Picturing the National Parks
The National Park Service officially turns 100 this summer, and the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, California, is marking the occasion with two consecutive exhibitions drawn from its collection of rare books, manuscripts, photographs, and ephemera. The first, Geographies of Wonder: Origin Stories of America's National Parks, 1872-1933, opened this past weekend. From an album of early photos documenting Yellowstone National Park at its beginnings to the many brochures, postcards, and guidebooks produced in the early twentieth century to entice tourists, the exhibition highlights early Euro-American encounters with the landscape and examines the consequences of our actions. Below are a few highlights now on view:
Sunset magazine; May 1904 issue cover, painted by Chris Jorgensen. The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens.
Mary Roberts Rinehart, Tenting Tonight, cover, 1916. The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens.
Great Northern Railway, Glacier National Park Invites You, 1925. The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens.
Geographies of Wonder will remain up through September 3. Part II, Geographies of Wonder: Evolution of the National Park Idea, 1933-2016, will open on October 22.
