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:
- Develop a new and viable website for npshistory.gov
- See to it that only the best and most qualified historians are hired.
- Encourage regional- and Washington-based NPS historians to visit the parks and give interpretive talks to the public.
- Encourage park historians to give outside speeches on historical topics. Americans have a voracious appetite for serious history.
- Encourage park historians to be sure that every park has an up-to-date administrative history.
- 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
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Comments
Harry, I sympathize with your disappointment with our youths' understanding of history. And, while I morn the lack of investment in our parks, the true shortfall is in our public education system which sees far more $s than the NPS but churns out historical morons in favor of "woke" idealism.
This is a much greater indictment of public education that the NPS and while I find history at NPS sites to be critical and invaluable, it cannot replace a responsible education system. The "resistance" and specifically Alt-NPS which started before inauguaration doomed the NPS to low priority instead of embracing "making America great" and encouraging this President to expand and enhance the NPS units as part of that effort. When everyone is a protestor and resister instead of joining the effort, you must expect such results. Of course, the last Administrations attempt to use the National Park designations to achieve ideological goals, also was determinental. Hopefully, we can end the resistance and all unite to save the NPS, history and the country.
Nonsense. The problem began before this administration. This administration has only made it worse.
Harry is right on, and big time! Unfortunately, this reflects the state of our country as run by ignoramuses such as Trump and his cronies.
The trend Harry discusses has been going on for a decade, if not longer. It has nothing to do with "Trump and his cronies".
Stating the reality that Trump and his cronies are prime examples of the topic doesn't mean that someone thinks they are the sole cause. Denying that reality is a disingenuous logical fallacy.
So Rick. And Jerome. Where were both of you the other day when Bernie Sanders praised Fidel Castro for bringing "literacy" to Cuba? Even Anderson Cooper choked on that one. Harry is being kind. Last year, he offered a major university in the greater Washington, D.C., area a course on the national parks. The university turned him down for a course on the history of magic instead. I don't recall that came from Mr. Trump, but yes, it likely came from a follower of Bernie Sanders. Now 95 percent of university teaching is done by professors who prefer the Democratic Party.
I have no problem with that, since after all, I used to be one. As was Harry, I believe. The problem we have is having to compete against people who want no competition. Now, if some reader wants to defend magic, declaring Houdini and P. T. Barnum the equivalent of America's "best idea," have at it, and prove Harry right again. Mr. Trump had nothing to do with it. The Park Service threw in the towel long ago.
So Rick, you are putting Clinton, Bush and Obama into the same category of "ignoramuses'?
BUCK--- the word I used was "disinenuous", which does not refer to"ignoramuses'. I trust you have an American Heritage distionary next to your Ayn Rand collection?
AL--- Where was I? Most likely where I am today - resting in bed or my recliner pending neurological surgery. Thanks for asking. And, frankly, I didn't like that comment of his, but he is still far and away a better candidate than any of the R's.
Rick, I am so sorry to hear that. Surgery is never fun. Get well! We need you! You spice up the Traveler and keep us honest.
Al
I'm a park ranger who only works at history based sites. That is my pride and joy, sharing interp about our history.
Maybe this is relevant and maybe it isn't but both at my last park and my current park I have ocasion to talk about James Madison. I would often ask people (as I did this morning) who wrote the Consitution or is considered the father of the consitution. I consistenly get blank stares. I'm not sure why folks forget all about him. I tried guiding visitors to the answer one day and I got every guess for who was the President during the war of 1812 from Washington to GRANT (yes someone said Grant and this woman was old enough to be my mother) but no one ver guessed Madison.
I guess the point here is, this isn't a generational thing because I have had kids guess the correct answer. Last week I had a school group and this one particular kid knew what 1619 was, he knew 1776, 1789, 1860, 1863, 1865...important years for my ranger program. There wer adults in the room who couldn't answer this. So this isn't a generational thing and it's so frustrating to see the next generation getting blamed for these problems that people older than me (at my tender 27) came up with. This is a problem with public education and while park rangers have a responsibility to help, we can only do so much when we have a aystem that values standardized testing over making things really stick and matter.
There is a problem with less historians in the park service, and that's a funding issue IMO. I worry what happens when my father retires from the park he has worked at since 1974, of which he has been the historian since 1980...that site is beloved and developed my love of history....I fear for its future when he's gone.
Focus, Rick Focus. Greene made the "ignoramuses comment". I pointed out it was a long term trend and not something specific to this admin. You then chimed in that "Trump and his cronies are prime examples of the topic" The topic was declining emphasis on history and ignoramouses If they are prime examples then so are all recent prior Presdients and their cronies.
Sigh. I might be the one with neurological surgery scheduled [sorry to repeat, but taking a blade to one site on the spinal cordwith a possible 3 or 4 sites to follow, and also considering brain surgery to drain fluid kinda stays in my current thoughts] but I'm not the only one with mentation lapses, just the only one to admit to them.The only mistake I made with my "you are disingenuous" observation was misspelling. That was an accurate statement. Your logical fallacy of then conflating a prime example to then automatically include prior presidents and cronies put you back on the rocks.
I'm gonna sit back for a while. I've got enough on my plate. In a good decade or more, I've never "won" an argument or discussion or debate with Mr Buck. I'm not holding my breath for the next ten years. Frankly my concern has always been correcting misinformation out there.
I think an unspoken part of this issue is who fills in the gap on top of everything else they are doing? I am on my 3rd Historic Site as a permanant. Only one of those sites has had a historian, after they retired they were never replaced. This adds greatly to the workload of the interp staff at those sites because they have to become the de facto historians for those sites in addition to their regular duties. Certainly any interpreter at a historical or cultural site should be well read in the history of their site and it's context in the bigger picture, but that doesn't replace someone who has a nearly sole focus of retaining and sharing that knowledge with staff and public, telling them the good sources from the bad, discussing historiographical changes, etc.. It is a sad state of affairs. In the long run it just means we need to dig down and work a little harder so we keep moving forward. That is easier said than done, but what is the alternative?
Thanks for your dedication as a Public Servant and taking the time to write the article and present the issue to a wider audience.
Great points Harry. Protect and preserve so we all can learn.
Thank you John.