National Parks
The American Experience
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The sheer cliffs and waterfalls of
Yosemite Valley epitomize the notion of monumentalism that lay behind
the national park movement in the United States. Yosemite Valley was
ceded to California for protection as a state park in 1864; a national
park surrounding the gorge was established by Congress in 1890. Ralph
H. Anderson photograph, courtesy of the National Park Service
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George Catlin (1796-1872), best known
for his painting for his paintings of American Indians, painted Niagra
Falls in 1827. Perhaps he was thinking of the commercial disfigurement
of Niagra that has already begun when, in 1832, he proposed "A
nation's Park"; Frederick Law Olmsted, Ferdinand V. Hayden, and
other later leaders of the national park movement held Niagra up as an
argument for the protection of scenic wonders. Courtesy of the
National Collection of Fine Arts, Smithsonian Institution
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"The passage of the Patowmac through the
Blue ridge" at Harpers Ferry, wrote Thomas Jefferson, "is perhaps one of
the most stupendous scenes in nature.... This scene is worth a voyage
across the Atlantic." Even so, most European travelers, as well as
American nationalists, considered such landscapes commonplace,
especially when compared with the Rhine Valley and similar Old World
landmarks with a long human history. Courtesy of the National Park
Service
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