The NPS’s Reconstruction

12 Thursday May 2016

Posted by Keith Muchowski in National Park Service

When I was at the Lee Mansion at Arlington a few weeks ago I picked up a copy of the NPS handbook on the Reconstruction Era. The handbook was published in March and follows the same formula as the NPS offerings about the Civil War, War of 1812, American Revolution and other topics. It contains 12-15 chapters on various topics on the events of 1865-77 from a number of perspectives. What I like so much about these handbooks is that they contain the latest scholarship and interpretation written by leading scholars on the subject at hand. This one has essays by David Blight and Brooks Simpson, among others. Those who followed the Civil War sesquicentennial know that it was quite consciously a do-over of the failed centennial in the 1960s. Professional historians and interpreters have changed our understanding of Reconstruction. One can imagine what Robert E. Lee would have thought about people buying such a title in the gift shop at was once his home. Still the general public has been less quick to catch up to the historians. I suppose it is not all that surprising; the late 1860s and 70s were not an especially heroic time in our history to put it mildly.

Other than Governors Island, the Park Service has few sites that deal directly with WW1. Still I would love to see Eastern National put something together during the centennial. If not the NPS, I guess it would fall to the American Battle Monuments Commission. I think there is enough to put something together, but we shall see. In the meantime make sure to consider this new offering about an era in American history that still shapes our lives in so many ways.

The Wonder of it All

15 Tuesday Mar 2016

Posted by Keith Muchowski in Governors Island, National Park Service, Writing

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I have written about this a bit in the past but today is the official release date of The Wonder of it All, the book published by the Yosemite Conservancy for which I contributed a story. My chapter tells the tale of the first time I took the Hayfoot to Governors Island. One of the guidelines was that the stories could not give names. Here, though, I can point out that the guide we had was the one and only Sami Steigmann. Sami was later the person who talked me into transferring as a volunteer to Governors Island.

Don’t forget that 2016 marks the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service. It was so much fun to be part of a project marking the NPS anniversary. Though the shift of emphasis is different, I approached Wonder in the spirit of Oh, Ranger!, which was itself influenced by a book written by Horace Albright in the 1920s. It is getting warmer by the day. Wherever you are, make the Park Service part of your spring.

Find Your Park in 2016

01 Friday Jan 2016

Posted by Keith Muchowski in Civil War sesquicentennial, Governors Island, Great War centennial, National Park Service

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Yellowstone as it was in 1916, the year Woodrow Wilson signed the enabling legislation for the National Park Service. Grant had established Yellowstone itself as a national park thirty-four years earlier.

Yellowstone as it was in 1916, the year Woodrow Wilson signed the enabling legislation creating the National Park Service. President Grant had established Yellowstone itself as a national park forty-four years earlier.

With 2015 now in the books we can officially declare an end to the Civil War sesquicentennial. Some pundits claimed it to be underwhelming, but I believe our understanding of the events of 1861-65 is clearer now than it was five years ago. Visitation was up at the Civil War sites, and various bloggers did an outstanding job of telling the story. Scores of others contributed as well. That said, it is a cruel irony that it took the terrible events in Charleston this past June to bring the Civil War’s legacy into most of America’s homes. When they write the history of the Civil War sesquicentennial forty-five short years from now during the bicentennial, Charleston will be a big part of the narrative.

2016 marks the 100th anniversary of the creation of the National Park Service. National parks themselves date back to the Ulysses S. Grant Administration, and were further aided during Theodore Roosevelt’s tenure when he signed the Antiquities Act in 1906. Woodrow Wilson signed the legislation creating the Park Service itself a decade later. There are few NPS sites relating to WW1 in the United States; most of that work is carried out by the American Battle Monuments Commission overseas. Governors Island here in New York is about the closest one gets to an NPS site relating to WW1. (It is so much else besides that too of course.) I don’t have many details to give away just yet, but this coming summer on Saturday July 23 the National Park Service and the World War One Centennial Commission will be co-sponsoring a day-long event commemorating the First World War. I can’t tell you how excited I am about this and will share more detail as they come. This is the first I am mentioning of it publicly.

The National Park Service theme through December 31st is Find Your Park. Wherever you are, I encourage you to visit the various natural and historic wonders that are waiting to be discovered. And if you live in the New York area, please mark your calendar for July 23 so you can make it out to Governors Island.

(image/Internet Archive book images, via Wikimedia Commons; originally published in Campbell’s new revised third edition Complete Guide and Descriptive Book of the Yellowstone Park)

The smell of victory in the evening

06 Friday Nov 2015

Posted by Keith Muchowski in National Park Service, Writing

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I got home tonight and there in the vestibule was the author’s copy of The Wonder of It All sent to me by editors at the Yosemite Conservancy. There is nothing quite like seeing your name in print. The official release date is March 15, 2016, but the Conservancy has it exclusively until then. I did not know that Shelton Johnson had written something for the collection. Longtime readers may recall that I interviewed Ranger Johnson two years ago. It’s kinda cool to now be associated with him on a project such as this one for the 100th anniversary of the Park Service. I’m looking forward to reading his and the others’ contributions.

Bearing Lincoln

09 Friday Oct 2015

Posted by Keith Muchowski in Museums, National Park Service

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Late last week I went to the CUNY Graduate Center to hear Martha Hodes discuss her new book Mourning Lincoln. Dr. Hodes, a professor at New York University, explained that while writing her book she used the events of 9/11 as a springboard to analyze the Lincoln assassination and especially its aftermath. What she meant was that today, fourteen years after the World Trade Center attacks, the tendency is to think that there was a universal quality to Americans’–and even New Yorkers’–responses to that event. Old photographs she dug up of people congregating at Washington Square reminded her that the immediate response was more complicated than her fading memory. Such is the nature of these types of events.

The ultimate example of this phenomenon is the murder of Lincoln. Today the tendency is to believe that all Americans responded with universal grief and solemnity when nothing could have been further from the truth. Many–and not just below the Mason-Dixon line–were euphoric. This was especially true here in New York City, where Copperhead sympathies predominated throughout the war. No photographs exist of Lincoln’s assassination or the scene at his deathbed. The closest thing we have is artist Carl Bersch’s painting Lincoln Borne by Loving Hands. As far as is known this is the only rendering to have been done by an eyewitness. The provenance is unclear, but Bersch seems to have painted the work sometime later in 1865. It’s what we have.

A friend sent me an article about the ongoing restoration of the painting, which is in the care of the National Park Service. The painting has not been seen by too many people over the past century and a half, though it did go to Russian four years ago as part of an exhibit to mark the parallel lives of Lincoln and Czar Alexander II. The czar had freed the serfs in 1861 and would himself later be assassinated. I would not put too fine a point on it, but in a way Lincoln’s killing can be seen as part of the wave of political assassinations that were so common between his killing in 1865 and Archduke Ferdinand’s in 1914. Bomb-throwing revolutionaries killed Alexander II in 1881, and it was Leon Czolgosz’s shooting of President McKinley twenty years after that that brought Theodore Roosevelt to power. And those are just a few of the most prominent examples. Anyways, here is that piece from the Washington Post about the painting’s restoration. The restoration work began in August and should conclude in early 2016 with the painting going on display at Ford’s Theater.

Coming soon: The Wonder of It All

30 Wednesday Sep 2015

Posted by Keith Muchowski in National Park Service, Writing

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The North Bridge over the Concord River, Minute Man National Historical Park

I received the good news today from the editor at the Yosemite Conservancy that the book for which I wrote a chapter has gone to the printer and will hit the warehouse in mid-October. As they said they might, the editorial people indeed changed the title; there is no official release date yet, but The Wonder of It All: 100 Stories from the National Park Service will be hitting book stores toward the end of the year. This will be the first book chapter I have gotten into print. I am very excited about it not just for that reason, but because if I do say so myself it reflects many years of dedicated volunteer work. Of course it is not only my story but that of other volunteers and the rangers at Ellis Island, the Theodor Roosevelt Birthplace, and Governors Island National Monument who work so hard to make one’s National Park Service experience rewarding. It has been my good fortune to work and volunteer with many people who have taught me so much.

I remember writing the piece last November. It was actually easy to do, as I just opened up about how and why I began volunteering the winter after I married and my father died. The draft was written, proofread and sent off less than thirty-six hours after I received the announcement seeking solicitations. Alas I have no image of the dust jacket to share now. They said they would send that as we get closer to the publication date. Remember that the focus of the collection is the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service. Find Your Park in 2016.

The Park Service enters its 100th year

25 Tuesday Aug 2015

Posted by Keith Muchowski in Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Governors Island, National Park Service

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Stephen T. Mather was the National Park Service’s first director and guiding voice.

Today is the anniversary of the founding of the National Park Service. It was on this date in 1916 that President Woodrow Wilson signed the enabling legislation creating the system. National parks themselves pre-date the 1916 Organic Act. Yellowstone goes all the way back to Ulysses S. Grant’s first term in 1872. Many people helped create the NPS; the one who stands out the most was its greatest advocate and first director: Stephen Mather.

Mather was an independently wealthy industrialist who worked tirelessly for America’s wilderness areas as Park Director. He held that position for a dozen years, from 1917 to 1929. Things were markedly different in those early years. Most parks in the system at this time were west of the Mississippi. Note that the Civil War battlefields were not yet under the auspices of the Park Services. The War Department managed Gettysburg, Antietam, et al during these years. It was Franklin Roosevelt who put the battlefields under the management of the NPS in the early months of his first term. FDR’s New Deal also left a strong mark on the parks; CCC and WPA crews built light infrastructure–camp grounds, stone walls, parking lots, restrooms–in Civil War and other parks.

Eisenhower was another big influence on the Park Service. In 1956 he created the Mission 66 initiative to build visitor centers and other tourist accommodations. The idea was to get this billions-of-dollars undertaking complete for the 50th anniversary in 1966. This work was imperative. The parks were feeling the strain of the millions of American families Seeing the USA in Their Chevrolet during those prosperous postwar years. The Richard Neutra Cyclorama Building in Gettysburg was one example of the Mission 66 movement.

The NPS urges all Americans to Find Your Park during the centennial. Thankfully this is easier than ever. There are now over 400 National Park Service sites within the United States and even overseas. Many of the newer sites are reflective of the changes in historiography that have taken place in recent decades, with an emphasis on telling the stories of traditionally underrepresented groups. There are still very few World War One related destinations within the system; that is because the battles were fought overseas and the American Battle Monuments Commission handles the memorials and cemeteries there. I know firsthand that the rangers and volunteers at Governors Island National Monument are working hard to tell the story of the American Expeditionary Force. The island is rich in WW1 history. That will all play out in the next few years.

Wherever you are, I urge you to visit your national parks.

(image/Stephen T. Mather as he was around the time of the National Park Service founding; Library of Congress, permalink: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/hec2009000939/)

Remembering Merle Hay and the men of the 16th Infantry Regiment

20 Thursday Aug 2015

Posted by Keith Muchowski in Governors Island, Great War centennial, National Park Service

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Yesterday the staff at Governors Island National Monument uploaded my video tribute to Merle David Hay. I say “my” video but really it was a team effort. I wrote and narrated the text. Before we videotaped one of the rangers reviewed the draft and added some valuable insights and recommendations. He and another ranger also forwarded along some images to go with the ones I had. Their contributions greatly added to the final cut.

We shot it over three consecutive Sunday mornings in July. It is amazing the work that goes into a four minute clip. Finally one of the summer interns edited the footage. Needless to say, his technical skills are considerably greater than mine. It would not look as good as it does without his hard work. I could not embed it so one will have to click here to watch. Please note that any mistakes are mine alone. We are hoping to do more of these as the WW1 centennial continues. Merle Hay was one of the first three American to have been killed in the First World War. I hope the video is worthy of his memory. It is just one of the stories one will hear at Governors Island.

Here is the link once more. Enjoy.

Sagamore Hill set to reopen

10 Friday Jul 2015

Posted by Keith Muchowski in National Park Service, Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace (NPS)

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Yesterday’s New York Times had a write-up about Sunday’s reopening of Sagamore Hill. I will probably visit sometime in early fall. Like the restoration of the Lee Mansion in Arlington that took place a few years ago, much of the Sagamore restoration work was gritty and unglamorous. It was about the infrastructure–electricity, duct work, cleaning the taxidermy–and things of that nature. Sexy or not that is what needs to be done to keep such treasures functioning for future generations. The latest rehabilitation is now itself a part of the story of the 130-year-old home.

The excitement around Sagamore has been building for months. We certainly talked about it with visitors at the Roosevelt Birthplace on a daily basis.

Find your Park.

(image/Irma and Paul Milstein Division of United States History, Local History and Genealogy, The New York Public Library. “Sagamore Hill, home of President Theodore Roosevelt at Oyster Bay, L. I.” The New York Public Library Digital Collections. http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e4-83e5-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99)

Sunday morning coffee

07 Sunday Sep 2014

Posted by Keith Muchowski in National Park Service, Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace (NPS)

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It was a great day at the Roosevelt Birthplace yesterday. Charlie DeLeo was indeed on hand and gave an entertaining and enlightening talk about his 3+ decades maintaining the Statue of Liberty. His was a unique experience, and due to changes in procedures one that will not be come along in quite the same way ever again. Here are a few pics. In the one photo he is reaching into his hat pulling out the names of the raffle winners of his biography. As you can see, everyone was eager to have their copy signed. Keep in mind that Mr. DeLeo often speaks at schools and other venues. Everyone present yesterday can attest to how special his story is.