Human Conservation Programs at Catoctin Mountain Park: A Special Resource Study Final April 23, 2015 By Angela R. Sirna Ph.D. Candidate in Public History Middle Tennessee State University EXECUTIVE SUMMARY In 2011, the Organization of American Historians (OAH), at the behest of the National Park Service (NPS), published Imperiled Promise: The State of History in the National Park Service. Among the twelve recommendations the consultants made, Finding #9 "Stewardship and Interpretation of Agency History" serves as both the purpose and need for this Special Resource Study on Human Conservation Programs at Catoctin Mountain Park. The authors charge that the NPS, despite its vast institutional archives, considers its own story as somehow separate from the history it is mandated with preserving or interpreting. Staff and historians working at Catoctin Mountain Park have made progress in documenting the area’s history, including the NPS’s role. This study, however, brings both the area’s pre-park history and agency history together using one framework. It encourages park staff to use this framework to direct future research initiatives, preservation, and management strategies, while also enriching interpretation and public engagement. "Human conservation" is an idea that originated in the Progressive Era at the turn of the twentieth century and loosely parallels the natural conservation movement that created the national park system during the same period. Shaped by land economists, politicians, and recreation advocates, the guiding principle behind human conservation is that human beings are a vital, national resource (like trees, soil, and water) that should and can be carefully managed to reach their highest potential. Catoctin Mountain Park serves as an important case study in charting these programs over the twentieth century from the removal of local farm families to create a park in 1936 to the opening of the nation's very first Job Corps Center in 1965 and the installation of a pilot Youth Conservation Corps camp in 1971. State and federal officials began investigating the Catoctin Mountain area in rural Frederick County, Maryland during the throes of the Great Depression as a possible location for a Recreational Demonstration Area (RDA). Their chief aim was to retire submarginal land into a park area and resettle the local population to better farms. However, the agencies involved in the park development project never developed a plan to resettle these families, exacerbating an already difficult situation. Despite this disruption, many of these families remained in Frederick and Washington counties and continued to farm. Beginning in 1936, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) hired a number of former residents and area locals to construct the park, making it a uniquely local project. The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) established a camp in 1939, which brought young men between the ages of 16 and 21 from adjacent states to provide manpower for project work. The CCC remained at Catoctin until 1941. Together with the WPA, they transformed the landscape from a collection of farmsteads and timber lots to a park complete with roads, trails, picnic areas, and three organized cabin camps. The cabin camps provided low-cost recreational opportunities to children and their families from Washington, D.C. and Baltimore. Before World War II, the Maryland League for Crippled Children, Salvation Army, Boy and Girl Scouts, and Federal Employees Council rented these cabin camps. In January 1965, Catoctin opened the very first Job Corps Conservation Center (JCCC) in the country. Congress established the Job Corps program when it passed the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964. This piece of legislation was key to President Lyndon B. Johnson's War on Poverty. The Job Corps program was modeled after the CCC and it is no coincidence that the Job Corps built the new center on the foundations of the old CCC camp in the area now referred to as ii Round Meadow, which the NPS continues to use for various administrative functions. However, the two programs were very different. First, administrators purposely integrated the Job Corps during the Civil Rights movement, while the CCC was segregated. The CCC was primarily concerned with unemployment and conservation work. The Job Corps focused on education and vocational training, while also hoping to solve the issue of poverty in America. Administrators learned very quickly that they were poorly equipped to solve the issue of poverty. After years of heavy political pressure from Republicans, President Richard Nixon closed the Catoctin Job Corps center in 1969. The center had a profound impact on the lives of corpsmen and staff that lived and worked there, and blazed the path for the current Job Corps centers still in operation today as well as subsequent youth programs. Only weeks after the last Job Corps staff member left, the NPS used the center for new environmental education initiatives. Inner-city children camped at the former Job Corps center in Round Meadow during the summer of 1969 and 1970 as part of the “Summer in the Parks” initiative aimed at expanding park programming to urban populations. In 1971, the NPS chose Catoctin as the site of a pilot Youth Conservation Corps (YCC) residential camp. The YCC program was open to high school boys and girls between the ages of 15 and 18 and focused on environmental education while completing much needed park maintenance work. Some of the first YCC participants testified to Congress in support of expanding the program and making it permanent, which Congress did in 1974. The Catoctin YCC continued to be a popular summer program and expanded throughout the 1970s. However, President Ronald Reagan cut YCC funding in 1980. Catoctin now receives its YCC support through a regional NPS fund. Today, the park maintains a crew of about eight student-employees that work at the park for eight weeks during the summer carrying out essential park maintenance while learning about the environment and gaining job experience. This Special Resource Study builds upon the work of previous historians and incorporates a large amount of source material in one thematic structure. This study encourages staff at Catoctin Mountain Park to use this framework to expand stewardship of park resources and build stronger relationships with the public. It recommends invigorating existing interpretation to demonstrate how complex human relationships have transformed this natural area. The park is encouraged to partner with groups with a vested interest in this history, such as the Maryland League for People with Disabilities, Job Corps alumni, and current YCC participants through temporary exhibits, documentary projects, and anniversary events. The park should recognize the authority of these groups in telling their own stories. This study also deepens the context for the park's cultural resources and sheds light on those areas that remain to be documented, particularly the Job Corps center at Camp Round Meadow. Catoctin Mountain Park is one of the first parks to examine the War on Poverty in its history, and hopefully this study will serve as a useful model for other parks wishing to examine their own role in social reform and human conservation. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This Special Resource Study has been my public history doctoral residency for Middle Tennessee State University between August 2013 and May 2014. This residency was made possible through a partnership between the National Capital Region and Catoctin Mountain Park of the National Park Service and the Public History Program at Middle Tennessee State University. My gratitude goes to Scott Bell, Chief of Resource Management at Catoctin Mountain Park, who hired me to work as a Cultural Resource Specialist for the park for a summer, during which time I read widely about cultural landscapes. I began to see the Catoctin park landscape with new eyes and inspired me to propose a version of this study to Scott and Perry Wheelock, Associate Regional Director for Resources Stewardship, Partnerships, and Science. This residency was able to get off the ground with guidance and support from Scott and Superintendent Mel Poole and National Capital Regional cultural resources staff Joy Beasley, Dean Herrin, Kathryn Smith, Catherine Dewey, Martha Tempkin, and Jennifer Talken- Spaulding. I must express special thanks to Dean Herrin, Regional Historian, for serving as my professional mentor during this residency year. I hope that this project may serve as a model to future partnerships between doctoral students and the National Park Service. I appreciate those individuals who contributed to this research project including Park Ranger Debbie Mills and Park Carpenter Mark Hauver, as well as those that shared their personal memories: Tom McFadden, Elwood Hauver, Beatrice Stottlemyer, Clyde "Al" Maxey, Charles Riebe, and Lamar Marchese. It was honor to hear their stories. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES .............................................................................................................................. vii ABBREVIATIONS .................................................................................................................................. x RESEARCH METHODS ...................................................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER ONE: PROGRESSIVE ROOTS OF HUMAN CONSERVATION ...................... 6 Introduction ........................................................................................................................................................