Transcripts For CSPAN3 National Park Service Centennial 2016

Rightanton here to my grew up in fort worth. He was recruited into a summer seasonal job when he was a student at houston filton college. That began a long career stretching out some 54 years in the nations service. Bottom in at the grantee 10 National Park and worked his way all the way to the top, when president bill clinton appointed him director of the National Park service from 1997 through 2001. He wasthat superintendent of National Capital park in the d. C. Area. And the Virgin Islands National Park. He then served as regional director to the National Capital region. Then he made the mistake of retiring, which meant he was in even greater demand. Senioras served as advisor to the Secretary Department of the interior, and then was appointed by president obama in 2014 for a four year term on the Advisory Council of Historic Preservation. , who is supposed be here, is unfortunately home in bed. Home in bed with the flu. She sends her regrets. This is no longer a legal session because it is all male, and that is prohibited by the constitution area i tried to remedy that. Some of the best people in this National Park Service Collaboration were sitting in the front row. They will go nameless for a few minutes. They turned me down. But we will proceed unconstitutionally. I will get to president cronin, decorated degrees from he served as a member of the executive board from 2008 through 2011. President s of the American Historical Association since 2012. Nearly everyone in this room has land, orchanges in the natures metropolis in the great west. Probably some of you were asked this morning on the 25th anniversary of that book. And then uncommon ground or reinventing nature. He is a macarthur fellow. He served on the board of directors, trust for public land, the National Land conservation group. He has been a member of the Wilderness Society for some two decades or more. As of 2014 he serves as vice chair of the organizations governing council. My own role in working with the National Park service goes back to the first collaborative agreement signed in 19941995 when it was president of oah. I have worked in philadelphia with the Independence National historic parts and others. I was one of the coauthors of imperiled promise. I will speak about that after bob stanton talks. I was a member of the Second Century Commission, of which delivered a report to congress and the president on the state of affairs in the National Park service. With those introductions i will turn to bob stanton it was going to reflect on all the many years in the Parks Service and some of the problems he sees. Mr. Stanton he or she is a better citizen with a keener appreciation of living here in the United States who has toured the National Parks, stephen matthey, the first director of the National Park service. Good afternoon. Its a pleasure to be with you. Let me hasten to thank bill and gary, two pillars, to scholars, two outstanding friends of your National Parks National Park service. And he i have known and worked with the settlement for many, many years. I also want to thank the leadership of the organization of american historians for the gracious invitation to be with you. When i think about speaking to such an august body, scholars among all of you, and it couple that with the opportunity to speak about an agency that ive been associated with directly and indirectly for over half of a century, its difficult to diss discipline my longwinded this longwindedness because i love to share the National Parks and responsibility of the National Park service to such an audience. I will attempt to be brief. We want to allow for some opportunity to interact with you bnbs and gentlemen. I spoke earlier about Stephen Matthews, recognizing the benefits. One of the entangled benefits of the National Parks is that they provide an experience for us to become better citizens. So assuming that each of you has visited a National Park, i must conclude that im in the company of good citizens. And for those who have not toured the parks, we will chat afterwards. It would be important to briefly reflect on the growth of the National Park system and the increased responsibilities of your National Park service. We reflect on 1872. Prior to then there were 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 of until august 25, 1916, Something Like 30 parks, monuments, memorials having created. But there was not a Single Agency that can be held accountable for the stewardship. Many outstanding leaders, john merck, homestead, Stephen Matthew and others advocated that there should be one Agency Responsible for administering these rich natural and cultural resources. They prevailed and congress did over a period of sessions marked of a bill, signed into law by president woodrow wilson. It established within the department of the interior National Park service the. Interior the National Park service. Before there was a National Park service the secretaries of the interior had difficulty in maintaining these areas and protecting them. They tried it with a civilian workforce. Well, i need to turn to an organization that has a lot of personnel, a lot of help. So obviously that was the department of war, that we know today as the department of defense. The department of defense secretary said im willing to help you if Congress Says it is ok to do that. Congress authorized at the request that if the secretary of the interior requested the department afford to provide services, which it did, so you found the cavalry protecting the yellowstone, yosemite, sequoia. For you who have served or are serving in the military forces of the United States, all of us oh and applause to your predecessors for they were the first two words of the National Parks. I applaud you. Fastforward. The parks system continued to grow at the request of the American People. In 1933 president roosevelt authorized a major reorganization that tripled the National Parks system overnight. With some 60 new parts being added. Not new parks, bookmarks but memorials transferred to the National Park system. Fastforward again. There was somewhat of a hold on the creation of new parks during the depression and world war ii, korea. After that they were brought out of the mothballs but with the legendary leaders of the park service, conrad werth. Connie werth. Through today what has occurred or difficult times the American People have still set aside the special places to a National Park system that represent over 400 areas. Every state has a park area. Kuan, alaska. Guam, puerto rico and obviously washington, d. C. I might add because i want to interact here is that with the National Park service was established in 1925, it had responsibility of administering one act. The organic act of 1960. Plus a policy directive from the secretary lane in 1918. Today your National Park service has a responsibility and the accountability of responding to no less than 100 individual pieces of legislation or public laws, perhaps almost the same number of executive orders. The clean air act, the clean water act, the Historic Preservation act, endangered species act. Every law has to be attended to by your Parks Service. I will conclude that the scope of the responsibilities of the park service is that is beyond that of administering the 400 plus areas. It also administers the land and Water Conservation act, the Historic Preservation act as a relates to the National Historic registry, longdistance trails, National Heritage areas. All in great just because they represent the broad diversity of the Cultural Heritage. Your National Park service is a Great Organization but it will not exist, it will not be successful without the individual collective support of the American People. And the American People have consistently provided support to the park service. The greatest way i had as the director joy i had was to recognize we were trustees of a great legacy given to us by the American People. One of the greatest personal joys i had was to work with the finest men and women of any federal agency. The men and women of the National Park service, plus the almost 200,000 volunteers. [applause] i think bill will respond to what im going to tell you about this imperiled National Park Service History of the imperiled history of the National Park service. I will read a brief underlying premises of this report. It is built on about 1500 electronically sent questionnaires it was sent out to anyone with a historyrelated job in the park service. We had a good response of over one third. This report is still based on the view from the belly of the beast. Many, many segments of the four of us. Here we sit at the very beginning of where understandings of what we were about. Or in sense our view of what needed to be done is the Parks Service would forward. Expand interpretive frames beyond physical resources, emphasize connections of parks with a larger history beyond the boundaries, highlight the effects of human activity on natural areas, acknowledge that history is dynamic and always unfinished, recognize the Park Services own role in shaping the parks histories, attend to history and memorialization at Historic Sites, highlight the open endedness of the past. 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 and development for civic participation, Share Authority with an technology from the public, and finally Better Connect for the rest of the history profession and embrace interdisciplinary collaboration. Those were a set of injunctions if you will that we were able to agree on and out report was read, revised, vetted at seven different conferences with focus groups. We try to get as much Civic Engagement in creating this report. You will find it online, free access online at both the oah website andy National Park service and the National Park service website. Type in imperiled promise. What i would like to do this talk a little bit about this session and his goals and why i am here. We really are missing john, the one who organized this session. I asked her to unilever questions email me for questions. We wanted to have a conversation with bob stanton and follow in front of all of you and ask you guys to ask questions especially of him but any of the three of us up here about the issues we will be talking about. If any of you have ever been up in Something Like this, a rather awkward assignment. We are feeling our way towards what exactly we have to share a peer that will be interest of you out there. What are the somatic areas about the National Parks you think you would most like to hear from bob. My background goes a long way back. They are not that related to my work in changes in the land or natures metropolis, but has to a lot to do with my childhood. Bob and i discovered that his very first job as a seasonal ranger in 19621963 corresponded probably with the very first trip i made to the grand tetons when i wouldve been eight or nine 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 the National Parks in my environmental history courses. They are, i think, really important locus for thinking about a topic that matters a lot to me. Nature in the meaning of nature in the United States. The challenge of the parks as a place for nature is interpreted is complicated for reasons that bob gestured at when he gave you that helpful timeline. Let me remind you of a couple of benchmarks he pointed at and put them into the frame of environmental history so 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 remit of the National Park service. The parts service, the 100th anniversary were so limiting this year, did not commit to being until a good 30 or 40 years after they were National Parks, and arguably even longer than that if you count yosemite in 1864 as a federal land designation for a state wildlife park. Even before that, 1832, the arkansas hot springs that were set aside as a preserve. They were symbolically important one way or another for the American People. Yellowstone and its organic act was set aside as a public park in pleasuring ground. Think about that phrase. All the part 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 the pleasuring ground park of the National Park says 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 parts that were created where large and for the most part wildland parks on old indian territory right at the moment that native peoples were being removed from those lands. The creation of reservations in the American West was more or less simultaneous with the creation of National Parks. Thats one of the reasons why it was the department of war that was responsible for administering those lands and the opening decades. And why some of the soldiers who engaged in that war, buffalo soldiers, so that some of the first africanamerican leaders leadership and stewardship of the National Park dates of those military days. Bob is from a generation much later. He should tell you this story. Udall led the process of bringing africanamericans into the leadership roles in the 1960s. The point i want to make this audience for the organization of american historians, gary has reminded you the organization has a long history of wanting to engage with the National Parks in the interpretation of American History in one of the most important venues are most ordinary americans encounter history and our lives. In the k12 caps on classroom, undergraduate classrooms, museums, parks and especially National Parks. How the parts represent history is really important to the quotation he read at the beginning and the first director of the National Parks service. Going to the parks is about becoming a better citizen. What does that mean . What does it mean to be a better citizen . How can going to a park promote that . There i would argue in the 1960