as the "Gilded Age" for its extremes of wealth and poverty, its haste to develop natural resources, and its shift from a rural to an urban society.[1]
Once the nation had accepted the legal fiction that Runte called the "worthless-lands thesis," the concept of "monumentalism" came into play. American pride in its growth and expansion overshadowed doubts and uncertainties about national merit, especially when contrasted with the natural and historical wonders of Europe. Runte saw this "search for a distinct national identity" stemming from self-identification with "earth monuments" such as Yosemite State Park (1864) and Yellowstone National Park (1872). "Scenic impact," said Runte, influenced the rapidly growing nation to call for embrace of aesthetics and utilitarianism, leading in the early twentieth century to the famed "conservation movement" espoused by President Theodore Roosevelt, himself an avid outdoorsman, and John Muir, the champion of California's forests and mountains.[2]
White Sands National Monument would be touched by each of these criteria, plus Runte's third concern, what he called "park follies." In order to sustain funding, NPS staff had to accommodate divided logic on the part of visitors, critics, and Congress. Having proven the economic "worthlessness" of a site, park officials then devoted much of their time to calculation of its benefits to the region and nation. This led to exercises, activities, and planning that often contradicted NPS goals, and left the service exposed to the very criticism of Runte and others that culminated in 1991 with the "Vail Agenda;" an impassioned plea for new directions and financial support for the National Park Service.[3]
Runte's overview of the service did not speak directly to the experience of units like White Sands, in part because of his preference for the larger and more popular national parks. National monuments fit a separate category of management, as examined by historians Robert Righter and Hal Rothman. In a seminal article, "National Monuments to National Parks: The Use of the Antiquities Act of 1906," Righter interpreted congressional intent as the signal feature of NPS status. The Antiquities Act, drafted at the height of Progressive concern for efficient and economic management of the nation's resources, sought to avoid the political influence of western landowners and resource developers on Congress, the keeper of what Righter called the nation's "crown jewels," the national parks.[4]
What concerned Righter, and also Rothman in Preserving Different Pasts: The American National Monuments (1989), was the "second-class" status of monuments, from their creation to funding to acceptance by the public. Congress moved too slowly to protect areas of lesser "monumentalism" than Yosemite or Yellowstone, while the
- ↑ Alfred Runte, National Parks: The American Experience, second edition (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1987), xii–xiii.
- ↑ Ibid., xx, 11, 22, 31.
- ↑ Ibid., 83.
- ↑ Robert W. Righter, "National Monuments to National Parks: The Use of the Antiquities Act of 1906," Western Historical Quarterly, XX, No. 3 (August 1989): 293.
