Museums, Monuments, and National Parks: Toward a New Genealogy of Public History

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John Wesley Powell, an adventure-seeking geologist best remembered for exploring the Grand Canyon, became the director of the Bureau of American Ethnology and a founder of the Cosmos Club. He played a crucial role in connecting the interests of science to those of government. (Smithsonian Institution Archives, John Wesley Powell and Native American , RU 95, box 18, folder 57, 2002-10682) Stephen T. Mather (at left with hand in pocket), founding director of the National Park Service, at the dedication of Rocky Mountain National Park, 1915. With him (from his left) are Robert Sterling Yard, Mather’s longtime friend whom he handpicked to serve as executive director of the National Parks Association; Park Superintendent Charles R. Trowbridge; Park Service photographer Herford T. Cowling; and Horace Albright, second director of the National Park Service and the man largely responsible for implementing the Park Service’s educational mission. (Department of Interior, National Park Service Historic Photograph Collection, Harpers Ferry Center) Frank Pinkley became custodian of Casa Grande Ruins National Monument in 1901, while the site was managed by the General Land Office.Though not an archaeologist, Pinkley conducted digs and became intimately familiar with the site’s design and history. Pinkley built a small museum as a way to divert tourists from damaging the ruins. By the time this photograph was taken in 1934, Pinkley was a Park Service employee, serving as superintendent of the Southwest Monuments. (Department of Interior, National Park Service Historic Photograph Collection, Harpers Ferry Center, Photo by George A. Grant) National Park Service superintendents posed with their wives and children on the Cliff Palace Ruins, during their conference at Mesa Verde National Park, October 1925. Stephen Mather is seated on the ladder in front. Jesse Nusbaum, the archaeologist responsible for the creation and professionalization of the museum at Mesa Verde, is seated next to the ladder on the brick structure. (Department of Interior, National Park Service Historic Photograph Collection, Harpers Ferry Center, Photo by James V. Lloyd) In 1929 Horace Albright, second director of the National Park Service (seated at center) posed with the Mesa Verde Ranger force. Superintendent Jesse Nusbaum is seated to Albright’s left. Both men were instrumental in designing an educational mission for the National Parks. Nusbaum fought with the Smithsonian Institution to establish park museums as legitimate federal institutions; Albright shepherded the Park Service into the realm of historical interpretation. (Department of Interior, National Park Service Historic Photograph Collection, Harpers Ferry Center, Photo by George A. Grant) Successful Park Service historians recognized the value of material culture as well as documents . (Standing, left to right) Advisory Board member Herbert Bolton accompanies Thomas Pitkin, Ronald Lee, and (in hole) John Nagle to inspect evidence of vandalism at Tsankawi Ruin in Bandelier National Monument. Pitkin and Lee had joined the Park Service as historical technicians during the 1930s. (Department of Interior, National Park Service Historic Photograph Collection, Harpers Ferry Center) Verne Chatelain, first chief historian of the National Park Service met regularly with the Educational Advisory Board, the body of experts responsible for justifying and guiding Horace Albright’s vision of the Park Service as an educational agency. In this photograph of February 27, 1933, seated, left to right: Harold Bryant, Waldo Leland, Hermon Bumpus, Frank Oastler, Horace Albright, and W. W. Campbell; standing, left to right: Chatelain, Earl Trager, and Laurence Vail Coleman. (Department of Interior, National Park Service Historic Photograph Collection, Harpers Ferry Center, Photo by George A. Grant) Smithsonian Curator of Archaeology handpicked J. C. Harrington to serve as the archaeologist at Jamestown. Harrington’s private correspondence with Setzler documents the emergence of historical archaeology as a research methodology and management strategy in the National Park Service. In this photograph, Harrington, at rear, conducts a dig with two CCC laborers. Although Harrington was sometimes skeptical that the “make work” labor force were adequate archaeologists, men like those pictured here were instrumental in linking archaeological research to historical interpretation. (National Park Service, Colonial National Historical Park, Jamestown Collection) Historical archaeology was both a research method and a management tool at places like Colonial National Historical Park. Here, park staff members explain a dig site to visitors during the 1930s. (Department of Interior, National Park...