Herzog, Harry, artist, and Federal Art Project, sponsor. See America. Visit the national parks., None. [Nyc: nyc art project, work projects administration, between 1936 and 1940] Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/98518589/.
This image would be valuable to examine in an American literature classroom. Students in American literature classrooms commonly read texts by transcendentalist authors like Thoreau and Emerson; these texts characterize nature as a way to access the divine. If students are learning about the idea of manifest destiny or the concept of the American frontier, this is also a valuable resource. As students think about how the relationship between human beings and the natural world is defined in those texts, they can connect that to the creation of national parks. As a result, this image is useful for prompting conversations around American identity, since it uses the tagline “See America. Visit the national parks.” This could be used to introduce students to thinking about how national parks are connected to American identity and define particular ways of relating to nature (i.e., nature is equivalent to “wilderness,” nature as a space for recreation that is separate from daily life, nature as something in need of “protection” or conservation instead of under Native control).
From the Library of Congress description: “Poster for United States Travel Bureau promoting travel to national parks, showing a waterfall.”
- The American “conservation movement” began in 1872 with the creation of Yellowstone “as a public park or pleasuring-ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people[.]” Yellowstone was the first national park, established under Grant’s presidency (National Park Service). As David Treuer writes, “Grant’s declaration made trespassers of the Shoshone, Bannock, and other peoples who had called the parkland home for centuries. The tribes left with the understanding that they would retain hunting rights in the park, as guaranteed by an 1868 treaty. Before the century was out, however, the government had reneged on that promise” (Treuer 2021).
- The creation of national parks was part of the settler-colonial project; national parks were imagined as part of a vast, pristine, unoccupied “wilderness” that needed to be “protected” by white Americans. The creation of national parks dispossessed Native people and marked land for recreational purposes instead; “the ‘pioneers’ of conservation helped define an American relationship with nature that presumes humans are capable only of exploiting the natural world, not coexisting within it” (Swinehart 2024).
- Many national parks are either close to or within Native communities and only exist because they were taken from those communities. For example, “Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, in Wisconsin, was created out of Ojibwe homelands; the Havasupai lost much of their land when Grand Canyon National Park was established; the creation of Olympic National Park, in Washington, prevented Quinault tribal members from exercising their treaty rights within its boundaries; and Everglades National Park was created on Seminole land that the tribe depended on for food” (Treuer 2021).
- Prints like these were created by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) during the 1930s.
- What is this image advertising?
- What does it mean to “see America” in this image?
- How does this image represent the idea of nature? What does “nature” look like here?
- How does this image idealize or romanticize the national parks? Why?
Common Core State Standards
ELA-Literacy.RI.9-10.1: Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.
- Students will examine elements of the image’s design in order to develop an analysis. How does this image characterize America?
ELA-Literacy.RI.11-12.1: Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain.
- Students will examine elements of the image’s design in order to develop an analysis and identify connecting texts for further inquiry.
- Rethinking Schools has an excellent resource called Teaching the Truth about National Parks. It has links to other videos, images, and texts that can be used in the classroom to teach about the origins of National Parks in the US.
- Students could read excerpts from David Treuer’s article from the Atlantic, “Return the National Parks to the Tribes” after learning about the history of the National Parks.
- Teachers could have students examine some of the WPA posters that advertise the National Parks; many of these are included in the Library of Congress’s collections of WPA posters. Teachers could ask students to reflect on how these different images advertise the National Parks. The could extend their learning by examining any of the following questions:
- What kinds of images do they include? What do they exclude?
- In this image, where “see[ing] America” is equated with visiting the National Parks—implying that the “real America” consists of uninhabited, uncultivated “natural” places—how do these images define America?
- In order to think about the idea that nature was constructed for the benefit of white Americans, return to the language used with the creation of Yellowstone, as a “pleasuring ground.” Students could look at information about how visitors to national parks are still overwhelmingly white. Additionally, read excerpts from Marya T. Mtshali’s article, “The Great Outdoors Was Made for White People.”
- The poster itself will probably not be subjected to challenge, but teaching about the national parks through the lens of settler colonialism has more potential for being challenged.
Links to resources for approaching those topics
- Learning for Justice, “What is settler colonialism?”;
- Facing History & Ourselves, “Teaching settler colonialism: Lessons from Canada.”
- Rethinking Schools has an excellent resource called Teaching the Truth about National Parks. It has links to other videos, images, and texts that can be used in the classroom to teach about the origins of National Parks in the US.
- Students could read excerpts from David Treuer’s article from the Atlantic, “Return the National Parks to the Tribes” after learning about the history of the National Parks.
- Teachers could have students examine some of the WPA posters that advertise the National Parks; many of these are included in the Library of Congress’s collections of WPA posters. Teachers could ask students to reflect on how these different images advertise the National Parks. The could extend their learning by examining any of the following questions:
- What kinds of images do they include? What do they exclude?
- In this image, where “see[ing] America” is equated with visiting the National Parks—implying that the “real America” consists of uninhabited, uncultivated “natural” places—how do these images define America?
- In order to think about the idea that nature was constructed for the benefit of white Americans, return to the language used with the creation of Yellowstone, as a “pleasuring ground.” Students could look at information about how visitors to national parks are still overwhelmingly white. Additionally, read excerpts from Marya T. Mtshali’s article, “The Great Outdoors Was Made for White People.”
- Ada Limón, Poetry in Parks project
- David Treuer, “Return the National Parks to the Tribes” (The Atlantic)
- Library of Congress, Brief History of the National Parks
- William Cronon, “The Trouble with Wilderness; or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature”
- Zaitchik, How Conservation Became Colonialism
- Citations Needed, podcast: “Episode 155: How the American Settler-Colonial Project Shaped Popular Notions of ‘Conservation’”
- “Quick history of the National Park Service.” National Park Service. https://www.nps.gov/articles/quick-nps-history.htm
- Swinehart, Tim. “Teaching the Truth About National Parks.” Rethinking Schools, vol. 38, no. 3, Spring 2024. https://rethinkingschools.org/articles/teaching-the-truth-about-national-parks/.
- Treuer, David. “Return the National Parks to the Tribes.” The Atlantic, April 12, 2021. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/05/return-the-national-parks-to-the-tribes/618395/.