The Library of Congress

Mapping the National Parks

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Go directly to the collection, Mapping the National Parks, in American Memory, or view a Summary of Resources related to the collection.

The resources in Mapping the National Parks provide students information from a broad span of American history. An overview of this history is provided in the special presentations about the four national parks featured in the collection: Acadia, Grand Canyon, Great Smoky Mountains, and Yellowstone. Students can use the collection's maps to study the sociological significance of landscape, as well as a variety of historical topics pertaining to the settlement and expansion of America. In doing so, they will learn to derive maximum meaning from maps by considering them as products of the time period and culture in which they were created.

1) The Landscape

To understand a people - their economic, social, political and cultural systems - sociologists often begin by studying the physical landscape. The terrain, climate, natural resources, proximity to other people, and other geographic features influence nations in both obvious and subtle ways. Mapping the National Parks provides resources to assist students in their understanding of the development of America from a sociological perspective.

Search the collection on topography and geology to retrieve topographic maps of the national parks. Students can start by answering the questions below to become comfortable working with and understanding what these maps tell us about the physical landscape.

Radar mosaic, Yellowstone National Park, 1968. This map includes a press release from the Department of the Interior explaining the capabilities of radar to assist in mapping.

What are the dominant physical characteristics and features of the landscape? What are the highest and lowest elevations? What are the names of rivers, lakes and streams in this area? What are the names of towns in this area? Where is the land located within the United States? Therefore, what do we know about the climate?

Arizona, 1962.

After answering these questions, ask students to consider how these features may have influenced the people living in these lands. For example, what was the influence of natural resources on housing, or the influence of climate on farming and thus economics? Or, in the case of Yellowstone and the Grand Canyons, students may find that the physical landscape may have precluded much habitation. As students continue using maps to study U.S. History, return to this discussion of how landscape influences history.

To assist in visualizing what the data on topographic maps represents, students may want to look at photographs and images of the national parks. Search on the names of the parks in these online collections:

• American Environmental Photographs, 1891-1936
  
• American Landscape and Architectural Design, 1850-1920
  
• Built in America, 1933-Present
  
• Evolution of the Conservation Movement, 1850-1920
  
• Taking the Long View: Panoramic Photographs, 1851-1991
  
• Touring Turn-of-the-Century America, 1880-1920
  

Students can also find additional information about these parks by visiting the National Park Service website.

2) Native Americans

Native Americans were the first people to name, live in, and use the lands of the national parks represented in this collection. For example, the Cherokee settled what is now the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. They considered this land the ancestral home of the entire Cherokee Nation. Students can use these maps to see evidence of the existence and influence of Native American tribes and cultures and to trace the movement of these people from their homelands to reservations. Students can begin by searching on the keyword phrase early maps to retrieve the oldest maps in the collection. Look for the cartographers' indications of where Native Americans lived and place names that were assigned by Native Americans. For additional maps, students can search across Map Collections, 1500-2004 on Indian.

These maps indicate the influence of Native American culture on the settlement, naming, and mapping by European colonists. They can be used as the basis for a class discussion about what information European explorers might have gained from Native Americans. For example, the native peoples might have known routes through treacherous lands and where to find needed resources, such as drinking water and food. What else can you determine, using the maps and your imagination, about Native Americans and their influence upon the settlement of the United States?

This map of North America, 1715.

The 1884 map entitled Map of the former territorial limits of the Cherokee "Nation of" Indians can provide the basis for a discussion of the movement of Native Americans to reservations. Search on Indians of North America to find this map, and note its second title, Map showing the territory originally assigned Cherokee "Nation of" Indians. Students can compare the locations of today's Native American reservations with these original land designations. Have the locations changed? How have the boundaries changed?

3) Early European Settlers

Nova totivs Americæ descriptio, 1660.

When Europeans first arrived between 1492 and the mid-1700s in what is now North America, they created maps of their new discovery. These maps were brought back to their homeland to report on what they found and to assist followers in navigating the routes to their discoveries. Have students retrieve examples of these maps by searching on the keyword phrase early works to 1800. Many of the maps highlight coastal features. What does this suggest about the extent and methods of exploration? What else do these maps reveal about exploration?

Have students identify what resources are highlighted on the maps. Some maps include creative interpretations of unexplored territories. Students can look for examples of this uncertainty in the inaccurate size and shapes of continents and bodies of water. Students can also see what boundaries are shown.

• Do these boundaries look similar to those on today's maps of the United States?
• What can one learn from these boundaries about who controlled the land in North America at the time of the maps' creation?

For additional maps of European settlement , students can browse the Title Index of the Discovery and Exploration section of Map Collections, 1500-2004.

4) Treaty of Paris

In 1782, the British government decided to pursue peace with America to end the American Revolutionary War. Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and John Jay represented America at the negotiations in Paris. To locate boundaries and settle the war, the negotiators turned to John Mitchell's 1755 map titled A map of the British and French dominions in North America. Students can view this historical map and use the following questions to gain a better understanding of the dispute, of colonization and other issues of the time.

A map of the British and French dominions in North America, 1755.

• What states now exist in the dominions that belonged to the British and the French in 1755?
• What can you learn from this map about how these states might have been influenced by their original British and French dominion?
• What information would the negotiators in Paris have used from the map?
• Are there obvious inaccuracies in the map? How might that have affected the decisions made at the treaty negotiations?
• What additional resources do today's negotiators have when settling boundary disputes?

5) Westward Expansion

Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, 1880.

The mid-1800s saw a boom of map production as Americans and arriving immigrants moved west. Miners were unearthing gold. The Mexican War ended adding Texas, California, and land in what is now southern Arizona and New Mexico to the United States. Railroad lines were being constructed. Use the Geographic Location map to browse maps of Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon created in this era. The maps will provide students an idea of what settlements existed. They can look for travel routes and discuss what frontiers people might have encountered.

For additional maps of this era, students can browse the Title Index of the map collection Railroad Maps, 1828-1900.

6) National Parks in the Progressive Era

Between the American Civil War and World War I, America became an urban and industrialized country, moving away from its rural origins. So many people moved to the cities so quickly, there was often not adequate resources to house and govern everyone. Factories consumed natural resources, creating pollution as well as products. And a new kind of labor force was created to fuel industrial mass production. In response to these changes, labor and reform movements were organized to combat the ills of this new America.

As people witnessed industry's depletion of natural resources and the destruction of landscapes, a conservation movement developed. For an overview of the development of this movement, students can read the Documentary Chronology of Selected Events in the Development of the American Conservation Movement, 1847-1920 in the collection The Evolution of the Conservation Movement. They will learn that the first National Park, Yellowstone, was created during the Progressive Era in 1872. Students can use the Geographic Location map to browse maps of Yellowstone and consider the role of this national park during this era of urban and industrial growth. What did Yellowstone offer people exhausted by city life? How might they have traveled to Yellowstone at the turn of the century?

In this era leisure time became popular. People looked to leave the cities and enjoy the "country." Many set off in the increasingly-affordable cars to vacation in what would become parklands. Students can find evidence of this development by searching the collection on tourist and recreation and National Park Service to see examples of the maps provided hikers and vacationers. This search will retrieve modern maps of the parks created by the National Park Service that highlight tourist resources such as information centers, hiking trails, and roads.

Land of the Sky, 1917.

7) Tennessee Valley Authority

Reconnaissance erosion survey of the State of North Carolina, 1934.

In 1933, the U.S. Government created the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), a New Deal program under President Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration. Through this program many people were employed during the Great Depression, assisting in the building of dams to create electricity and to control flooding of the valley.

This initiative expedited mapping of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park because the park is within the Tennessee River watershed. Students can use the Geographic Location map to browse maps of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Teachers can facilitate a discussion about the value of the TVA, its influence on the National Park, and how it might have affected the lives of those living in the valley. What were the benefits and costs of this project? If it were your job to approve New Deal projects, would you have approved the TVA? Why or why not? Inform the discussion by searching across all the American Memory collections on Tennessee Valley Authority to find other artifacts related to this project. Other New Deal programs are featured in these online collections:

America from the Great Depression to World War II: Photographs from the FSA and OWI, ca. 1935-1945
American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936 - 1940
The New Deal Stage: Selections from the Federal Theatre Project, 1935-1939
Voices from the Dust Bowl: the Charles L. Todd and Robert Sonkin Migrant Worker Collection, 1940-1941