Abstract
In order to understand how friends groups and cooperating associations support and raise money for national parks, it is also important to take a look at how philanthropic support for national parks has developed. The voluntary action for the public good that defines philanthropy has been woven throughout the agency’s history. Over time, national parks have been financially supported by the railroads, automobile interests, and other tourism-oriented organizations; individual philanthropists and the foundations they represent; the National Park Foundation (NPF), a congressionally authorized group, and it precursor, the National Park Trust Fund Board (NPTFB); corporations; concessioners; and a range of conservation groups and land trusts, including the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) and the National Park Trust (NPT). But not all philanthropic work involves dollar transactions. Volunteers play a pivotal role whether or not they are affiliated with a group primarily organized to provide volunteer services, as is the case with the Student Conservation Association (SCA).
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
Alfred Runte, Trains of Discovery: Western Railroads and the National Parks (Flagstaff, AZ: Northland Publishing, 1984), 39.
US Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Yellowstone National Park: Its Exploration and Establishment. Biographical Appendix (2000), www.cr.nps/gov/history/online_books/hainesl/iee4ahtm, accessed September 13, 2012.
Richard West Sellars, Preserving Nature in the National Parks: A History (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1997), 9–10.
Hal Rothman, Preserving Different Pasts: The American National Monuments. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989), 65.
Robert Shankland, Steve Mather of the National Parks (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1951), 3.
Robert B. Keiter, To Conserve Unimpaired: The Evolution of the National Park Idea (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2013), 93.
Peter Blodgett, “Defining Uncle Sam’s Playgrounds: Railroad Advertising and the National Parks, 1917–1941,” Historical Geography 35 (2007): 80–113.
Susan Kraft and Gordon Chapell, “Historic Railroads in the National Park System and Beyond,” CRM 10 (1999): 4–6.
Horace M. Albright and Robert Cahn, The Birth of the National Park Service: The Founding Years, 1913–33 (Salt Lake City: Howe Brothers, 1985), 71–72.
Sellars, Preserving Nature in the National Parks; William C. Tweed, Uncertain Path: A Search for the Future of National Parks (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010).
Jeanne Nienaber Clarke and Daniel C. McCool, Staking Out the Terrain: Power and Performance Among Natural Resource Agencies, 2nd ed. (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996), 71.
Jeanne Nienaber Clarke, Roosevelt’s Warrior: Harold L. Ickes and the New Deal (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), 111.
A. R. Kelly. “Archaeology in the National Park Service,” American Antiquity 5(4) (April 1940): 274.
US Department of the Interior, National Park Service, National Park Service: Expansion of the National Park Service in the 1930s: Administrative History (2011), www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/unrau-williss/adhi5h.htm, accessed December 14, 2011.
Dwight F. Rettie, Our National Park System (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1995).
See, for example, US General Accounting Office, Better Management of National Park Concessions Can Improve Services Provided to the Public. CED-80–102. July 3, 1980); Dennis Herman, “Loving Them to Death: Legal Controls on the Type and Scale of Development in the National Parks,” Stanford Environmental Law Journal 11(4) (1992); and Susan L. Chapin, “If You Build It They Will Come: Concession Reform in the National Parks.” Land and Water Law Review 33(33) (1998).
John C. Miles, Guardians of the Parks: A History of the National Parks and Conservation Association (Washington, DC: Taylor & Francis, 1995), 18.
Alfred Runte, National Parks: The American Experience (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1979), 95.
Bernard DeVoto, “Let’s Close the National Parks,” Harper’s Magazine 207 (October 1953), 49–52.
National Parks Conservation Association, Center for Park Management, Best Practices in Friends Groups and National Parks (Washington, DC. September 2005).
Charles F. Wilkinson, Crossing the Next Meridian: Land, Water, and the Future of the West (Washington, DC: Island Press, 1992);
Christopher McGrory Klyza, Who Controls Public Land? Mining, Forestry, and Grazing Policies, 1870–1990 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996).
John M. Ross, “Philanthropy and Americans Outdoors: The National Parks,” New Directions for Philanthropic Fundraising 9 (Fall 1995): 39–51.
Copyright information
© 2013 Jacqueline Vaughn and Hanna J. Cortner
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Vaughn, J., Cortner, H.J. (2013). A History of Support for the National Parks. In: Philanthropy and the National Park Service. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137353894_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137353894_2
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-47107-2
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-35389-4
eBook Packages: Palgrave Political & Intern. Studies CollectionPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)