Guides: Alumni Travel Reading Lists 2020: National Parks & Lodges of the Old West

Other National Park Guides

Books on National Parks

National Parks: The American Experience by Alfred Runte
Call Number: E160 .R78 1987
ISBN: 9781589794757
Publication Date: 2010
Acknowledged classic work on the history of National Parks from their founding to the 21st century, this book provides a vivid account of the political, cultural, environmental and technological changes impacting the America’s National Park System.
Pilgrimage and the National Parks: Religion and Nature in the United States by Lynn Ross-Bryant
Call Number: SB482.A4 R67 2013
ISBN: 9780415893800
Publication Date: 2012
National Parks have always been understood as sacred sites symbolizing and embodying God’s granting of exceptional status to American pioneers and their descendants. Their status has become engrained in American culture over the years through their marketing as pilgrimage sites—uniquely important tourist attractions—and their endorsement by public figures. This book melds the themes of environment, civic religion and tourism culture to provide a rich analysis of our National Parks.
Searching for Yellowstone: Race, Gender, family, and Memory in the Postmodern West by Paul Schullery
Call Number: Van Pelt Library. F596.2 .D46 2008
ISBN: 9780972152211
Publication Date: 2004
The first environmental history of one of what is perhaps America’s most storied and well known national park. The book paints an eye-opening picture of the park and its meaning to the world, showing how Yellowstone's "discovery" by whites followed thousands of years of use by native Americans, and how the park's founding became a creation myth for the conservation movement.
Windows into the Earth: the Geologic Story of Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks by Robert B. Smith; Lee J. Siegel
Call Number: Van Pelt Library. QE79 .S58 2000
ISBN: 128076094X
Publication Date: 2000
Millions of years ago, the North American continent was dragged over the world's largest continental hotspot, a column of molten rock rising from the Earth's interior that traced a 50-mile wide, 500-mile-long path across Idaho. The hotspot pushed the northern Rockies to new heights, forming unusually large glaciers that would carve the landscape. It also created the jewel of the U.S. national park system, Yellowstone. Meanwhile, forces stretching apart the western U.S. created what is now Grand Teton National Park. Smith and Siegel offer expert guidance through this awe-inspiring terrain.

Grand Teton National Park

Grand Teton Photo by Malcolm Manners. Used under a Creative Commons Licence CC-BY 2.0.

National Geographic

National Geographic logo of a yellow rectangle

For a comprehensive guide of National Parks in America, visit the National Geographic National Parks Travel Guide.

Welcome to the National Parks and Lodges Reading List

Great Fountain Geyser in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. Image courtesy of National Geographic.

Selected and Annotated By:

Nick Orkent
Bibliographer for US History, Africana Studies, Philosophy, and Urban Studies
Africana Studies, Philosophy, US History okrent @ pobox.upenn.edu

For more information, please visit Penn Alumni Travels.

The National Parks: America's Best Idea

Directed by Ken Burns, America’s premier popular documentarian, this video narrates the birth of the national park idea in the mid-1800s and traces its evolution nearly to the present. Featuring stunning cinematography, first person accounts of historical figures, interviews of historians, Native Americans, environmentalists and other experts, contemporary accounts of people who have been transformed by their encounter with the parks, and more, this documentary is perhaps the best introduction to the National Parks imaginable.

For more clips, please visit pbs.org/nationalparks

Great Lodges of National Parks

This collection of documentaries from the PBS “Great Lodges of the National Parks” series goes beyond portrayals of particular lodges to explore the history of historic lodges, their architectural styles, their intellectual purposes (to accentuate rather than compete with nature) and their relationships with the parks. Most of these lodges are themselves Historical Landmarks, and their original construction—often by railroad companies—and functions reveal a side of the Natural Parks that would not be obvious to the causal visitor.

For more clips, please visit pbs.org/opb/greatlodges/nationalparks/

Death Valley

Custer State Park Wildlife Loop. Photo by Brenda and licensed under CC-BY 2.0 Creative Commons License

Books on National Parks

The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America by Douglas Brinkley
Call Number: E757 .B853 2009
ISBN: 9780060565312
Publication Date: 2010-05-04
Theodore Roosevelt was a naturalist before he was a politician, and historian Douglas Brinkley brings to life Roosevelt's epic struggle to preserve the continent's natural heritage for future generations. Although Roosevelt’s passion for conservation was complicated—tangled as it was with his views on Darwinism, Manifest Destiny and religion—his inspired leadership helped create the National Wildlife Refuge System, the United States Forest Service and the Biological Survey. It is impossible to know what the National Park Service would look like today if Theodore Roosevelt had not taken a hand in shaping American thought about nature.
Great White Fathers: The Story of the Obsessive Quest to Create Mount Rushmore by John Taliaferro
Call Number: F657.R8 T35 2002
ISBN: 1891620983
Publication Date: 2002
Over a period of 14 years, 400 workers struggled to create this series of 60 foot carvings in the Black Mountains. As epic a tale as the creation of the Brooklyn Bridge, little is known about the story behind the creation of Mount Rushmore. This book by former Newsweek editor, John Taliaferro tells that story as well as providing comprehensive details about the monument.
The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West by Patricia Nelson Limerick and Patricia Limerick
Call Number: F591 .L56 1987
ISBN: 9780393304978
Publication Date: 2006
National Parks, the Frontier, Western Expansion, Indian Wars, the history of the American West is often understood as a series of romantic episodes that took place before the Frontier closed and the West was modernized. National Parks are often seen as meeting places of the past and present, areas where the romance is preserved. This book argues for a stark break with that understanding. Rather, the author argues that the ‘opening’ of the West was a process driven by economic factors, that the development of the west—including inter-ethnic violence and frontier justice—was likewise part of over-arching economic development, and that economics continues to drive life in the West to this very day.