George Melendez Wright and the National Park Idea

Duncan, Dayton

Ten years ago, when I began the research for a documentary film about the history of the national parks for PBS, I faced the biggest challenge of my writing and filmmaking career with my colleague Ken Burns. Our ambition was to tell the story of a uniquely American idea—that the nation’s most sacred landscapes be preserved, for all people and for all time— spanning more than a century in time and more than a continent in geographic space. We wanted to trace the origins of the idea in the middle of the 19th century and then follow its evolution to the verge of the 21st century.We wanted to incorporate the big issues and the broad scope of this sprawling narrative: how the definition of what a park should be has been challenged and changed over time; how different generations of Americans have experienced their parks in shifting social contexts; and how some threats to the park idea have existed and persevered from the very beginning, just as surely as the special connection Americans have forged with the land has equally endured.We wanted to tell the stories of as many of the 58 individual national parks as possible, as well as make clear that the larger park system has grown to include national monuments, historic sites, seashores, trails and much more. And, because Ken and I believe, as Emerson said, that “there is no history, only biography,” most importantly we wanted to populate our series with an unforgettable cast of historical characters, some famous but many more of them relatively unknown, who were responsible for a park being created or for the park idea being defended and broadened.We were not interested in making a travelogue or nature film, although our series is filled with footage of some of nature’s most spectacular locales. For us, the story of the national parks is a story of people; people who were willing to devote themselves to saving some precious portion of the land they loved, and in doing so reminded their fellow citizens of the fuller meaning of democracy. Our goal was not merely to mention these people in passing.We hoped to bring them alive on film—with photographs, to be sure, but also through their own words (read offcamera by an accomplished crew of actors)—so that viewers would understand them as living, breathing human beings rather than names from the dusty pages of history.