| This study provides a history and analysis of national park promotional campaigns from 1864 to 1972. I argue that national park supporters created and perpetuated a national park myth to promote the nation's wonderlands. This national park myth conveys a nationalistic vision of the United States as encapsulated in the natural landscape. Visual imagery communicates this myth. Although the myth's nationalistic meaning remained constant, park promoters shaped its message to different national priorities. Beginning in the post-Civil War period and extending to each campaign, these visual images and nationalistic messages have been central to the mission and meaning of the national parks. The imagery holds the key to understanding the national park myth and its importance in shaping perceptions of the parks.;To understand the national park myth, this study examines five campaigns. Chapter one provides background on British visual culture, including works by William Kent, Lancelot "Capability" Brown, J. M. W. Turner, and John Ruskin, and examines how Americanists Thomas Cole, Frederic Edwin Church, and Thomas Moran adapted this imagery. Chapter two describes how western surveys led by Ferdinand Hayden and others and the associated works by Moran, Albert Bierstadt, William Henry Jackson, and Carleton Watkins promoted the establishment of Yellowstone and Yosemite and developed the national park myth. Chapter three focuses on the Northern Pacific, the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe, and the Great Northern railroads and their coopting of the myth in their promotions of Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, and Glacier. Chapter four examines the 1934 National Park Year campaign, in which Dorothy Waugh's posters celebrated recreation as a way to strengthen the citizenry during the Great Depression. Chapter five explores the Mission 66 park development program of 1956-1966 and the importance of national park visitor center designs to promote anti-Communism. Chapter six describes the emphasis on environmentalism in posters and souvenirs during the National Park Service's celebrations of the founding of Yellowstone National Park. Each national park campaign demonstrates that its promotional imagery is key to understanding why national parks have become an acknowledged cherished cultural institution. |
