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Transcripts For CSPAN3 Ethan Carr And Rolf Diamant Olmsted And Yosemite 20220926

theodore roosevelt, john muir, george catlin, carter watkins, which is some of the names recognized for their contributions to creating america's best idea. national park service. yet it's the name olmstead that is often left off the despite the positive generational impacts of the olmsted's. and more recently we have been reminded of their contributions. the necessary of role necessary role of parks in public spaces during a devastating pandemic with a need to spotlight olmstead legacy. the commissioned a comprehensive study led ethan and ralph and laura meier three incredible authors to better understand these remarkable spanning from the monumental of the yosemite report and the organic act, which helped to create the national park service to enduring conservation efforts to the expanse of design work within park service itself. this report produced a robust of research on the design and planning work of frederick olmsted, senior. his sons, john charles and frederick law olmsted jr. there are many associates and the olmsted office in firm. as we kick off the bicentennial of olmsted's birth. we appreciate ethan and ralph for bringing this research to a broader audience. considering olmsted 200 the national effort commemorating the continued legacy olmsted values of democratic space accessible to all and our local coalition olmsted now partners participating in the themes of shared use, shared health and shared power. i cannot think of a more appropriate story than the olmstead two share and stuart and i'd like to introduce jonathan lippincott, associate director, library of american landscape history. thanks, victor. thank you. thank you all for coming today. and again, thank you to friends of fair stead to the arnot arboretum for hosting this book launch. i'm, as you mentioned, with the library of american landscape history is the leading publisher of books that advance the study and practice of american landscape architecture. our books educate the public motivating stewardship of significant places and the environment and inspire designs that connect people with nature. we're actually also selling an anniversary, celebrating an anniversary this year. we were founded in 1992. and lila is the only nonprofit organization dedicated to publishing in the field of american landscape design in history. we're particularly excited to be publishing. and ethan's new book on olmstead in yosemite. i'm sure many of you are familiar with parts of this story. olmstead design of central park and his ideas about yosemite. his work for the movement and for the union army and is helping to shape the concept of the urban and national park in the united states. what's remarkable to consider and what the authors reveal so beautifully is that he was working on all these various projects the same time during the 1860s, both park and yosemite embody the new of freedom that inspired the union during its greatest crisis, epitomized seeing the duty of the republic to enhance the lives and well-being of all of its citizens. marking the bison of olmsted's birth. the birth book sets the historical record straight offers a fresh interpretation of how the american park, urban and national came to figure so prominently our cultural identity. so to keep along, i will hand this off to lauren and thank you very much. thanks. you can see me over the podium. my name? lauren meyer. i'm president of the friends of fair stead, the philanthropic partner of the national park service protocol at homestead national historic. it's my great pleasure. introduce the afternoon speakers. but before i do, i'd like to just reiterate my thanks to the arnold arboretum for hosting for the library of landscape history, for publishing this wonderful book and the friends have had many opportunities in the past. collaborate with both the arboretum and la lh on project that advance knowledge and appreciation of the olmstead legacy and this book talk will certainly do that where i'm looking forward to hearing more about a new perspective on the role of the homesteads in the post-civil war nation and the creation of our national park system and. finally, i'd like to just thank pat shirkey, who's chair of the program committee for friends, ted and to eastern national, who made it possible to have books for sale here today after the speakers are completed. just a reminder we'll have a short q&a session. and for anyone who's on the livestream, please go ahead and type your questions into the chat. and now it's my pleasure to my dear friends dumont and ethan carr. ralf dumont is a landscape architect and and adjunct professor in the at the university of vermont. historic preservation program in his previous 37 year career with the national park service. ralf was a planner, resource manager and superintendent, a believer in expanding the national park system in new directions. ralf worked on the development urban national parks, national heritage areas and partnership based while ed and scenic rivers as superintendent of fredrick law olmsted national historic site. he organized the multi-year to conserve and open. the olmsted archives as the first super attendant of marsh rockefeller national historical park. he guided the park's early development as a catalyst for creative approaches to conservation. ralph, a beatrix farrand fellow at the universe of california, berkeley, where received a b.s. and a master's in landscape architecture and was a loeb fellow in advanced environmental at the harvard university graduate school of design. he currently writes about history of national parks and their impact on american society. he is co-editor and, contributing author of a thinking person's guide to america's national parks and his column on national regularly appears in the journal parks. stuart forum. ethan is a professor of landscape architecture and director of the masters of landscape architecture program at the university of massachusetts in amherst. he is a landscape ape historian and preservationist specializing in public landscapes. three of his award winning books, wilderness by design, published in 1998, mission 66, modernism, the national park dilemma, published in 2007, and the greatest speech in history of cape cod national seashore, published 2019. describe the 20th century history of planning and design in the united states national park system as a context for considering their future car was the lead editor of the early boston. 1882 to 1890. volume of the papers of frederick law olmsted, published in 2013. the book are going to hear about today. olmsted and yosemite civil war abolition and the national park idea, co-written with ralph diamond, traces the origins of the american park movement. his latest book, boston's franklin park boston's park olmsted recreation and the modern city forthcoming in 2023 rican sitters the history, this landmark urban park and the arboretum neighbor car consults with landscape architecture firms developing, plans and designs for historic parks of all types. and now it's my pleasure to hands over to ethan. we're going to sing a duet of yeah, we win. just a quick word of thanks given this audience. first of all lauren. we wouldn't be here without your help. and your your colleague reality and support. and in all that we've done and i like to we both like to thank recognize the frederick law homestead national historic site for the support of the resource study that ethan and i and lauren got the ball rolling with. and, you know, we're so pleased to see alan banks and lee farrell cook here. well. they were the project managers for the national park service. nothing would have come together without. their enthusiasm, encouragement and, support each step of the way. so thank you all. i'm going to start talking, so i'll simply say yes. thank you all on my part as well. all right. homestead and yosemite. ralph and i are clearly here to talk. our new book, a timely reinterred of the national park idea. idea, i think we'd all agree. do we need to adjust way for mike. mike's on a little bit, up a little. okay. i think ralph and i would agree it's a timely reinterpretation of the national park idea. where did the idea for the national system come from? did it arise spontaneously during campfire in 1870 on the yellowstone plateau. that's sort of been the official story for many years. and doesn't it have something to do with teddy roosevelt or john muir? and why are we talking about wasn't he a park designer and national parks don't aren't usually don't usually come to mind is designed. he central park the arnold arboretum etc. what does that have to do with national parks? well, these are questions that ralph and i have been plagued with our entire professional lives. and so we decided to write this book and hope i don't know, maybe i don't know if this is the last word or not, ralph. but but but hopefully, hopefully the term national park idea is in our title is a bit misleading because we're really here to talk about the public park idea as it took shape specifically in the united states in the mid-19th century, including urban and national parks and as i hope we show in the book, there was a broader idea of public parks that was the source of the national park idea. and even if we want even if we want to consider that a separate idea at all, they're obviously linked. so our goal is to put yosemite valley the historical context of the great issues, the day which we all know, civil war, abolition, reconstruction. and by doing that, answer the question of what olmstead actually does have to do with valley and the origin of the national park idea and what olmstead was doing. yosemite valley does have something to do with what he was doing at central park at the same time. and his antislavery act, his activism he was doing at the same time and his in the civil war and more generally with his ideas, his theory as an important public, intellectual and social theorists of the day. yosemite was the first park, the first national park. it was created by congress through federal legislation. 1864 that granted the area to california for park purposes. so the first national park was state park, at least for a while. if that's confusing, i'm sorry it gets worse. we haven't even talked about hot springs or the washington mall or any the other places that claim to be the first national park. but yosemite really was in 1864 and lincoln signed legislation while central park was still under construction. and what they both shared at that time and really from the beginning was that they both express and hopes and aspirations a remade american republic. that sounds odd to us today. maybe, but it didn't sound odd in the mid-19th century. a lot of people were going to a war on this topic and. what was a remade american republic? one without enslaved people above all, one that preserved the union allowed it to assume a better form a republic that if still a very imperfect, at least move toward the realization of the goals and ideals that it had been founded on in 1776. in other words, the bedrock ideology of the republican that got lincoln elected. to oh, sorry. i was supposed to switch lives earlier. there they are. so this quest, this quotation, a letter by sarah shaw to olmstead, was really the starting point for the book. shaw was an abolitionist, a social reformer, a philanthropist. need i add a bust? a bostonian that might be redundant after. that description. she was all of those things. and she was a and correspondent of olmstead with some personal and business connection. she was also the mother of robert gould shaw, who died two years later after this letter was written with over 100 black soldiers of the 54th massachusetts regiment. these were people with convictions. shaw captured a remarkable moment in this letter and identification of an unprecedented public park, which central park was at least in the united states. the abolition of, slavery and the remaking of the republic at this critical time, as the nation was sliding into war and central park by 1861 was largely completed, shaw visited it or not largely, but a lot of it had been completed, and she had visited it with millions of others and was complimenting olmstead what it was such a worthy project for the future. okay, here we are. so it was during this tumultuous before, during and after the civil war that the idea of the public park, both municipal and national, became established as a new public institution in the united states, both in the nation's largest city and in the remote sierra nevada of california. and by 1864, when congress makes the u.s. grant both of these parks embodied many of the values and the aspirations that people like olmstead and sarah shaw and many others had for this remade republic in contrast to what it had been before. they were literally physical manifestations of what a more enlightened and unified government could do, and instead remarkably, as a consistent thread through all this. and it is sort of remarkable. i mean, on both coasts, serendipitous is the word that comes to mind. but yes, he is a consistent thread throughout, this story of the establishment of this new public the public park on both sides of the continent. yes. and very dramatically different, i realize very dramatic, totally different circumstances settings, etc.. they're very different places. but in our book, what we're interested in looking at and what they both have in common without ignoring the differences. so what do they have in common. i mean, we could probably go on about that for some time. but first, their purpose as it was described and understood then, which we should remember, might not be exactly how we might describe and characterize them right now. but they were both acquired and developed the general public to enjoy the benefits and experiences of landscape that not otherwise would be readily available to them. those benefits were considered real. they improved individual, and public health, physical and, emotional. and it was a duty of a responsible government to make sure everyone could have these benefits because they necessary to human health, physical and emotional and because otherwise privileged few only would enjoy them, even monopolise them. to detriment of everyone else. this is very rhetoric that that is being put forward for both of these places. of course, the people who are being despised or evicted in order to make these places public parks were not. and this is another shared characteristic of these places dispossession, justified. as with all public works, really, at least they require the exercise of eminent domain by what we call a public interest doctrine. so who is the of the public interest? doctrine will not everyone? clearly not then, and arguably not now either. but the assertion a public benefit and in fact, necessity for societal well-being was being asserted. and that's that's what justified the dispossession as it was for water projects, roads, bridges and so on. was public health infrastructure in words, among many other things. so the purpose is something they have in common. second, these places had common meanings. they both emerged out of the tumult of the mid-19th century to embody some of most important goals for a remade republic. they both emerged out of the conflict, the activism, the rhetoric, idealism of the before and during the war. and this may be our main point in the book. the institution. the public park emerged at this time because of the war and the social upheaval. it not in spite it, which is remarkable because there was so much other stuff going on. right? a sort of a busy time in american history, antislavery activism, sectional strife, the bloodiest in american history, the emancipation proclamation. and later abolition and reconstruction. all the legislation and cost of two amendments that sought to remake the american republic were always going describe this in much more detail in a moment. but historians have noticed that many new american institutions came out of this period of conflict, as did a reforged national. and one of those institutions was the public, both municipal and national. and we think of it as one of these institutions that's part of a reforge national identity. begin to understand why public parks have been so large in the american public imagination ever since. so let's consider central park for a moment. not the more familiar most of you know its design and construction, but specifically in terms of the meanings as it was proposed and then built leading up right up to the beginning of the war. great urban parks already existed in europe. above all, the royal parks of london. and, you know, new yorkers wanted to compare new york to london. right. they always wanted new york to london. the london of north america. and they existed elsewhere of, course, as well. but the name royal parks says it all. parks in european cities were almost always vestiges of some kind of aristocratic privilege, gradually open to the public. the benefits were well known in terms urban social life, public health and of course, the enhancement of property values. that was not a secret, right? london's west end would be a good example. they were all well known. but the landscapes themselves that existed earlier on were remnant of a more autocratic of a more autocratic of government. they became public places largely through the largesse of an aristocratic class. could republican form of government create own version of this type of thing, this type of amenity with all the benefits, including real estate values, that that would accrue if the attempt would would if the attempt were made urban public parks be taken over by the unruly mob or mobs that many associated with republican forms government. the failed republican revolutions of 1848, remember, were still very fresh in the mind. the idea a republican government was being violently suppressed all over europe by monarchists and of course in the united states of our own republic was quite intent on an end to the whole right there. well our republic was seemed to be very intent on ending the oldest experiment in republicanism and declaring it a doomed failure. at least half of us did. could the largest city of the oldest republic create, a great park like those in london. it would have to. there were no royal. and obviously it opened to the public. there was just the topography of manhattan an island, which was by 1850, was covered, reaching all the way up more less to 42nd street. was it possible. could it be done? the creation of a large park require a great public work by government, which is slightly different from other situations. considering the context and the form of government in the united states. it would require a public work by government. the acquisition and development of a new public landscape. what would the result be even if it were done well? that's why i would to suggest that the creation of a great public park in the largest city of american republic was a radical act in the 1850s. it was a statement, first of all, it was a major public works project, the largest new york city had ever undertaken up to that at a time when public works or public improvements, as they would have been called, were being rejected at the federal level, especially by southern democrats in congress, who defended slavery at all and felt public improvements would undermine their position. growth will also explain this further. but secondly, it was openly and avowedly for the public and wherever that was. and to some, that meant the mob. it's a public, a sort of problematic word. we always have sort of put it in quotation marks and try to define who it is. we're talking about at what time. but at this time, the public a scary word because a lot people felt that republicanism equaled, mobs in a public landscape like this in the united states would be taken over by the mob. and so the question wasn't really about success or failure of a park in new york. it was a question of success or failure of the american city. a northern induced real metropolis filled with a rapidly population, very diverse, filled with larger and larger numbers of immigrants. the whole question of whether in northern industrial city was going to tenable, whether it was going to be viable, whether it was even going to be survivable, could was was the question that was really being because it was the northern vision of the republic's future and increasing the urban, diverse future that would be cities. and if those cities weren't healthful, if they weren't tenable, then the northern vision of the republic for the future wasn't either. it was really about the survival the republic as well, if you think of it, that. and that's exactly what the monarchists in europe were saying. and more importantly so were the southerners in the united. and they they believed that the image of an unhealthy, chaotic northern city was great propaganda. right. it was the source of a lot of propaganda for the south. how can you condemn our plantations when your cities are like that. all right. so images like these were a successful, beautiful park were a direct rebuttal of the negative images and characterizations of large cities in the north, the popular success of central park was proof that the northern vision of the future of the republic tenable. it was even. and it was created by a republican form of government, which was part of a society that was not drifting and chaos and dysfunction. it was drifting into war, but it wasn't drifting. chaos and dysfunction. it could do. so it's powerful ideology of the union of republicanism and so on at the mid-19th century. it's covered vox put it. it was the big artwork of the republic as this quote from the atlantic monthly put it. it was nothing less than a profoundly effective and vindication of self-government itself. so let's consider what the benefits really were, especially as olmstead was describing them beyond enhancing estate values, beyond the contemporary struggle to vindicate self-government, beyond the cause itself of the mid-19th century. what central park as olmstead and fox designed it was intended to provide were experiences of landscape beauty, which now sounds very banal. it wasn't. it was experience just like this one. but for everyone, or at least the public, whoever were and they were able they were able and they were to be made available in the as part of the city, accessible to anyone, in theory, accessible to anyone with a nickel who could get on the omnibus from the lower east side. some people could go to the catskills each summer and refresh their physical and emotional health as see here. the rich could own country or could afford afford private resorts. but a public park could be available to all. and the goal may not have been realized for all people, not for the people who are dispossessed. make central park, for example. not for the many who, at least during its first decades, found it to be too distant or simply off putting socially, sort of a middle class scene of people, you know, very bourgeois people would get get dressed up and on and try to try to put on their best airs or maybe just the people who didn't have a for the omnibus, but for a remarkable to a remarkable degree, it succeed. it was a popular phenomenon. and it continues be at least in my opinion. so would today probably describe some of these benefits the benefits that olmstead described in aesthetic terms, talking about landscape beauty, knowing no one knows what you're talking about anymore. hardly. you know. and you talk about a very profound way, you know, the influence of landscape beauty on individual and society. we have other terms. right. and if you think about it a little, we talk the importance of experiencing or biophilia or simply the need of all people to experience some part of the natural in order to maintain physical and emotional health. we use terms like nature, deficit disorder and point to the abc epidemic or other sort pathologies to emphasize the importance of this kind of experience. but whatever language or terms we use, this was the essential reason. the purpose for the large urban park as downing advocated it earlier and 1840s, as olmstead and fox realized in the 1850s. and i think may still be true if we can get past the different ways people express themselves in the 19th century. recent social science and medical research has only confirmed that they were on something. it's important to consider at least and so when olmstead finds himself in mariposa near yosemite valley in 1864, sort of a remarkable thing has the yosemite grant is being signed. it's not too hard. imagine why the state park commission created to receive the yosemite grant for the purpose of making the valley into a public park. yes a state park at first, but later would be a national park. it's hard. it's not to see why they would decide to make use olmsted's experience his ideas above all, and his weird, serendipitous proximity. he was there, a totally different reason it just happened. be there when when lincoln signed the legisla ation, but they would ask him to produce a report to guide how this place would become a public park and the purpose of the new park. the justifications for government act in making it as olmstead described them in 1865, were entirely consistent what he had for what he had described for central park just a few years earlier. he went back to working on central park, 1865, designed prospect park. so on. there was no inconsistency here, total consistency in terms of how the purpose and justifications politically for these parks was being described. what's more, so are the symbol ism and meanings, and perhaps even more so. here was a national landscape to be set aside, preserved and made available to the general public, not the privileged few. right. because not what a republic does. the creation of this park wasn't a part of an entire wave of legislation and amendments and so forth that that would remake the republic. ralph will will describe that in much more detail. and it happened because of the war. again, because of the change in the conflicts surrounding it, because of the desires for should follow the war in terms the duties of the republic to its people, not in spite of it. these two great icons of the american landscape, in other words, have some very important things in common that transcend their and i'm as aware as anyone what the differences are. a lot of time. both at yosemite and central park and, i understand what a design landscape is, and i understand the degree to which yosemite is not a design landscape. but i guess my answer to that question, which may very well come up because i will say is in central park, opposite of yosemite valley, it's a designed landscape. and your summary is a natural landscape. so let me anticipate that by suggesting you think of yosemite valley a little bit more as a cultural landscape, a little bit more as as a as a as a designed landscape and you think of central park a little bit less as a manmade artifact, which it is not. it was a it was an existing landscape that was improved and central park is less designed and yosemite valley is more designed than people normally think. but that's that's an aside. this is the important part. this is an intellectual for a national park system and in fact, for the american park movement as it would proceed over the next hundred years and generally would see parks created at every level of government from and cities to regions and states. and yes, at the federal level. so too, statements like these, which we've just out of the of report the yosemite report itself is reprinted in the book so you can look for yourself but but we've extracted this sort of ideological statements about public parks does does does this remain the of public parks in the united states today despite everything that's changed since 1865? that's my question you. perhaps a lot has certainly you know a lot of things including the environmental movement you know that really change how people thought about national parks. so i'll end this portion of the talk questions for you. do these ideas still have currency in a world of change, of changing climate, increased inequality, etc. ? can we suggest where national we can suggest where national parks from, where they going? as a matter more for discussion and questions, however. thank you. this topic. well, as ethan indicated, i'm going to look little closer at the wider social political context of the assembly grant as as a modest and it was a modest at time but consequential as we look back at it today. component of what was as ethan described, a cascade of wartime legislation and constitutional that redefined and broadened the duties and role of government its responsibilities and expanded the rights and privileges of american citizens. that's what it aspired to say. all this, of course, was predicate it on the final and complete destruction of slavery and the insurrectionary confederation that fact was founded to perpetuate it. i will then turn my attention back to frederick law olmstead and look at the remarks able opportunity that yosemite reporter presented to him to to actually imagine what the future would be of. great parks in a post-war reconstructed american nation. i will conclude just with some thoughts on this. history is so important for us today. acknowledge. before the civil war, southern planners and the political allies effectively blocked land grants for transports and education and homesteading. they were content with a weak central government, with very limited responsibility. they wanted a government that just would port duties, conduct foreign affairs, deliver the u.s. mail, protect and pursue fugitive slaves. they preferred financing that government through the sale of public lands in lieu of personal taxes, avoiding taxation on the vast wealth by enslaved labor labor. however by the second year of the civil war, it had become the war become and in the words of abraham lincoln, a remorseless and revolutionary struggle. and hundreds of thousands of enslaved people self emancipated by seeking freedom and sanctuary behind the lines of union forces actually, frederick law olmstead wrote a letter to the new york times very early in the war in 1861, predicting that if this momentum of self emancipation continue, it would fact hollow out the confederacy and lead to its eventual collapse. remark doubly prescient. very early in the war, putting down the rebellion in earnest that reestablished the union were paramount objectives for most law. new northern loyalists now. the goal was no longer the restoration of the old union as it was, but its replacement something better when it became increasingly clear to both congress and the lincoln administration that no negotiated settlement, returning the country to its pre-war status quo would ever occur. rapid changes began to happen. the republican dominated congress, without the presence of southern democrats, who would all withdrawn to the south. now set about replacing antebellum laws and policies that primarily served the interests of those profiting from slavery. congress sought to rebuild a more activist republic, serving broader public constituencies. within a period of five months, just five months from march to july of 1862, congress sought and passed the passage of a series of land grant bills. all the bills that had been vetoed the war. it established the department of agriculture. it centralized monetary policy. it first banned slavery. finally, in district of columbia, then banned and all banned slavery and all the territories. and lastly, banned slavery in all lands occupied by the union troops. and finally, with the passage of the militia act actually authorized the recruitment of black soldiers soldiers. the capstone, of course, came in that same at the end, that same five month period with the abraham lincoln. the preliminary proclaimed emancipation proclamation. that ended almost 250 years of slavery in america. these are some of the that came through in that five year period. and finally, the emancipation proclamation. in 1864 with the war well into third and bloodiest year. abraham lincoln to grant the grant for yosemite valley to the state of california for as a public park in. it was in trust for the whole nation. we wish to emphasize all of the reform i've been talking about was contingent on the dismantlement of slavery and a fraction fatally fractured political system. replacing. that system forever without a union victory aided by the mobilization of approximately 180,000 black soldiers, legislation for yosemite and for that matter, as the template of all national parks that followed might never have been. in fact if the legislation for the assembly grant had been introduced, perhaps just a few years earlier, in the prior. it would have been vetoed and not passed. like all the rest of the republican legislation for land grants, it just would have failed with the rest of them. the 1864 yosemite act as as ethan is described, drew its inspiration from central. and near the end of the war. relocated to california. frederick olmstead was asked to write that report to guide the future management of yosemite as a public park. but he took opportunity not only to apply his design ideas honed at central park to the magnificent landscape of yosemite valley. but he also shared a vision for a reconstructed post-war nation where great parks would become keystone institutions institutions. the yosemite report affirmed every person's entitlement to. enjoy the nation's most spectacular scenery and landscapes, and recognized the explicit responsibility of government to make sure that that happened. in the process. olmstead laid out the intellectual foundation and framework, a system of national parks declaring declaring that the establishment of government of these places was a political duty of the republic. olmstead also believed that government had a compelling obligation to support these great parks on an equal footing with all of its other major duties. he was always an internationalist. he always had an international perspective, and he realized that this an opportunity for the states of america to demonstrate to the world. how an enlightened republic could fulfill its obligations to its citizens. as ethan's mentioned, it's just important to recognize that. people living in yosemite valley for eons and that the establishment the park for a following about a decade after the dispossession of the miwok or the unreached people from the valley indigent peoples were among the beneficiaries of lincoln's new birth of freedom. and they were forced of their ancestral lands to repurpose, repurpose to expedite republican land policies. those early writers who describe yosemite untrammeled, wild nature, willfully overlooked countless generations of human occupation. there is no record that we could of homesteads. reply to sarah shaw's letter to him. but they certainly shared a similar vision in the assembly report. olmstead specifically identified continuing work on central park, along with the construction of the capitol dome in washington dc and the establishment of a public park in yosemite. as essential projects undertake taken in the midst of war. that affirmed the efficacy of republican government and the necessity of defending. there have been several historians who've been at a loss to describe the enmity, understand the assembly act. they attribute it to it being an anomaly in for the united states unexplained anomaly or a great mystery. particularly in wartime. they puzzled over. how could congress with so many concerns win the war raging all around them have spent any time on this. quite the contrary. ethan and i believe that the assembly act was squarely in the context of a larger framework of war related legislation and reforms. in fact, lincoln himself said that if an insurrection could interfere with the function and continuity of constitution of government, quote, it might fairly claim to have already conquered and ruined us. writing this book also enabled ethan and i to consider olmstead in wider context. he's certainly had his share of reversals. he abandoned farming, the literary career that he hoped for never really materialized. bureaucrat bureaucratic constraints hobbled some of his influence. central park in internal conflicts and exhaust exhaustion led to his resignation from the sanitary commission and his mining enterprise in california ended in near bankruptcy. writing from california at a low point in his professional life cut off from the close friendship of co-workers. he wistfully confess to his friend henry bellows. i look back upon the sanitary commission and the park as a pond, a previous state of existence, and yet, with each professional setback, his public stature seemed to only grow larger. his journalism, while unable to a consistent livelihood, nevertheless introduced him to other writers and intellectual roles. and he began and began to afford him the national and even internal national reputation. he desperately. his work. calvert vox and central park. quickly by any measure a huge popular success and held out the promise that his partnership vox might yet be revived. the leadership and organizational he honed working on central park and with the sanitary commission helped cement his image as honest, competent and self-sacrificing administrator. even his ruinous mariposa state venture had him improbably to california and yosemite valley, where he presented. he was presented with an unforeseen opportunity to assume that leadership of the assembly commission as a respected national figure with a value transnational perspective. armstead soon with the part, of course california to rejoin vox in new york and immerse himself in a myriad assignments and commissions during long and incredibly productive career. but though he would undertake so many high profile projects that would further his reputation around the world, none would afford him quite same platform as yosemite. now. throughout its history, the national park service has been reluctant for any number of reasons to recognize the singular role of the civil war reconstruction. and the role that these events played in the history of national parks, including the establishment of yellowstone and 1872. in our however, we look at yellowstone in the wider, particularly reconstruction and the legislative and conservation and excuse me, constitu tional reforms as shown with the timeline in the left of this slide. just to summarize us, historian lisa brady wrote in her book war upon the land, the war that established federal authority over states rights to determine citizenship and civil rights, also established increased federal power to decide what elements. in the national natural treasury would become permanent fixtures of the national landscape. however, early national park leaders and publicists content with inventing national park origin stories unburdened by any reference to the civil war emancipation, urban parks, homestead, or the 1865 yosemite report. the imagery of prestige and uninhabited western landscapes by either heroic explorers or famous conservationists such as john muir or teddy roosevelt as national parks were served the country with comfortable and reaffirming. olmstead was perhaps too closely identified with central park when the new parks were being marketed as a concept born in the rugged, not the urban east. olmstead was also probably too closely identified books forcibly condemning slavery and the old south when the civil war was being widely reinterpreted through the lens of the los cause. in these slides sort of go clockwise, that's. from the first slide as the. 1913 peace jubilee at gettysburg. the birth movie birth of the nation was screened. it's about same time as the national park service went through screen in the white house. throughout the country, north and south jim crow and segregation were ascendant. and even the first national parks in the south were open. and this is a slide from shenandoah with segregated facilities. and even the public in the final picture dedicating, the lincoln memorial had segregated seating. however, the assembly report was not entirely forgotten. its influence on national parks lived on through olmstead son and namesake who drafted key of the 1916 legislation creating the national parks national park service. the goals and purposes of national parks that olmstead jr famously described were based on many of the ideas his father had advocated 50 years earlier. so in conclusion, i ask why do we need to tell this story now. even in i believe it is to revisit our past with openness to new context and new information connecting earlier national parks to the legacy of emancipate asian and native american dispossession will hopefully help efforts to advance diversity, equity and inclusion in our national today. and finally, we believe that the 1865 yosemite report can still be interpreted today as a caution against the private monopolization or exploitation of our natural and cultural heritage. also, it can be interpreted as a timeless appeal for universal public access to the special places. in an unambiguous recognition by of its immutable response ability for parks stewardship now and. any questions here from our live audience. it's only right high periods of time where you talk a lot of this legislation being passed during the civil war did get a sense that the republican congress was thinking themselves that we all get that now someday we're going to have to accept ourselves and think back and we'll be able to then come back. howard, to be able to get things done like that. oh, for sure, absolutely you know that, was the whole push for the 13th amendment. it gets the emancipation proclamation was a was a decree, was essentially executive under war war authority. and lincoln was very worried. what if that when that happened, it could be easily there was no legislative or constitutional guarantee that some would be made to reintroduce slavery. i have allowed a lot, but an excellent degree of arlene. yeah, you're mentioned twice or several. the issue of dispossessed people and both and ralph also reflected that but as you know the controversies with regard to central and senate the bill is are loud and distorted. and i wondered if you would address the fact that. the kinds of people who were dispossessed besides those people in central park, besides those because only of seneca village? well, yes, you're right. this has been going on for a while. there's an archaeological dig at seneca village in the park. and i think in 2011, something like that. and so people have been very aware about how people were dispossessed to make park. my point is that all parks really from the 18th century english landscape on end. in fact going back to the middle ages when we had medieval parks, people were dispossessed that the park and is how shakespeare put it right and that wasn't a nice thing when fencing off some someplace to reserve the resources to a feudal lord but specific so. so it's always been part of parks and it's always been part of public works. the question is, is there a public that's being served that justify that dispossession? and that's true of any public work. right. that uses eminent domain and and often it's debated as far as central park goes to the first public work to to evict people. and seneca village was croton waterworks, not central park half of that village was gone when they put the receiving reservoir right there, which was put there because it was high ground in the middle of the island. as far as know, it had nothing to do with purposely dislocating black people from new york city. it had to do with where the engineers wanted put their receiving reservoir, which is topography physically determined. so so, i mean, i can't say that with certainty. they had no consideration about who they were displaced. but. and so in the park comes along one of the main reasons that site is chosen a central site is because there's already two reservoirs there. so a tremendous amount of state land that was already available. and there were other reasons having to do with the amount of real estate that would be affected terms of its prices and other things. but there was never there was a lot of nasty things in the press when the evictions were actually taking place in the 1850s that were denigrating about the people who lived there. and so that has been discovered. but there was never, as far as i know any direct for creating park where it was in order to get rid of certain people. they got rid of all kinds of people. and most of them were irish and german. and most of them didn't get compensation as people in seneca village did because they were black. but they also owned their property. so in a in a condemnation hearing, you get a judge sets a price and you get and you get indemnified, right? whereas the german and, the irish were squatters, they didn't get anything. so so it's a complicated story and it does get missed told a lot. and i just would like keep it in perspective as best i can. it's a tragedy when people are displaced and the people that are 70 were displaced, much more. i mean, how did they discover yosemite valley, really? it was the army, right? they were chasing a tribal group and entered the valley that way. so it was directly part of a war that was going on to rid california of indigenous people. that's how somebody was dispossessed. so it's a big part of park history. it's not a new part of park history, and it's intrinsic it. the real question is, what public interest was being served? well, also the in the case the yosemite people who were forced out. no compensation, they were literally forced out of the while were being killed and there's just so there were treaties that were signed that were violated seriously. i mean, there's rarely were any treaties, if any, were respected. so there was no fairness in that. and terrible tragedy. well, i'm glad you both are addressing that, because at the moment there tends be social distortion, particularly your point about the irish and the germans who were displaced at the moment. you would think and it comes up in a lot of talks. it just came up recently in a colleague's tongue. it was as if the only people who were displaced with those people in village. and that's not the case because as you point out, they were compensated because they were landowners and they were substantial. and it's part of every public work. and, you know, we can identify public works that did target certain communities. it's called urban renewal. right. know and so i wouldn't like to put central park in that same category necessarily as specifically ethnic or racial groups because i never saw any evidence that it happened. but there was it was not why the project ended up there. and it was not a rationale for for project in the first place. so difficult. and thanks for bringing it up, because will come up as ralph and i are doing talks about this book. it will come up great if. there are any other questions. what i'd like you to do is use the microphone because the who are livestreaming this are having a little bit of trouble hearing it and it's easier for you just to do your question than for me to try to repeat it. thank you very. i'm i noticed that yosemite law signed by president. and i'm wondering what his attitudes were on. yellow. well, that was yellowstone in 1872 was yellowstone. yellowstone yeah. so what was his and do you know anything about his attitude toward parks as it were, big park presidents necessarily? yeah. you know, they had a war to fight. yeah, i think the republican party still had its majority. both of congress in 1872. and the point make in the book, we get into a little bit further in the book is, you know, part of the momentum that helped the passage of the yellowstone legislation, which was hugely ambitious, 2 million acres, was the fact the government had come out of the war much bigger than went into the war, enormously bigger. and this was occurring a point in a very difficult where during the period of southern reconstruction, when congress took charge of southern reconstruction and you it was a sort of a zenith for federal authority before reconstruction was in effect abandoned and the government retreated from its commitments. but the assessment act comes excuse the yellowstone legislation in 18, in 1872 comes months, congress passes, the antiquark klux klan or the they call the ku klux klan act. and it set up the justice department to pursue the klan. this was a period where the national was feeling the congress in particular feeling it was capable of actually not only designating a park, but having united states run it as well. it took a long time to work the kinks, obviously, but at that was the intent. it's also true and it's this is the book i don't know if it was in our talk today, but the failure of reconstruction and then the later creation, the park service under during that difficult period in the early 20th century of the jim crow laws, there are lots of reasons why it was better for the park service to have a news story about its origins. right. was it was it was it was, you know, tying it in as ralph was referring earlier, i think, to all of the messiness of the civil war, tying it into a person like olmstead was known for this outright condemnation of the old south. i mean, he was as far as, you, these were people who saw it firsthand and they weren't having it. it needed a new and they needed to convince southern legislatures and a southern president woodrow wilson to sign the legislation for the national park service to be created. so so it was and that's what we're trying to address really is here. what were the origins? well, not the campfires. right now, not the yellowstone campfire, not teddy roosevelt's campfire either. you know, not actually not where the idea came from. and it probably wouldn't be so ingrained in national if it were. it comes of that period of the civil war when the united states, as we know it really gets formed, you know, and all these institutions get formed. and parks are one of them. and they're pretty deeply ingrained as a result. you know, we showed that slide of john muir and roosevelt that think that's glacier point in yosemite valley they they met there there's a photograph and they and they spent a night together camping out under the stars and i think you know you're probably talked there. well, they probably talk to each other's ears off to great talkers. and what really probably wanted dominate the conversation was to convince tr that the grant from cal to california be rescinded. and at that point there had been a new yosemite park all around the valley created, and muir wanted to see it all put together as one place. i'm that's what they talked about it to assume they discussed they were the fathers of the national park service an that wasn't created for another. 13 years or that they were the father of the inspiration for national which had been created 30 years earlier. if you if you take it to yellowstone and even earlier you go back to yosemite is a stretch. it's ironic and it's misleading. you because of course tr was always much against creating a national park service. okay. all right, all right. having been invited out to yosemite for that anniversary, i read that pamphlet many, many times. and he, olmsted, uses the phrase it is the duty of the government to provide these open spaces for all people and for me this is the problem of the age here in massachusetts and the country, the governments, the state governments, the city and the national are not coming near what we need. and therefore i think we should really focus upon olmsted was an organizer. he brought to the meeting that he held out there people from the newspapers and that made a big impact toward now niagara falls that was the picture we did show that picture. yeah no i i'm not i'm not arguing all your facts and all what you're saying i'm simply focusing on his duty of the government. i couldn't agree more. jared yeah, well, that's what that's and i've made my point. no, no, no, actually actually, i would like to talk more about your point because if you believe these kinds of statements that attractive for me, a seminar report, then why wouldn't government fund. exactly, you know, why are we looking private nonprofit partners for funding? why are we considering this some kind of a luxury that people who enjoy these things can pay for it. but when olmstead is saying it's actually necessary for a functioning society, it's necessary for individual group public health, it's necessary for the health of society. and so it's a duty of government that's the bottom line to me. why? why would you pay and why would you pay an entrance fee for property that you own? you know, that that is that is explicitly to be free and open to the public so it's an ideology we have gotten away from is the point and and many good results do right public private partnerships have done wonderful things it's only been the reality of my life i like a rather big impact with being the co-founder the co-founder of the nation. yeah because the longest existing paper in america and is still a voice for looking for the government. well it's a complicated issue but i'm saying that he was an organizer and that's what we working with you who understand depths of it. so i trust that during this year and the following we'll have a movement going. thanks, gerry. and we have time for one more question. if there's one more, anybody anybody question what do you think of the parks are better in the long run the myth or the fact you know that by lee wellesley and what's it say scully gloria pulse gloria gloria about about the yellowstone campfire myth. and it's all about how course we know it isn't true, but awfully good story, isn't it. and it appeals to our better, you know, and and and it's an appeal to the american to be better, you know. and so it's a little bit ambiguous what exactly they're saying in that book. but in in in the end, i think the campfires have had their day and the national park service is still interpreting the campfires on their website and you know the commemorative coin for the what was it for the 2016 anniversary was muir roosevelt. you know, it's it's like, okay well we'll have this one more and then be moving out into the lobby for any book signing. so you mentioned something i thought was interesting we all know central park was designed but you said yosemite was more design well we realized so are those olmstead in the valley is there really. but the basic idea of having a one way loop is the what olmstead wanted to see in yosemite valley was as little done as possible. and so he wanted those the carriage drive. he wanted paths and he wanted a series of cabins that would be shelter providing services, bathrooms, in other words. and, and material for camping. is there a reason that he's not really associated with? it was my that he was at the mine was the mariposa that you mentioned he saw yosemite often the so it's a little ironic he that was one of his failed ventures. no it wasn't really an environmentalist the time if he was. yeah that's in california right now there are a number of people making profile stories going about. how olmstead was had nothing to do with yosemite and it was a failure, etc. , etc.. well, the legislation signed while he was already in california and he saw this big champion of it. so it's really nice to get the story. well, yeah i mean, we didn't even touch on a discussion of. thomas starr king and was the sort of the most vocal champion for yosemite and to a large measure, the the act was act was passed also as king had died in the middle of the civil war. king was a not enormously influential figure in union circles in california and had been raised a lot of money for the sanitary sanitary and had been helped kick insisted california staying in the union. he was he was a very influential figure he and olmstead didn't know each other they they talked a lot went on to take out to california then king died a very early age natural causes worked himself to death probably and diphtheria and other things but you know in the was introduced really only literally months after king had died. and to some extent it's it's it's reasonable to interpret that, you know, one of the reasons the lincoln administration to the legislation and supported it congress did too was out a political obligation in the memory of king and lincoln was entering. we get into this in the book lincoln was entering the 1864 presidential race to get reelected and support from california republicans was important for that. but you've got a point and it should be answered, which is the 1865 report. it was not implemented at yosemite valley. right. the state park commission suppressed it. what that has led to is another myth. if i give you forgive me, one of the change that that that the report disappeared and therefore had no influence. how could how could olmstead been responsible for the national ideas behind, the national park system when this report he wrote disappeared in a really well it didn't disappear. it stayed with him and went back to brooklyn. in fact, with him in the 1880s. and it was used when he was working niagara falls. they quote from it. it was used by olmstead jr when the hetch hetchy controversy came at yosemite and it was used by jr when he does the legislation for national park service. so the idea that the report disappeared entirely is also wrong goes ideas never disappear but they don't that isn't what the state commission does at yosemite valley. they let people build hotels and. they start, you know, plowing up the meadows. they do all the things that olmstead told not to do, essentially. and that's why teddy roosevelt and john muir were discussing the recession of yosemite valley in 1903, because the state mismanaging it so badly they wanted state to give it back to the federal government so it could become part of a larger yosemite national park. so it's a little bit complicated. thank you again,

Transcripts For CSPAN3 Don Brown And Amy Rupertus Peacock Old Breed General 20220925

so i'm dr. mike bell, the executive of the jenny craig institute for the study of war and democracy here at the national world war two museum in new orleans. it's great. have you here tonight in the madeleine paul hilliard conference center? of course, paul was a marine two at the museum's own higgins hotel. and for those of you that watching live stream and on c-span, thanks to you for joining us. we sure do share links and spread the word about tonight's wonderful program. so, you know, it's going to be great. now, i'd like to carry on the museum tradition first by acknowledging any world war two veterans, homefront workers or holocaust survivors that we may in person or watching online another online. so let's give them a round of applause. you know, next as part of our tradition, if you know, i'd like to acknowledge any veterans of any era or any active duty service members, if you would please stand to be recognized for your service to our country. and i've got i've got a little adjustment here, too. and then any veteran of military spouses, would you stand to so we can say thank you to you for what you've done as well. you know, probably the one of the toughest jobs out there, the so so this evening service to our country is definitely one of the themes of this focused on general william h. preparedness and those of you familiar with the museum are are aware that we we try to track anniversaries as they come up. 80 years ago the first marine division was completing training in the u.s. down in north carolina, preparing to deploy to the pacific because this august will be the 80th anniversary of the start of the battle of guadalcanal, which turned into a grueling campaign between the american and imperial japanese forces, not only on land, on sea and air in the pacific. now, one of the men who led the first marine division i'd met guadalcanal was general william h. burtis, whose life career was more than just this first pivotal campaign in the pacific. and for most people, not really sure who he was. you don't know much about him and, but but ultimately led first as the assistant division commander and then as the division commander for over two years in theater from guadalcanal through, peleliu. you know, during that, the first marine division was awarded three presidential units, citations. now, typically described as every of the unit would have been recognized for heroism. now, he was key to the first two of those three presidential units, citations, which an incredible achievement. now, tonight, we have with us two guests who co-author the book we're about to hear about, amy roberta's peacock, is a granddaughter of general roberta's and keeper of the family archives at the sea. what that looks like a family. it's kind of cool. and then she's a graduate of the university of georgia's journalism school, and she's written for various newspapers. her her co-conspirator is dawn brown, a former u.s. navy jag officer and special assistant u.s. attorney. now he's written 14 books, including a series on naval just of naval justice, novels of prison zondervan and the expose, a call sign, extortion 17. that's pretty cool. and why was mustang six? which i thought was real cool. but exhaust in 17 is kind of neat. yeah, everybody's got a call sign. the. so with that, let me welcome or join me and welcome to the stage amy and don. we look forward to launching this event. thank you. thank you, sir. appreciate that. hello. good evening. thank you for being here. thank you, michael, for making this happen. and thank to jeremy for all your work. and thank you for everyone for being here and everyone that's online and at c-span. and i appreciate you being here. i hope that you will enjoy the story that and i are about to share. we worked on it for, well, quite a while. a couple of generations actually. and my sisters, who my sisters, kimberly and heather couldn't be here today, but they helped with this greatly. and kimberly, a lot of the research so what don and i have done today is a powerpoint. so i'm going to share my grandfather's story of pre the pacific. and then i'm going to hand it over to when the marines land in the i'm going to hand it over to don to share that story. so for those of you don't know, general william h. henry were part as was my grandfather. yeah. he was born in 1918 or 1889 in washington dc to a german-american community and let's get this going. this powerpoint. there we go. whoops. let me back up and he was died in 1945, so he didn't get to see the end of war. but during his lifetime, he accomplished a lot. he's most for many things, but i'd say probably my rifle. the creed of the united states marine he wrote in 1942 after the japanese had bombed us at pearl harbor, he was an expert rifleman and felt as though the young marines, the young recruits his just flooding the system needed to slow down, better understand their rifles before they went out to the pacific. he did two tours in china as ceo of the fourth marines, also known as the china marines in the twenties and thirties. he led the first marine division in the pacific, which mike just talked about for quite a while. he was the longest serving division in the pacific during that time the uss apprentice was named in his honor in 1945. it's a naval destroyer, and it served our country. from 1945 to 1973. there's still an active association on facebook, and they try to meet every year, which is kind of neat. he did lose his first family and scarlett to scarlet fever while he was stationed in china. in peking, china was at the international settlement. and his story has never been told until now. so here we go. he came again from a german family. they immigrated to the states in 1850, landed in washington, dc to join a big german-american community that lived, work there and thrive there. these are the patriarchs of the family and bill's father on the left, or grandfather bill referred us his his family were retailers in dc and they also they his grandfather a luxury goods store with merchandise from you know europe and his father owned a restaurant and then a cigar store for some reason. our grandfather, general curtis, decided to go to the military route and he might have been inspired by his his great grandfather who served in the civil war. i'm not sure. but he attended mckinley tech and high school in washington as a cadet and. then he went into the us revenue cutter academy, which is the predecessor to the coast guard academy and he was toured all the world on their summer cruises and he graduated. second in his class of 14. but upon a medical exam, when he graduated, the doctor said that the coast guard or revenue cutter school doctor said that he had breast disease and he would die in five years. so here's this young, young kid cadet who had just graduated and he was told he would die in five years. so obviously, that was kind of devastating. he didn't go forward with the revenue cutter service, which he really wanted to do. and he thought about going back to i skip this, but he after he graduated school, he went into the dc national guard and he worked there for about three years and he worked in naval gunnery. so he went from there to be cut out of the revenue cutters service academy. and when he was told he would not live. he thought about going back to the national guard, but something inspired him to join the marine corps and give his life whatever left of his life he had to the marine corps. so he joined the marine corps and he got a commission,. 1913th november 1913. he was immediately up to join the rifle, so i guess he was an expert rifleman and a couple classmates of his picked up for the rifle team and they competed from 1913, 1915, all around pretty much the east coast. but they did exceedingly well, as the marine corps says. and here in the meantime, he also was asked to be on the uss florida. so he was kind of a needle need picture from 1918. but he had been working on the uss florida for a couple of years when this picture was taken. and he was junior officer for the marine detachment and they were on their way to helping their our allies in the war. and he was really an expert in fire control batteries. so. back during this time, also had his first son, william jr. the next big station was haiti. so there was a lot of unrest in haiti in the early of the well. for a long time. but he the marines were called in. i think also, you know, the germans were prowling around about that time. and the marines were called in. he went to haiti in 1919. and was there from 1990 to 1923. and he was in charge of the gendarme de haiti. if anybody speaks french sacrifice that better than me. but the guard to haiti. so he's the chief for about three years and right here this picture is pretty cool because you have the the guard and behind. so it's a diverse group and then you have the haitian president. the middle is retiring and then they the man on the right looking at him is the future president. louis born now, which is a neat picture and we're partisans on the right side over there. so that was accompanied. so he brought his wife, son as well. there. look. next big station was to picking bill and his wife marguerite and their son william jr and daughter and rodney because now they had a daughter got their first far east assignment to go to picking. then it was called picking and joined the legation guard there. so i'm assuming you all are pretty knowledgeable crowd you know, back in the twenties and thirties we had an earlier but we had, we had these island enclaves where americans and europeans do business in china as, part of part of the boxer, the result of the boxer rebellion that happened in the 19 1900. but anyway they the each country would bring in their guards. the american sector brought in the and the and his family went there. so here is a picture of the legation quarter. so it's a walled area. you can look it up online. there's a great about the china marines there. the fourth marines were called the china marines. and you can see if you can see this, that there were a lot of countries in there from the americans to the russians to the germans and the french and on and on. so again, each country brought their guards. so we're pernice was one of those guards and commanding officer sadly. this was really hard when i was writing that research thing. this report is we always knew kind of that he'd lost his first family. but we really know enough about it. and then when i researched it, i couldn't find anything about them. so eventually i got oral history reports and that sort of thing. he certainly didn't write about it, but scarlett does. so in 1929, didn't give that time. but 1929, they arrived in peking and by december. of 1929, his little daughter came down with scarlet fever. and that was right before christmas. and she died 12 days later. and then his wife marguerite, who's 38, and his son will write their god scarlet, also got scarlet fever. and back then they couldn't cure it. so they were in the hospital for two months in quarantine, reporters went into quarantine and his wife and son died in february 1930 and 24 hours after it, within 24 hours of each other, he was still quarantine. so he never got to see them or say goodbye. kind of like what happens with what happened with covid. but so here he is, officer. he's his children and wife have died. they were shipped bodies were shipped back to washington to be buried at arlington cemetery. i don't think there were a lot of telegrams that went back and forth from the marine corps to recorders and referred us. he wanted flags on their caskets and he wrote a check to pay for the flags. and of course, the marine corps said, don't know, we'll pay pay for them. but so he lost his entire first family and people who are in the hospital at. the time knew his wife and said she went septic and it was just devastating. i mean, he wasn't the only one who there were other marines that got scarlet fever. but it really obviously affected him. and his mother, augustina why why would her to him from washington said, you know, bill, you need to come home from this is a huge shock. you need to come home. and he said, no, i can i can be better here. he can be better with his marine corps. i mean, was at that time the only family he had left there? and so and he couldn't really leave. he's still he was just coming out of quarantine and it was his job, you know his duty. and there weren't that many marines to to the far east and fill his position. so he stayed there until 1931 and the next picture you see colonel hokum holcomb, who was there when i who went on to become an on really one of the marines officers is to play polo to stay in shape and all everybody back then pretty much knew how to ride horses so he thought that would be good for bill to general purpose to get back in the saddle if you will. and this is kind of a cool picture because here he is with right next to him is roy chapman, who was an explorer in the gobi desert and. he was always hanging out with marines and picking because he had gone out and explored so much. terry territory and would would map it. and then also put gas around. so that was very helpful. the marine corps, when they went out on their adventures. so here's another picture. i think this is kind of an epic picture. you've got the marine corps band there. there's reporters to figure out, i don't know what. he's thinking, looking at the race, i don't know who this and this gentleman is with him. but then the next picture. you got the japanese officers and they're kind of by themselves. and keep in mind, this is. 30. so by 1931, the would invade manchuria. and then in 1932, they invaded bombed ships and in shanghai. so you can see i wonder what they're thinking in 1930 sitting there. but anyway, okay, so next event in his life he comes back, he's at a party. the chinese embassy in washington, d.c., and it's a, you know, china veterans. and he meets sleepy curtis. and who's sleepy? her name was alice hill. rupert is she was much younger than he was. she came from a navy family and who had served the country a long time. and anyway, they met each other and fell in love and married in three months. and so that's sleepy. and bill on their wedding day, that's your grandmother? my grandmother, yeah. so that's sleepy. so he got a new he got a new lease on life. and sleepy was perfect for him. so they did a couple deployments together. everything seemed to be accompanied back then and their next big event at big station was shanghai at the shanghai international settlement. so same thing it's an island enclave is you can take you can see from this picture it's from the 1930 but it still was pretty accurate night by 1937 when they got there and but here you had again it's much more cosmopolitan. politan there are probably 3 million people living in the city at the time. and it was a lot of fun at first. and again, they arrived in april 1937. this is the this is actually the photo that was online that don found when he was researching his other book on jerry allen and sent it to me, he said, amy, is this your grandfather? and he's like, you should write him or tell a story about him. and but yes, this is a party at the french club with a couple of marines and, navy officers, the calm before the storm. and there's another picture with sleepy and and curtis on the right. and then that's admiral henry yarnell, who was the commanding naval officer in that area at the time. then the japanese came rolling in and everything changed. on august 13, 1937, and as you can see, these are these are pictures. i don't know where our grandfather got these, but i'm assuming he took them or a friend took them, but it was just total devastation overnight. everything changed. the japanese had slowly eating away at china and then came in and did this huge attack on shanghai, which i think is underreported. but he was right there. so happened is the marines immediately went in. everyone went into lockdown. you know, they they the gates went up, the sandbags came out. the marines went out with their rifles around the perimeter, at least the american sector, every nations guard on alert. and it was pretty intense. here's a picture again. shanghai in 1937. he's the only one. well, the guy on the right with little hair, they're obviously having some kind strategy session here. and here is photo i love it's marine photo. but obviously this guy is on the this marine is on the perimeter. perimeter and he's ready for anything that's going to come him. but as you can imagine, they're seeing around this perimeter. the outside is total war. i mean, the japanese were very brutal and it was a very violent scene before them. but they were told to hold fire. from the president on down. they did not want to engage the japanese. in 1937, but these marines did. they didn't engage, but they sat there for months having to do this and beyond learned stay fire and they had stray shrapnel come into their eyes and stray gunfire and the japanese would taunt then but they held held strong and did not fire. there might have been fistfights, but they didn't get into any real action. so here's some more pictures is a picture. so i forgot to say that. when the japanese bombed shanghai, our grandmother and all the anybody that could be evacuated would could be or did get evacuated went either to the philippines or someone back to the united states. our grandmother went to the philippines where her sister joe was with her navy, but they did come back in december. so they were they evacuated in august. they got back about and here's a picture of a japanese officer escorting them around. and there's the repurposes the kulaks or their general kulak and his wife. then and some other marine officers. so that's what he got to see. and here's the situation. it's kind of tough to see, but it was obviously pretty intense. and you can well, in the book, i have lots of some information about this, but lots of there's lots of stuff online. okay. so fast forward 1938, they finally come back august 1938, they finally come back from china and my dad is born at the marine barracks. and ethan i big celebration referred to it as an opportunity to have another so that was good dad went on which the naval academy and he went on to be marine aviator and he flew in vietnam so his name is hill referred us. so right after let me back up here real quick and then we'll move on quickly from here. so this is 1938. he had a couple more deployments to guantanamo bay and in the then he got to in 1941 november he arrived in san diego the marine corps base. san diego, and he was going to be the chief of staff to general or well, he was, i'm sure. and then of a sudden on december seven, 1941, the japanese attacked. and it was interesting. i wonder what his perspective because back in shanghai you had marine officers in 1937. colonel brice being one of them, writing to general vander graf vandergrift to blow off some steam that if these we don't take care of the japanese in shanghai that are in shanghai at the time attacking in shanghai they come to our shores and he has more descriptions about him. i want to into them i won't get into but so fast forward is 1939 then the japanese bombers in 1941 our grandfather is at the marine corps base san diego general upshaw gets promoted. our grandfather gets promoted to be the commander of the base and all of a sudden these recruits come flying into the marine corps depot to sign up to go, you know, take revenge and our grandfather being an expert rifleman, being on the rifle team, really felt, oh, my gosh, these he knew the enemy because he had seen them in in in china. and he knew they were going to the pacific, which going to be tough, tough environmentally. and he knew that rifle was going to be really important. so he wrote this rifle creed not as a preachy but he really, really wanted to, you know, have the engage the marines hearts and minds the rifle and that the rifle their friend and it would help them and their brother in the pacific and help it win the battle on the ground in the pacific so he wrote my rifle the key to the united states marine it was published in the marine corps san diego chevron and it's been recited for a long time since then. so this the original one that was in the chevron and this is one i've been memorizing it, but it's changed a bit over years. so here's another version of it it. so fast forward. he's in san diego. general vandegrift is one of his friends. he gets called to join the first marine division and help in the formation training of the first marine division in new river, north carolina, called tent city. back then now it's camp lejeune that by april 1942, so by march he was up there by april, they were in solomon islands, maryland, watching the in vivian's training here is so secretary of the navy knocks colonel then colonel pete to valley general holcomb coming on and then curtis and the were training inland because of course the germans were on the east so so this is where i'm going to let john don jump in my wonderful co-author we wanted to really give a little background of reports and here here the marines are getting ready to join the pacific. so, don, with further ado. okay. okay. all right. thank you, amy. how's everybody tonight? you a good looking group. and i want to begin, while i want to say a couple of words, staff. so the wonderful team can get the second powerpoint. but i first want to start by wishing you all a happy flag day, and i can't think of a better place. yeah, go ahead and applaud for flag day. for old glory. god bless america. and i cannot think of a better place to spend flag day, even if i weren't talking about one of the greatest officers in american military is certainly most significant to world war two. at then the world war. national war. war. world war two museum was national treasure to us all. and of course, i want to thank colonel bell, jeremy collins. thank you, general myers, for being here also want to recognize a young man, bruton peacock, who is aimee's son and is a great of general curtis. and i spent some time with the last couple of days and he's got it in his genes baby. he's the real deal so please welcome bruton as well if you would. thanks also to the av team and thank you to c-span for events such as this, especially when we're talking about events of significant national importance. and i think this is because as i said a moment ago, i believe that general reports is one of the most significant officers in the history of the marine corps, yet as amy said, this is a story that is not fully been told yet. why is? this could be because he died early. you know, he was his name. he said the longest serving commander of the famed first marine division, the old breed in world war two and a pacific. his friend, general vandegrift was the second longest, and they served almost the same of time. a journal reporter served a little longer as well. see, he was the commander in charge of some of the most significant battles in the pacific and yet he still is a to most of us. he is unfortunately known only for the battle of peleliu. we'll talk about that in the second. but what we to do and we understand i think i've gotten there we go. there's a new powerpoint but i think that i think that what we have sought to do here and we understand that tonight we're honored to be in the presence of some of the most significant military historians, the country. so we may not teach you guys anything, maybe a couple of things, but we sought to write a book that will introduce general purposes story to the american and to introduce not only the general himself but tell part of the story of what the first marine division was doing in 42 through 1944. in the war. so we're honored very, very honored and grateful be here with all of you tonight. now, let's set the stage. it is early 1942 and we're a situation where, of course, there been pearl harbor, the japanese are wreaking havoc all over the western pacific. they've taken the philippines, the british protectorates since singapore and malaysia have fallen they basically total totally control westpac, which is an acronym the western pacific. for those of you who might have in the military, we know about the the notorious bataan death march which comes about in april of 1942. and then general wainwright of winds up surrendering you know the number of some you all know may 7070 5000 combined american and filipino forces. it is arguably the largest defeat or perhaps the most significant defeat in the history. united states army. you can we can debate some the stuff in the civil war, but certainly in the 20th century, america is in need of a victory on ground. now, the united states navy, of which i'm very grateful to be a veteran, engages and of course, a coral sea 1942. the navy fights to japanese navy, some say a stalemate. some say it's a it's a victory. basically we're able to stop some of the japanese naval advance, but they are still dangerous out there with multiple aircraft carriers and then we see midway in june of 1942 and then one of the greatest naval victories in the of the world, i would argue that they're both trafalgar and trafalgar. trafalgar that i say that right to fly. i grew up in the south so i but you're a bunch of words i mean one of the greatest naval victories the history of the world in which the united states navy through by the grace of god and some good weather, are able to take out four japanese aircraft carriers. that is a great victory. and it certainly is a strategic turning point in the war. but the war is from over. america as i say, needs a victory on the ground. seeing a photograph there of the notorious bataan death march enter major general william curtis as well as we'll see he historically significant for a number of reasons. first there is the there are four historic significant battles world war two in which he commanded there is the battle trilogy, which is part of the solomon islands campaign there. as far as we know, this is the first ground victory in the war in the pacific, perhaps even the first american ground victory of american ground victory in world war two. you remember operation torch in, north africa began in november of 42. so we're talking about we're talking about august of 42 before the army is yet to get engaged in in europe. now, jeremy is giving me two clickers. i've got a pointer and a clicker so i could get confused. so if you bear with me, that'd be great, he commanded the battle of henderson field, which is the final battle, guadalcanal, which basically broke the back of the japanese on guadalcanal. this is this this is where the medal of honor was won. and and by the great marine who a marine. so again. yeah, exactly. that's exactly right. and then you have the battle of cape gloucester at new britain and the battle of peleliu and the powell island, the poao islands. and so those are the four victories that he commanded in. one now let's take a look at the situation. we move to august six, 1942. this is three, three years to the day before we dropped an atomic bomb on hiroshima. we have a naval task force moving south from south to north, toward the solomon islands. and this is where it's all going to start. the first marines at this time were commanded general vandegrift general purposes is the deputy commander, and they're going to move in and they're going to strike first at a place called trilogy. and i'm going to explain that just in a second. all right. you're seeing right here, general vandegrift see me. general curtis, on the bridge of uss neville, 7th august 1942. another shot of the general as they begin the their landing operations, which commenced to the approximately 8 a.m. that morning. this is what this is a overall map of guadalcanal and the solomon area. you can see guadalcanal is a huge looks kind of like the state of california sitting out there in the water. but the little the little red area here is is going to be too large. and i'll show you tan and bogle and gavin to just in a moment, the japanese headquartered ontology in the solomon islands. they had the british had had this target previously been the the headquarters for the british state abandon it back in the spring when the japanese forces were coming to powerful the japanese set up their military there and sea playing bases that can threaten our marines. i've got a couple of maps here showing the the approach of the two naval task forces and they're going to be coming in here general vandegrift group is going to come to guadalcanal. you reporters will be coming in to you can see you can see to log you there right. florida which is a larger allen this is a little bit closer and showing the approach again of the two of the two task force, they come in on the morning, the seventh, they make course corrections and they're moving straight in. so d-day at toolangi, which is going to occur before we land at guadalcanal, because you've got to we have to neutralize the japanese air power there among things is set for 8 a.m. before the the invasion begins. we have warplanes, the uss wharf, saratoga enterprise, about the only workable carriers navy has at the time launching pre suppression fire which is important military doctrine. as many of you know. and we see what's going what's going to go on here so this is twg that should be tough task for yoke is general reports marines 2500 or so headed toward tallahassee and there's gap between ten and bigger task x ro is coming in here under command of general vandegrift they will eventually land without opposition. initially it's the solomon guadalcanal, which is not the case ontology in town and boga, a little bit closer map here of tallahassee and then the islets of tan and bogo and gave it to they are coral islets and this is where the japanese have very dangerous planes here. any bomb from one of the sea planes could take out of either any of ships in the area. we got to take them. so to argue as 3.4 miles in length, it kind of looks like that. it looks like i compare it a little bit the way cuba looks a little bit, but it's much smaller. it's about six, six, half a mile, a little wider than at its widest point. and you can see the operation begins at 8:00 am. this is the first active operation by us marine raiders, which were formed and they were under general repurposes command. major edson is group will move into what we call blue beach here and i show they're going to do they're going to turn to the right and kind of sneak behind the japanese. now i want to talk about one of the things that general report is doesn't get credit for because you don't know about them. but this was not only the first, we believe, amphibious invasion, but it was a risky maneuver. it talakai because the japanese are located down here in the southeastern quadrant of the out. that's where they are around the northwestern section. all up here, what we have, which have treacherous coral soto where is the japanese are not anticipating anybody coming in here because the coral they think they've got a natural defensive barrier. so plans a daring mission his marines bring their ilk they bring their higgins boats with a great place to be from new orleans. but up to the to the to the beginning of coral and the guys jump out in the water and the water is up to their necks. and sometimes over egg, so that they want to walking in and they're going to execute this maneuver the right and basically catch the the japanese are expecting something because we start a bombing but are not expecting get hit from the back side. so this is a brilliant maneuver here we see our raiders on the morning of august 7th. they actually in they've jumped over the coral walking in the japanese don't yet know that they're there. there are a couple of snipers in the area that get taken out. but this this operation was basically a surprise. us navy photo taken on the morning of the operation can see the radar units are going to be moving in. there's a ravine there, there's a hill to 20 that is going to be defended by the japanese and we won't have to take that out too long is going to fall in about three days. this is more an overview of the strategic. the raiders are here. they're coming in and they're going to move to the south. remember, they're going around coral reef and down here at tan and burger and two, which i mentioned are two very small coral islets where we have the japanese have sea planes that are dangerous, armed. we want to see the first parachute battalion this is a this is a group kind of like the had at one time it's no longer an active but that operation on tan and bugle gave it to a scale would have been begin at 12 noon after we've already moved on to logging. these are photographs taking again from us navy recon but you know of this is tallahassee burning the marines have come in here and a move down this way and the japanese are here this is these are these hills i've mentioned to you and and and there you have this is a little closer look at tan and bogo and gave it to which of course had to be taken of the sea planes first parachute battalion comes in here third battalion second marines here and here gave it to is the large of the two islets in tandem. burgos top tan and berger gave it to are connected by basically a and a of coral right there to kind connects the to these this a little bit harder gave a two in ten and bugaboo form august the ninth which if you in a data like me that would be three three days three years to the date before nagasaki a photograph gravity in tan and bug burning so just some some maps here that we're showing now all this led up to something the battle of sabah al some of you might know about savo island seven islands one of the you know we didn't lose as many guys at sabu down as we did it's naval battle. there were five naval battles basically surrounding the entire five major naval battle surrounding guadalcanal campaign on the night the eighth, the day after day, the japanese are going to come in here and we have american and primarily american and also australian cruisers that are sent here. and their job is to defend. right now here what we have is we have the transport ships that are carrying our marines into tallahassee. here the president jackson, the haywood, the neville, which general purpose is on are all parked right out here in the water, unloading marines and supplies over on the south side, the transport group, which is task force yoke and under the command of general vandegrift, have more, of course, but these japanese cruises are the store is going to launch attack on the night of the eight and it into a naval disaster. what happened is we taken their carriers out so the -- so the japanese are now launching their navy out of rabaul the japanese still have a very lethal navy although their carriers have been taken out. and they're going to they're going to take five of our crew, five of our well, basically five our cruisers either are sucker damage. over a thousand sailors is the largest loss in history for the us navy after pearl harbor. best i can tell, a thousand men were lost pearl harbor. we got ambushed. this was an active battle and was a disaster. so what happens is when the japanese come in from rabaul, i show you where they're coming. just in a second. another map because of that disaster, these transport groups are to have to pull out. it is an absolute miracle that the japanese turned and went back up to rabaul and new britain without these transports out because. they were like sitting ducks, but they had to get the heck out of dodge. this is a up map of where our navy transports for offloading the marines on to two large. neville right here is the command where the command ship general purpose was here. an interesting about it is on the night of the eighth and i think we cover this in the book general vandegrift is over he's down south on guadalcanal. he got to go find. general purpose is up here commanding the two logging operation to say, hey, we've got to get the heck out of dodge. so vandegrift get the boat. he's coming across the sand over there. see lark channel, which becomes known as iron bottom, because we sink so many ships in there to try to find reporters, he gets lost the water as he is getting in the water. he's seen these explosions up from burning ships over near sabo island and but, you know, so the marines got left by the navy. but we had to protect those carriers because that's all we had. so that was the reason picture of general referred in the staff at trilogy island. couple of pictures here this is a pull this the sun star is talking colonel bell a minute ago this used to be kind of like the second paper in washington after the washington post and navy launches offensive to drive -- from solomon just to headlines this all that's now nobody knows what's on i'm just telling you about savo island or or our marines facing firefight at tallahassee. but the country doesn't really yet know what's happened after tallahassee falls. this is, again the first american victory on the ground that we have been able to to determine the document of the war. now think about this thing about if you're talking about the the war, the american and leaving off lexington and concord, that's historically historically significant is if you watched the the the pacific you know you'll see our marines in and and landing on guadalcanal without opposition. they changed their strategy. but but anyway this the area of the solomon islands and lost my no i'm the wrong button there so talaga is here is florida as we'll go to look at some of these the japanese cruisers throughout the guadalcanal operation were launching at rabaul coming now this area which we call the and they come here generally at night and they just not living you know what of our marines on both of these on both guadalcanal across the way a gang of two and it was a situation this just another map showing where the battle from was fought. tallahassee, florida. and these are the central points on guadalcanal now. and some of these battles here residents rage in huntersville. i'll touch on real quickly just in a second. the general the meantime, after two augie fell, general vandegrift had general reports at two logging going back and forth across our bottom the sound of these boats and i think he's stepping off back in on to tallahassee here this very dangerous operation every time you cross this channel as i say, cabo sound or sea art channel later became known as iron bottom sound because of all the naval wreckage that was there on guadalcanal after trilogy, there were three major battles ten through alligator creek. it's in essence ridge and the battle of henderson field, which the general reporters commanded. many of you all those just picture is the first one, alligator creek, known as ten through august, august 21st, 1942, a month later, we had the battle of exxon's ridge. colonel edson had been the raider commander who led the raiders into tallahassee just in august. so now he's come back over to guadalcanal under general vanegas command, into this, the battle of some ridge in every case the japanese are trying to take this airfield, because, see, here's the deal. this airfield, henderson field, is that is why had we wanted to take guadalcanal many as you know and so the japanese were trying on many occasions to break through these perimeters and retake airfield because it is strategic. now, they've lost their carriers have lost their air power battle for henderson feel this is of course general purpose getting the navy cross from admiral nimitz is all of that i think amy showed this general curtis by the way in 1943, the first marine division after came to australia and the general was a general colonel bell's talking about general petraeus, general curtis, lt, general petraeus, very diplomatic diplomat, highly skilled, so here we have eleanor roosevelt comes to australia and draws all the military commanders crazy because of the logistics that are involved with that. but he is designed as her escort in melbourne. that's them together in 1943. she a handwritten letter to him which we have. amy, by the way, has kept all this. she's her country a great service. dear, my dear general of sarah center. and of course, army commended the general for that as well. general, this is a general area showing. the japanese holdings, as we begin the hopping campaign and i want to talk a little bit about now after the respite and australia that general, general macarthur, the great general macarthur, one of the most interesting, great generals, interesting characters and personalities in american history. he likes the first marine division so much that he decides he wants it under his own command. so he goes to and argues with nimitz, and he becomes a fan of general macarthur, of general izumi general referred notice and the so macarthur wants he's wanting to do right here where circling is is where the japanese are launching their their ships out of rabaul and come down to slot. so strategy here is to try and surround and basically choke it so therefore here we show the solomon islands here bougainville marines are involved there. but macarthur wants the first marines to hit over the east side of new britain, cape gloucester, to put pressure here against against a rebel. as the marines are moving up this way to put pressure against rebel. so in other words we attack new britain at cape blaster on boxing day december 26, 1943. a little map of the area you see where cape gloucester is, where the invasion began, and rabaul is here. cape gloucester is a photograph of the invasion. invasion? well, there's rough. we got our guys in, moved in fairly successfully. so this is a general we have a shot down. i'm not sure that is in the back, but they're raising the colours and praying and giving for the victory. just got them in an area of of the operation is on cape gloucester. i'm not going to go too deep. the weeds here. this is a photograph of general reading a congratulatory letter from president roosevelt. i think it came over the and was translated but that was from president roosevelt. the first marine divisions for swiftly taking control at cape gloucester after cape after they retired again they were hoping to go back to australia for r&r, but they go to a place, pavlova, which apparently, you know, kind of like guadalcanal and mosquito infested, etc., etc. , etc. but bob hope came and entertain the troops. so we captured that picture. let's about the sweep westward and then i'll get ready to close here in a second. we, we have to logging guadalcanal. we have gloucester, then we have peleliu now peleliu is an interesting situation because macarthur general macarthur had promised that i shall return. there's been data. so. so why take powell pell a lot about peleliu. the second peleliu is out here as part of the palau islands. so you can see where this section is near the philippines is strategically because of its proximity. the philippines shown in red here again southeast of the philippines peleliu, is down one of six islands in the south and is it about 500 miles off the philippines? now there are some three point some key points about, i think, general reports gets a bad rap it but i'll explain that in the second codename operation stalemate is part of the pow and mariana campaign mariana islands of course is is guam and tinian and and of course we launched our piece, our b, r, b are b-29s out of tinian to bomb japan. but army also is shifting now from europe and we'll join the marines in force here. the army had been primarily in europe. we're beginning to see a shift now. there's a huge here. so talk about there's a huge debate between the army and navy about whether to execute the operation at all. you know, here's the deal, by the way we've got a peleliu author, a what's your name again? tell me your name. lou wrote a book called 15 weeks. right. 15 days. pick up 15 days. his father in law was a corpsman on peleliu. so on to put a plug to that book. but let me just say this. there's a debate on whether to go all macarthur wanted to go back to the philippines he promised but the issue, of course, is geography and so if he's moving in to the philippines, the are controlling peleliu and they could potentially hit him from the back side, he doesn't want that. so initially he's arguing for this invasion. the navy doesn't want to do it. the navy wants to directly into japan. now, president roosevelt is kind of like president lincoln in a way. he had a way of letting his commanders going to argue back and forth and back forth and forth and back. and you got what you got somehow, some way at end of the day, the decision was made to attack. it was a joint operation of the army, navy and the marine corps and the first marine division division would lead that wave. on september 15th, 42. now, the other key point about peleliu is there was a huge shift in, the japanese battle tactics for the first time here, japanese have been doing this thing which i call retreat and ambush, and they run into the like guadalcanal. they run back in the jungle and they come back and hit you with these bonds attached to it. hit you. i'm oversimplifying, but here they dig in and so they get into the bunkers, they get here they get there. so we're going to see something we've never seen before. and as you look at this picture of our of our marine ltvs coming in on d-day and peleliu, peleliu was a product i don't mean this in a critical manner at all when i say it was a product of a failure, naval intelligence and reason. i mean in a critical matters because you know now we've got we've got predator drones, we've got satellites you we have, you know, high planes, you know, had the the blackbird back in days. we did the best we could in terms of of pre-planning intel. you might get a reconnaissance plane over the top of a place. and if you do, you not see anything. and they were dug in the end to the into the hills, basically. and we would go in to see this again at iwo jima in, february of 1945, and in okinawa. so this was the very first time we saw it. so the casualties going to be higher. first marine division. excuse me. i'm sorry. let me back up first. marine division are going to come in on the south east section of the the island. by the way, i've done book on iwo. and so it would seem from the air kind of looks like a pork. okay, so but this book, this island from the air kind of looks like a stingray, you know, the big part of the thing right here and the tail here. so the marines are going to hit here chesty is involved this operation number of other marines. and you can see this is a more modern of peleliu now. but the invasion initially hit on this of the island on day one. marines facing of temperatures up 215 degrees. this is african-american regiment. i think these might be the four marines who were under general repurchases command, but it was hot as all get out at the opening and they were facing japanese up front in the teeth they'd never seen before. this is a photograph of the repurchases here. i believe this is chesty puller right in the chest. got that right bearing some of the there. so it turned out to be an american victory. got it. an american victory and the general left and passed. his wife christened the uss here. and as i close out the question is, could history repeating we just saw us pacific fleet announce operation operation iron ore exercise valiant shield 22 andersen air base uss ronald reagan. abraham lincoln. set of surplus marines are engaging in this operation and here as this operation goes on, as we speak, after the 17th, we had the first marine division back now in the poao islands taking part in military exercise. so that last part is not in the book. but i do hope the book will will serve purpose to introduce to stories great general to add to history. and i appreciate all that you are doing the volunteers for this museum. i meant to thank you all earlier. you are the bread and butter and you're doing service to the country to keep history alive. so we will close to this moment of the heave ho up in the back there and, possibly take some questions there, be some wild laughs, i don't know. but anyway, thank you very much. if you have questions, raise your hand. the first question for either of you comes from kent online, and he wants to know what was the general's opinion of the operation in peleliu? should it gone or not? try that. can hear me? yeah. he didn't live a long enough to talk about it. the only i know is that he wrote to vandegrift from general vandegrift, who was then comment on about peleliu and he he didn't we don't know if he i mean, he was told what to do. he did what he was duty was to do. but i know that he thought peleliu was a hell hole. he wrote that too. vandegrift said with i'm going to discover any historical evidences whether he was in favor of it or opposed to it, but the navy versus the army probably would go on a navy. my guess because of, you know, admiral nimitz was his ultimate boss. we don't know for sure. yeah. yeah. good question. we'll get to a question. the center aisle here. yeah. how did he die he back from the pacific in november. 1944 and with a whole slew marines and he was coming the marine corps and he went up to a party in washington of the first marine division veterans eighth and i and was with my grandmother and my father and he ended up at that party having a heart attack. so that was march 19 and march 25th, 1945. and he was buried the next day at arlington. next question coming from online. was there anything you found in your pre-war research that indicated he'd learned from what the japanese were doing in china that he was able to apply during. war two? i think what he learned there, not being to see seeing all this this war before him in the japanese tactics because remember after shanghai there was nanking, the rape of nanking, the uss and the marines could do anything. we could not do anything our country to respond to what we were seeing. so, you know, i think i think he pretty driven and pretty convicted and the mission ahead of him against the japanese. let me add that when he was in shanghai for from in 1937, for a period of four months, you know, 200,000 chinese killed in a of about four months, which is roughly the number of folks we lost world war two and america lost. and he witnessed it. he was eyewitnesses there and a handful of other officers as well. and so he knew what the japanese world was uniquely qualified then to take command. eventually, the division, i think the rifleman screed, frankly, might be a product of that. and you know, we've got some video of some audio of him. he was he's obviously a very aggressive military commander. and i think probably he knew that there were there were need to be american aggression to take out an enemy like that. we'll get to the general as soon as i get there. yes, sir. were there any tactics or, uh, techniques or strategies that the the general was known to have fathered or initiated here, as he did, some of the first amphibious, major amphibious operations in the pacific? great question. we just actually last week found, some audio from the the national archives that where he's talking about amphibious landings on cape gloucester which really felt was probably the best best best bet. amphibious event that in the pacific. so he really i'd be happy to send that to you you get if i can get your email. but it's really neat he's going into about the strategy and how the allied efforts paid off on that and it went very smoothly far as an amphibious landing. so i can't say that he was responsible for that. well, he was the commanding general at that time. but but he talked about and even wrote to general vandegrift smooth. that operation was techniques, tactics and procedures to keep obviously his his boat maneuver at peleliu in my opinion was kind of a daring and swashbuckling type of maneuver. and do you mean to toolangi excuse me, but by, you know, basically dropping out in front of the coral. so clearly he embraced the element of surprise and and the very some of the very first marine amphibious actions were based on those. kate glasser well, of course, there's tremendous naval firepower there too, but i don't know if there is anything other than that, but but i think that he certainly pave the way in terms of the amphibious approach of the united states marine corps based on those operations. to your left here in the front row, please. hello. i was wondering if you could talk a little bit about why you chose the title did for the book? i you the breed general. seems like jumping in and out of boats and getting shot. and that seems so. different from my perception of what i would call a newbury general. right. well, i think he he. well, of all our publisher came up with that title. we didn't we had all we had different titles we were going to use, like from the rifleman screed, no enemy and or, you know, all. but but he really was. i mean, and even i've gotten comments that that marine corps officers higher echelon wouldn't talk to each other the way they did or they they wouldn't talk to the enlisted man. you know there wasn't that communication but this war in the pacific i there was he was jumping out of boats and being shot at truly even. when he tried to get to tallahassee, there were snipers to shoot at him. so they had to back. he ended up sleeping on the beach until augie. so it was kind of the wild west. and i think i think it's war in the pacific is what they were dealing with. and they did communicate with each other on more of a friendly, friendly level. there was so much danger everywhere. it's a very good question. and publishers at the end the day since they're paying you to write the book they have veto power. but there was there were discussions on titles. but at the end of the day, the first marine division is known as the old breed dog. and of course, sledge's wonderful book on what the old breed helped to, you know, the popular was that name amongst the public. and i think the publisher is first real biography about well, about the general who commanded that division the longest in the war. and i think they made that call. but there are other good titles out there, too. but you ask a very good question to your right here, halfway back. hi, don and amy. thank you for your presentation. my question is for amy. i'm just wondering how old were you when you how important your grandfather. so when did you realize his role and everything that he did, all that stuff? well, i do. i think probably pretty young, not to the extent since i've done all this research and we've done all this research that i now know more. but when i was little, we did have have the banner of the uss or us. so when it was launched, we have a big canvas canvas thing that went on the front shield, went on the front of the ship when it was launched in 1945. and so i've kind of figured that was important. we had a couple. photographs of guadalcanal and and that of thing, but i didn't really know until i started researching how, how profound this was, you know. and so, yeah. ladies and gentlemen, amy peacock and don, thank you very much for anational park service. celebrate its centennial in 2016. and the ideas of people like theodore roosevelt, john muir, george catlin, carter watkins, which is some of the names recognized for their contributions to creating america's best idea. national park service. ye'

Transcripts For CSPAN3 Ethan Carr And Rolf Diamant Olmsted And Yosemite 20220925

is often left off the despite the positive generational impacts of the olmsted's. and more recently we have been reminded of their contributions. the necessary of role necessary role of parks in public spaces during a devastating pandemic with a need to spotlight olmstead legacy. the commissioned a comprehensive study led ethan and ralph and laura meier three incredible authors to better understand these remarkable spanning from the monumental of the yosemite report and the organic act, which helped to create the national park service to enduring conservation efforts to the expanse of design work within park service itself. this report produced a robust of research on the design and planning work of frederick olmsted, senior. his sons, john charles and frederick law olmsted jr. there are many associates and the olmsted office in firm. as we kick off the bicentennial of olmsted's birth. we appreciate ethan and ralph for bringing this research to a broader audience. considering olmsted 200 the national effort commemorating the continued legacy olmsted values of democratic space accessible to all and our local coalition olmsted now partners participating in the themes of shared use, shared health and shared power. i cannot think of a more appropriate story than the olmstead two share and stuart and i'd like to introduce jonathan lippincott, associate director, library of american landscape history. thanks, victor. thank you. thank you all for coming today. and again, thank you to friends of fair stead to the arnot arboretum for hosting this book launch. i'm, as you mentioned, with the library of american landscape history is the leading publisher of books that advance the study and practice of american landscape architecture. our books educate the public motivating stewardship of significant places and the environment and inspire designs that connect people with nature. we're actually also selling an anniversary, celebrating an anniversary this year. we were founded in 1992. and lila is the only nonprofit organization dedicated to publishing in the field of american landscape design in history. we're particularly excited to be publishing. and ethan's new book on olmstead in yosemite. i'm sure many of you are familiar with parts of this story. olmstead design of central park and his ideas about yosemite. his work for the movement and for the union army and is helping to shape the concept of the urban and national park in the united states. what's remarkable to consider and what the authors reveal so beautifully is that he was working on all these various projects the same time during the 1860s, both park and yosemite embody the new of freedom that inspired the union during its greatest crisis, epitomized seeing the duty of the republic to enhance the lives and well-being of all of its citizens. marking the bison of olmsted's birth. the birth book sets the historical record straight offers a fresh interpretation of how the american park, urban and national came to figure so prominently our cultural identity. so to keep along, i will hand this off to lauren and thank you very much. thanks. you can see me over the podium. my name? lauren meyer. i'm president of the friends of fair stead, the philanthropic partner of the national park service protocol at homestead national historic. it's my great pleasure. introduce the afternoon speakers. but before i do, i'd like to just reiterate my thanks to the arnold arboretum for hosting for the library of landscape history, for publishing this wonderful book and the friends have had many opportunities in the past. collaborate with both the arboretum and la lh on project that advance knowledge and appreciation of the olmstead legacy and this book talk will certainly do that where i'm looking forward to hearing more about a new perspective on the role of the homesteads in the post-civil war nation and the creation of our national park system and. finally, i'd like to just thank pat shirkey, who's chair of the program committee for friends, ted and to eastern national, who made it possible to have books for sale here today after the speakers are completed. just a reminder we'll have a short q&a session. and for anyone who's on the livestream, please go ahead and type your questions into the chat. and now it's my pleasure to my dear friends dumont and ethan carr. ralf dumont is a landscape architect and and adjunct professor in the at the university of vermont. historic preservation program in his previous 37 year career with the national park service. ralf was a planner, resource manager and superintendent, a believer in expanding the national park system in new directions. ralf worked on the development urban national parks, national heritage areas and partnership based while ed and scenic rivers as superintendent of fredrick law olmsted national historic site. he organized the multi-year to conserve and open. the olmsted archives as the first super attendant of marsh rockefeller national historical park. he guided the park's early development as a catalyst for creative approaches to conservation. ralph, a beatrix farrand fellow at the universe of california, berkeley, where received a b.s. and a master's in landscape architecture and was a loeb fellow in advanced environmental at the harvard university graduate school of design. he currently writes about history of national parks and their impact on american society. he is co-editor and, contributing author of a thinking person's guide to america's national parks and his column on national regularly appears in the journal parks. stuart forum. ethan is a professor of landscape architecture and director of the masters of landscape architecture program at the university of massachusetts in amherst. he is a landscape ape historian and preservationist specializing in public landscapes. three of his award winning books, wilderness by design, published in 1998, mission 66, modernism, the national park dilemma, published in 2007, and the greatest speech in history of cape cod national seashore, published 2019. describe the 20th century history of planning and design in the united states national park system as a context for considering their future car was the lead editor of the early boston. 1882 to 1890. volume of the papers of frederick law olmsted, published in 2013. the book are going to hear about today. olmsted and yosemite civil war abolition and the national park idea, co-written with ralph diamond, traces the origins of the american park movement. his latest book, boston's franklin park boston's park olmsted recreation and the modern city forthcoming in 2023 rican sitters the history, this landmark urban park and the arboretum neighbor car consults with landscape architecture firms developing, plans and designs for historic parks of all types. and now it's my pleasure to hands over to ethan. we're going to sing a duet of yeah, we win. just a quick word of thanks given this audience. first of all lauren. we wouldn't be here without your help. and your your colleague reality and support. and in all that we've done and i like to we both like to thank recognize the frederick law homestead national historic site for the support of the resource study that ethan and i and lauren got the ball rolling with. and, you know, we're so pleased to see alan banks and lee farrell cook here. well. they were the project managers for the national park service. nothing would have come together without. their enthusiasm, encouragement and, support each step of the way. so thank you all. i'm going to start talking, so i'll simply say yes. thank you all on my part as well. all right. homestead and yosemite. ralph and i are clearly here to talk. our new book, a timely reinterred of the national park idea. idea, i think we'd all agree. do we need to adjust way for mike. mike's on a little bit, up a little. okay. i think ralph and i would agree it's a timely reinterpretation of the national park idea. where did the idea for the national system come from? did it arise spontaneously during campfire in 1870 on the yellowstone plateau. that's sort of been the official story for many years. and doesn't it have something to do with teddy roosevelt or john muir? and why are we talking about wasn't he a park designer and national parks don't aren't usually don't usually come to mind is designed. he central park the arnold arboretum etc. what does that have to do with national parks? well, these are questions that ralph and i have been plagued with our entire professional lives. and so we decided to write this book and hope i don't know, maybe i don't know if this is the last word or not, ralph. but but but hopefully, hopefully the term national park idea is in our title is a bit misleading because we're really here to talk about the public park idea as it took shape specifically in the united states in the mid-19th century, including urban and national parks and as i hope we show in the book, there was a broader idea of public parks that was the source of the national park idea. and even if we want even if we want to consider that a separate idea at all, they're obviously linked. so our goal is to put yosemite valley the historical context of the great issues, the day which we all know, civil war, abolition, reconstruction. and by doing that, answer the question of what olmstead actually does have to do with valley and the origin of the national park idea and what olmstead was doing. yosemite valley does have something to do with what he was doing at central park at the same time. and his antislavery act, his activism he was doing at the same time and his in the civil war and more generally with his ideas, his theory as an important public, intellectual and social theorists of the day. yosemite was the first park, the first national park. it was created by congress through federal legislation. 1864 that granted the area to california for park purposes. so the first national park was state park, at least for a while. if that's confusing, i'm sorry it gets worse. we haven't even talked about hot springs or the washington mall or any the other places that claim to be the first national park. but yosemite really was in 1864 and lincoln signed legislation while central park was still under construction. and what they both shared at that time and really from the beginning was that they both express and hopes and aspirations a remade american republic. that sounds odd to us today. maybe, but it didn't sound odd in the mid-19th century. a lot of people were going to a war on this topic and. what was a remade american republic? one without enslaved people above all, one that preserved the union allowed it to assume a better form a republic that if still a very imperfect, at least move toward the realization of the goals and ideals that it had been founded on in 1776. in other words, the bedrock ideology of the republican that got lincoln elected. to oh, sorry. i was supposed to switch lives earlier. there they are. so this quest, this quotation, a letter by sarah shaw to olmstead, was really the starting point for the book. shaw was an abolitionist, a social reformer, a philanthropist. need i add a bust? a bostonian that might be redundant after. that description. she was all of those things. and she was a and correspondent of olmstead with some personal and business connection. she was also the mother of robert gould shaw, who died two years later after this letter was written with over 100 black soldiers of the 54th massachusetts regiment. these were people with convictions. shaw captured a remarkable moment in this letter and identification of an unprecedented public park, which central park was at least in the united states. the abolition of, slavery and the remaking of the republic at this critical time, as the nation was sliding into war and central park by 1861 was largely completed, shaw visited it or not largely, but a lot of it had been completed, and she had visited it with millions of others and was complimenting olmstead what it was such a worthy project for the future. okay, here we are. so it was during this tumultuous before, during and after the civil war that the idea of the public park, both municipal and national, became established as a new public institution in the united states, both in the nation's largest city and in the remote sierra nevada of california. and by 1864, when congress makes the u.s. grant both of these parks embodied many of the values and the aspirations that people like olmstead and sarah shaw and many others had for this remade republic in contrast to what it had been before. they were literally physical manifestations of what a more enlightened and unified government could do, and instead remarkably, as a consistent thread through all this. and it is sort of remarkable. i mean, on both coasts, serendipitous is the word that comes to mind. but yes, he is a consistent thread throughout, this story of the establishment of this new public the public park on both sides of the continent. yes. and very dramatically different, i realize very dramatic, totally different circumstances settings, etc.. they're very different places. but in our book, what we're interested in looking at and what they both have in common without ignoring the differences. so what do they have in common. i mean, we could probably go on about that for some time. but first, their purpose as it was described and understood then, which we should remember, might not be exactly how we might describe and characterize them right now. but they were both acquired and developed the general public to enjoy the benefits and experiences of landscape that not otherwise would be readily available to them. those benefits were considered real. they improved individual, and public health, physical and, emotional. and it was a duty of a responsible government to make sure everyone could have these benefits because they necessary to human health, physical and emotional and because otherwise privileged few only would enjoy them, even monopolise them. to detriment of everyone else. this is very rhetoric that that is being put forward for both of these places. of course, the people who are being despised or evicted in order to make these places public parks were not. and this is another shared characteristic of these places dispossession, justified. as with all public works, really, at least they require the exercise of eminent domain by what we call a public interest doctrine. so who is the of the public interest? doctrine will not everyone? clearly not then, and arguably not now either. but the assertion a public benefit and in fact, necessity for societal well-being was being asserted. and that's that's what justified the dispossession as it was for water projects, roads, bridges and so on. was public health infrastructure in words, among many other things. so the purpose is something they have in common. second, these places had common meanings. they both emerged out of the tumult of the mid-19th century to embody some of most important goals for a remade republic. they both emerged out of the conflict, the activism, the rhetoric, idealism of the before and during the war. and this may be our main point in the book. the institution. the public park emerged at this time because of the war and the social upheaval. it not in spite it, which is remarkable because there was so much other stuff going on. right? a sort of a busy time in american history, antislavery activism, sectional strife, the bloodiest in american history, the emancipation proclamation. and later abolition and reconstruction. all the legislation and cost of two amendments that sought to remake the american republic were always going describe this in much more detail in a moment. but historians have noticed that many new american institutions came out of this period of conflict, as did a reforged national. and one of those institutions was the public, both municipal and national. and we think of it as one of these institutions that's part of a reforge national identity. begin to understand why public parks have been so large in the american public imagination ever since. so let's consider central park for a moment. not the more familiar most of you know its design and construction, but specifically in terms of the meanings as it was proposed and then built leading up right up to the beginning of the war. great urban parks already existed in europe. above all, the royal parks of london. and, you know, new yorkers wanted to compare new york to london. right. they always wanted new york to london. the london of north america. and they existed elsewhere of, course, as well. but the name royal parks says it all. parks in european cities were almost always vestiges of some kind of aristocratic privilege, gradually open to the public. the benefits were well known in terms urban social life, public health and of course, the enhancement of property values. that was not a secret, right? london's west end would be a good example. they were all well known. but the landscapes themselves that existed earlier on were remnant of a more autocratic of a more autocratic of government. they became public places largely through the largesse of an aristocratic class. could republican form of government create own version of this type of thing, this type of amenity with all the benefits, including real estate values, that that would accrue if the attempt would would if the attempt were made urban public parks be taken over by the unruly mob or mobs that many associated with republican forms government. the failed republican revolutions of 1848, remember, were still very fresh in the mind. the idea a republican government was being violently suppressed all over europe by monarchists and of course in the united states of our own republic was quite intent on an end to the whole right there. well our republic was seemed to be very intent on ending the oldest experiment in republicanism and declaring it a doomed failure. at least half of us did. could the largest city of the oldest republic create, a great park like those in london. it would have to. there were no royal. and obviously it opened to the public. there was just the topography of manhattan an island, which was by 1850, was covered, reaching all the way up more less to 42nd street. was it possible. could it be done? the creation of a large park require a great public work by government, which is slightly different from other situations. considering the context and the form of government in the united states. it would require a public work by government. the acquisition and development of a new public landscape. what would the result be even if it were done well? that's why i would to suggest that the creation of a great public park in the largest city of american republic was a radical act in the 1850s. it was a statement, first of all, it was a major public works project, the largest new york city had ever undertaken up to that at a time when public works or public improvements, as they would have been called, were being rejected at the federal level, especially by southern democrats in congress, who defended slavery at all and felt public improvements would undermine their position. growth will also explain this further. but secondly, it was openly and avowedly for the public and wherever that was. and to some, that meant the mob. it's a public, a sort of problematic word. we always have sort of put it in quotation marks and try to define who it is. we're talking about at what time. but at this time, the public a scary word because a lot people felt that republicanism equaled, mobs in a public landscape like this in the united states would be taken over by the mob. and so the question wasn't really about success or failure of a park in new york. it was a question of success or failure of the american city. a northern induced real metropolis filled with a rapidly population, very diverse, filled with larger and larger numbers of immigrants. the whole question of whether in northern industrial city was going to tenable, whether it was going to be viable, whether it was even going to be survivable, could was was the question that was really being because it was the northern vision of the republic's future and increasing the urban, diverse future that would be cities. and if those cities weren't healthful, if they weren't tenable, then the northern vision of the republic for the future wasn't either. it was really about the survival the republic as well, if you think of it, that. and that's exactly what the monarchists in europe were saying. and more importantly so were the southerners in the united. and they they believed that the image of an unhealthy, chaotic northern city was great propaganda. right. it was the source of a lot of propaganda for the south. how can you condemn our plantations when your cities are like that. all right. so images like these were a successful, beautiful park were a direct rebuttal of the negative images and characterizations of large cities in the north, the popular success of central park was proof that the northern vision of the future of the republic tenable. it was even. and it was created by a republican form of government, which was part of a society that was not drifting and chaos and dysfunction. it was drifting into war, but it wasn't drifting. chaos and dysfunction. it could do. so it's powerful ideology of the union of republicanism and so on at the mid-19th century. it's covered vox put it. it was the big artwork of the republic as this quote from the atlantic monthly put it. it was nothing less than a profoundly effective and vindication of self-government itself. so let's consider what the benefits really were, especially as olmstead was describing them beyond enhancing estate values, beyond the contemporary struggle to vindicate self-government, beyond the cause itself of the mid-19th century. what central park as olmstead and fox designed it was intended to provide were experiences of landscape beauty, which now sounds very banal. it wasn't. it was experience just like this one. but for everyone, or at least the public, whoever were and they were able they were able and they were to be made available in the as part of the city, accessible to anyone, in theory, accessible to anyone with a nickel who could get on the omnibus from the lower east side. some people could go to the catskills each summer and refresh their physical and emotional health as see here. the rich could own country or could afford afford private resorts. but a public park could be available to all. and the goal may not have been realized for all people, not for the people who are dispossessed. make central park, for example. not for the many who, at least during its first decades, found it to be too distant or simply off putting socially, sort of a middle class scene of people, you know, very bourgeois people would get get dressed up and on and try to try to put on their best airs or maybe just the people who didn't have a for the omnibus, but for a remarkable to a remarkable degree, it succeed. it was a popular phenomenon. and it continues be at least in my opinion. so would today probably describe some of these benefits the benefits that olmstead described in aesthetic terms, talking about landscape beauty, knowing no one knows what you're talking about anymore. hardly. you know. and you talk about a very profound way, you know, the influence of landscape beauty on individual and society. we have other terms. right. and if you think about it a little, we talk the importance of experiencing or biophilia or simply the need of all people to experience some part of the natural in order to maintain physical and emotional health. we use terms like nature, deficit disorder and point to the abc epidemic or other sort pathologies to emphasize the importance of this kind of experience. but whatever language or terms we use, this was the essential reason. the purpose for the large urban park as downing advocated it earlier and 1840s, as olmstead and fox realized in the 1850s. and i think may still be true if we can get past the different ways people express themselves in the 19th century. recent social science and medical research has only confirmed that they were on something. it's important to consider at least and so when olmstead finds himself in mariposa near yosemite valley in 1864, sort of a remarkable thing has the yosemite grant is being signed. it's not too hard. imagine why the state park commission created to receive the yosemite grant for the purpose of making the valley into a public park. yes a state park at first, but later would be a national park. it's hard. it's not to see why they would decide to make use olmsted's experience his ideas above all, and his weird, serendipitous proximity. he was there, a totally different reason it just happened. be there when when lincoln signed the legisla ation, but they would ask him to produce a report to guide how this place would become a public park and the purpose of the new park. the justifications for government act in making it as olmstead described them in 1865, were entirely consistent what he had for what he had described for central park just a few years earlier. he went back to working on central park, 1865, designed prospect park. so on. there was no inconsistency here, total consistency in terms of how the purpose and justifications politically for these parks was being described. what's more, so are the symbol ism and meanings, and perhaps even more so. here was a national landscape to be set aside, preserved and made available to the general public, not the privileged few. right. because not what a republic does. the creation of this park wasn't a part of an entire wave of legislation and amendments and so forth that that would remake the republic. ralph will will describe that in much more detail. and it happened because of the war. again, because of the change in the conflicts surrounding it, because of the desires for should follow the war in terms the duties of the republic to its people, not in spite of it. these two great icons of the american landscape, in other words, have some very important things in common that transcend their and i'm as aware as anyone what the differences are. a lot of time. both at yosemite and central park and, i understand what a design landscape is, and i understand the degree to which yosemite is not a design landscape. but i guess my answer to that question, which may very well come up because i will say is in central park, opposite of yosemite valley, it's a designed landscape. and your summary is a natural landscape. so let me anticipate that by suggesting you think of yosemite valley a little bit more as a cultural landscape, a little bit more as as a as a as a designed landscape and you think of central park a little bit less as a manmade artifact, which it is not. it was a it was an existing landscape that was improved and central park is less designed and yosemite valley is more designed than people normally think. but that's that's an aside. this is the important part. this is an intellectual for a national park system and in fact, for the american park movement as it would proceed over the next hundred years and generally would see parks created at every level of government from and cities to regions and states. and yes, at the federal level. so too, statements like these, which we've just out of the of report the yosemite report itself is reprinted in the book so you can look for yourself but but we've extracted this sort of ideological statements about public parks does does does this remain the of public parks in the united states today despite everything that's changed since 1865? that's my question you. perhaps a lot has certainly you know a lot of things including the environmental movement you know that really change how people thought about national parks. so i'll end this portion of the talk questions for you. do these ideas still have currency in a world of change, of changing climate, increased inequality, etc. ? can we suggest where national we can suggest where national parks from, where they going? as a matter more for discussion and questions, however. thank you. this topic. well, as ethan indicated, i'm going to look little closer at the wider social political context of the assembly grant as as a modest and it was a modest at time but consequential as we look back at it today. component of what was as ethan described, a cascade of wartime legislation and constitutional that redefined and broadened the duties and role of government its responsibilities and expanded the rights and privileges of american citizens. that's what it aspired to say. all this, of course, was predicate it on the final and complete destruction of slavery and the insurrectionary confederation that fact was founded to perpetuate it. i will then turn my attention back to frederick law olmstead and look at the remarks able opportunity that yosemite reporter presented to him to to actually imagine what the future would be of. great parks in a post-war reconstructed american nation. i will conclude just with some thoughts on this. history is so important for us today. acknowledge. before the civil war, southern planners and the political allies effectively blocked land grants for transports and education and homesteading. they were content with a weak central government, with very limited responsibility. they wanted a government that just would port duties, conduct foreign affairs, deliver the u.s. mail, protect and pursue fugitive slaves. they preferred financing that government through the sale of public lands in lieu of personal taxes, avoiding taxation on the vast wealth by enslaved labor labor. however by the second year of the civil war, it had become the war become and in the words of abraham lincoln, a remorseless and revolutionary struggle. and hundreds of thousands of enslaved people self emancipated by seeking freedom and sanctuary behind the lines of union forces actually, frederick law olmstead wrote a letter to the new york times very early in the war in 1861, predicting that if this momentum of self emancipation continue, it would fact hollow out the confederacy and lead to its eventual collapse. remark doubly prescient. very early in the war, putting down the rebellion in earnest that reestablished the union were paramount objectives for most law. new northern loyalists now. the goal was no longer the restoration of the old union as it was, but its replacement something better when it became increasingly clear to both congress and the lincoln administration that no negotiated settlement, returning the country to its pre-war status quo would ever occur. rapid changes began to happen. the republican dominated congress, without the presence of southern democrats, who would all withdrawn to the south. now set about replacing antebellum laws and policies that primarily served the interests of those profiting from slavery. congress sought to rebuild a more activist republic, serving broader public constituencies. within a period of five months, just five months from march to july of 1862, congress sought and passed the passage of a series of land grant bills. all the bills that had been vetoed the war. it established the department of agriculture. it centralized monetary policy. it first banned slavery. finally, in district of columbia, then banned and all banned slavery and all the territories. and lastly, banned slavery in all lands occupied by the union troops. and finally, with the passage of the militia act actually authorized the recruitment of black soldiers soldiers. the capstone, of course, came in that same at the end, that same five month period with the abraham lincoln. the preliminary proclaimed emancipation proclamation. that ended almost 250 years of slavery in america. these are some of the that came through in that five year period. and finally, the emancipation proclamation. in 1864 with the war well into third and bloodiest year. abraham lincoln to grant the grant for yosemite valley to the state of california for as a public park in. it was in trust for the whole nation. we wish to emphasize all of the reform i've been talking about was contingent on the dismantlement of slavery and a fraction fatally fractured political system. replacing. that system forever without a union victory aided by the mobilization of approximately 180,000 black soldiers, legislation for yosemite and for that matter, as the template of all national parks that followed might never have been. in fact if the legislation for the assembly grant had been introduced, perhaps just a few years earlier, in the prior. it would have been vetoed and not passed. like all the rest of the republican legislation for land grants, it just would have failed with the rest of them. the 1864 yosemite act as as ethan is described, drew its inspiration from central. and near the end of the war. relocated to california. frederick olmstead was asked to write that report to guide the future management of yosemite as a public park. but he took opportunity not only to apply his design ideas honed at central park to the magnificent landscape of yosemite valley. but he also shared a vision for a reconstructed post-war nation where great parks would become keystone institutions institutions. the yosemite report affirmed every person's entitlement to. enjoy the nation's most spectacular scenery and landscapes, and recognized the explicit responsibility of government to make sure that that happened. in the process. olmstead laid out the intellectual foundation and framework, a system of national parks declaring declaring that the establishment of government of these places was a political duty of the republic. olmstead also believed that government had a compelling obligation to support these great parks on an equal footing with all of its other major duties. he was always an internationalist. he always had an international perspective, and he realized that this an opportunity for the states of america to demonstrate to the world. how an enlightened republic could fulfill its obligations to its citizens. as ethan's mentioned, it's just important to recognize that. people living in yosemite valley for eons and that the establishment the park for a following about a decade after the dispossession of the miwok or the unreached people from the valley indigent peoples were among the beneficiaries of lincoln's new birth of freedom. and they were forced of their ancestral lands to repurpose, repurpose to expedite republican land policies. those early writers who describe yosemite untrammeled, wild nature, willfully overlooked countless generations of human occupation. there is no record that we could of homesteads. reply to sarah shaw's letter to him. but they certainly shared a similar vision in the assembly report. olmstead specifically identified continuing work on central park, along with the construction of the capitol dome in washington dc and the establishment of a public park in yosemite. as essential projects undertake taken in the midst of war. that affirmed the efficacy of republican government and the necessity of defending. there have been several historians who've been at a loss to describe the enmity, understand the assembly act. they attribute it to it being an anomaly in for the united states unexplained anomaly or a great mystery. particularly in wartime. they puzzled over. how could congress with so many concerns win the war raging all around them have spent any time on this. quite the contrary. ethan and i believe that the assembly act was squarely in the context of a larger framework of war related legislation and reforms. in fact, lincoln himself said that if an insurrection could interfere with the function and continuity of constitution of government, quote, it might fairly claim to have already conquered and ruined us. writing this book also enabled ethan and i to consider olmstead in wider context. he's certainly had his share of reversals. he abandoned farming, the literary career that he hoped for never really materialized. bureaucrat bureaucratic constraints hobbled some of his influence. central park in internal conflicts and exhaust exhaustion led to his resignation from the sanitary commission and his mining enterprise in california ended in near bankruptcy. writing from california at a low point in his professional life cut off from the close friendship of co-workers. he wistfully confess to his friend henry bellows. i look back upon the sanitary commission and the park as a pond, a previous state of existence, and yet, with each professional setback, his public stature seemed to only grow larger. his journalism, while unable to a consistent livelihood, nevertheless introduced him to other writers and intellectual roles. and he began and began to afford him the national and even internal national reputation. he desperately. his work. calvert vox and central park. quickly by any measure a huge popular success and held out the promise that his partnership vox might yet be revived. the leadership and organizational he honed working on central park and with the sanitary commission helped cement his image as honest, competent and self-sacrificing administrator. even his ruinous mariposa state venture had him improbably to california and yosemite valley, where he presented. he was presented with an unforeseen opportunity to assume that leadership of the assembly commission as a respected national figure with a value transnational perspective. armstead soon with the part, of course california to rejoin vox in new york and immerse himself in a myriad assignments and commissions during long and incredibly productive career. but though he would undertake so many high profile projects that would further his reputation around the world, none would afford him quite same platform as yosemite. now. throughout its history, the national park service has been reluctant for any number of reasons to recognize the singular role of the civil war reconstruction. and the role that these events played in the history of national parks, including the establishment of yellowstone and 1872. in our however, we look at yellowstone in the wider, particularly reconstruction and the legislative and conservation and excuse me, constitu tional reforms as shown with the timeline in the left of this slide. just to summarize us, historian lisa brady wrote in her book war upon the land, the war that established federal authority over states rights to determine citizenship and civil rights, also established increased federal power to decide what elements. in the national natural treasury would become permanent fixtures of the national landscape. however, early national park leaders and publicists content with inventing national park origin stories unburdened by any reference to the civil war emancipation, urban parks, homestead, or the 1865 yosemite report. the imagery of prestige and uninhabited western landscapes by either heroic explorers or famous conservationists such as john muir or teddy roosevelt as national parks were served the country with comfortable and reaffirming. olmstead was perhaps too closely identified with central park when the new parks were being marketed as a concept born in the rugged, not the urban east. olmstead was also probably too closely identified books forcibly condemning slavery and the old south when the civil war was being widely reinterpreted through the lens of the los cause. in these slides sort of go clockwise, that's. from the first slide as the. 1913 peace jubilee at gettysburg. the birth movie birth of the nation was screened. it's about same time as the national park service went through screen in the white house. throughout the country, north and south jim crow and segregation were ascendant. and even the first national parks in the south were open. and this is a slide from shenandoah with segregated facilities. and even the public in the final picture dedicating, the lincoln memorial had segregated seating. however, the assembly report was not entirely forgotten. its influence on national parks lived on through olmstead son and namesake who drafted key of the 1916 legislation creating the national parks national park service. the goals and purposes of national parks that olmstead jr famously described were based on many of the ideas his father had advocated 50 years earlier. so in conclusion, i ask why do we need to tell this story now. even in i believe it is to revisit our past with openness to new context and new information connecting earlier national parks to the legacy of emancipate asian and native american dispossession will hopefully help efforts to advance diversity, equity and inclusion in our national today. and finally, we believe that the 1865 yosemite report can still be interpreted today as a caution against the private monopolization or exploitation of our natural and cultural heritage. also, it can be interpreted as a timeless appeal for universal public access to the special places. in an unambiguous recognition by of its immutable response ability for parks stewardship now and. any questions here from our live audience. it's only right high periods of time where you talk a lot of this legislation being passed during the civil war did get a sense that the republican congress was thinking themselves that we all get that now someday we're going to have to accept ourselves and think back and we'll be able to then come back. howard, to be able to get things done like that. oh, for sure, absolutely you know that, was the whole push for the 13th amendment. it gets the emancipation proclamation was a was a decree, was essentially executive under war war authority. and lincoln was very worried. what if that when that happened, it could be easily there was no legislative or constitutional guarantee that some would be made to reintroduce slavery. i have allowed a lot, but an excellent degree of arlene. yeah, you're mentioned twice or several. the issue of dispossessed people and both and ralph also reflected that but as you know the controversies with regard to central and senate the bill is are loud and distorted. and i wondered if you would address the fact that. the kinds of people who were dispossessed besides those people in central park, besides those because only of seneca village? well, yes, you're right. this has been going on for a while. there's an archaeological dig at seneca village in the park. and i think in 2011, something like that. and so people have been very aware about how people were dispossessed to make park. my point is that all parks really from the 18th century english landscape on end. in fact going back to the middle ages when we had medieval parks, people were dispossessed that the park and is how shakespeare put it right and that wasn't a nice thing when fencing off some someplace to reserve the resources to a feudal lord but specific so. so it's always been part of parks and it's always been part of public works. the question is, is there a public that's being served that justify that dispossession? and that's true of any public work. right. that uses eminent domain and and often it's debated as far as central park goes to the first public work to to evict people. and seneca village was croton waterworks, not central park half of that village was gone when they put the receiving reservoir right there, which was put there because it was high ground in the middle of the island. as far as know, it had nothing to do with purposely dislocating black people from new york city. it had to do with where the engineers wanted put their receiving reservoir, which is topography physically determined. so so, i mean, i can't say that with certainty. they had no consideration about who they were displaced. but. and so in the park comes along one of the main reasons that site is chosen a central site is because there's already two reservoirs there. so a tremendous amount of state land that was already available. and there were other reasons having to do with the amount of real estate that would be affected terms of its prices and other things. but there was never there was a lot of nasty things in the press when the evictions were actually taking place in the 1850s that were denigrating about the people who lived there. and so that has been discovered. but there was never, as far as i know any direct for creating park where it was in order to get rid of certain people. they got rid of all kinds of people. and most of them were irish and german. and most of them didn't get compensation as people in seneca village did because they were black. but they also owned their property. so in a in a condemnation hearing, you get a judge sets a price and you get and you get indemnified, right? whereas the german and, the irish were squatters, they didn't get anything. so so it's a complicated story and it does get missed told a lot. and i just would like keep it in perspective as best i can. it's a tragedy when people are displaced and the people that are 70 were displaced, much more. i mean, how did they discover yosemite valley, really? it was the army, right? they were chasing a tribal group and entered the valley that way. so it was directly part of a war that was going on to rid california of indigenous people. that's how somebody was dispossessed. so it's a big part of park history. it's not a new part of park history, and it's intrinsic it. the real question is, what public interest was being served? well, also the in the case the yosemite people who were forced out. no compensation, they were literally forced out of the while were being killed and there's just so there were treaties that were signed that were violated seriously. i mean, there's rarely were any treaties, if any, were respected. so there was no fairness in that. and terrible tragedy. well, i'm glad you both are addressing that, because at the moment there tends be social distortion, particularly your point about the irish and the germans who were displaced at the moment. you would think and it comes up in a lot of talks. it just came up recently in a colleague's tongue. it was as if the only people who were displaced with those people in village. and that's not the case because as you point out, they were compensated because they were landowners and they were substantial. and it's part of every public work. and, you know, we can identify public works that did target certain communities. it's called urban renewal. right. know and so i wouldn't like to put central park in that same category necessarily as specifically ethnic or racial groups because i never saw any evidence that it happened. but there was it was not why the project ended up there. and it was not a rationale for for project in the first place. so difficult. and thanks for bringing it up, because will come up as ralph and i are doing talks about this book. it will come up great if. there are any other questions. what i'd like you to do is use the microphone because the who are livestreaming this are having a little bit of trouble hearing it and it's easier for you just to do your question than for me to try to repeat it. thank you very. i'm i noticed that yosemite law signed by president. and i'm wondering what his attitudes were on. yellow. well, that was yellowstone in 1872 was yellowstone. yellowstone yeah. so what was his and do you know anything about his attitude toward parks as it were, big park presidents necessarily? yeah. you know, they had a war to fight. yeah, i think the republican party still had its majority. both of congress in 1872. and the point make in the book, we get into a little bit further in the book is, you know, part of the momentum that helped the passage of the yellowstone legislation, which was hugely ambitious, 2 million acres, was the fact the government had come out of the war much bigger than went into the war, enormously bigger. and this was occurring a point in a very difficult where during the period of southern reconstruction, when congress took charge of southern reconstruction and you it was a sort of a zenith for federal authority before reconstruction was in effect abandoned and the government retreated from its commitments. but the assessment act comes excuse the yellowstone legislation in 18, in 1872 comes months, congress passes, the antiquark klux klan or the they call the ku klux klan act. and it set up the justice department to pursue the klan. this was a period where the national was feeling the congress in particular feeling it was capable of actually not only designating a park, but having united states run it as well. it took a long time to work the kinks, obviously, but at that was the intent. it's also true and it's this is the book i don't know if it was in our talk today, but the failure of reconstruction and then the later creation, the park service under during that difficult period in the early 20th century of the jim crow laws, there are lots of reasons why it was better for the park service to have a news story about its origins. right. was it was it was it was, you know, tying it in as ralph was referring earlier, i think, to all of the messiness of the civil war, tying it into a person like olmstead was known for this outright condemnation of the old south. i mean, he was as far as, you, these were people who saw it firsthand and they weren't having it. it needed a new and they needed to convince southern legislatures and a southern president woodrow wilson to sign the legislation for the national park service to be created. so so it was and that's what we're trying to address really is here. what were the origins? well, not the campfires. right now, not the yellowstone campfire, not teddy roosevelt's campfire either. you know, not actually not where the idea came from. and it probably wouldn't be so ingrained in national if it were. it comes of that period of the civil war when the united states, as we know it really gets formed, you know, and all these institutions get formed. and parks are one of them. and they're pretty deeply ingrained as a result. you know, we showed that slide of john muir and roosevelt that think that's glacier point in yosemite valley they they met there there's a photograph and they and they spent a night together camping out under the stars and i think you know you're probably talked there. well, they probably talk to each other's ears off to great talkers. and what really probably wanted dominate the conversation was to convince tr that the grant from cal to california be rescinded. and at that point there had been a new yosemite park all around the valley created, and muir wanted to see it all put together as one place. i'm that's what they talked about it to assume they discussed they were the fathers of the national park service an that wasn't created for another. 13 years or that they were the father of the inspiration for national which had been created 30 years earlier. if you if you take it to yellowstone and even earlier you go back to yosemite is a stretch. it's ironic and it's misleading. you because of course tr was always much against creating a national park service. okay. all right, all right. having been invited out to yosemite for that anniversary, i read that pamphlet many, many times. and he, olmsted, uses the phrase it is the duty of the government to provide these open spaces for all people and for me this is the problem of the age here in massachusetts and the country, the governments, the state governments, the city and the national are not coming near what we need. and therefore i think we should really focus upon olmsted was an organizer. he brought to the meeting that he held out there people from the newspapers and that made a big impact toward now niagara falls that was the picture we did show that picture. yeah no i i'm not i'm not arguing all your facts and all what you're saying i'm simply focusing on his duty of the government. i couldn't agree more. jared yeah, well, that's what that's and i've made my point. no, no, no, actually actually, i would like to talk more about your point because if you believe these kinds of statements that attractive for me, a seminar report, then why wouldn't government fund. exactly, you know, why are we looking private nonprofit partners for funding? why are we considering this some kind of a luxury that people who enjoy these things can pay for it. but when olmstead is saying it's actually necessary for a functioning society, it's necessary for individual group public health, it's necessary for the health of society. and so it's a duty of government that's the bottom line to me. why? why would you pay and why would you pay an entrance fee for property that you own? you know, that that is that is explicitly to be free and open to the public so it's an ideology we have gotten away from is the point and and many good results do right public private partnerships have done wonderful things it's only been the reality of my life i like a rather big impact with being the co-founder the co-founder of the nation. yeah because the longest existing paper in america and is still a voice for looking for the government. well it's a complicated issue but i'm saying that he was an organizer and that's what we working with you who understand depths of it. so i trust that during this year and the following we'll have a movement going. thanks, gerry. and we have time for one more question. if there's one more, anybody anybody question what do you think of the parks are better in the long run the myth or the fact you know that by lee wellesley and what's it say scully gloria pulse gloria gloria about about the yellowstone campfire myth. and it's all about how course we know it isn't true, but awfully good story, isn't it. and it appeals to our better, you know, and and and it's an appeal to the american to be better, you know. and so it's a little bit ambiguous what exactly they're saying in that book. but in in in the end, i think the campfires have had their day and the national park service is still interpreting the campfires on their website and you know the commemorative coin for the what was it for the 2016 anniversary was muir roosevelt. you know, it's it's like, okay well we'll have this one more and then be moving out into the lobby for any book signing. so you mentioned something i thought was interesting we all know central park was designed but you said yosemite was more design well we realized so are those olmstead in the valley is there really. but the basic idea of having a one way loop is the what olmstead wanted to see in yosemite valley was as little done as possible. and so he wanted those the carriage drive. he wanted paths and he wanted a series of cabins that would be shelter providing services, bathrooms, in other words. and, and material for camping. is there a reason that he's not really associated with? it was my that he was at the mine was the mariposa that you mentioned he saw yosemite often the so it's a little ironic he that was one of his failed ventures. no it wasn't really an environmentalist the time if he was. yeah that's in california right now there are a number of people making profile stories going about. how olmstead was had nothing to do with yosemite and it was a failure, etc. , etc.. well, the legislation signed while he was already in california and he saw this big champion of it. so it's really nice to get the story. well, yeah i mean, we didn't even touch on a discussion of. thomas starr king and was the sort of the most vocal champion for yosemite and to a large measure, the the act was act was passed also as king had died in the middle of the civil war. king was a not enormously influential figure in union circles in california and had been raised a lot of money for the sanitary sanitary and had been helped kick insisted california staying in the union. he was he was a very influential figure he and olmstead didn't know each other they they talked a lot went on to take out to california then king died a very early age natural causes worked himself to death probably and diphtheria and other things but you know in the was introduced really only literally months after king had died. and to some extent it's it's it's reasonable to interpret that, you know, one of the reasons the lincoln administration to the legislation and supported it congress did too was out a political obligation in the memory of king and lincoln was entering. we get into this in the book lincoln was entering the 1864 presidential race to get reelected and support from california republicans was important for that. but you've got a point and it should be answered, which is the 1865 report. it was not implemented at yosemite valley. right. the state park commission suppressed it. what that has led to is another myth. if i give you forgive me, one of the change that that that the report disappeared and therefore had no influence. how could how could olmstead been responsible for the national ideas behind, the national park system when this report he wrote disappeared in a really well it didn't disappear. it stayed with him and went back to brooklyn. in fact, with him in the 1880s. and it was used when he was working niagara falls. they quote from it. it was used by olmstead jr when the hetch hetchy controversy came at yosemite and it was used by jr when he does the legislation for national park service. so the idea that the report disappeared entirely is also wrong goes ideas never disappear but they don't that isn't what the state commission does at yosemite valley. they let people build hotels and. they start, you know, plowing up the meadows. they do all the things that olmstead told not to do, essentially. and that's why teddy roosevelt and john muir were discussing the recession of yosemite valley in 1903, because the state mismanaging it so badly they wanted state to give it back to the federal government so it could become part of a larger yosemite national park. so it's a little bit complicated. thank you again,

Transcripts For CSPAN2 Ethan Carr And Rolf Diamant Olmsted And Yosemite 20220918

celebrate its centennial in 2016. and the ideas of people like theodore roosevelt, john muir, george catlin, carter watkins, which is some of the names recognized for their contributions to creating america's best idea. national park service. yet it's the name olmstead that is often left off the despite the positive generational impacts of the olmsted's. and more recently we have been reminded of their contributions. the necessary of role necessary role of parks in public spaces during a devastating pandemic with a need to spotlight olmstead legacy. the commissioned a comprehensive study led ethan and ralph and laura meier three incredible authors to better understand these remarkable spanning from the monumental of the yosemite report and the organic act, which helped to create the national park service to enduring conservation efforts to the expanse of design work within park service itself. this report produced a robust of research on the design and planning work of frederick olmsted, senior. his sons, john charles and frederick law olmsted jr. there are many associates and the olmsted office in firm. as we kick off the bicentennial of olmsted's birth. we appreciate ethan and ralph for bringing this research to a broader audience. considering olmsted 200 the national effort commemorating the continued legacy olmsted values of democratic space accessible to all and our local coalition olmsted now partners participating in the themes of shared use, shared health and shared power. i cannot think of a more appropriate story than the olmstead two share and stuart and i'd like to introduce jonathan lippincott, associate director, library of american landscape history. thanks, victor. thank you. thank you all for coming today. and again, thank you to friends of fair stead to the arnot arboretum for hosting this book launch. i'm, as you mentioned, with the library of american landscape history is the leading publisher of books that advance the study and practice of american landscape architecture. our books educate the public motivating stewardship of significant places and the environment and inspire designs that connect people with nature. we're actually also selling an anniversary, celebrating an anniversary this year. we were founded in 1992. and lila is the only nonprofit organization dedicated to publishing in the field of american landscape design in history. we're particularly excited to be publishing. and ethan's new book on olmstead in yosemite. i'm sure many of you are familiar with parts of this story. olmstead design of central park and his ideas about yosemite. his work for the movement and for the union army and is helping to shape the concept of the urban and national park in the united states. what's remarkable to consider and what the authors reveal so beautifully is that he was working on all these various projects the same time during the 1860s, both park and yosemite embody the new of freedom that inspired the union during its greatest crisis, epitomized seeing the duty of the republic to enhance the lives and well-being of all of its citizens. marking the bison of olmsted's birth. the birth book sets the historical record straight offers a fresh interpretation of how the american park, urban and national came to figure so prominently our cultural identity. so to keep along, i will hand this off to lauren and thank you very much. thanks. you can see me over the podium. my name? lauren meyer. i'm president of the friends of fair stead, the philanthropic partner of the national park service protocol at homestead national historic. it's my great pleasure. introduce the afternoon speakers. but before i do, i'd like to just reiterate my thanks to the arnold arboretum for hosting for the library of landscape history, for publishing this wonderful book and the friends have had many opportunities in the past. collaborate with both the arboretum and la lh on project that advance knowledge and appreciation of the olmstead legacy and this book talk will certainly do that where i'm looking forward to hearing more about a new perspective on the role of the homesteads in the post-civil war nation and the creation of our national park system and. finally, i'd like to just thank pat shirkey, who's chair of the program committee for friends, ted and to eastern national, who made it possible to have books for sale here today after the speakers are completed. just a reminder we'll have a short q&a session. and for anyone who's on the livestream, please go ahead and type your questions into the chat. and now it's my pleasure to my dear friends dumont and ethan carr. ralf dumont is a landscape architect and and adjunct professor in the at the university of vermont. historic preservation program in his previous 37 year career with the national park service. ralf was a planner, resource manager and superintendent, a believer in expanding the national park system in new directions. ralf worked on the development urban national parks, national heritage areas and partnership based while ed and scenic rivers as superintendent of fredrick law olmsted national historic site. he organized the multi-year to conserve and open. the olmsted archives as the first super attendant of marsh rockefeller national historical park. he guided the park's early development as a catalyst for creative approaches to conservation. ralph, a beatrix farrand fellow at the universe of california, berkeley, where received a b.s. and a master's in landscape architecture and was a loeb fellow in advanced environmental at the harvard university graduate school of design. he currently writes about history of national parks and their impact on american society. he is co-editor and, contributing author of a thinking person's guide to america's national parks and his column on national regularly appears in the journal parks. stuart forum. ethan is a professor of landscape architecture and director of the masters of landscape architecture program at the university of massachusetts in amherst. he is a landscape ape historian and preservationist specializing in public landscapes. three of his award winning books, wilderness by design, published in 1998, mission 66, modernism, the national park dilemma, published in 2007, and the greatest speech in history of cape cod national seashore, published 2019. describe the 20th century history of planning and design in the united states national park system as a context for considering their future car was the lead editor of the early boston. 1882 to 1890. volume of the papers of frederick law olmsted, published in 2013. the book are going to hear about today. olmsted and yosemite civil war abolition and the national park idea, co-written with ralph diamond, traces the origins of the american park movement. his latest book, boston's franklin park boston's park olmsted recreation and the modern city forthcoming in 2023 rican sitters the history, this landmark urban park and the arboretum neighbor car consults with landscape architecture firms developing, plans and designs for historic parks of all types. and now it's my pleasure to hands over to ethan. we're going to sing a duet of yeah, we win. just a quick word of thanks given this audience. first of all lauren. we wouldn't be here without your help. and your your colleague reality and support. and in all that we've done and i like to we both like to thank recognize the frederick law homestead national historic site for the support of the resource study that ethan and i and lauren got the ball rolling with. and, you know, we're so pleased to see alan banks and lee farrell cook here. well. they were the project managers for the national park service. nothing would have come together without. their enthusiasm, encouragement and, support each step of the way. so thank you all. i'm going to start talking, so i'll simply say yes. thank you all on my part as well. all right. homestead and yosemite. ralph and i are clearly here to talk. our new book, a timely reinterred of the national park idea. idea, i think we'd all agree. do we need to adjust way for mike. mike's on a little bit, up a little. okay. i think ralph and i would agree it's a timely reinterpretation of the national park idea. where did the idea for the national system come from? did it arise spontaneously during campfire in 1870 on the yellowstone plateau. that's sort of been the official story for many years. and doesn't it have something to do with teddy roosevelt or john muir? and why are we talking about wasn't he a park designer and national parks don't aren't usually don't usually come to mind is designed. he central park the arnold arboretum etc. what does that have to do with national parks? well, these are questions that ralph and i have been plagued with our entire professional lives. and so we decided to write this book and hope i don't know, maybe i don't know if this is the last word or not, ralph. but but but hopefully, hopefully the term national park idea is in our title is a bit misleading because we're really here to talk about the public park idea as it took shape specifically in the united states in the mid-19th century, including urban and national parks and as i hope we show in the book, there was a broader idea of public parks that was the source of the national park idea. and even if we want even if we want to consider that a separate idea at all, they're obviously linked. so our goal is to put yosemite valley the historical context of the great issues, the day which we all know, civil war, abolition, reconstruction. and by doing that, answer the question of what olmstead actually does have to do with valley and the origin of the national park idea and what olmstead was doing. yosemite valley does have something to do with what he was doing at central park at the same time. and his antislavery act, his activism he was doing at the same time and his in the civil war and more generally with his ideas, his theory as an important public, intellectual and social theorists of the day. yosemite was the first park, the first national park. it was created by congress through federal legislation. 1864 that granted the area to california for park purposes. so the first national park was state park, at least for a while. if that's confusing, i'm sorry it gets worse. we haven't even talked about hot springs or the washington mall or any the other places that claim to be the first national park. but yosemite really was in 1864 and lincoln signed legislation while central park was still under construction. and what they both shared at that time and really from the beginning was that they both express and hopes and aspirations a remade american republic. that sounds odd to us today. maybe, but it didn't sound odd in the mid-19th century. a lot of people were going to a war on this topic and. what was a remade american republic? one without enslaved people above all, one that preserved the union allowed it to assume a better form a republic that if still a very imperfect, at least move toward the realization of the goals and ideals that it had been founded on in 1776. in other words, the bedrock ideology of the republican that got lincoln elected. to oh, sorry. i was supposed to switch lives earlier. there they are. so this quest, this quotation, a letter by sarah shaw to olmstead, was really the starting point for the book. shaw was an abolitionist, a social reformer, a philanthropist. need i add a bust? a bostonian that might be redundant after. that description. she was all of those things. and she was a and correspondent of olmstead with some personal and business connection. she was also the mother of robert gould shaw, who died two years later after this letter was written with over 100 black soldiers of the 54th massachusetts regiment. these were people with convictions. shaw captured a remarkable moment in this letter and identification of an unprecedented public park, which central park was at least in the united states. the abolition of, slavery and the remaking of the republic at this critical time, as the nation was sliding into war and central park by 1861 was largely completed, shaw visited it or not largely, but a lot of it had been completed, and she had visited it with millions of others and was complimenting olmstead what it was such a worthy project for the future. okay, here we are. so it was during this tumultuous before, during and after the civil war that the idea of the public park, both municipal and national, became established as a new public institution in the united states, both in the nation's largest city and in the remote sierra nevada of california. and by 1864, when congress makes the u.s. grant both of these parks embodied many of the values and the aspirations that people like olmstead and sarah shaw and many others had for this remade republic in contrast to what it had been before. they were literally physical manifestations of what a more enlightened and unified government could do, and instead remarkably, as a consistent thread through all this. and it is sort of remarkable. i mean, on both coasts, serendipitous is the word that comes to mind. but yes, he is a consistent thread throughout, this story of the establishment of this new public the public park on both sides of the continent. yes. and very dramatically different, i realize very dramatic, totally different circumstances settings, etc.. they're very different places. but in our book, what we're interested in looking at and what they both have in common without ignoring the differences. so what do they have in common. i mean, we could probably go on about that for some time. but first, their purpose as it was described and understood then, which we should remember, might not be exactly how we might describe and characterize them right now. but they were both acquired and developed the general public to enjoy the benefits and experiences of landscape that not otherwise would be readily available to them. those benefits were considered real. they improved individual, and public health, physical and, emotional. and it was a duty of a responsible government to make sure everyone could have these benefits because they necessary to human health, physical and emotional and because otherwise privileged few only would enjoy them, even monopolise them. to detriment of everyone else. this is very rhetoric that that is being put forward for both of these places. of course, the people who are being despised or evicted in order to make these places public parks were not. and this is another shared characteristic of these places dispossession, justified. as with all public works, really, at least they require the exercise of eminent domain by what we call a public interest doctrine. so who is the of the public interest? doctrine will not everyone? clearly not then, and arguably not now either. but the assertion a public benefit and in fact, necessity for societal well-being was being asserted. and that's that's what justified the dispossession as it was for water projects, roads, bridges and so on. was public health infrastructure in words, among many other things. so the purpose is something they have in common. second, these places had common meanings. they both emerged out of the tumult of the mid-19th century to embody some of most important goals for a remade republic. they both emerged out of the conflict, the activism, the rhetoric, idealism of the before and during the war. and this may be our main point in the book. the institution. the public park emerged at this time because of the war and the social upheaval. it not in spite it, which is remarkable because there was so much other stuff going on. right? a sort of a busy time in american history, antislavery activism, sectional strife, the bloodiest in american history, the emancipation proclamation. and later abolition and reconstruction. all the legislation and cost of two amendments that sought to remake the american republic were always going describe this in much more detail in a moment. but historians have noticed that many new american institutions came out of this period of conflict, as did a reforged national. and one of those institutions was the public, both municipal and national. and we think of it as one of these institutions that's part of a reforge national identity. begin to understand why public parks have been so large in the american public imagination ever since. so let's consider central park for a moment. not the more familiar most of you know its design and construction, but specifically in terms of the meanings as it was proposed and then built leading up right up to the beginning of the war. great urban parks already existed in europe. above all, the royal parks of london. and, you know, new yorkers wanted to compare new york to london. right. they always wanted new york to london. the london of north america. and they existed elsewhere of, course, as well. but the name royal parks says it all. parks in european cities were almost always vestiges of some kind of aristocratic privilege, gradually open to the public. the benefits were well known in terms urban social life, public health and of course, the enhancement of property values. that was not a secret, right? london's west end would be a good example. they were all well known. but the landscapes themselves that existed earlier on were remnant of a more autocratic of a more autocratic of government. they became public places largely through the largesse of an aristocratic class. could republican form of government create own version of this type of thing, this type of amenity with all the benefits, including real estate values, that that would accrue if the attempt would would if the attempt were made urban public parks be taken over by the unruly mob or mobs that many associated with republican forms government. the failed republican revolutions of 1848, remember, were still very fresh in the mind. the idea a republican government was being violently suppressed all over europe by monarchists and of course in the united states of our own republic was quite intent on an end to the whole right there. well our republic was seemed to be very intent on ending the oldest experiment in republicanism and declaring it a doomed failure. at least half of us did. could the largest city of the oldest republic create, a great park like those in london. it would have to. there were no royal. and obviously it opened to the public. there was just the topography of manhattan an island, which was by 1850, was covered, reaching all the way up more less to 42nd street. was it possible. could it be done? the creation of a large park require a great public work by government, which is slightly different from other situations. considering the context and the form of government in the united states. it would require a public work by government. the acquisition and development of a new public landscape. what would the result be even if it were done well? that's why i would to suggest that the creation of a great public park in the largest city of american republic was a radical act in the 1850s. it was a statement, first of all, it was a major public works project, the largest new york city had ever undertaken up to that at a time when public works or public improvements, as they would have been called, were being rejected at the federal level, especially by southern democrats in congress, who defended slavery at all and felt public improvements would undermine their position. growth will also explain this further. but secondly, it was openly and avowedly for the public and wherever that was. and to some, that meant the mob. it's a public, a sort of problematic word. we always have sort of put it in quotation marks and try to define who it is. we're talking about at what time. but at this time, the public a scary word because a lot people felt that republicanism equaled, mobs in a public landscape like this in the united states would be taken over by the mob. and so the question wasn't really about success or failure of a park in new york. it was a question of success or failure of the american city. a northern induced real metropolis filled with a rapidly population, very diverse, filled with larger and larger numbers of immigrants. the whole question of whether in northern industrial city was going to tenable, whether it was going to be viable, whether it was even going to be survivable, could was was the question that was really being because it was the northern vision of the republic's future and increasing the urban, diverse future that would be cities. and if those cities weren't healthful, if they weren't tenable, then the northern vision of the republic for the future wasn't either. it was really about the survival the republic as well, if you think of it, that. and that's exactly what the monarchists in europe were saying. and more importantly so were the southerners in the united. and they they believed that the image of an unhealthy, chaotic northern city was great propaganda. right. it was the source of a lot of propaganda for the south. how can you condemn our plantations when your cities are like that. all right. so images like these were a successful, beautiful park were a direct rebuttal of the negative images and characterizations of large cities in the north, the popular success of central park was proof that the northern vision of the future of the republic tenable. it was even. and it was created by a republican form of government, which was part of a society that was not drifting and chaos and dysfunction. it was drifting into war, but it wasn't drifting. chaos and dysfunction. it could do. so it's powerful ideology of the union of republicanism and so on at the mid-19th century. it's covered vox put it. it was the big artwork of the republic as this quote from the atlantic monthly put it. it was nothing less than a profoundly effective and vindication of self-government itself. so let's consider what the benefits really were, especially as olmstead was describing them beyond enhancing estate values, beyond the contemporary struggle to vindicate self-government, beyond the cause itself of the mid-19th century. what central park as olmstead and fox designed it was intended to provide were experiences of landscape beauty, which now sounds very banal. it wasn't. it was experience just like this one. but for everyone, or at least the public, whoever were and they were able they were able and they were to be made available in the as part of the city, accessible to anyone, in theory, accessible to anyone with a nickel who could get on the omnibus from the lower east side. some people could go to the catskills each summer and refresh their physical and emotional health as see here. the rich could own country or could afford afford private resorts. but a public park could be available to all. and the goal may not have been realized for all people, not for the people who are dispossessed. make central park, for example. not for the many who, at least during its first decades, found it to be too distant or simply off putting socially, sort of a middle class scene of people, you know, very bourgeois people would get get dressed up and on and try to try to put on their best airs or maybe just the people who didn't have a for the omnibus, but for a remarkable to a remarkable degree, it succeed. it was a popular phenomenon. and it continues be at least in my opinion. so would today probably describe some of these benefits the benefits that olmstead described in aesthetic terms, talking about landscape beauty, knowing no one knows what you're talking about anymore. hardly. you know. and you talk about a very profound way, you know, the influence of landscape beauty on individual and society. we have other terms. right. and if you think about it a little, we talk the importance of experiencing or biophilia or simply the need of all people to experience some part of the natural in order to maintain physical and emotional health. we use terms like nature, deficit disorder and point to the abc epidemic or other sort pathologies to emphasize the importance of this kind of experience. but whatever language or terms we use, this was the essential reason. the purpose for the large urban park as downing advocated it earlier and 1840s, as olmstead and fox realized in the 1850s. and i think may still be true if we can get past the different ways people express themselves in the 19th century. recent social science and medical research has only confirmed that they were on something. it's important to consider at least and so when olmstead finds himself in mariposa near yosemite valley in 1864, sort of a remarkable thing has the yosemite grant is being signed. it's not too hard. imagine why the state park commission created to receive the yosemite grant for the purpose of making the valley into a public park. yes a state park at first, but later would be a national park. it's hard. it's not to see why they would decide to make use olmsted's experience his ideas above all, and his weird, serendipitous proximity. he was there, a totally different reason it just happened. be there when when lincoln signed the legisla ation, but they would ask him to produce a report to guide how this place would become a public park and the purpose of the new park. the justifications for government act in making it as olmstead described them in 1865, were entirely consistent what he had for what he had described for central park just a few years earlier. he went back to working on central park, 1865, designed prospect park. so on. there was no inconsistency here, total consistency in terms of how the purpose and justifications politically for these parks was being described. what's more, so are the symbol ism and meanings, and perhaps even more so. here was a national landscape to be set aside, preserved and made available to the general public, not the privileged few. right. because not what a republic does. the creation of this park wasn't a part of an entire wave of legislation and amendments and so forth that that would remake the republic. ralph will will describe that in much more detail. and it happened because of the war. again, because of the change in the conflicts surrounding it, because of the desires for should follow the war in terms the duties of the republic to its people, not in spite of it. these two great icons of the american landscape, in other words, have some very important things in common that transcend their and i'm as aware as anyone what the differences are. a lot of time. both at yosemite and central park and, i understand what a design landscape is, and i understand the degree to which yosemite is not a design landscape. but i guess my answer to that question, which may very well come up because i will say is in central park, opposite of yosemite valley, it's a designed landscape. and your summary is a natural landscape. so let me anticipate that by suggesting you think of yosemite valley a little bit more as a cultural landscape, a little bit more as as a as a as a designed landscape and you think of central park a little bit less as a manmade artifact, which it is not. it was a it was an existing landscape that was improved and central park is less designed and yosemite valley is more designed than people normally think. but that's that's an aside. this is the important part. this is an intellectual for a national park system and in fact, for the american park movement as it would proceed over the next hundred years and generally would see parks created at every level of government from and cities to regions and states. and yes, at the federal level. so too, statements like these, which we've just out of the of report the yosemite report itself is reprinted in the book so you can look for yourself but but we've extracted this sort of ideological statements about public parks does does does this remain the of public parks in the united states today despite everything that's changed since 1865? that's my question you. perhaps a lot has certainly you know a lot of things including the environmental movement you know that really change how people thought about national parks. so i'll end this portion of the talk questions for you. do these ideas still have currency in a world of change, of changing climate, increased inequality, etc. ? can we suggest where national we can suggest where national parks from, where they going? as a matter more for discussion and questions, however. thank you. this topic. well, as ethan indicated, i'm going to look little closer at the wider social political context of the assembly grant as as a modest and it was a modest at time but consequential as we look back at it today. component of what was as ethan described, a cascade of wartime legislation and constitutional that redefined and broadened the duties and role of government its responsibilities and expanded the rights and privileges of american citizens. that's what it aspired to say. all this, of course, was predicate it on the final and complete destruction of slavery and the insurrectionary confederation that fact was founded to perpetuate it. i will then turn my attention back to frederick law olmstead and look at the remarks able opportunity that yosemite reporter presented to him to to actually imagine what the future would be of. great parks in a post-war reconstructed american nation. i will conclude just with some thoughts on this. history is so important for us today. acknowledge. before the civil war, southern planners and the political allies effectively blocked land grants for transports and education and homesteading. they were content with a weak central government, with very limited responsibility. they wanted a government that just would port duties, conduct foreign affairs, deliver the u.s. mail, protect and pursue fugitive slaves. they preferred financing that government through the sale of public lands in lieu of personal taxes, avoiding taxation on the vast wealth by enslaved labor labor. however by the second year of the civil war, it had become the war become and in the words of abraham lincoln, a remorseless and revolutionary struggle. and hundreds of thousands of enslaved people self emancipated by seeking freedom and sanctuary behind the lines of union forces actually, frederick law olmstead wrote a letter to the new york times very early in the war in 1861, predicting that if this momentum of self emancipation continue, it would fact hollow out the confederacy and lead to its eventual collapse. remark doubly prescient. very early in the war, putting down the rebellion in earnest that reestablished the union were paramount objectives for most law. new northern loyalists now. the goal was no longer the restoration of the old union as it was, but its replacement something better when it became increasingly clear to both congress and the lincoln administration that no negotiated settlement, returning the country to its pre-war status quo would ever occur. rapid changes began to happen. the republican dominated congress, without the presence of southern democrats, who would all withdrawn to the south. now set about replacing antebellum laws and policies that primarily served the interests of those profiting from slavery. congress sought to rebuild a more activist republic, serving broader public constituencies. within a period of five months, just five months from march to july of 1862, congress sought and passed the passage of a series of land grant bills. all the bills that had been vetoed the war. it established the department of agriculture. it centralized monetary policy. it first banned slavery. finally, in district of columbia, then banned and all banned slavery and all the territories. and lastly, banned slavery in all lands occupied by the union troops. and finally, with the passage of the militia act actually authorized the recruitment of black soldiers soldiers. the capstone, of course, came in that same at the end, that same five month period with the abraham lincoln. the preliminary proclaimed emancipation proclamation. that ended almost 250 years of slavery in america. these are some of the that came through in that five year period. and finally, the emancipation proclamation. in 1864 with the war well into third and bloodiest year. abraham lincoln to grant the grant for yosemite valley to the state of california for as a public park in. it was in trust for the whole nation. we wish to emphasize all of the reform i've been talking about was contingent on the dismantlement of slavery and a fraction fatally fractured political system. replacing. that system forever without a union victory aided by the mobilization of approximately 180,000 black soldiers, legislation for yosemite and for that matter, as the template of all national parks that followed might never have been. in fact if the legislation for the assembly grant had been introduced, perhaps just a few years earlier, in the prior. it would have been vetoed and not passed. like all the rest of the republican legislation for land grants, it just would have failed with the rest of them. the 1864 yosemite act as as ethan is described, drew its inspiration from central. and near the end of the war. relocated to california. frederick olmstead was asked to write that report to guide the future management of yosemite as a public park. but he took opportunity not only to apply his design ideas honed at central park to the magnificent landscape of yosemite valley. but he also shared a vision for a reconstructed post-war nation where great parks would become keystone institutions institutions. the yosemite report affirmed every person's entitlement to. enjoy the nation's most spectacular scenery and landscapes, and recognized the explicit responsibility of government to make sure that that happened. in the process. olmstead laid out the intellectual foundation and framework, a system of national parks declaring declaring that the establishment of government of these places was a political duty of the republic. olmstead also believed that government had a compelling obligation to support these great parks on an equal footing with all of its other major duties. he was always an internationalist. he always had an international perspective, and he realized that this an opportunity for the states of america to demonstrate to the world. how an enlightened republic could fulfill its obligations to its citizens. as ethan's mentioned, it's just important to recognize that. people living in yosemite valley for eons and that the establishment the park for a following about a decade after the dispossession of the miwok or the unreached people from the valley indigent peoples were among the beneficiaries of lincoln's new birth of freedom. and they were forced of their ancestral lands to repurpose, repurpose to expedite republican land policies. those early writers who describe yosemite untrammeled, wild nature, willfully overlooked countless generations of human occupation. there is no record that we could of homesteads. reply to sarah shaw's letter to him. but they certainly shared a similar vision in the assembly report. olmstead specifically identified continuing work on central park, along with the construction of the capitol dome in washington dc and the establishment of a public park in yosemite. as essential projects undertake taken in the midst of war. that affirmed the efficacy of republican government and the necessity of defending. there have been several historians who've been at a loss to describe the enmity, understand the assembly act. they attribute it to it being an anomaly in for the united states unexplained anomaly or a great mystery. particularly in wartime. they puzzled over. how could congress with so many concerns win the war raging all around them have spent any time on this. quite the contrary. ethan and i believe that the assembly act was squarely in the context of a larger framework of war related legislation and reforms. in fact, lincoln himself said that if an insurrection could interfere with the function and continuity of constitution of government, quote, it might fairly claim to have already conquered and ruined us. writing this book also enabled ethan and i to consider olmstead in wider context. he's certainly had his share of reversals. he abandoned farming, the literary career that he hoped for never really materialized. bureaucrat bureaucratic constraints hobbled some of his influence. central park in internal conflicts and exhaust exhaustion led to his resignation from the sanitary commission and his mining enterprise in california ended in near bankruptcy. writing from california at a low point in his professional life cut off from the close friendship of co-workers. he wistfully confess to his friend henry bellows. i look back upon the sanitary commission and the park as a pond, a previous state of existence, and yet, with each professional setback, his public stature seemed to only grow larger. his journalism, while unable to a consistent livelihood, nevertheless introduced him to other writers and intellectual roles. and he began and began to afford him the national and even internal national reputation. he desperately. his work. calvert vox and central park. quickly by any measure a huge popular success and held out the promise that his partnership vox might yet be revived. the leadership and organizational he honed working on central park and with the sanitary commission helped cement his image as honest, competent and self-sacrificing administrator. even his ruinous mariposa state venture had him improbably to california and yosemite valley, where he presented. he was presented with an unforeseen opportunity to assume that leadership of the assembly commission as a respected national figure with a value transnational perspective. armstead soon with the part, of course california to rejoin vox in new york and immerse himself in a myriad assignments and commissions during long and incredibly productive career. but though he would undertake so many high profile projects that would further his reputation around the world, none would afford him quite same platform as yosemite. now. throughout its history, the national park service has been reluctant for any number of reasons to recognize the singular role of the civil war reconstruction. and the role that these events played in the history of national parks, including the establishment of yellowstone and 1872. in our however, we look at yellowstone in the wider, particularly reconstruction and the legislative and conservation and excuse me, constitu tional reforms as shown with the timeline in the left of this slide. just to summarize us, historian lisa brady wrote in her book war upon the land, the war that established federal authority over states rights to determine citizenship and civil rights, also established increased federal power to decide what elements. in the national natural treasury would become permanent fixtures of the national landscape. however, early national park leaders and publicists content with inventing national park origin stories unburdened by any reference to the civil war emancipation, urban parks, homestead, or the 1865 yosemite report. the imagery of prestige and uninhabited western landscapes by either heroic explorers or famous conservationists such as john muir or teddy roosevelt as national parks were served the country with comfortable and reaffirming. olmstead was perhaps too closely identified with central park when the new parks were being marketed as a concept born in the rugged, not the urban east. olmstead was also probably too closely identified books forcibly condemning slavery and the old south when the civil war was being widely reinterpreted through the lens of the los cause. in these slides sort of go clockwise, that's. from the first slide as the. 1913 peace jubilee at gettysburg. the birth movie birth of the nation was screened. it's about same time as the national park service went through screen in the white house. throughout the country, north and south jim crow and segregation were ascendant. and even the first national parks in the south were open. and this is a slide from shenandoah with segregated facilities. and even the public in the final picture dedicating, the lincoln memorial had segregated seating. however, the assembly report was not entirely forgotten. its influence on national parks lived on through olmstead son and namesake who drafted key of the 1916 legislation creating the national parks national park service. the goals and purposes of national parks that olmstead jr famously described were based on many of the ideas his father had advocated 50 years earlier. so in conclusion, i ask why do we need to tell this story now. even in i believe it is to revisit our past with openness to new context and new information connecting earlier national parks to the legacy of emancipate asian and native american dispossession will hopefully help efforts to advance diversity, equity and inclusion in our national today. and finally, we believe that the 1865 yosemite report can still be interpreted today as a caution against the private monopolization or exploitation of our natural and cultural heritage. also, it can be interpreted as a timeless appeal for universal public access to the special places. in an unambiguous recognition by of its immutable response ability for parks stewardship now and. any questions here from our live audience. it's only right high periods of time where you talk a lot of this legislation being passed during the civil war did get a sense that the republican congress was thinking themselves that we all get that now someday we're going to have to accept ourselves and think back and we'll be able to then come back. howard, to be able to get things done like that. oh, for sure, absolutely you know that, was the whole push for the 13th amendment. it gets the emancipation proclamation was a was a decree, was essentially executive under war war authority. and lincoln was very worried. what if that when that happened, it could be easily there was no legislative or constitutional guarantee that some would be made to reintroduce slavery. i have allowed a lot, but an excellent degree of arlene. yeah, you're mentioned twice or several. the issue of dispossessed people and both and ralph also reflected that but as you know the controversies with regard to central and senate the bill is are loud and distorted. and i wondered if you would address the fact that. the kinds of people who were dispossessed besides those people in central park, besides those because only of seneca village? well, yes, you're right. this has been going on for a while. there's an archaeological dig at seneca village in the park. and i think in 2011, something like that. and so people have been very aware about how people were dispossessed to make park. my point is that all parks really from the 18th century english landscape on end. in fact going back to the middle ages when we had medieval parks, people were dispossessed that the park and is how shakespeare put it right and that wasn't a nice thing when fencing off some someplace to reserve the resources to a feudal lord but specific so. so it's always been part of parks and it's always been part of public works. the question is, is there a public that's being served that justify that dispossession? and that's true of any public work. right. that uses eminent domain and and often it's debated as far as central park goes to the first public work to to evict people. and seneca village was croton waterworks, not central park half of that village was gone when they put the receiving reservoir right there, which was put there because it was high ground in the middle of the island. as far as know, it had nothing to do with purposely dislocating black people from new york city. it had to do with where the engineers wanted put their receiving reservoir, which is topography physically determined. so so, i mean, i can't say that with certainty. they had no consideration about who they were displaced. but. and so in the park comes along one of the main reasons that site is chosen a central site is because there's already two reservoirs there. so a tremendous amount of state land that was already available. and there were other reasons having to do with the amount of real estate that would be affected terms of its prices and other things. but there was never there was a lot of nasty things in the press when the evictions were actually taking place in the 1850s that were denigrating about the people who lived there. and so that has been discovered. but there was never, as far as i know any direct for creating park where it was in order to get rid of certain people. they got rid of all kinds of people. and most of them were irish and german. and most of them didn't get compensation as people in seneca village did because they were black. but they also owned their property. so in a in a condemnation hearing, you get a judge sets a price and you get and you get indemnified, right? whereas the german and, the irish were squatters, they didn't get anything. so so it's a complicated story and it does get missed told a lot. and i just would like keep it in perspective as best i can. it's a tragedy when people are displaced and the people that are 70 were displaced, much more. i mean, how did they discover yosemite valley, really? it was the army, right? they were chasing a tribal group and entered the valley that way. so it was directly part of a war that was going on to rid california of indigenous people. that's how somebody was dispossessed. so it's a big part of park history. it's not a new part of park history, and it's intrinsic it. the real question is, what public interest was being served? well, also the in the case the yosemite people who were forced out. no compensation, they were literally forced out of the while were being killed and there's just so there were treaties that were signed that were violated seriously. i mean, there's rarely were any treaties, if any, were respected. so there was no fairness in that. and terrible tragedy. well, i'm glad you both are addressing that, because at the moment there tends be social distortion, particularly your point about the irish and the germans who were displaced at the moment. you would think and it comes up in a lot of talks. it just came up recently in a colleague's tongue. it was as if the only people who were displaced with those people in village. and that's not the case because as you point out, they were compensated because they were landowners and they were substantial. and it's part of every public work. and, you know, we can identify public works that did target certain communities. it's called urban renewal. right. know and so i wouldn't like to put central park in that same category necessarily as specifically ethnic or racial groups because i never saw any evidence that it happened. but there was it was not why the project ended up there. and it was not a rationale for for project in the first place. so difficult. and thanks for bringing it up, because will come up as ralph and i are doing talks about this book. it will come up great if. there are any other questions. what i'd like you to do is use the microphone because the who are livestreaming this are having a little bit of trouble hearing it and it's easier for you just to do your question than for me to try to repeat it. thank you very. i'm i noticed that yosemite law signed by president. and i'm wondering what his attitudes were on. yellow. well, that was yellowstone in 1872 was yellowstone. yellowstone yeah. so what was his and do you know anything about his attitude toward parks as it were, big park presidents necessarily? yeah. you know, they had a war to fight. yeah, i think the republican party still had its majority. both of congress in 1872. and the point make in the book, we get into a little bit further in the book is, you know, part of the momentum that helped the passage of the yellowstone legislation, which was hugely ambitious, 2 million acres, was the fact the government had come out of the war much bigger than went into the war, enormously bigger. and this was occurring a point in a very difficult where during the period of southern reconstruction, when congress took charge of southern reconstruction and you it was a sort of a zenith for federal authority before reconstruction was in effect abandoned and the government retreated from its commitments. but the assessment act comes excuse the yellowstone legislation in 18, in 1872 comes months, congress passes, the antiquark klux klan or the they call the ku klux klan act. and it set up the justice department to pursue the klan. this was a period where the national was feeling the congress in particular feeling it was capable of actually not only designating a park, but having united states run it as well. it took a long time to work the kinks, obviously, but at that was the intent. it's also true and it's this is the book i don't know if it was in our talk today, but the failure of reconstruction and then the later creation, the park service under during that difficult period in the early 20th century of the jim crow laws, there are lots of reasons why it was better for the park service to have a news story about its origins. right. was it was it was it was, you know, tying it in as ralph was referring earlier, i think, to all of the messiness of the civil war, tying it into a person like olmstead was known for this outright condemnation of the old south. i mean, he was as far as, you, these were people who saw it firsthand and they weren't having it. it needed a new and they needed to convince southern legislatures and a southern president woodrow wilson to sign the legislation for the national park service to be created. so so it was and that's what we're trying to address really is here. what were the origins? well, not the campfires. right now, not the yellowstone campfire, not teddy roosevelt's campfire either. you know, not actually not where the idea came from. and it probably wouldn't be so ingrained in national if it were. it comes of that period of the civil war when the united states, as we know it really gets formed, you know, and all these institutions get formed. and parks are one of them. and they're pretty deeply ingrained as a result. you know, we showed that slide of john muir and roosevelt that think that's glacier point in yosemite valley they they met there there's a photograph and they and they spent a night together camping out under the stars and i think you know you're probably talked there. well, they probably talk to each other's ears off to great talkers. and what really probably wanted dominate the conversation was to convince tr that the grant from cal to california be rescinded. and at that point there had been a new yosemite park all around the valley created, and muir wanted to see it all put together as one place. i'm that's what they talked about it to assume they discussed they were the fathers of the national park service an that wasn't created for another. 13 years or that they were the father of the inspiration for national which had been created 30 years earlier. if you if you take it to yellowstone and even earlier you go back to yosemite is a stretch. it's ironic and it's misleading. you because of course tr was always much against creating a national park service. okay. all right, all right. having been invited out to yosemite for that anniversary, i read that pamphlet many, many times. and he, olmsted, uses the phrase it is the duty of the government to provide these open spaces for all people and for me this is the problem of the age here in massachusetts and the country, the governments, the state governments, the city and the national are not coming near what we need. and therefore i think we should really focus upon olmsted was an organizer. he brought to the meeting that he held out there people from the newspapers and that made a big impact toward now niagara falls that was the picture we did show that picture. yeah no i i'm not i'm not arguing all your facts and all what you're saying i'm simply focusing on his duty of the government. i couldn't agree more. jared yeah, well, that's what that's and i've made my point. no, no, no, actually actually, i would like to talk more about your point because if you believe these kinds of statements that attractive for me, a seminar report, then why wouldn't government fund. exactly, you know, why are we looking private nonprofit partners for funding? why are we considering this some kind of a luxury that people who enjoy these things can pay for it. but when olmstead is saying it's actually necessary for a functioning society, it's necessary for individual group public health, it's necessary for the health of society. and so it's a duty of government that's the bottom line to me. why? why would you pay and why would you pay an entrance fee for property that you own? you know, that that is that is explicitly to be free and open to the public so it's an ideology we have gotten away from is the point and and many good results do right public private partnerships have done wonderful things it's only been the reality of my life i like a rather big impact with being the co-founder the co-founder of the nation. yeah because the longest existing paper in america and is still a voice for looking for the government. well it's a complicated issue but i'm saying that he was an organizer and that's what we working with you who understand depths of it. so i trust that during this year and the following we'll have a movement going. thanks, gerry. and we have time for one more question. if there's one more, anybody anybody question what do you think of the parks are better in the long run the myth or the fact you know that by lee wellesley and what's it say scully gloria pulse gloria gloria about about the yellowstone campfire myth. and it's all about how course we know it isn't true, but awfully good story, isn't it. and it appeals to our better, you know, and and and it's an appeal to the american to be better, you know. and so it's a little bit ambiguous what exactly they're saying in that book. but in in in the end, i think the campfires have had their day and the national park service is still interpreting the campfires on their website and you know the commemorative coin for the what was it for the 2016 anniversary was muir roosevelt. you know, it's it's like, okay well we'll have this one more and then be moving out into the lobby for any book signing. so you mentioned something i thought was interesting we all know central park was designed but you said yosemite was more design well we realized so are those olmstead in the valley is there really. but the basic idea of having a one way loop is the what olmstead wanted to see in yosemite valley was as little done as possible. and so he wanted those the carriage drive. he wanted paths and he wanted a series of cabins that would be shelter providing services, bathrooms, in other words. and, and material for camping. is there a reason that he's not really associated with? it was my that he was at the mine was the mariposa that you mentioned he saw yosemite often the so it's a little ironic he that was one of his failed ventures. no it wasn't really an environmentalist the time if he was. yeah that's in california right now there are a number of people making profile stories going about. how olmstead was had nothing to do with yosemite and it was a failure, etc. , etc.. well, the legislation signed while he was already in california and he saw this big champion of it. so it's really nice to get the story. well, yeah i mean, we didn't even touch on a discussion of. thomas starr king and was the sort of the most vocal champion for yosemite and to a large measure, the the act was act was passed also as king had died in the middle of the civil war. king was a not enormously influential figure in union circles in california and had been raised a lot of money for the sanitary sanitary and had been helped kick insisted california staying in the union. he was he was a very influential figure he and olmstead didn't know each other they they talked a lot went on to take out to california then king died a very early age natural causes worked himself to death probably and diphtheria and other things but you know in the was introduced really only literally months after king had died. and to some extent it's it's it's reasonable to interpret that, you know, one of the reasons the lincoln administration to the legislation and supported it congress did too was out a political obligation in the memory of king and lincoln was entering. we get into this in the book lincoln was entering the 1864 presidential race to get reelected and support from california republicans was important for that. but you've got a point and it should be answered, which is the 1865 report. it was not implemented at yosemite valley. right. the state park commission suppressed it. what that has led to is another myth. if i give you forgive me, one of the change that that that the report disappeared and therefore had no influence. how could how could olmstead been responsible for the national ideas behind, the national park system when this report he wrote disappeared in a really well it didn't disappear. it stayed with him and went back to brooklyn. in fact, with him in the 1880s. and it was used when he was working niagara falls. they quote from it. it was used by olmstead jr when the hetch hetchy controversy came at yosemite and it was used by jr when he does the legislation for national park service. so the idea that the report disappeared entirely is also wrong goes ideas never disappear but they don't that isn't what the state commission does at yosemite valley. they let people build hotels and. they start, you know, plowing up the meadows. they do all the things that olmstead told not to do, essentially. and that's why teddy roosevelt and john muir were discussing the recession of yosemite valley in 1903, because the state mismanaging it so badly they wanted state to give it back to the federal government so it could become part of a larger yosemite national park. so it's a little bit complicated. thank you again, ladies and gentlemen, the honorable nancy pelosi, speaker of the united states house of representatives. good morning, everyone. as speaker of the house, it is my privilege to welcome you to statuary hall. as we celebrate an american who personifies the dare, ing and determined spirit of our nation. amelia earhart. on behalf of the congress, thank you all to the leaders who

Transcripts For CSPAN2 Ethan Carr And Rolf Diamant Olmsted And Yosemite 20220917

which is some of the names recognized for their contributions to creating america's best idea. national park service. yet it's the name olmstead that is often left off the despite the positive generational impacts of the olmsted's. and more recently we have been reminded of their contributions. the necessary of role necessary role of parks in public spaces during a devastating pandemic with a need to spotlight olmstead legacy. the commissioned a comprehensive study led ethan and ralph and laura meier three incredible authors to better understand these remarkable spanning from the monumental of the yosemite report and the organic act, which helped to create the national park service to enduring conservation efforts to the expanse of design work within park service itself. this report produced a robust of research on the design and planning work of frederick olmsted, senior. his sons, john charles and frederick law olmsted jr. there are many associates and the olmsted office in firm. as we kick off the bicentennial of olmsted's birth. we appreciate ethan and ralph for bringing this research to a broader audience. considering olmsted 200 the national effort commemorating the continued legacy olmsted values of democratic space accessible to all and our local coalition olmsted now partners participating in the themes of shared use, shared health and shared power. i cannot think of a more appropriate story than the olmstead two share and stuart and i'd like to introduce jonathan lippincott, associate director, library of american landscape history. thanks, victor. thank you. thank you all for coming today. and again, thank you to friends of fair stead to the arnot arboretum for hosting this book launch. i'm, as you mentioned, with the library of american landscape history is the leading publisher of books that advance the study and practice of american landscape architecture. our books educate the public motivating stewardship of significant places and the environment and inspire designs that connect people with nature. we're actually also selling an anniversary, celebrating an anniversary this year. we were founded in 1992. and lila is the only nonprofit organization dedicated to publishing in the field of american landscape design in history. we're particularly excited to be publishing. and ethan's new book on olmstead in yosemite. i'm sure many of you are familiar with parts of this story. olmstead design of central park and his ideas about yosemite. his work for the movement and for the union army and is helping to shape the concept of the urban and national park in the united states. what's remarkable to consider and what the authors reveal so beautifully is that he was working on all these various projects the same time during the 1860s, both park and yosemite embody the new of freedom that inspired the union during its greatest crisis, epitomized seeing the duty of the republic to enhance the lives and well-being of all of its citizens. marking the bison of olmsted's birth. the birth book sets the historical record straight offers a fresh interpretation of how the american park, urban and national came to figure so prominently our cultural identity. so to keep along, i will hand this off to lauren and thank you very much. thanks. you can see me over the podium. my name? lauren meyer. i'm president of the friends of fair stead, the philanthropic partner of the national park service protocol at homestead national historic. it's my great pleasure. introduce the afternoon speakers. but before i do, i'd like to just reiterate my thanks to the arnold arboretum for hosting for the library of landscape history, for publishing this wonderful book and the friends have had many opportunities in the past. collaborate with both the arboretum and la lh on project that advance knowledge and appreciation of the olmstead legacy and this book talk will certainly do that where i'm looking forward to hearing more about a new perspective on the role of the homesteads in the post-civil war nation and the creation of our national park system and. finally, i'd like to just thank pat shirkey, who's chair of the program committee for friends, ted and to eastern national, who made it possible to have books for sale here today after the speakers are completed. just a reminder we'll have a short q&a session. and for anyone who's on the livestream, please go ahead and type your questions into the chat. and now it's my pleasure to my dear friends dumont and ethan carr. ralf dumont is a landscape architect and and adjunct professor in the at the university of vermont. historic preservation program in his previous 37 year career with the national park service. ralf was a planner, resource manager and superintendent, a believer in expanding the national park system in new directions. ralf worked on the development urban national parks, national heritage areas and partnership based while ed and scenic rivers as superintendent of fredrick law olmsted national historic site. he organized the multi-year to conserve and open. the olmsted archives as the first super attendant of marsh rockefeller national historical park. he guided the park's early development as a catalyst for creative approaches to conservation. ralph, a beatrix farrand fellow at the universe of california, berkeley, where received a b.s. and a master's in landscape architecture and was a loeb fellow in advanced environmental at the harvard university graduate school of design. he currently writes about history of national parks and their impact on american society. he is co-editor and, contributing author of a thinking person's guide to america's national parks and his column on national regularly appears in the journal parks. stuart forum. ethan is a professor of landscape architecture and director of the masters of landscape architecture program at the university of massachusetts in amherst. he is a landscape ape historian and preservationist specializing in public landscapes. three of his award winning books, wilderness by design, published in 1998, mission 66, modernism, the national park dilemma, published in 2007, and the greatest speech in history of cape cod national seashore, published 2019. describe the 20th century history of planning and design in the united states national park system as a context for considering their future car was the lead editor of the early boston. 1882 to 1890. volume of the papers of frederick law olmsted, published in 2013. the book are going to hear about today. olmsted and yosemite civil war abolition and the national park idea, co-written with ralph diamond, traces the origins of the american park movement. his latest book, boston's franklin park boston's park olmsted recreation and the modern city forthcoming in 2023 rican sitters the history, this landmark urban park and the arboretum neighbor car consults with landscape architecture firms developing, plans and designs for historic parks of all types. and now it's my pleasure to hands over to ethan. we're going to sing a duet of yeah, we win. just a quick word of thanks given this audience. first of all lauren. we wouldn't be here without your help. and your your colleague reality and support. and in all that we've done and i like to we both like to thank recognize the frederick law homestead national historic site for the support of the resource study that ethan and i and lauren got the ball rolling with. and, you know, we're so pleased to see alan banks and lee farrell cook here. well. they were the project managers for the national park service. nothing would have come together without. their enthusiasm, encouragement and, support each step of the way. so thank you all. i'm going to start talking, so i'll simply say yes. thank you all on my part as well. all right. homestead and yosemite. ralph and i are clearly here to talk. our new book, a timely reinterred of the national park idea. idea, i think we'd all agree. do we need to adjust way for mike. mike's on a little bit, up a little. okay. i think ralph and i would agree it's a timely reinterpretation of the national park idea. where did the idea for the national system come from? did it arise spontaneously during campfire in 1870 on the yellowstone plateau. that's sort of been the official story for many years. and doesn't it have something to do with teddy roosevelt or john muir? and why are we talking about wasn't he a park designer and national parks don't aren't usually don't usually come to mind is designed. he central park the arnold arboretum etc. what does that have to do with national parks? well, these are questions that ralph and i have been plagued with our entire professional lives. and so we decided to write this book and hope i don't know, maybe i don't know if this is the last word or not, ralph. but but but hopefully, hopefully the term national park idea is in our title is a bit misleading because we're really here to talk about the public park idea as it took shape specifically in the united states in the mid-19th century, including urban and national parks and as i hope we show in the book, there was a broader idea of public parks that was the source of the national park idea. and even if we want even if we want to consider that a separate idea at all, they're obviously linked. so our goal is to put yosemite valley the historical context of the great issues, the day which we all know, civil war, abolition, reconstruction. and by doing that, answer the question of what olmstead actually does have to do with valley and the origin of the national park idea and what olmstead was doing. yosemite valley does have something to do with what he was doing at central park at the same time. and his antislavery act, his activism he was doing at the same time and his in the civil war and more generally with his ideas, his theory as an important public, intellectual and social theorists of the day. yosemite was the first park, the first national park. it was created by congress through federal legislation. 1864 that granted the area to california for park purposes. so the first national park was state park, at least for a while. if that's confusing, i'm sorry it gets worse. we haven't even talked about hot springs or the washington mall or any the other places that claim to be the first national park. but yosemite really was in 1864 and lincoln signed legislation while central park was still under construction. and what they both shared at that time and really from the beginning was that they both express and hopes and aspirations a remade american republic. that sounds odd to us today. maybe, but it didn't sound odd in the mid-19th century. a lot of people were going to a war on this topic and. what was a remade american republic? one without enslaved people above all, one that preserved the union allowed it to assume a better form a republic that if still a very imperfect, at least move toward the realization of the goals and ideals that it had been founded on in 1776. in other words, the bedrock ideology of the republican that got lincoln elected. to oh, sorry. i was supposed to switch lives earlier. there they are. so this quest, this quotation, a letter by sarah shaw to olmstead, was really the starting point for the book. shaw was an abolitionist, a social reformer, a philanthropist. need i add a bust? a bostonian that might be redundant after. that description. she was all of those things. and she was a and correspondent of olmstead with some personal and business connection. she was also the mother of robert gould shaw, who died two years later after this letter was written with over 100 black soldiers of the 54th massachusetts regiment. these were people with convictions. shaw captured a remarkable moment in this letter and identification of an unprecedented public park, which central park was at least in the united states. the abolition of, slavery and the remaking of the republic at this critical time, as the nation was sliding into war and central park by 1861 was largely completed, shaw visited it or not largely, but a lot of it had been completed, and she had visited it with millions of others and was complimenting olmstead what it was such a worthy project for the future. okay, here we are. so it was during this tumultuous before, during and after the civil war that the idea of the public park, both municipal and national, became established as a new public institution in the united states, both in the nation's largest city and in the remote sierra nevada of california. and by 1864, when congress makes the u.s. grant both of these parks embodied many of the values and the aspirations that people like olmstead and sarah shaw and many others had for this remade republic in contrast to what it had been before. they were literally physical manifestations of what a more enlightened and unified government could do, and instead remarkably, as a consistent thread through all this. and it is sort of remarkable. i mean, on both coasts, serendipitous is the word that comes to mind. but yes, he is a consistent thread throughout, this story of the establishment of this new public the public park on both sides of the continent. yes. and very dramatically different, i realize very dramatic, totally different circumstances settings, etc.. they're very different places. but in our book, what we're interested in looking at and what they both have in common without ignoring the differences. so what do they have in common. i mean, we could probably go on about that for some time. but first, their purpose as it was described and understood then, which we should remember, might not be exactly how we might describe and characterize them right now. but they were both acquired and developed the general public to enjoy the benefits and experiences of landscape that not otherwise would be readily available to them. those benefits were considered real. they improved individual, and public health, physical and, emotional. and it was a duty of a responsible government to make sure everyone could have these benefits because they necessary to human health, physical and emotional and because otherwise privileged few only would enjoy them, even monopolise them. to detriment of everyone else. this is very rhetoric that that is being put forward for both of these places. of course, the people who are being despised or evicted in order to make these places public parks were not. and this is another shared characteristic of these places dispossession, justified. as with all public works, really, at least they require the exercise of eminent domain by what we call a public interest doctrine. so who is the of the public interest? doctrine will not everyone? clearly not then, and arguably not now either. but the assertion a public benefit and in fact, necessity for societal well-being was being asserted. and that's that's what justified the dispossession as it was for water projects, roads, bridges and so on. was public health infrastructure in words, among many other things. so the purpose is something they have in common. second, these places had common meanings. they both emerged out of the tumult of the mid-19th century to embody some of most important goals for a remade republic. they both emerged out of the conflict, the activism, the rhetoric, idealism of the before and during the war. and this may be our main point in the book. the institution. the public park emerged at this time because of the war and the social upheaval. it not in spite it, which is remarkable because there was so much other stuff going on. right? a sort of a busy time in american history, antislavery activism, sectional strife, the bloodiest in american history, the emancipation proclamation. and later abolition and reconstruction. all the legislation and cost of two amendments that sought to remake the american republic were always going describe this in much more detail in a moment. but historians have noticed that many new american institutions came out of this period of conflict, as did a reforged national. and one of those institutions was the public, both municipal and national. and we think of it as one of these institutions that's part of a reforge national identity. begin to understand why public parks have been so large in the american public imagination ever since. so let's consider central park for a moment. not the more familiar most of you know its design and construction, but specifically in terms of the meanings as it was proposed and then built leading up right up to the beginning of the war. great urban parks already existed in europe. above all, the royal parks of london. and, you know, new yorkers wanted to compare new york to london. right. they always wanted new york to london. the london of north america. and they existed elsewhere of, course, as well. but the name royal parks says it all. parks in european cities were almost always vestiges of some kind of aristocratic privilege, gradually open to the public. the benefits were well known in terms urban social life, public health and of course, the enhancement of property values. that was not a secret, right? london's west end would be a good example. they were all well known. but the landscapes themselves that existed earlier on were remnant of a more autocratic of a more autocratic of government. they became public places largely through the largesse of an aristocratic class. could republican form of government create own version of this type of thing, this type of amenity with all the benefits, including real estate values, that that would accrue if the attempt would would if the attempt were made urban public parks be taken over by the unruly mob or mobs that many associated with republican forms government. the failed republican revolutions of 1848, remember, were still very fresh in the mind. the idea a republican government was being violently suppressed all over europe by monarchists and of course in the united states of our own republic was quite intent on an end to the whole right there. well our republic was seemed to be very intent on ending the oldest experiment in republicanism and declaring it a doomed failure. at least half of us did. could the largest city of the oldest republic create, a great park like those in london. it would have to. there were no royal. and obviously it opened to the public. there was just the topography of manhattan an island, which was by 1850, was covered, reaching all the way up more less to 42nd street. was it possible. could it be done? the creation of a large park require a great public work by government, which is slightly different from other situations. considering the context and the form of government in the united states. it would require a public work by government. the acquisition and development of a new public landscape. what would the result be even if it were done well? that's why i would to suggest that the creation of a great public park in the largest city of american republic was a radical act in the 1850s. it was a statement, first of all, it was a major public works project, the largest new york city had ever undertaken up to that at a time when public works or public improvements, as they would have been called, were being rejected at the federal level, especially by southern democrats in congress, who defended slavery at all and felt public improvements would undermine their position. growth will also explain this further. but secondly, it was openly and avowedly for the public and wherever that was. and to some, that meant the mob. it's a public, a sort of problematic word. we always have sort of put it in quotation marks and try to define who it is. we're talking about at what time. but at this time, the public a scary word because a lot people felt that republicanism equaled, mobs in a public landscape like this in the united states would be taken over by the mob. and so the question wasn't really about success or failure of a park in new york. it was a question of success or failure of the american city. a northern induced real metropolis filled with a rapidly population, very diverse, filled with larger and larger numbers of immigrants. the whole question of whether in northern industrial city was going to tenable, whether it was going to be viable, whether it was even going to be survivable, could was was the question that was really being because it was the northern vision of the republic's future and increasing the urban, diverse future that would be cities. and if those cities weren't healthful, if they weren't tenable, then the northern vision of the republic for the future wasn't either. it was really about the survival the republic as well, if you think of it, that. and that's exactly what the monarchists in europe were saying. and more importantly so were the southerners in the united. and they they believed that the image of an unhealthy, chaotic northern city was great propaganda. right. it was the source of a lot of propaganda for the south. how can you condemn our plantations when your cities are like that. all right. so images like these were a successful, beautiful park were a direct rebuttal of the negative images and characterizations of large cities in the north, the popular success of central park was proof that the northern vision of the future of the republic tenable. it was even. and it was created by a republican form of government, which was part of a society that was not drifting and chaos and dysfunction. it was drifting into war, but it wasn't drifting. chaos and dysfunction. it could do. so it's powerful ideology of the union of republicanism and so on at the mid-19th century. it's covered vox put it. it was the big artwork of the republic as this quote from the atlantic monthly put it. it was nothing less than a profoundly effective and vindication of self-government itself. so let's consider what the benefits really were, especially as olmstead was describing them beyond enhancing estate values, beyond the contemporary struggle to vindicate self-government, beyond the cause itself of the mid-19th century. what central park as olmstead and fox designed it was intended to provide were experiences of landscape beauty, which now sounds very banal. it wasn't. it was experience just like this one. but for everyone, or at least the public, whoever were and they were able they were able and they were to be made available in the as part of the city, accessible to anyone, in theory, accessible to anyone with a nickel who could get on the omnibus from the lower east side. some people could go to the catskills each summer and refresh their physical and emotional health as see here. the rich could own country or could afford afford private resorts. but a public park could be available to all. and the goal may not have been realized for all people, not for the people who are dispossessed. make central park, for example. not for the many who, at least during its first decades, found it to be too distant or simply off putting socially, sort of a middle class scene of people, you know, very bourgeois people would get get dressed up and on and try to try to put on their best airs or maybe just the people who didn't have a for the omnibus, but for a remarkable to a remarkable degree, it succeed. it was a popular phenomenon. and it continues be at least in my opinion. so would today probably describe some of these benefits the benefits that olmstead described in aesthetic terms, talking about landscape beauty, knowing no one knows what you're talking about anymore. hardly. you know. and you talk about a very profound way, you know, the influence of landscape beauty on individual and society. we have other terms. right. and if you think about it a little, we talk the importance of experiencing or biophilia or simply the need of all people to experience some part of the natural in order to maintain physical and emotional health. we use terms like nature, deficit disorder and point to the abc epidemic or other sort pathologies to emphasize the importance of this kind of experience. but whatever language or terms we use, this was the essential reason. the purpose for the large urban park as downing advocated it earlier and 1840s, as olmstead and fox realized in the 1850s. and i think may still be true if we can get past the different ways people express themselves in the 19th century. recent social science and medical research has only confirmed that they were on something. it's important to consider at least and so when olmstead finds himself in mariposa near yosemite valley in 1864, sort of a remarkable thing has the yosemite grant is being signed. it's not too hard. imagine why the state park commission created to receive the yosemite grant for the purpose of making the valley into a public park. yes a state park at first, but later would be a national park. it's hard. it's not to see why they would decide to make use olmsted's experience his ideas above all, and his weird, serendipitous proximity. he was there, a totally different reason it just happened. be there when when lincoln signed the legisla ation, but they would ask him to produce a report to guide how this place would become a public park and the purpose of the new park. the justifications for government act in making it as olmstead described them in 1865, were entirely consistent what he had for what he had described for central park just a few years earlier. he went back to working on central park, 1865, designed prospect park. so on. there was no inconsistency here, total consistency in terms of how the purpose and justifications politically for these parks was being described. what's more, so are the symbol ism and meanings, and perhaps even more so. here was a national landscape to be set aside, preserved and made available to the general public, not the privileged few. right. because not what a republic does. the creation of this park wasn't a part of an entire wave of legislation and amendments and so forth that that would remake the republic. ralph will will describe that in much more detail. and it happened because of the war. again, because of the change in the conflicts surrounding it, because of the desires for should follow the war in terms the duties of the republic to its people, not in spite of it. these two great icons of the american landscape, in other words, have some very important things in common that transcend their and i'm as aware as anyone what the differences are. a lot of time. both at yosemite and central park and, i understand what a design landscape is, and i understand the degree to which yosemite is not a design landscape. but i guess my answer to that question, which may very well come up because i will say is in central park, opposite of yosemite valley, it's a designed landscape. and your summary is a natural landscape. so let me anticipate that by suggesting you think of yosemite valley a little bit more as a cultural landscape, a little bit more as as a as a as a designed landscape and you think of central park a little bit less as a manmade artifact, which it is not. it was a it was an existing landscape that was improved and central park is less designed and yosemite valley is more designed than people normally think. but that's that's an aside. this is the important part. this is an intellectual for a national park system and in fact, for the american park movement as it would proceed over the next hundred years and generally would see parks created at every level of government from and cities to regions and states. and yes, at the federal level. so too, statements like these, which we've just out of the of report the yosemite report itself is reprinted in the book so you can look for yourself but but we've extracted this sort of ideological statements about public parks does does does this remain the of public parks in the united states today despite everything that's changed since 1865? that's my question you. perhaps a lot has certainly you know a lot of things including the environmental movement you know that really change how people thought about national parks. so i'll end this portion of the talk questions for you. do these ideas still have currency in a world of change, of changing climate, increased inequality, etc. ? can we suggest where national we can suggest where national parks from, where they going? as a matter more for discussion and questions, however. thank you. this topic. well, as ethan indicated, i'm going to look little closer at the wider social political context of the assembly grant as as a modest and it was a modest at time but consequential as we look back at it today. component of what was as ethan described, a cascade of wartime legislation and constitutional that redefined and broadened the duties and role of government its responsibilities and expanded the rights and privileges of american citizens. that's what it aspired to say. all this, of course, was predicate it on the final and complete destruction of slavery and the insurrectionary confederation that fact was founded to perpetuate it. i will then turn my attention back to frederick law olmstead and look at the remarks able opportunity that yosemite reporter presented to him to to actually imagine what the future would be of. great parks in a post-war reconstructed american nation. i will conclude just with some thoughts on this. history is so important for us today. acknowledge. before the civil war, southern planners and the political allies effectively blocked land grants for transports and education and homesteading. they were content with a weak central government, with very limited responsibility. they wanted a government that just would port duties, conduct foreign affairs, deliver the u.s. mail, protect and pursue fugitive slaves. they preferred financing that government through the sale of public lands in lieu of personal taxes, avoiding taxation on the vast wealth by enslaved labor labor. however by the second year of the civil war, it had become the war become and in the words of abraham lincoln, a remorseless and revolutionary struggle. and hundreds of thousands of enslaved people self emancipated by seeking freedom and sanctuary behind the lines of union forces actually, frederick law olmstead wrote a letter to the new york times very early in the war in 1861, predicting that if this momentum of self emancipation continue, it would fact hollow out the confederacy and lead to its eventual collapse. remark doubly prescient. very early in the war, putting down the rebellion in earnest that reestablished the union were paramount objectives for most law. new northern loyalists now. the goal was no longer the restoration of the old union as it was, but its replacement something better when it became increasingly clear to both congress and the lincoln administration that no negotiated settlement, returning the country to its pre-war status quo would ever occur. rapid changes began to happen. the republican dominated congress, without the presence of southern democrats, who would all withdrawn to the south. now set about replacing antebellum laws and policies that primarily served the interests of those profiting from slavery. congress sought to rebuild a more activist republic, serving broader public constituencies. within a period of five months, just five months from march to july of 1862, congress sought and passed the passage of a series of land grant bills. all the bills that had been vetoed the war. it established the department of agriculture. it centralized monetary policy. it first banned slavery. finally, in district of columbia, then banned and all banned slavery and all the territories. and lastly, banned slavery in all lands occupied by the union troops. and finally, with the passage of the militia act actually authorized the recruitment of black soldiers soldiers. the capstone, of course, came in that same at the end, that same five month period with the abraham lincoln. the preliminary proclaimed emancipation proclamation. that ended almost 250 years of slavery in america. these are some of the that came through in that five year period. and finally, the emancipation proclamation. in 1864 with the war well into third and bloodiest year. abraham lincoln to grant the grant for yosemite valley to the state of california for as a public park in. it was in trust for the whole nation. we wish to emphasize all of the reform i've been talking about was contingent on the dismantlement of slavery and a fraction fatally fractured political system. replacing. that system forever without a union victory aided by the mobilization of approximately 180,000 black soldiers, legislation for yosemite and for that matter, as the template of all national parks that followed might never have been. in fact if the legislation for the assembly grant had been introduced, perhaps just a few years earlier, in the prior. it would have been vetoed and not passed. like all the rest of the republican legislation for land grants, it just would have failed with the rest of them. the 1864 yosemite act as as ethan is described, drew its inspiration from central. and near the end of the war. relocated to california. frederick olmstead was asked to write that report to guide the future management of yosemite as a public park. but he took opportunity not only to apply his design ideas honed at central park to the magnificent landscape of yosemite valley. but he also shared a vision for a reconstructed post-war nation where great parks would become keystone institutions institutions. the yosemite report affirmed every person's entitlement to. enjoy the nation's most spectacular scenery and landscapes, and recognized the explicit responsibility of government to make sure that that happened. in the process. olmstead laid out the intellectual foundation and framework, a system of national parks declaring declaring that the establishment of government of these places was a political duty of the republic. olmstead also believed that government had a compelling obligation to support these great parks on an equal footing with all of its other major duties. he was always an internationalist. he always had an international perspective, and he realized that this an opportunity for the states of america to demonstrate to the world. how an enlightened republic could fulfill its obligations to its citizens. as ethan's mentioned, it's just important to recognize that. people living in yosemite valley for eons and that the establishment the park for a following about a decade after the dispossession of the miwok or the unreached people from the valley indigent peoples were among the beneficiaries of lincoln's new birth of freedom. and they were forced of their ancestral lands to repurpose, repurpose to expedite republican land policies. those early writers who describe yosemite untrammeled, wild nature, willfully overlooked countless generations of human occupation. there is no record that we could of homesteads. reply to sarah shaw's letter to him. but they certainly shared a similar vision in the assembly report. olmstead specifically identified continuing work on central park, along with the construction of the capitol dome in washington dc and the establishment of a public park in yosemite. as essential projects undertake taken in the midst of war. that affirmed the efficacy of republican government and the necessity of defending. there have been several historians who've been at a loss to describe the enmity, understand the assembly act. they attribute it to it being an anomaly in for the united states unexplained anomaly or a great mystery. particularly in wartime. they puzzled over. how could congress with so many concerns win the war raging all around them have spent any time on this. quite the contrary. ethan and i believe that the assembly act was squarely in the context of a larger framework of war related legislation and reforms. in fact, lincoln himself said that if an insurrection could interfere with the function and continuity of constitution of government, quote, it might fairly claim to have already conquered and ruined us. writing this book also enabled ethan and i to consider olmstead in wider context. he's certainly had his share of reversals. he abandoned farming, the literary career that he hoped for never really materialized. bureaucrat bureaucratic constraints hobbled some of his influence. central park in internal conflicts and exhaust exhaustion led to his resignation from the sanitary commission and his mining enterprise in california ended in near bankruptcy. writing from california at a low point in his professional life cut off from the close friendship of co-workers. he wistfully confess to his friend henry bellows. i look back upon the sanitary commission and the park as a pond, a previous state of existence, and yet, with each professional setback, his public stature seemed to only grow larger. his journalism, while unable to a consistent livelihood, nevertheless introduced him to other writers and intellectual roles. and he began and began to afford him the national and even internal national reputation. he desperately. his work. calvert vox and central park. quickly by any measure a huge popular success and held out the promise that his partnership vox might yet be revived. the leadership and organizational he honed working on central park and with the sanitary commission helped cement his image as honest, competent and self-sacrificing administrator. even his ruinous mariposa state venture had him improbably to california and yosemite valley, where he presented. he was presented with an unforeseen opportunity to assume that leadership of the assembly commission as a respected national figure with a value transnational perspective. armstead soon with the part, of course california to rejoin vox in new york and immerse himself in a myriad assignments and commissions during long and incredibly productive career. but though he would undertake so many high profile projects that would further his reputation around the world, none would afford him quite same platform as yosemite. now. throughout its history, the national park service has been reluctant for any number of reasons to recognize the singular role of the civil war reconstruction. and the role that these events played in the history of national parks, including the establishment of yellowstone and 1872. in our however, we look at yellowstone in the wider, particularly reconstruction and the legislative and conservation and excuse me, constitu tional reforms as shown with the timeline in the left of this slide. just to summarize us, historian lisa brady wrote in her book war upon the land, the war that established federal authority over states rights to determine citizenship and civil rights, also established increased federal power to decide what elements. in the national natural treasury would become permanent fixtures of the national landscape. however, early national park leaders and publicists content with inventing national park origin stories unburdened by any reference to the civil war emancipation, urban parks, homestead, or the 1865 yosemite report. the imagery of prestige and uninhabited western landscapes by either heroic explorers or famous conservationists such as john muir or teddy roosevelt as national parks were served the country with comfortable and reaffirming. olmstead was perhaps too closely identified with central park when the new parks were being marketed as a concept born in the rugged, not the urban east. olmstead was also probably too closely identified books forcibly condemning slavery and the old south when the civil war was being widely reinterpreted through the lens of the los cause. in these slides sort of go clockwise, that's. from the first slide as the. 1913 peace jubilee at gettysburg. the birth movie birth of the nation was screened. it's about same time as the national park service went through screen in the white house. throughout the country, north and south jim crow and segregation were ascendant. and even the first national parks in the south were open. and this is a slide from shenandoah with segregated facilities. and even the public in the final picture dedicating, the lincoln memorial had segregated seating. however, the assembly report was not entirely forgotten. its influence on national parks lived on through olmstead son and namesake who drafted key of the 1916 legislation creating the national parks national park service. the goals and purposes of national parks that olmstead jr famously described were based on many of the ideas his father had advocated 50 years earlier. so in conclusion, i ask why do we need to tell this story now. even in i believe it is to revisit our past with openness to new context and new information connecting earlier national parks to the legacy of emancipate asian and native american dispossession will hopefully help efforts to advance diversity, equity and inclusion in our national today. and finally, we believe that the 1865 yosemite report can still be interpreted today as a caution against the private monopolization or exploitation of our natural and cultural heritage. also, it can be interpreted as a timeless appeal for universal public access to the special places. in an unambiguous recognition by of its immutable response ability for parks stewardship now and. any questions here from our live audience. it's only right high periods of time where you talk a lot of this legislation being passed during the civil war did get a sense that the republican congress was thinking themselves that we all get that now someday we're going to have to accept ourselves and think back and we'll be able to then come back. howard, to be able to get things done like that. oh, for sure, absolutely you know that, was the whole push for the 13th amendment. it gets the emancipation proclamation was a was a decree, was essentially executive under war war authority. and lincoln was very worried. what if that when that happened, it could be easily there was no legislative or constitutional guarantee that some would be made to reintroduce slavery. i have allowed a lot, but an excellent degree of arlene. yeah, you're mentioned twice or several. the issue of dispossessed people and both and ralph also reflected that but as you know the controversies with regard to central and senate the bill is are loud and distorted. and i wondered if you would address the fact that. the kinds of people who were dispossessed besides those people in central park, besides those because only of seneca village? well, yes, you're right. this has been going on for a while. there's an archaeological dig at seneca village in the park. and i think in 2011, something like that. and so people have been very aware about how people were dispossessed to make park. my point is that all parks really from the 18th century english landscape on end. in fact going back to the middle ages when we had medieval parks, people were dispossessed that the park and is how shakespeare put it right and that wasn't a nice thing when fencing off some someplace to reserve the resources to a feudal lord but specific so. so it's always been part of parks and it's always been part of public works. the question is, is there a public that's being served that justify that dispossession? and that's true of any public work. right. that uses eminent domain and and often it's debated as far as central park goes to the first public work to to evict people. and seneca village was croton waterworks, not central park half of that village was gone when they put the receiving reservoir right there, which was put there because it was high ground in the middle of the island. as far as know, it had nothing to do with purposely dislocating black people from new york city. it had to do with where the engineers wanted put their receiving reservoir, which is topography physically determined. so so, i mean, i can't say that with certainty. they had no consideration about who they were displaced. but. and so in the park comes along one of the main reasons that site is chosen a central site is because there's already two reservoirs there. so a tremendous amount of state land that was already available. and there were other reasons having to do with the amount of real estate that would be affected terms of its prices and other things. but there was never there was a lot of nasty things in the press when the evictions were actually taking place in the 1850s that were denigrating about the people who lived there. and so that has been discovered. but there was never, as far as i know any direct for creating park where it was in order to get rid of certain people. they got rid of all kinds of people. and most of them were irish and german. and most of them didn't get compensation as people in seneca village did because they were black. but they also owned their property. so in a in a condemnation hearing, you get a judge sets a price and you get and you get indemnified, right? whereas the german and, the irish were squatters, they didn't get anything. so so it's a complicated story and it does get missed told a lot. and i just would like keep it in perspective as best i can. it's a tragedy when people are displaced and the people that are 70 were displaced, much more. i mean, how did they discover yosemite valley, really? it was the army, right? they were chasing a tribal group and entered the valley that way. so it was directly part of a war that was going on to rid california of indigenous people. that's how somebody was dispossessed. so it's a big part of park history. it's not a new part of park history, and it's intrinsic it. the real question is, what public interest was being served? well, also the in the case the yosemite people who were forced out. no compensation, they were literally forced out of the while were being killed and there's just so there were treaties that were signed that were violated seriously. i mean, there's rarely were any treaties, if any, were respected. so there was no fairness in that. and terrible tragedy. well, i'm glad you both are addressing that, because at the moment there tends be social distortion, particularly your point about the irish and the germans who were displaced at the moment. you would think and it comes up in a lot of talks. it just came up recently in a colleague's tongue. it was as if the only people who were displaced with those people in village. and that's not the case because as you point out, they were compensated because they were landowners and they were substantial. and it's part of every public work. and, you know, we can identify public works that did target certain communities. it's called urban renewal. right. know and so i wouldn't like to put central park in that same category necessarily as specifically ethnic or racial groups because i never saw any evidence that it happened. but there was it was not why the project ended up there. and it was not a rationale for for project in the first place. so difficult. and thanks for bringing it up, because will come up as ralph and i are doing talks about this book. it will come up great if. there are any other questions. what i'd like you to do is use the microphone because the who are livestreaming this are having a little bit of trouble hearing it and it's easier for you just to do your question than for me to try to repeat it. thank you very. i'm i noticed that yosemite law signed by president. and i'm wondering what his attitudes were on. yellow. well, that was yellowstone in 1872 was yellowstone. yellowstone yeah. so what was his and do you know anything about his attitude toward parks as it were, big park presidents necessarily? yeah. you know, they had a war to fight. yeah, i think the republican party still had its majority. both of congress in 1872. and the point make in the book, we get into a little bit further in the book is, you know, part of the momentum that helped the passage of the yellowstone legislation, which was hugely ambitious, 2 million acres, was the fact the government had come out of the war much bigger than went into the war, enormously bigger. and this was occurring a point in a very difficult where during the period of southern reconstruction, when congress took charge of southern reconstruction and you it was a sort of a zenith for federal authority before reconstruction was in effect abandoned and the government retreated from its commitments. but the assessment act comes excuse the yellowstone legislation in 18, in 1872 comes months, congress passes, the antiquark klux klan or the they call the ku klux klan act. and it set up the justice department to pursue the klan. this was a period where the national was feeling the congress in particular feeling it was capable of actually not only designating a park, but having united states run it as well. it took a long time to work the kinks, obviously, but at that was the intent. it's also true and it's this is the book i don't know if it was in our talk today, but the failure of reconstruction and then the later creation, the park service under during that difficult period in the early 20th century of the jim crow laws, there are lots of reasons why it was better for the park service to have a news story about its origins. right. was it was it was it was, you know, tying it in as ralph was referring earlier, i think, to all of the messiness of the civil war, tying it into a person like olmstead was known for this outright condemnation of the old south. i mean, he was as far as, you, these were people who saw it firsthand and they weren't having it. it needed a new and they needed to convince southern legislatures and a southern president woodrow wilson to sign the legislation for the national park service to be created. so so it was and that's what we're trying to address really is here. what were the origins? well, not the campfires. right now, not the yellowstone campfire, not teddy roosevelt's campfire either. you know, not actually not where the idea came from. and it probably wouldn't be so ingrained in national if it were. it comes of that period of the civil war when the united states, as we know it really gets formed, you know, and all these institutions get formed. and parks are one of them. and they're pretty deeply ingrained as a result. you know, we showed that slide of john muir and roosevelt that think that's glacier point in yosemite valley they they met there there's a photograph and they and they spent a night together camping out under the stars and i think you know you're probably talked there. well, they probably talk to each other's ears off to great talkers. and what really probably wanted dominate the conversation was to convince tr that the grant from cal to california be rescinded. and at that point there had been a new yosemite park all around the valley created, and muir wanted to see it all put together as one place. i'm that's what they talked about it to assume they discussed they were the fathers of the national park service an that wasn't created for another. 13 years or that they were the father of the inspiration for national which had been created 30 years earlier. if you if you take it to yellowstone and even earlier you go back to yosemite is a stretch. it's ironic and it's misleading. you because of course tr was always much against creating a national park service. okay. all right, all right. having been invited out to yosemite for that anniversary, i read that pamphlet many, many times. and he, olmsted, uses the phrase it is the duty of the government to provide these open spaces for all people and for me this is the problem of the age here in massachusetts and the country, the governments, the state governments, the city and the national are not coming near what we need. and therefore i think we should really focus upon olmsted was an organizer. he brought to the meeting that he held out there people from the newspapers and that made a big impact toward now niagara falls that was the picture we did show that picture. yeah no i i'm not i'm not arguing all your facts and all what you're saying i'm simply focusing on his duty of the government. i couldn't agree more. jared yeah, well, that's what that's and i've made my point. no, no, no, actually actually, i would like to talk more about your point because if you believe these kinds of statements that attractive for me, a seminar report, then why wouldn't government fund. exactly, you know, why are we looking private nonprofit partners for funding? why are we considering this some kind of a luxury that people who enjoy these things can pay for it. but when olmstead is saying it's actually necessary for a functioning society, it's necessary for individual group public health, it's necessary for the health of society. and so it's a duty of government that's the bottom line to me. why? why would you pay and why would you pay an entrance fee for property that you own? you know, that that is that is explicitly to be free and open to the public so it's an ideology we have gotten away from is the point and and many good results do right public private partnerships have done wonderful things it's only been the reality of my life i like a rather big impact with being the co-founder the co-founder of the nation. yeah because the longest existing paper in america and is still a voice for looking for the government. well it's a complicated issue but i'm saying that he was an organizer and that's what we working with you who understand depths of it. so i trust that during this year and the following we'll have a movement going. thanks, gerry. and we have time for one more question. if there's one more, anybody anybody question what do you think of the parks are better in the long run the myth or the fact you know that by lee wellesley and what's it say scully gloria pulse gloria gloria about about the yellowstone campfire myth. and it's all about how course we know it isn't true, but awfully good story, isn't it. and it appeals to our better, you know, and and and it's an appeal to the american to be better, you know. and so it's a little bit ambiguous what exactly they're saying in that book. but in in in the end, i think the campfires have had their day and the national park service is still interpreting the campfires on their website and you know the commemorative coin for the what was it for the 2016 anniversary was muir roosevelt. you know, it's it's like, okay well we'll have this one more and then be moving out into the lobby for any book signing. so you mentioned something i thought was interesting we all know central park was designed but you said yosemite was more design well we realized so are those olmstead in the valley is there really. but the basic idea of having a one way loop is the what olmstead wanted to see in yosemite valley was as little done as possible. and so he wanted those the carriage drive. he wanted paths and he wanted a series of cabins that would be shelter providing services, bathrooms, in other words. and, and material for camping. is there a reason that he's not really associated with? it was my that he was at the mine was the mariposa that you mentioned he saw yosemite often the so it's a little ironic he that was one of his failed ventures. no it wasn't really an environmentalist the time if he was. yeah that's in california right now there are a number of people making profile stories going about. how olmstead was had nothing to do with yosemite and it was a failure, etc. , etc.. well, the legislation signed while he was already in california and he saw this big champion of it. so it's really nice to get the story. well, yeah i mean, we didn't even touch on a discussion of. thomas starr king and was the sort of the most vocal champion for yosemite and to a large measure, the the act was act was passed also as king had died in the middle of the civil war. king was a not enormously influential figure in union circles in california and had been raised a lot of money for the sanitary sanitary and had been helped kick insisted california staying in the union. he was he was a very influential figure he and olmstead didn't know each other they they talked a lot went on to take out to california then king died a very early age natural causes worked himself to death probably and diphtheria and other things but you know in the was introduced really only literally months after king had died. and to some extent it's it's it's reasonable to interpret that, you know, one of the reasons the lincoln administration to the legislation and supported it congress did too was out a political obligation in the memory of king and lincoln was entering. we get into this in the book lincoln was entering the 1864 presidential race to get reelected and support from california republicans was important for that. but you've got a point and it should be answered, which is the 1865 report. it was not implemented at yosemite valley. right. the state park commission suppressed it. what that has led to is another myth. if i give you forgive me, one of the change that that that the report disappeared and therefore had no influence. how could how could olmstead been responsible for the national ideas behind, the national park system when this report he wrote disappeared in a really well it didn't disappear. it stayed with him and went back to brooklyn. in fact, with him in the 1880s. and it was used when he was working niagara falls. they quote from it. it was used by olmstead jr when the hetch hetchy controversy came at yosemite and it was used by jr when he does the legislation for national park service. so the idea that the report disappeared entirely is also wrong goes ideas never disappear but they don't that isn't what the state commission does at yosemite valley. they let people build hotels and. they start, you know, plowing up the meadows. they do all the things that olmstead told not to do, essentially. and that's why teddy roosevelt and john muir were discussing the recession of yosemite valley in 1903, because the state mismanaging it so badly they wanted state to give it back to the federal government so it could become part of a larger yosemite national park. so it's a little bit complicated. thank you again, ladies and gentlemen, the honorable nancy pelosi, speaker of the united states house of representatives. good morning, everyone. as speaker of the house, it is my privilege to welcome you to statuary hall. as we celebrate an american who personifies the dare, ing and determined spirit of our nation. amelia earhart. on behalf of the congress, thank you all to the leaders who fought so relentlessly for nearly a qrt

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