See America: A Celebration of Our National Parks & Treasured Sites

By Creative Action Network and National Parks Conservation Association

In homage to America’s National Parks and their iconic art posters, this volume features new artwork for seventy-five parks and monuments across all fifty states.

“In this sepia-tinged homage” to the iconic National Parks posters “modern artists contribute dazzling new graphics” (Entertainment Weekly).

From 1935 to 1943, the WPA’s Federal Art Project hired American artist to create posters celebrating the National Parks Service. The icon See America posters inspired Americans to fall in love with the country’s landmarks and wild spaces from the Golden Gate Bridge to the Gateway Arch and from the Grand Canyon to the Great Smokey Mountains.

Originally published to coincide with the centennial anniversary of the National Parks Service, the Creative Action Network has partnered with the National Parks Conservation Association to revive and reimagine the legacy of WPA travel posters. Artists from all over the world participated in the creation of this new, crowdsourced collection of See America posters for a modern era.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Mar 22, 2016
• ISBN: 9781452149295

Book preview

There is nothing so American as our national parks. The scenery and the wildlife are native. The fundamental idea behind the parks is native. It is, in brief, that the country belongs to the people, that it is in process of making for the enrichment of the lives of all of us. The parks stand as the outward symbol of the great human principle.

— President Franklin D. Roosevelt

Copyright © 2016 by Creative Action Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form

without written permission from the publisher.

ISBN: 978-1-4521-4925-5 (epub, mobi)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available.

ISBN: 978-1-4521-4898-4 (hc)

Book design by Aaron Perry-Zucker

Cover illustration by Jon Cain

1% of the sale of this book will support National Parks Conservation Association through 2017. Each artist featured received a portion of the proceeds from each sale.

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San Francisco, California 94107

www.chroniclebooks.com

CONTENTS

Foreword 11

Introduction 13

In the order in which they were established

1848 Washington Monument 14

1864 Yosemite National Park 16

1872 Yellowstone National Park 18

1890 Antietam National Battlefield 20

1890 Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks 22

1895 Gettysburg National Military Park 24

1899 Mount Rainier National Park 26

1906 Devils Tower National Monument 28

1907 Chaco Culture National Historical Park 30

1908 Muir Woods National Monument 32

1909 Olympic National Park 34

1909 Zion National Park 36

1910 Glacier National Park 38

1911 Lincoln Memorial National Monument 40

1915 Rocky Mountain National Park 42

1915 Dinosaur National Monument 44

1916 Haleakalā National Park 46

1916 Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park 48

1917 Denali National Park and Preserve 50

1918 Katmai National Park and Preserve 52

1919 Grand Canyon National Park 54

1923 Allegheny National Forest 56

1923 Carlsbad Caverns National Park 58

1924 Statue of Liberty National Monument 60

1924 Ellis Island National Monument 62

1925 Mount Rushmore National Memorial 64

1926 Great Smoky Mountains National Park 66

1927 Wright Brothers National Memorial 68

1929 Grand Teton National Park 70

1929 Badlands National Park 72

1929 Arches National Park 74

1933 Death Valley National Park 76

1933 Big Bend National Park 78

1933 Saguaro National Park 80

1935 Dry Tortugas National Park 82

1935 Jefferson National Expansion Memorial 84

1936 Blue Ridge Parkway 86

1936 Joshua Tree National Park 88

1937 Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument 90

1938 Channel Islands National Park 92

1940 Isle Royale National Park 94

1941 Mammoth Cave National Park 96

1947 Theodore Roosevelt National Park 98

1947 Everglades National Park 100

1956 Virgin Islands National Park 102

1958 Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park 104

1961 Cape Cod National Seashore 106

1962 Frederick Douglass National Historic Site 108

1962 Petrified Forest National Park 110

1966 Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore 112

1968 Pony Express National Historic Trail 114

1968 Redwood National and State Parks 116

1968 Appalachian National Scenic Trail 118

1970 Apostle Islands National Lakeshore 120

1970 Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore 122

1971 Voyageurs National Park 124

1972 Point Reyes National Seashore 126

1972 Golden Gate National Recreation Area 128

1976 Obed Wild and Scenic River 130

1976 Congaree National Park 132

1978 Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail 134

1978 New River Gorge National River 136

1983 San Antonio Missions National Historical Park 138

1988 National Park of American Samoa 140

1992 Manzanar National Historic Site 142

1992 Big Sur, Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary 144

1994 New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park 146

1996 Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area 148

2000 California Coastal National Monument 150

2000 Vermilion Cliffs National Monument 152

2006 African Burial Ground National Monument 154

2008 Niagara Falls National Heritage Area 156

2011 Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial 158

2013 Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Monument 160

2015 Pullman National Monument 162

Artist Biographies 164

Acknowledgments

Reviews for See America

[bookwallah · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book kind of snuck up on me. At first I thought it was just one more high level overview of various National Parks. But the more I read the more I became smitten with the wonderful posters created to commemorate the "See America" campaign by the Work Projects Administration of the 1920s. This is actually a wonderful modern collaboration between the National Parks Conservation Association and a group of artists assembled by the Creative Action Network. I would be proud to hang many of these posters on my walls. I think I will have to add a few of these sites to my bucket list. Highly recommended for all lovers of the outdoors and anyone who is skeptical of the power of the arts to inspire.