Museums, Monuments, and National Parks

Museums, Monuments, and National Parks

Author: Denise D. Meringolo

Publisher: Univ of Massachusetts Press

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 1558499407

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The rapid expansion of the field of public history since the 1970s has led many to believe that it is a relatively new profession. In this book, Denise D. Meringolo shows that the roots of public history actually reach back to the nineteenth century, when the federal government entered into the work of collecting and preserving the nation's natural and cultural resources. Yet it was not until the emergence of the education-oriented National Park Service history program in the 1920s and 1930s that public history found an institutional home. Even then, tensions between administrators in Washington and practitioners on the ground at National Parks, monuments, and museums continued to redefine the scope and substance of the field. The process of definition persists to this day as public historians establish a growing presence in major universities throughout the United States and abroad. Book jacket.


A Sense of the American West

A Sense of the American West

Author: James Earl Sherow

Publisher: UNM Press

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13: 9780826319135

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

An anthology of diverse approaches and issues in the environmental history of the American West.


Wilderness in National Parks

Wilderness in National Parks

Author: John C. Miles

Publisher: University of Washington Press

Published: 2011-07-01

Total Pages: 346

ISBN-13: 0295990392

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Wilderness in National Parks casts light on the complicated relationship between the National Park Service and its policy goals of wilderness preservation and recreation. By examining the overlapping and sometimes contradictory responsibilities of the park service and the national wilderness preservation system, John C. Miles finds the National Park Service still struggling to deal with an idea that lies at the core of its mission and yet complicates that mission, nearly one hundred years into its existence. The National Park Service's ambivalence about wilderness is traced from its beginning to the turn of the twenty-first century. The Service is charged with managing more wilderness acreage than any government agency in the world and, in its early years, frequently favored development over preservation. The public has perceived national parks as permanently protected wilderness resources, but in reality this public confidence rests on shaky ground. Miles shows how changing conceptions of wilderness affected park management over the years, with a focus on the tension between the goals of providing recreational spaces for the American people and leaving lands pristine and undeveloped for future generations.


Terra Incognita

Terra Incognita

Author: Anne Bridges

Publisher: Univ. of Tennessee Press

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 471

ISBN-13: 1572334789

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Terra Incognita is the most comprehensive bibliography of sources related to the Great Smoky Mountains ever created. Compiled and edited by three librarians, this authoritative and meticulously researched work is an indispensable reference for scholars and students studying any aspect of the region’s past. Starting with the de Soto map of 1544, the earliest document that purports to describe anything about the Great Smoky Mountains, and continuing through 1934 with the establishment of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park—today the most visited national park in the United States—this volume catalogs books, periodical and journal articles, selected newspaper reports, government publications, dissertations, and theses published during that period. This bibliography treats the Great Smoky Mountain Region in western North Carolina and east Tennessee systematically and extensively in its full historic and social context. Prefatory material includes a timeline of the Great Smoky Mountains and a list of suggested readings on the era covered. The book is divided into thirteen thematic chapters, each featuring an introductory essay that discusses the nature and value of the materials in that section. Following each overview is an annotated bibliography that includes full citation information and a bibliographic description of each entry. Chapters cover the history of the area; the Cherokee in the Great Smoky Mountains; the national forest movement and the formation of the national park; life in the locality; Horace Kephart, perhaps the most important chronicler to document the mountains and their inhabitants; natural resources; early travel; music; literature; early exploration and science; maps; and recreation and tourism. Sure to become a standard resource on this rich and vital region, Terra Incognita is an essential acquisition for all academic and public libraries and a boundless resource for researchers and students of the region.