Narratives About People and Nature in the U.S. National Park System

Narratives About People and Nature in the U.S. National Park System By Elena Zifkin Antonia Foias and Natalie Vena, Co-Advisors A thesis submitted in the partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Arts with Honors in Sociology WILLIAMS COLLEGE Williamstown, MA May 17, 2016 Acknowledgements Thank you to the Center for Environmental Studies for providing me with the funding that made this entire project possible. I would also like to thank everyone who has helped me throughout this process, especially my advisors, Antonia Foias and Natalie Vena. They have read every draft and provided thoughtful and useful comments at every step of the way, and always made sure I stayed sane. Professor Nicolas Howe also offered wonderful insights and support as my third reader. I have a ton of gratitude for all of the rangers who talked to me and let me interview them, I could not have done this project without their help and generosity. I also want to thank Josh for accompanying me on the summer research road trip. I wouldn’t have survived the trip without him! And to my friends and family, thank you for your unrelenting support, it means so much to me. Table of Contents CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION 3 CHAPTER 2. MAKING CONNECTIONS: PROCEDURES AND PRINCIPLES IN NPS RANGER PROGRAMS 19 CHAPTER 3. NATIVE AMERICAN REPRESENTATION IN THE NPS 42 CHAPTER 4. NON-NATIVE SETTLERS AND NATURALISTS 65 CHAPTER 5. CLIMATE CHANGE: NORMS AND AVOIDANCE 87 CHAPTER 6. CONCLUSION 104 APPENDIX I 109 BIBLIOGRAPHY 113 Zifkin 2 Zifkin 3 Chapter 1. Introduction One night, I was talking to my mom on the phone, and she told me that she had been watching Ken Burns’ documentary series, The National Parks: America’s Best Idea (2009). She was horrified at the images of poachers killing bison in Yellowstone before it was adequately protected by the National Park Service (NPS). To imagine these big, beautiful animals being murdered to the point of endangerment, only to be sold was utterly reprehensible. While I do not disagree, I was struck by my mom’s statement. Ken Burns, who worked closely with the NPS in making this documentary, successfully conveyed the same dualism that the NPS promotes: that humans should live outside of nature. The image of magnificent animals being killed out of greed is not only misrepresentative of the people who hunted for their livelihood, but it also helps the NPS develop a moral platform. The NPS promotes the separation of humans and nature time and again through its representation of Native Americans, its celebration of conservationists, and its hesitance to discuss anthropogenic climate change. Almost a century ago, Congress established the NPS, and in enabling legislation, directed the NPS to preserve and manage areas of “superb environmental quality… for the benefit and inspiration of all people of the United States.”1 In doing so, the NPS also took on the great responsibility of educating America’s public. With nearly 300 million visitors in 2014,2 the NPS is in a unique position to influence how Americans consider our country’s history, especially in its centennial year. 1 "National Park Service Organic Act," (1916). 2 National Park Service, "Frequently Asked Questions," National Park Service, accessed April, 2015, http://www.nps.gov/aboutus/faqs.htm. Zifkin 4 In this project, I am looking at how the NPS presents human history alongside natural history in their interpretive ranger programs, visitor centers, and museums. National parks are emblematic of our country’s most cherished natural resources, but they are also home to important historical narratives about the relationship between humans and nature. I was interested to see which histories the NPS prioritized, which they excluded, and how patterns of silence and recognition emerged throughout the different parks. My main focus is the NPS’s educational programs and the interpretive rangers who lead them. By learning about the development of ranger programs and understanding what interpretive rangers choose to talk about and why, I was able to understand the values that undergird the NPS. To date, there have been no sociological studies that have researched the NPS’s educational programming despite its reaching such a wide audience base. Over the years, the NPS has gradually included more social history in the parks’ educational programming. However, my research revealed that in spite of top-down initiatives to include human history in their park narratives, in practice, this has been done unevenly and problematically. Until recently, the NPS excluded humans from the landscapes preserved by the Park Service, in order to conform to the “national park ideal.” This ideal, termed by Mark David Spence, presents the parks as uninhabited wildernesses, sometimes including indigenous people, but only as part of the “notable curiosities of the landscape,”3 instead of as humans or separate beings at all (See Chapter 3). Rural white settlers are completely written out of the accounts, as they do not fit into the ideal of parks as untouched wildernesses (See Chapter 4). 3 Laura A Ogden, "Searching for Paradise in the Florida Everglades," Cultural Geographies 15, no. 2 (2008): 101. Zifkin 5 The Structure of Educational Programming in the NPS Stephen Mather, the first director of the NPS, advocated for educational programming in the national parks—an unpopular idea in Congress and beyond. Determined, Mather sought outside sponsors who eventually helped create the National Park Association, which still exists today. By 1919, many parks were offering educational interpretive programs, hosted by outside parties. But in 1920, Yellowstone and Yosemite were the first parks to offer “reasonably comprehensive interpretive programs directed by the Park Service.”4 These included guided hikes, campfire talks, and lectures. Today, ranger programs are fixtures in the NPS, with dozens of options available at each park everyday.5 Ranger programs are the primary platform through which interpretive rangers interact with the public. With programs designed for Junior Rangers and adults alike, the NPS appeals to a wide range of visitors. Most of the programming is meant to be relevant to a certain landscape, feature, or ecology, but it can also depend on rangers’ preferences. As I explore how, or whether, the NPS has changed its narratives about the human and environmental history of its parks, it is important to keep in mind that the NPS has limited funding. As one of my contacts explained, there are undifferentiated pools that finance everything from roadside signs to maintenance workers’ and law enforcement officers’ salaries. Because clean bathrooms inevitably trump updated content on remote signage, it can take up to two years to install a new sign. As such, many of the signs discussed herein are dated. While this is not an excuse for the NPS, it does help illuminate 4Barry Mackintosh, Interpretation in the National Park Service: A Historical Perspective, (National Park Service, 2009). https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/mackintosh2/origins_nps_assumes_responsib ility.htm 5 The programs at each of these parks are mostly NPS-sponsored, while some are backed by other organizations. Zifkin 6 some of the structural issues that impede their stated quest for changing and diversifying their narratives. My research examines how rangers produce human history in educational programs, a theme that is often overlooked by scholars due to the NPS’s ecological and geological focus. In an effort to include social history in its programming, the NPS held a two-day forum called “Co-creating Narratives in Public Spaces” in September 2014 for administrators and interpreters as well as for academics and historians. The NPS sought to “leave attendees better prepared to develop more diverse and complex narratives and to share their successes—and failures—with the larger community committed to increasing the relevancy, diversity, and inclusion in the National Park Service.”6 By diversifying the narratives presented in educational programs, the NPS wanted to help “visitors make connections with the people, events, and places that the National Park Service commemorates and preserves.”7 The NPS demonstrates its commitment to highlighting human history through initiatives like the “Co-creating Narratives” forum, along with a vast array of “cultural resources” offered through the NPS website. In response to changing views of what history is and who it should include, the NPS has largely re-written its historical narratives, at least on its website. I wanted to see if there was a shift in the practices on the ground that mirrored the shift in theory at the upper levels of the NPS. 6National Park Service, "Narratives in Public Spaces," National Park Service, accessed April, 2015, http://www.nps.gov/history/narratives_in_public_spaces.html. 7 Ibid. Zifkin 7 Scholarly Basis Anthropologists and historians have highlighted the extent to which national park administrators have erased human history from their narratives, as they have indeed removed people from the landscapes of the parks. For example, historian Karl Jacoby notes, “the authors of the early accounts of the Yellowstone region literally wrote Indians out of the landscape, erasing Indian claims by reclassifying inhabited territory as empty wilderness.”8 Around the same time, the U.S. Army forcefully relocated Native American tribes to reservations, which “eliminated any Indian presence from the Yellowstone landscape.”9 Although Yellowstone was the first national park

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