THE NATIONAL PARKS:
AMERICA'S
BEST IDEA -
PART 1
The history of the
U.S. National Parks system, including the initial ideas which led to the world's first national parks and the expansion of the system over
150 years.
ABOUT PART 1:
"The
Scripture of
Nature" (1851–1890) shows the beauty of
Yosemite Valley and the geyser wonderland of
Yellowstone. Additionally, it offers a lengthy discussion of how
Yosemite and Yellowstone National Parks were created and shows how
John Muir became their eloquent defender.
ABOUT THE 6-PART
SERIES:
THE NATIONAL PARKS: AMERICA'S BEST IDEA is a six-episode series produced by
Ken Burns and
Dayton Duncan and written by Dayton Duncan. Filmed over the course of more than six years at some of nature's most spectacular locales – from
Acadia to Yosemite, Yellowstone to the
Grand Canyon, the
Everglades of
Florida to the
Gates of the Arctic in
Alaska - THE NATIONAL PARKS: AMERICA'S BEST IDEA is nonetheless a story of people: people from every conceivable background – rich and poor; famous and unknown; soldiers and scientists; natives and newcomers; idealists, artists and entrepreneurs; people who were willing to devote themselves to saving some precious portion of the land they loved, and in doing so reminded their fellow citizens of the full meaning of democracy.
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The National Parks:
America's Best Idea is the story of an idea as uniquely
American as the
Declaration of Independence and just as radical: that the most special places in the nation should be preserved, not for royalty or the rich, but for everyone. As such, it follows in the tradition of
Burns's exploration of other
American inventions, such as baseball
and jazz.
The narrative traces the birth of the national park idea in the mid-1800s and follows its evolution for nearly 150 years. Using archival photographs, first-person accounts of historical characters, personal memories and analysis from more than 40 interviews, and what Burns believes is the most stunning cinematography in Florentine Films' history, the series chronicles the steady addition of new parks through the stories of the people who helped create them and save them from destruction. It is simultaneously a biography of compelling characters and a biography of the
American landscape.
With 391 units (58 national parks, plus
333 national monuments and historic sites), the
National Park Service has a presence in 49 of the
50 states (
Delaware is the sole exception). Like the idea of freedom itself, the national park idea has been constantly tested, is constantly evolving and is inherently full of contradictory tensions: between individual rights and the community, the local and the national; between preservation and exploitation, the sacred and the profitable; between one generation's immediate desires and the next generation's legacy.
As
America expanded westward, pioneers would "discover" landscapes of such breathtaking and unusual beauty that written descriptions of the lands were sometimes assumed by people in the
East to be works of fiction.
Eventually, there emerged a belief that these special places should be kept untarnished by development and commerce so that they could be experienced by all people.
Wallace Stegner called the national parks "the best idea we ever had," and no activity of the federal government engenders such universal support and public loyalty; yet the story of how these special places became preserved as parks, the role of individual citizens in creating them, and the powerful stories of people's emotional connection to them remain relatively unknown.
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- published: 08 May 2016
- views: 6