What is the state of historic interpreation in the National Park System? Replicas of Revolutionary War cabins built by the Colonials at Jockey Hollow in New Jersey/Crossroads of the American Revolution NHA

Editor's note: Harry Butowsky spent more than three decades working for the National Park Service as a historian. He's worked for a handful of directors and seen much change in the agency. Understandably, he has an interesting perspective on the current state of history in the National Park Service. 

We're losing touch with history in the National Park Service.

While overall employment in the agency has dropped by 3,500, or 16 percent, since 2011, according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, the number of historians in the Park Service has taken a much greater hit, percentage-wise, dropping from 449 in 2010 to just 149 today, a loss of two-thirds.

Experienced professionals are retiring and not being replaced. Congress and the administration continue to add more parks and cut funding and staffing at the same time. We cannot do more with less. We can only do less. This lack of leadership is reflected in many offices, including that of chief historian of the National Park Service, a position that was downgraded after the 2015 departure of Robert Sutton from a GS 15 to a GS 14.

The lack of staff service-wide demands the chief historian develop a well-thought-out and coordinated strategy to work with the parks and regional historians. National Parks Traveler has tried for more than a month to interview Chief Historian Turkiya L. Lowe for her thoughts on the current state of the Park Service's historic interpretation mission, but has been put off.

Recently, in an op-ed written by Theresa Pierno, president and CEO of the National Parks Conservation Association, and Phil Francis, chair of the Coalition to Protect America's National Parks, the two noted that no one is at the helm of Park Service. In the column they pointed out that in the three years since President Trump took the oath of office the lack of permanent leaders in this administration remains alarming and unprecedented. No administration in recent history has had as many vacancies this far into a term. The lack of permanence at the top of these agencies means the nation is lacking established leaders in critical positions in our government — without the expertise and guidance the American people deserve.

More than a century since its founding, the National Park Service maintains an unwavering passion for protecting America’s legacy. That passion endures because of the decision-makers who have been at the helm — the problem-solvers who took the many obstacles facing our parks head on, and who were approved of and embraced as real leaders. 

This lack of leadership extends to park superintendents, rangers, and historians. At one time there was robust cadre of park historians who wrote and published first rate history studies of their parks. They met the public, gave tours, and traveled outside of parks to speak to publish audiences.

Today, this is not the case. Very few of these historians are left. They have all retired or taken jobs with other agencies. In short, the practice of history has decline to the point of failure in our parks. Park histories are contracted out to people and organizations who do not work for the National Park Service. These studies are expensive. The National Park Service is losing its in-house capability to do the studies necessary to provide for the operation of the parks.

The Park History Program of the NPS needs to develop a long-range strategic plan. This plan should contain some of the following elements:

1. Develop a new and viable website for npshistory.gov
2. See to it that only the best and most qualified historians are hired.
3. Encourage regional- and Washington-based NPS historians to visit the parks and give interpretive talks to the public.
4. Encourage park historians to give outside speeches on historical topics. Americans have a voracious appetite for serious history. 
5. Encourage park historians to be sure that every park has an up-to-date administrative history.
6. Encourage park historians to know the history and literature of the National Park Service.

Our parks represent the key turning points in our history. They help us to understand ourselves as a people and nation in today’s complex world. All of our cultural and historical sites teach important lessons in American history. If the National Park Service is to survive and be meaningful to the American people we need to continue to strengthen the role of history in our National Parks. The failure to do so will result not only in a diminished National Park Service but a weakening of the American Republic and our Constitutional Democracy.

The legacy of Stephen Mather, Horace Albright, and Vern Chatelain as illustrated in the Ken Burns documentary on the national parks is in danger. It is easy to lose our historical memory and difficult to retrieve it. If the national parks are to have any meaning for the American people, they must be managed by able people and staffed by knowledgeable and articulate historians and interpreters of different disciplines.

I visited Philadelphia on December 7, and not one young person under the age of 30 could tell me the significance of December 7, 1941. When I told them this was the event that propelled the United States into World War II, only one person could guess the nation that attacked Pearl Harbor—the Italians. There was no mention of Pearl Harbor in the news. I could only conclude that our public schools are failing to teach American history and we are rearing a generation of historical illiterate citizens.

Slowly but surely the great system of national parks is being eroded by the lack of historical knowledge. The decline can still be stopped, but it must be recognized and corrected. A good place to start is by taking the recommendations stated in Imperiled Promise, The State of History in the National Park Service (2011) and implementing them. Reports and strategic plans are useless unless implemented. Imperiled Promise was never implemented.

If there was ever a time for the chief historian’s office to exert active and dynamic leadership, it is now. Good and accurate history can show us how to manage not only current events, but also the future. Good history not only is a guide to the past, but a road map to the future. 

Harry Butowsky spent more than three decades working for the National Park Service as a historian