Glacier National Park
National Parks: Episode 3
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
8:00 PM and 1:00 AM
Synopsis
In the early 20th century, America has a dozen national parks, but they are a haphazard patchwork of special places under the supervision of different federal agencies. The conservation movement, after failing to stop the Hetch Hetchy dam, pushes the government to establish one unified agency to oversee all the parks, leading to the establishment of the National Park Service in 1916. Its first director, Stephen Mather, a wealthy businessman and passionate park advocate who fought vigorously to establish the NPS, launches an energetic campaign to expand the national park system and bring more visitors to the parks. Among his efforts is to protect the Grand Canyon from encroaching commercial interests and establish it as a national park, rather than a national monument.
50 years after the first national park was conceived there were still no solid guidelines or laws to protect the parks. Episode 3 of Ken Burns' series introduces self-made millionaire Stephen Mather as the new champion of the parks. He and a cast of unlikely characters, including railroad barons, adventurers and some of the nation's wealthiest men followed in the footsteps of their predecessors as they once again addressed the issues of parks as both public and protected spaces.
Personal wealth and a gift for publicity were key qualities that Mather brought to the table. He also saw that one way to build political support for protecting the parks was to make the parks popular. He hired writers and supplemented his staff's salaries out of his own pocket. He purchased roads and parcels of land and donated them to the parks. He also traveled around the nation, visiting the parks and personally assessing what needed to be done.
As part of the campaign for the parks, Mather invited a group of fifteen influential Americans to join him for a two week visit to the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California. This was a luxury expedition with catering and air mattresses, all paid for by Mather himself.
Another part of publicizing the parks was taken up by the railroads. They had been involved in creating the parks from the beginning because of the tourist trade. The "See America First" campaign was aimed at redirecting travelers who usually visited Europe to instead see "America's Switzerland." The launch of World War I in 1914 also helped persuade people to stay closer to home.
Mather succeeded in establishing a single governing entity for the National Parks, The National Park Service. He and his allies also succeeded in creating many more national parks across the country, but they still hadn't secured funding to protect the parks.
Visit the website: http://www.pbs.org/nationalparks
RELATED LINKS:
Visit the National Parks site to read more about Episode 3
Stephen Mather
The Grand Canyon
Wikipedia:
Stephen Mather
Sierra Nevada Photos
The Mather Mountain Party
Leave a comment