America's National Monuments : The Politics of Preservation

Rothman, Hal

This is the story of the American national monuments and the way in which they became an important part of the American preservation movement. The evolution of the monument category reveals the gradual awakening of government officials and the public to the importance of a broadly based approach to federal preservation, while the areas preserved mirror the changing values of American society. The lessons it shows are less those of participatory democracy than of individual perceptions of social obligation, less those of the moment than of the future. Although everyone recognizes the national parks as American treasures, the national monuments are evidence of the story of federal preservation from inside the government—the vision of a few that has become a generally held social objective. The law that allowed this "inside" form of preservation, An Act for Preservation of American Antiquities, more commonly known as the Antiquities Act of 1906, has been undervalued, ignored, and discounted by both contemporary observers and historians. The Antiquities Act, in fact, is the most important piece of preservation legislation ever enacted by the United States government. Although its title suggests significance only in archaeological matters, in practice the law became the cornerstone of preservation in the federal system. Without it, there would have been little flexibility in the preservation process, and many areas of significance would have been destroyed long before Congress passed legislation to protect them.