NPS Archeology Program. The National Park Service: Preserving America's Past

An Expanding System

After 1916, the NPS expanded with new Eastern parks and a broadened thematic and geographic scope. NPS leaders aimed to reach a wider constituency than possible through Western wilderness parks alone. In 1933, national monuments held by the U.S. Forest Service; the National Capital Parks in Washington, DC; and battlefields, forts, and monuments from the War Department all joined the NPS. The Historic Sites Act of 1935 led to additions of even more historical parks through the mid-century. Park types diversified from ancient structures and battlefields to mounds, forts, missions, and presidential birthplaces. more >>

The NPS was now a leader in historic preservation, and archeology provided park planners and visitors with information unknowable through texts or living peoples. But archeology in the parks also had other benefits. Archeology provided jobs during the Great Depression. Historical architects based park development schemes on archeological finds. Rangers and archeologists worked together to interpret excavations to the public. Parks became laboratories for archeological method and theory. NPS archeology was further proof of the broad benefits of national parks to the nation. << back or view slideshow >>

Preservationist George B. Dorr, first superintendent of Sieur de Monts NM, now Acadia National Park.

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Nature parks in the Eastern states had archeology, as well. In 1916, Sieur de Monts NM in Maine became the first national park east of the Mississippi River. Archeology found Native American settlements, and shell middens of ceramics and tools. Ethnographers at Shenandoah National Park in Virginia justified the displacement of the mountain people in the 1920s by judging them to be primitive, unintelligent, and culturally and technologically isolated. Archeology has since dispelled that myth.

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Parks from other Department of the Interior agencies and Washington offices joined the NPS in 1933. Many had made significant contributions to archeology since the late 19th century. Rock Creek, a National Capital Park, helped to resolve an early debate about the antiquity of human presence in the Americas. Mound City Group, from the War Department, had yielded information on ceremonial and social activities in the Ohio Valley dating between 200 BC to AD 500.

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Civilian Conservation Corps Ruins Stabilization crew.

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Between 1933 and 1943, Federal work relief programs such as the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Works Progress Administration employed laborers who built roads, trails, visitor comfort stations, and other amenities in the national parks. Laborers also worked with NPS archeologists to excavate sites and process collections. Ocmulgee, Fort Laramie, and Morristown were among the NPS archeological sites that employed work relief laborers.

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The foundation of George Washington's actual birthplace.

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Post-war nationalism inspired the public to visit the national parks. Archeologists recovered the actual foundations of George Washington's birthplace home. Jamestown Island in Virginia saw pioneering work in historic sites archeology to recover the first permanent English settlement in the New World. Archeology at Independence in Pennsylvania shows where independence became more than an idea.

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