Myth and History in the Creation of Yellowstone National Park

Myth and History in the Creation of Yellowstone National Park PDF Author: Paul Schullery
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 9780803243057
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 154

Get Book Here

Book Description
Does a beloved institution need its own myths to survive? Can conservationists avoid turning their heroes into legends? Should they try? Yellowstone National Park, a global icon of conservation and natural beauty, was born at the most improbable of times: the American Gilded Age, when altruism seemed extinct and society’s vision seemed focused on only greed and growth. Perhaps that is why the park’s “creation myth” portrayed a few saintlike pioneer conservationists laboring to set aside this unique wilderness against all odds. In fact, the establishment of Yellowstone was the result of complex social, scientific, economic, and aesthetic forces. Its creators were not saints but mortal humans with the full range of ideals and impulses known to the species. Authors Paul Schullery and Lee Whittlesey, both longtime students of Yellowstone’s complex history, present the first full account of how the fairy tale origins of the park found universal public acceptance and the long, painful process by which the myth was reconsidered and replaced with a more realistic and ultimately more satisfying story. In this evocative exploration of Yellowstone’s creation myth, the authors trace the evolution of the legend, its rise to incontrovertible truth, and its revelation as a mysterious and troubling episode that remains part folklore, part wish, and part history. This study demonstrates the passions stirred by any challenge to cherished national memories, just as it honors the ideals and dreams represented by our national myths.

Myth and History in the Creation of Yellowstone National Park

Myth and History in the Creation of Yellowstone National Park PDF Author: Paul Schullery
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 9780803243057
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 154

Get Book Here

Book Description
Does a beloved institution need its own myths to survive? Can conservationists avoid turning their heroes into legends? Should they try? Yellowstone National Park, a global icon of conservation and natural beauty, was born at the most improbable of times: the American Gilded Age, when altruism seemed extinct and society’s vision seemed focused on only greed and growth. Perhaps that is why the park’s “creation myth” portrayed a few saintlike pioneer conservationists laboring to set aside this unique wilderness against all odds. In fact, the establishment of Yellowstone was the result of complex social, scientific, economic, and aesthetic forces. Its creators were not saints but mortal humans with the full range of ideals and impulses known to the species. Authors Paul Schullery and Lee Whittlesey, both longtime students of Yellowstone’s complex history, present the first full account of how the fairy tale origins of the park found universal public acceptance and the long, painful process by which the myth was reconsidered and replaced with a more realistic and ultimately more satisfying story. In this evocative exploration of Yellowstone’s creation myth, the authors trace the evolution of the legend, its rise to incontrovertible truth, and its revelation as a mysterious and troubling episode that remains part folklore, part wish, and part history. This study demonstrates the passions stirred by any challenge to cherished national memories, just as it honors the ideals and dreams represented by our national myths.

Empire of Shadows

Empire of Shadows PDF Author: George Black
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 1429989742
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 561

Get Book Here

Book Description
"George Black rediscovers the history and lore of one of the planet's most magnificent landscapes. Read Empire of Shadows, and you'll never think of our first—in many ways our greatest—national park in the same way again." —Hampton Sides, author of Blood and Thunder Empire of Shadows is the epic story of the conquest of Yellowstone, a landscape uninhabited, inaccessible and shrouded in myth in the aftermath of the Civil War. In a radical reinterpretation of the nineteenth century West, George Black casts Yellowstone's creation as the culmination of three interwoven strands of history - the passion for exploration, the violence of the Indian Wars and the "civilizing" of the frontier - and charts its course through the lives of those who sought to lay bare its mysteries: Lt. Gustavus Cheyney Doane, a gifted but tormented cavalryman known as "the man who invented Wonderland"; the ambitious former vigilante leader Nathaniel Langford; scientist Ferdinand Hayden, who brought photographer William Henry Jackson and painter Thomas Moran to Yellowstone; and Gen. Phil Sheridan, Civil War hero and architect of the Indian Wars, who finally succeeded in having the new National Park placed under the protection of the US Cavalry. George Black1s Empire of Shadows is a groundbreaking historical account of the origins of America1s majestic national landmark.

Scorched Earth

Scorched Earth PDF Author: Rocky Barker
Publisher: Island Press
ISBN: 1597266256
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 289

Get Book Here

Book Description
In 1988, forest fires raged in Yellowstone National Park, destroying more than a million acres. As the nation watched the land around Old Faithful burn, a longstanding conflict over fire management reached a fever pitch. Should the U.S. Park and Forest Services suppress fires immediately or allow some to run their natural course? When should firefighters be sent to battle the flames and at what cost? In Scorched Earth, Barker, an environmental reporter who was on the ground and in the smoke during the 1988 fires, shows us that many of today's arguments over fire and the nature of public land began to take shape soon after the Civil War. As Barker explains, how the government responded to early fires in Yellowstone and to private investors in the region led ultimately to the protection of 600 million acres of public lands in the United States. Barker uses his considerable narrative talents to bring to life a fascinating, but often neglected, piece of American history. Scorched Earth lays a new foundation for examining current fire and environmental policies in America and the world. Our story begins when the West was yet to be won, with a colorful cast of characters: a civil war general and his soldiers, America's first investment banker, railroad men, naturalists, and fire-fighters-all of whom left their mark on Yellowstone. As the truth behind the creation of America's first national park is revealed, we discover the remarkable role the U.S. Army played in protecting Yellowstone and shaping public lands in the West. And we see the developing efforts of conservation's great figures as they struggled to preserve our heritage. With vivid descriptions of the famous fires that have raged in Yellowstone, the heroes who have tried to protect it, and the strategies that evolved as a result, Barker draws us into the very heart of a debate over our attempts to control nature and people. This entertaining and timely book challenges the traditional views both of those who arrogantly seek full control of nature and those who naively believe we can leave it unaltered. And it demonstrates how much of our broader environmental history was shaped in the lands of Yellowstone.

The Discovery of Yellowstone Park

The Discovery of Yellowstone Park PDF Author: Nathaniel Pitt Langford
Publisher: Tredition Classics
ISBN: 9783842448285
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 164

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book is part of the TREDITION CLASSICS series. The creators of this series are united by passion for literature and driven by the intention of making all public domain books available in printed format again - worldwide. At tredition we believe that a great book never goes out of style. Several mostly non-profit literature projects provide content to tredition. To support their good work, tredition donates a portion of the proceeds from each sold copy. As a reader of a TREDITION CLASSICS book, you support our mission to save many of the amazing works of world literature from oblivion.

Searching for Yellowstone

Searching for Yellowstone PDF Author: Paul Schullery
Publisher: Montana Historical Society
ISBN: 9780972152211
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 364

Get Book Here

Book Description
Schullery's book details the ecological history of Yellowstone National Park.

The Battle for Yellowstone

The Battle for Yellowstone PDF Author: Justin Farrell
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691176302
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 315

Get Book Here

Book Description
Yellowstone holds a special place in America's heart. As the world's first national park, it is globally recognized as the crown jewel of modern environmental preservation. But the park and its surrounding regions have recently become a lightning rod for environmental conflict, plagued by intense and intractable political struggles among the federal government, National Park Service, environmentalists, industry, local residents, and elected officials. The Battle for Yellowstone asks why it is that, with the flood of expert scientific, economic, and legal efforts to resolve disagreements over Yellowstone, there is no improvement? Why do even seemingly minor issues erupt into impassioned disputes? What can Yellowstone teach us about the worsening environmental conflicts worldwide? Justin Farrell argues that the battle for Yellowstone has deep moral, cultural, and spiritual roots that until now have been obscured by the supposedly rational and technical nature of the conflict. Tracing in unprecedented detail the moral causes and consequences of large-scale social change in the American West, he describes how a "new-west" social order has emerged that has devalued traditional American beliefs about manifest destiny and rugged individualism, and how morality and spirituality have influenced the most polarizing and techno-centric conflicts in Yellowstone's history. This groundbreaking book shows how the unprecedented conflict over Yellowstone is not all about science, law, or economic interests, but more surprisingly, is about cultural upheaval and the construction of new moral and spiritual boundaries in the American West.

Yellowstone National Park

Yellowstone National Park PDF Author: Cecilia Pinto McCarthy
Publisher: ABDO
ISBN: 168079860X
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 51

Get Book Here

Book Description
Geysers, hot springs, and wildlife have made Yellowstone National Park a popular destination. Yellowstone National Park explores the park, including its geology, plant and animal life, the peoples who have called it home, and its main attractions. Easy-to-read text, vivid images, and helpful back matter give readers a clear look at this subject. Features include a table of contents, infographics, a glossary, additional resources, and an index. Aligned to Common Core Standards and correlated to state standards. Core Library is an imprint of Abdo Publishing, a division of ABDO.

Selling Yellowstone

Selling Yellowstone PDF Author: Mark Daniel Barringer
Publisher: Development of Western Resources
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 274

Get Book Here

Book Description
"For as long as they have existed, the national parks have been the scene of some of the most intensive commercial activity in the American West. Selling Yellowstone recounts the story of such activities in our oldest park from the 1870s through the 1960s. It is the first book to examine critically the role of business in the development of America's national parks, demonstrating how profit-driven entrepreneurs shaped the physical landscape of what is generally perceived as unaltered wilderness."--Jacket.

Storytelling in Yellowstone

Storytelling in Yellowstone PDF Author: Lee H. Whittlesey
Publisher: UNM Press
ISBN: 9780826341174
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 404

Get Book Here

Book Description
Whittlesey shares tales of "the great Geyserland" as told by the earliest tour guides of America's first and most unique national park.

Yellowstone, Land of Wonders

Yellowstone, Land of Wonders PDF Author: Jules Leclercq
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 0803245580
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Get Book Here

Book Description
In the summer of 1883 Belgian travel writer Jules Leclercq spent ten days on horseback in Yellowstone, the world’s first national park, exploring myriad natural wonders: astonishing geysers, majestic waterfalls, the vast lake, and the breathtaking canyon. He also recorded the considerable human activity, including the rampant vandalism. Leclercq’s account of his travels is itself a small marvel blending natural history, firsthand impressions, scientific lore, and anecdote. Along with his observations on the park’s long-rumored fountains of boiling water and mountains of glass, Leclercq describes camping near geysers, washing clothes in a bubbling hot spring, and meeting such diverse characters as local guides and tourists from the United States and Europe. Notables including former president Ulysses S. Grant and then-president Chester A. Arthur were also in the park that summer to inaugurate the newly completed leg of the Northern Pacific Railroad. A sensation in Europe, the book was never published in English. This deft translation at long last makes available to English-speaking readers a masterpiece of western American travel writing that is a fascinating historical document in its own right.