50 Nifty Finds #11: Carving a Place in NPS History

Few employees have left as visible a mark on National Park Service (NPS) exhibits as John A. Segeren. His work has been enjoyed by generations of park visitors who never knew his name but appreciated his intricate wood carvings and playful animal figures displayed in parks throughout the system. A master woodcarver described by former President Lyndon B. Johnson as "a legacy to this country," Segeren carved out his own place in NPS history.

Born Johannis Adreanis Segeren in London, England, on March 3, 1900, his family was Dutch. His father, Wilkimas Segeren, owned antique shops in London and Rotterdam. He was born in England during one of the family’s visits.

His father was a master cabinet maker. He taught Johannis to carve when he was 12 years old, beginning with small wooden boxes. From age 13 he assisted his father with repairing furniture in his antique shop. Segeren recalled, “Instead of letting me play in the streets and get into trouble, he called me in to do repair work.” His mother, Margaretha Broer Segeren, died when he was 14.

Segeren completed a four-year apprenticeship and graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Rotterdam. The drawing and clay modeling skills he learned there were crucial to his later successes. Several sources state that he completed carvings for wood panels and the walls in the Peace Palace in The Hague when he was 17 years old. However, he was only 13 years old when the building opened in 1913. It’s conceivable that during his internship he worked on decorative panels added after the building opened, but that remains unconfirmed.

John Segeren at work. (NPS History Collection, HFCA 1607)

He left Rotterdam on February 2, 1923, and arrived in New York 17 days later, shortly before he turned 23 years old. He worked aboard the ship Volendam during the voyage. Newspapers report that he carved ornamental decorations for the Holland America steamships, but it seems likely that the work was part of a single working voyage. The captain listed Segeren among the nine “deserting seamen” from the crew who stayed in the United States. When he declared his intention to become a naturalized citizen of the United States on November 22, 1923, he listed woodcarver as his occupation. He later Anglicized his name to John.

In the mid-1920s Segeren spent about nine months working in Buenos Aires, Argentina, but specific examples of his work from that time are unknown. Returning to the United States, he spent five years further honing his craft at the School of Architecture of the Beaux Art Institute in New York City. Segeren did “lots of church work,” and his carvings are found in the city’s Rockefeller Church. From 1929 to 1932, he created clay models and carved ballroom decorations for New York’s Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.

Dressed as a clown, Segeren met Elsie Miller at a masquerade ball in Union City, New Jersey. She was a pianist and a painter. They married on September 26, 1931. As a wedding gift, he carved a large elaborate mirror frame from California sugar pine and a Louis XIV-style walnut table. Elsie became a life-long champion of his work and was often quoted in newspaper interviews about him.

The Great Depression prevented him from working as a woodcarver for a couple of years, but he got work designing lamps. In 1938 General Motors hired him to create models for its “Futurama” exhibit and ride at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. During World War II, he created models of wind tunnels for the Navy’s Grumman Wildcat planes for Eastern Aircraft in New Jersey.

In the late 1940s Segeren created carvings for the foyer and hat shop in the Shamrock Hotel in Houston, Texas. He also created a large carving of a man and woman on either side of a clock for the Neiman-Marcus store in Dallas, Texas. He took private commissions, such as a figurehead for a private yacht, and carved a large totem pole for the Canadian Travel Bureau on Fifth Avenue in New York.

In 1955 he got a job making models of missile parts for an engineering firm in Stratford, Connecticut. He left the job after developing an allergy to the plastics used in the work. A friend referred him to the NPS. Segeren recalled in 1969, “I didn’t even know the Park Service existed.”

Segeren’s carving tools in a handmade fabric roll-up carrier used during his NPS career. (NPS History Collection, HFCA-01899).

In October 1956 he was hired by the NPS Museum Branch as a model maker. Working from a “drab temporary building on the Mall, not far from the Capitol,” Segeren was part of a team that created seven dioramas installed in visitor centers at Colonial National Historical Park in October 1957.

In September 1958 he transferred to the NPS Western Museum Laboratory in San Francisco, California. One of his early projects involved creating the first exhibits for a new visitor center at Fort Vancouver National Historic Site. Installed in 1962, the 25 exhibits included dioramas and a replica of the Hudson Bay Fur Company seal that Segeren carved. He also created a replica of the Hudson Bay Company’s steamship Beaver (complete with moving parts) that was exhibited at the Seattle World’s Fair in 1962.

When the NPS closed the lab in 1968, Segeren transferred to the Eastern Museum Laboratory in Springfield, Virginia, but worked from a workshop in Bolivar, West Virginia, near Harpers Ferry National Historical Park. His studio was “open to any visitor who might want to watch him make the chips fly.” His projects in the late 1960s included carvings for Lydon B. Johnson National Historic Site, six panels for Yosemite National Park, a seal for Cape Cod National Seashore, and a 7.5-foot-tall King Kamehameha, his bodyguards, and the silhouette of the Island of Hawaii for City of Refuge National Historical Park (now Puʻuhonua o Hōnaunau National Historical Park).

In 1970 Segeren moved his shop to Harpers Ferry Center (HFC), a new interpretive design center for the NPS, in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. Some of his work from the early 1970s included a Quaker meeting scene for the National Immigration Museum at Ellis Island, the Jamestown assembly for a diorama, and a carving for Saugus Iron Works National Historic Site. He carved figures for Lincoln’s Birthplace National Historic Site and 64 pieces featuring wildlife and local history for Yosemite National Park. One assignment required he create a horse’s head to fit a silver bridle at Mesa Verde National Park.

Segeren could create some carvings in as little as three days. He used a variety of woods to create his NPS carvings, including redwood, basswood, and sugar pine.

Segeren also carved the podium plaque for the Second World Conference on National Parks, held at Grand Teton National Park in 1972. It, together with his tools and some models he created for the bicentennial, are part of the NPS History Collection.

Segeren's podium plaque for the Second World Conference on National Parks, 1972. (NPS History Collection, HFCA 216)

Segeren received the Department of the Interior Meritorious Service Award in 1971 and a silver medal for outstanding museum work. The medal is engraved “Presented to John Segeren: Master Woodcarver for the United States.”

Segeren “retired” in 1972. He took a month off before going back to work four days a week at HFC. One of his first projects when he returned was restoration work on a 150-year-old statue of George Washington at Independence National Historical Park.

His sculptures played a key part in NPS celebrations for the Bicentennial. The largest were the Presidential Seal, Congressional Seal, Senatorial Seal, and the Supreme Court Seal, as well as the “seeing eye’ and the pyramid from the one-dollar bill, for the National Visitor Center in Washington, DC. Each circular panel was six feet in diameter and took six weeks for Segeren and an assistant to complete.

John Segeren with the presidential seal he created for the National Visitor Center, ca. 1976 (NPS History Collection, HFCA 1607)

He carved other bicentennial projects for display at Jamestown, Yorktown, Independence, Kings Mountain, and Morristown. He also created 24 early American and British coins for Federal Hall at Independence National Historical Park. Segeren laughingly recalled, “That gave me fits because I had to look through a microscope to see the details. In fact, I almost went crazy with it.” He carved busts of French, English, Spanish, and German immigrants for the National Immigration Museum at Ellis Island. Segeren also carved heads and hands for mannequins used to exhibit original and reproduction military uniforms.

Segeren in his studio at HFC with some of his carvings, ca. 1976. (NPS History Collection, HFCA 1607)

A complete catalog of Segeren’s NPS work hasn’t been compiled. Other known examples include:

• large doors at Grand Canyon National Park
• a ship’s figurehead for Salem Maritime National Historic Site
• a carving of General Gates and a 2-cent stamp for Saratoga National Historic Site
• 15^th century Spanish coat of arms
• state seals for Montana, Texas, and Washington
• carvings for Golden Spike, and
• 16 carvings for Vanderbilt Mansion National Historic Site.

Segeren also carved a totem pole and model war canoe for Sitka National Historical Park. The canoe was so accurate that the University of Alaska used it as a reference for making a full-size replica.

Segeren with his Saratoga two-cent stamp bas-relief carving, ca. 1977. (NPS History Collection, HFCA 1607)

In 1980 he completed a carving of Saint Barbara for San Juan National Historic Site. It was placed on exhibit, allowing the 200-year-old original to be preserved in the park’s museum collection. He noted, “I made her face a little younger. The other figure is so dark and worn. It is a longer, thinner face but I determined to interpret Saint Barbara this way.”

Some of his last NPS projects in the early 1980s included three-dimensional animal figures for Everglades National Park, Gulf Islands National Seashore, and Olympic National Park, among others.

Carvings in Segeren's studio, March 1983. The crocodile, heron, raccoon, and fish were for an exhibit at Everglades National Park. (NPS History Collection, HFCA 1607).

Segeren's detailed animal carvings in his studio, March 1983. (NPS History Collection, HFCA 1607)

Segeren retired from the NPS for good in 1984 when the arthritis in his right arm made it too painful to keep up with his demanding schedule. Throughout his 28-year career he was at the forefront of NPS exhibits in parks throughout the system. Segeren’s carvings have become part of many park museum collections, and some remain on exhibit today.

In April 1992 the Segerens moved to a retirement community in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. He continued carving for pleasure, often four or five hours a day. He spoke to community groups and entered his work in art contests. He also did carvings for the chapel at Penn Hall, his nursing home. It was truly a lifelong passion for Segeren. He stopped carving on December 23, 1996, when illness forced him to stop. He died about three weeks later, on January 13, 1997, aged 96.

Segeren with the cougar he carved for Olympic National Park. Note the sketch of the cougar on the wall behind him. (NPS History Collection, HFCA 1607)

Sources:

--(1957, October 18). “Virginians to See Re-Enactment of Colonists’ Attack, Cornwallis’ Surrender.” Richmond News Leader (Richmond, Virginia), p. 4.

--(1969, August 25). “Sweet Pine Does His Bidding.” The Morning Herald (Hagerstown, Maryland), p. 15.

--(1980, September). “Master Wood-Carver.” Courier: The National Park Service Newsletter, Vol 3, No 10, p. 19.

--(1997, January 15). “Johannis A. Segeren.” Public Opinion (Chambersburg, Pennsylvania), p. 4A.

Associated Press. (1957, October 18). “7 Park Service Dioramas Highlight State’s History.” Daily Press (Newport News, Virginia), p. 42.

Chapin, Brenda. (1979, November). “John Segeren: Master Woodcarver of the USA.” Courier: The National Park Service Newsletter, Vol 2, No 13, pp. 19.

Ellis, Kristin B. (1993, October 13). “At Age 93, He’s Carving a New Life—in Wood.” Public Opinion (Chambersburg, Pennsylvania), p. 1B.

LaRoche, Marianne. (1969, August 9). “Park Service Woodcarver Brings Old World Craft to Harpers Ferry.” The Daily Mail (Hagerstown, Maryland), p. 9.

Lewis, Ralph H. (1993). Museum Curatorship in the National Park Service, 1904-1982. Washington, DC. Available at https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/curatorship/toc.htm

National Archives in Washington, DC; Washington, DC; NAI Title: Index to Petitions for Naturalizations Filed in Federal, State, and Local Courts in New York City, 1792-1906; NAI Number: 5700802; Record Group Title: Records of District Courts of the United States, 1685-2009; Record Group Number: 21

Powell, Libby. (1971, August 19). “Dioramas for an American Immigration Museum Made at Center.” The Daily Mail (Hagerstown, Maryland), p. 17.

Powell, Libby. (1971, August 21). “Ideas Abound at the Interpretive Design Center.” The Daily Mail (Hagerstown, Maryland), p. 7.

Powell, Libby. (1972, July 7). “A Priceless Legacy in Wood.” The Daily Mail (Hagerstown, Maryland), p. 8.

Powell, Libby. (1972, July 8). “Master Carver to Display Talent at Parks Art Festival.” The Daily Mail (Hagerstown, Maryland), p. 11.

Powell, Libby. (1976, July 2). “Great Seals of the United States Carved at Harpers Ferry.” The Daily Mail (Hagerstown, Maryland), p. 8.

Ruddiman, Susan. (2011, March 19). “Gulf Islands National Seashore Visitor Center Reopens Exhibits Destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.” Accessed January 21, 2023 at https://www.gulflive.com/mississippi-press-living/2011/03/gulf_islands_national_seashore_visitor_center_reopens_exhibits_that_were_destroyed_by_hurricane_katr.html