Celebrating the 109th Birthday of the National Park Service

Caroline E. Janney is the John L. Nau III Professor of the American Civil War and Director of the John L. Nau Center for Civil War History at the University of Virginia. A graduate of the University of Virginia, she worked as a historian for the National Park Service and taught at Purdue University before returning to Virginia in 2018. She has published eight books, including Ends of War: The Fight of Lee’s Army after Appomattox, winner of the 2022 Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize.

One hundred and nine years ago today, August 25, 1916, President Woodrow Wilson signed the Organic Act, creating the National Park Service (NPS). Housed within the Department of Interior, the new agency was to “conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same…by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.” This commitment from the federal government originated in 1872 when President Ulysses S. Grant established the world’s first national park, Yellowstone. In setting aside 2.2 million acres of wilderness “as a public park or pleasuring ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people,” the government took the unprecedented step of managing wild lands for recreational use – and permanently closing them to settlement.

In the decades that followed, the government protected more lands including Sequoia (1890), Yosemite (1890), Mount Rainer (1899), and Crater Lake (1902). By the time of the NPS’s establishment in 1916, the government oversaw 35 national parks, and in 1933 an executive order transferred another 56 national monuments and military parks (including Gettysburg and Antietam) from the War Department to the National Park Service. Today, the NPS comprises more than 400 sites in all 50 states and territories.

For me, one park above all others holds my heart. I grew up in the shadow of Shenandoah National Park. When I was a child, summer evenings often found my family heading up to Skyline Drive for a picnic at an overlook or for blackberry ice cream at Skyland. Sometimes we would hike to Stony Man and look west over the valley trying to pinpoint our home or other landmarks. Every trip involved honking the car horn as we passed through the Mary’s Rock Tunnel.

The summer after I graduated high school, the park took on new meaning when I was hired as part of the Youth Conservation Corps. My first year I split time between personnel, the budget office, and archives. I enjoyed all my tasks, but given my long interest in history, the days in archives proved my favorite. Until that time, no official archive or museum storage had existed. But under the guidance of Cultural Resource Manager (and my supervisor) Reed L. Engle, the park built a new temperature-controlled facility and began processing historic collections. Returning from college the following summer, I worked full time in archives. I attended training sessions at various NPS sites including two incredible weeks at Gettysburg on a detail where we rehoused and moved archival collections from the old visitor center to a new building all the while learning from the NPS’s most experienced museum specialists.

I spent the next eight summers (and most winter breaks) at Shenandoah National Park as a historian. I researched and helped develop cultural interpretive programs on the park’s creation in the 1920s-1930s, the history of African American visitors, and the Civilian Conservation Corps. I prepared inventories and finding aids for historic records; answered park staff and visitor archival requests; handled artifact loans with other institutions; wrote articles pertaining to the park’s history; and edited publications for the cooperative association. My supervisor Reed encouraged me to experience all the NPS had to offer and allowed me to assist in archaeological surveys; document Civil War sites with GPS; and accompany the park biologist on the release of a bear cub that had been injured. But my proudest achievement was the research, planning, and installation of a permanent exhibit on the creation of the park still on display at the Byrd Visitor Center.

I was never on the “front lines” as an interpreter, but I credit the NPS with shaping the type of historian and teacher I’ve become. My years at Shenandoah bolstered my commitment to serving the public – to making history accessible and engaging to those well beyond academia. Perhaps most important, the park service instilled in me a profound gratitude not only for our natural and cultural resources, but also for those who wear the “green and gray.” As a scholar of the Civil War, I often turn to NPS colleagues and friends for guidance and count them among the most dedicated, knowledgeable, and hard-working people I know. I am grateful to those who partner with the Nau Civil War Center to offer another generation of college students opportunities to experience the NPS through internships including the folks at Manassas, Fredericksburg-Spotsylvania, Antietam, Appomattox, and Shenandoah.

As we celebrate the birthday of the NPS, I encourage you to visit a park. Whether its Acadia National Park, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Vicksburg National Military Park, or another, take a moment to appreciate the foresight of an earlier generation to conserve and protect our most precious resources. And please remember to thank those who have dedicated their careers to ensuring that future generations may do so as well.

Resources: Organic Act, National Park Service, Shenandoah National Park, Youth Conservation Corps, Byrd Visitor Center, Nau Civil War Center.