The National Park Service Act of 1916, often dangerously considered alone, is only one link, although a fundamental one, in a chain of authorities that acknowledge and preserve historical and cultural resources everywhere in the United States. By fully exercising its cultural resource leadership responsibilities and expanding them to natural resources, the National Park Service can help to make the second century of the service amount to a “Century of the Environment.”
The National Park Service Act of 1916 almost universally has come to be known by the jargon term “Organic Act,” although there is no law by that title. In this paper they are used interchangeably. For other considerations of the Act, see LemonsJ. (2010). Revisiting the Meaning and Purpose of the National Park Service Organic Act. Environmental Management (March, 2010); and Sellars, R. A Very Large Array: Early Federal Historic Preservation—The Antiquities Act, Mesa Verde, and the National Park Service Act.Natural Resources Journal, 47, Spring2007, 267–328.
2.
In this paper, “historic places,” “cultural resources,” and similar terms are synonymous, meaning “districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects significant in American history, architecture, archeology, engineering, and culture.” “Historic preservation” more commonly applies to the work of the partnership beyond park boundaries, and “cultural resources management” more commonly applies to work in national parks and other public lands, but essentially they are the same.
3.
Cultural Resource and Historic Committee (2009). A Different Past in a Different Future. Accompanying Advancing the National Park Idea: The National Parks Second Century Commission Report. Available at www.npca.org. A “Century of the Environment” was proposed by Edward O. Wilson at “Discovery 2000: the National Park Service General Conference,” St. Louis, MO, September 12, 2000.
4.
A few hobbyists toyed with crystal radio sets in their homes, but commercial broadcasting as we know it did not exist.
5.
Founded in 1919, now the National Parks Conservation Association.
6.
KennedyR. (2006). Wildfire and Americans.Hill and Wang.
7.
United States Conference of Mayors, Special Committee on Historic Preservation, (1965). With Heritage So Rich.
8.
50 States, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Guam, the Virgin Islands, American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, and the Republic of Palau. Now the network has grown to include 1,668 Certified Local Governments, 76 American Indian Tribes and Native American Organizations, and all federal land-managing agencies.
9.
Specifically, the new law directed the service to “provide leadership in the preservation of the prehistoric and historic resources of the United States and of the international community of nations and in the administration of the national preservation program in partnership with States, Indian tribes, Native Hawaiians, and local governments.”
