the president to create new monuments. it does not mandate that congress will appropriate a single dollar to staff or do anything to appropriate those. the impasse between congress and the white house over the creation of parks and the sustaining of parks is a huge political problem for this stuff. >> thank you. i'm jennifer andon, stonybrook university, and i actually have worked as a consultant to many different public history sites involving the history of slavery. and i have two questions. one is in your experience, in your tenure with the park service, have you seen challenges with how history is being interpreted given the politicized environment we are in in recent years and this idea of a history americans can feel good about? how have you approached that challenge of interpreting challenging issues? and secondly, this amazing report that has been put together, the imperilled past, what impact do you hope to see that investment in examining the park service and how they're utilizing historic resources, how do you hope that report is going to have an impact? thank you. >> you want to respond? >> gary, you should. >> go ahead. you start and -- >> yeah. go ahead. they want to hear you. >> i think the first part of the question was with respect to providing educational and interpretive experiences relative to some of the difficult periods of chapters in our collective history. i'll mention this as a part of one's leadership is that of courage. now, admittedly, when there is an absence of scholarship or facts, you really can't present a factual orientation or an overview or interpretive program with respect to the experience. but we have known the facts in many instances. but we did not have the courage because of possible pushback because of the constituency of the public with whom we've served. and sometimes there was an assumption on our part. the movie some good men with jack nicholson and -- what's the name of the other fellow? you can't handle the truth. my experience tells me the american people can handle the truth. some more than hours. based on the scholarship that is available through the fine work of the organization american historian there's no excuse of not telling the truth. what i've noticed, there's courage on the part of many of the superintendents, to be out front saying this is the story we're going to tell. not only the primary story of why that area exists but some of the layers of history that have taken place in that part. then i had a superintendent at martin luther king historic site in atlanta, georgia. he wanted to talk about what have been the difficulties of the american experience in days past in which there was a lot of lynching going on, particularly my home state of texas. and he had an exhibit called "without sanctuary," talking about the deplorable status of lynching in this country. that that happened in this country. but if you want to understand the depth of the pain that we're trying to erase, tell the full story, we have to deal with the truth and just put it out there. the american people can deal with it. >> thank you for that. it's a very important question. let's recall the enola gay debacle in 1995. it was a firestorm, and congress was threatening to cut off smithsonian funds. and the enola gay had been in the planning stage for five years. it was canceled. it was shelved. and it led to a lot of self-censorship among museum directors all over the country. because they were supported by funds and funders that sometimes they felt they could not -- they couldn't defend. and maybe now it's 20 years later. there's a session tomorrow on the 20th anniversary of the history standards and the culture wars of the '60s. and we may be going through this again. i think bob's comment is very, very brave. but i know damn well if i was wearing the smokey bear hat and i'm down at vicksburg and it'm northerner and i'm telling my story as though i understand the history i'd have to have a flak jacket on -- >> i've got your back. don't worry. >> we don't have that problem in the colleges and universities and the classroom. in all my years at ucla i've never had the parents come to me and say i don't like your reading assignment, i don't like what i'm here about youring lectures from my daughter or my son. we don't face that because we're not out there in the face of the public. it brings me back to the point that every one of us has to be a historian. we have to keep engaging with the public over and over again. there are a lot of people out there who just don't understand what historians do and are willing to believe there are dirty historical revisionists out there who are trying to steal our history. so we have to be out there all the time or we're going to have another firestorm in our face. >> i'm chuck garning. i have the pleasure of working here in the blackstone river national historical society. i welcome you back here because you were here in the summer of '98. one of the positive things we can talk about is what the heritage areas have done for the national park service and the idea of creating partnerships with the many non-profits that are out there. and i think the relationship with the national park service and national park foundation, particularly the ticket to ride program where parks put grant applications in for transportation money to go into the neighborhoods, to bring kids who wouldn't normally be part of the park experience to have that park experience. because i believe that's how you create that tradition. we get letters all the time when we take kids out in the park. one is visit because jose territory says the first time he ever saw a turtle was on this field trip, ranger chuck. those partnerships are really valuable and very important aspects we need to continue to build on. >> i appreciate that. you're right on point. on the national heritage area, the first one i think created in '84, and i see one of their leaders in the heritage area operation operational -- is that the heritage areas represent again the richness of our area. michael allen from south carolina, the guligichy heritage corder, rich 234 history. is another way of getting people close by into areas not administered by the parks but it's the partnership that is so great. the youth program in 1970 authorized the youth conservation corps that allows land management agencies to hire young people during the traditional summer break 15 to 18 years of age. then in the early '90s the public lands corps speak to getting young people engaged. then as a result of the 75th anniversary congress has given the parks perpetual authority to use its own money plus donated money to transport i think the exact language is to transport youth from neighboring communities into national park for organized educational programs. an effort but it's not catching on with the youth. >> the next comment comes from ann wizonan. she chaired the committee and poured her heart into this. >> congratulations. >> thank you. >> she must have stayed up after midnight. more nights than she wants to remember. >> works on roads in the southern appalachians. >> yes. that's right. and i love the exhibit at big meadows that's been highlighted here. i got up in the morning. i'm more of a morning person than a night. i have more of a comment that ties into the previous question of challenging history and the recommendation that's we made. one of the things we observed in that study was that many of the practitioners out on the front lines throughout the park service who were trying to do history and trying to take up a lot of these challenging stories often felt very isolated, alone and you know, it is frightening to try to do it in the face of all of the pressures. so two of the cross-cutting recommendations that we made in imperial promise had to do with the development of a couple of leadership organizations that might have 4e7d to sort of strengthen kind of centralized and leading support for history across the agency. we suggested the creation of a history advisory board for the park service of historians and museum professionals and people largely outside the agency but who could be a bolster and a support for the historical work. then we also suggested that internally a history leadership council of the most forward-thinking historians across the agency be put together to sort of cut across silos, provide support for each other trying to do this difficult work and give some cover at times maybe when things are happening and you're under attack. and i have to say we have been somewhat dismayed i would think -- i don't know if our fourth know if our coauthor is here, to find those recommendations have really been followed through. we had troubles kind of getting tractions. i know there were interests in the leadership council and considerable work done. we had a difficulty getting top leadership since it is a topic here in the park service to embrace those recommendations. >> appreciate that very much. it is been out of the search for a number of years but i will fulfill myself to it. i noted of a great deal of interest of the national park for the 21st century. under the leadership of the former president of the organization of america. one of my great heroes of the lak lake,. as i understand the recommendations t propos recommendations, the proposal to have the body independent of the national system advisor's report because normally when special committed and dealing with a multiple or single issue, it is always been placed for the national park's advisor's report. i will pass it on our director. >> let me just comment about doctor john franklin -- he serviced here as an advisor, i got on my knees and begged, i would like for this group to develop a report. john was also a keynote speaker, a major conference i had in st. louis in the 2000s. i keep john's remarks that i would like to quote on it.leade. he said in that speech, those places that commemorates all our last reserve of the difficult chapter in our history. allowing ourselves to swallow in remorse to become better citizens. i mean, that's why we are here in these areas. that's the bottom line of all the cities. what have these parks motivated us to do as american citizens? that's the bottom line. that's the what we have are these parks. >> one thing i would add about this question, it is a thrilling question, for me, it is hardly linked to the vice of the virtue of the bureaucratic feature of the park. if you think about the way it is organized, there is some outsiders like us need to always keep in mind, one is it is dealing with the challenge of being a hierarchy organization but it is a dispersed unit that has to somehow regulate the behavior of those dispersed unit in a way that keep them kind of certain type. one of the devices of the park services have relied on for a long time in doing that is vesting a great deal of power of the person of the superintendent. the superintendent is the key figure of each park has its own superintendent and that person has enormous power within the boundaries of that particular unit. that's one picture of the bureaucratic culture. the second one is if you are ambitious and you want to move up the national park, the way you achieve of mobility is move around, moving from different locations is variance with the place of what needs to happen in one geographically unit. superintendents if they are hoping move around a larger park or different located park are looking for the opportunity to move elsewhere and that's a considerable question and building the personal relationships with local communities and with constituents. of course, within the boundaries of the federal government which appears inside the settlement government, you are not comfortable of the locals in that infrastructure. that's the paradigm. if you are the superintendent, you want the outsiders who are advising you to be -- oh, i don't know quite the right adjective -- you want them to be well behaved. let's put it that way. there are a lot of anxiety of who's there. >> we are almost out a lot of time. i have one announcement to make and -- okay, we'll take one more question and i think we'll have a moment for some rep comments. >> that's all it stands between you and a glass of wine. [ laughter ] >> okay, before bob making the rep comments, please note that the tomorrow the awards ceremony which i believe is in the morning. >> 3:30. >> oh, okay, 3:30. one is the oh award will be the first, and stanton award and tim wharton for their names of the historical practices. all the nominees and nominations within the park service, and the prizes awarded by the oh prize committee. >> thank you very much. >> let me say it is been an honor to be here with gary beale and you ladies and gentlemen. in 1962, i met the national park service in the same year. >> he was wearing his dark service uniform, and president kennedy, 1962, signed to all public measures proclaiming the douglas' home of the unit of the national park system located in washington dc. as i lead through the pub, there was a theme inclusiveness and diversities. i would share with you verbatim of the wisdom of baylor douglas over 100 years ago who has given me confidence. the expression of diversities and inclusion did not present a problem to me. mr. douglas' wisdom sums it up and i will share this with you. our best and most valued accusations have been obtained from our fields of thoughts and discoveries. we have reached where others have stoned. it must be inclusive that no possible native force of character and no depth or wealth of originality can lift a man in absolute independence of its fellow man. no generation of man can be independent of proceeding generations. our mankind are guarded in all parks. i believe in individuality but individuals are to the man like waves to the ocean. >> the high orders is independent as it is our lord. it is the waves of the sea derives its power and greatness from the grand and fastest of the ocean which it forms apart. we differ as the weight but we are as one. mr. douglas. ladies and gentlemen, having been on this chair for 75 years. it is, too, we are as one. thank you very much. [ applause ] >> please join us behind the black curtain this way. tonight is our american history programming in primetime. w we'll take you live to conferences and historic site. go behind the scenes with us to museums and archives and travel with us to the nation's classrooms where you will hear some college and university professors lecturing about history. as the 2016 campaign continues, watch past and presidential campaigns on the way to if white house. and "reel america" that showcased documentary and other films. watch our airing of portions from the 1975 "church committee hearing of the cia, fdi, irs and nsa. look for all of you are programming every weekend on c-span 3. all this week while congress is in recess showing american history tv on primetime here on c-span 3. >> beginning with american artifacts and looking at photographs. followed by an event in honor of the centennial celebration. american history tv in primetime, tuesday night at 8:00 eastern. next, the discussion of tl worst president in u.s. history. three historians looked at what makes the president the worse followed by nominees. it is an hour and a half. welcome to the lah 2016 and welcome to our panel, "worst president ever." i am claire potter, professor of history and director of the initiative of the new school. i want to let those in the audience who are tweeting though that the tag for this session is oah, under score, bad pres. you may want to add the #oah 2016. john butler is on leadership. as 2016 is the presidential election year. boy, is it a presidential election year. the program committee assembled a "roundtable" of scholars willing to talk about presidential leadership. but, about its failures rather than its successes. this seems particularly timely as the trump jugger knott rolling forward and yesterday the clinton and sanders campaigns engaged in a sparring match of who is the most unqualified candidates to be president. things are really getting interesting. the panel we have here today, all of these scholars have written about presidents who were bad in their own special way. although, it did occur t

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