Final Report to Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park, National Park Service / Cooperative Agreement No. CA 8000-1-0002

In Recreating Nature: Ecocritical Readings of Yosemite and Grand Canyon, I examine the intersections of culture and nature in two prominent national parks, and I consider the implications of nature-tourism in the environmental discourse of the U.S. Covering a period from 1848 to the present, my project aims to correct an oversight in scholarship about the park system, in which legacies of colonialism and imperialism--when addressed at all--tend to be historicized and framed as the age-old sins of a presumably reformed national politic. Instead, I examine both historical and present-day developments, emphasizing the profound cultural influence of the places we designate as natural. I define ecocriticism as an inherently interdisciplinary endeavor attuned to the interconnectedness of things. My methodology is to engage texts, images and other expressions of the national parks in a process of extended close reading and comparative analysis. While observing the particular contexts of each case, I attempt to locate these texts amidst the broadest but most essential critical terrain: they each negotiate a dialogical relationship between culture and nature. By setting the stage for examining the human and its relation to the non-human other, the parks have become key sites for displaying the recreation of nature. After my introduction I discuss John Muir's My First Summer in the Sierra, focusing on an episode where Muir risks his life for a view from Yosemite Falls. I also consider Muir's failure to empathize with Native Americans he encountered. In my next chapter I analyze John Wesley Powell's Exploration by focusing on his attempt to assert authority over a region by prioritizing the scientific tone in his writing. Next I synthesize historical and contemporary sources, discussing Mary Colter's Grand Canyon architecture alongside the Grand Canyon Skywalk, a glass-bottom walkway on the Hualapai Indian reservation. In the following chapter I compare the acrophobia-inducing photographs of George Fiske and Emery Kolb. Finally, I discuss transit real and imagined in Grand Canyon and Yosemite, considering the utopian potential of national parks. I close by revisiting questions about our changing environmental discourse and about the future of ecocriticism.

Photographs have long been integral in revealing American values, ideals, and identity. Accordingly, a study of environmental, or "conservation," imagery offers insight into America’s relationship with the natural world. In an examination of key figures and their conservation photography work, this thesis explores how the national conservation dialogue has been shaped by powerful images that, in some cases, even led to crucial acts of federal conservation. The first section highlights four photographers and their context and influence in this dialogue: W.H. Jackson’s photographs from Hayden’s 1871 survey of Yellowstone, Carleton Watkins’ work at Yosemite and Mariposa Grove in the 1860s, and the twentieth-century Sierra Club work of Ansel Adams and Eliot Porter. The second section illustrates the imagery and impact of contemporary photographers Mark Klett, David Maisel, and Subhankar Banerjee, each with his own distinctive focus and contribution to conservation rhetoric. Understanding the progression of American environmental imagery and how it has led to contemporary conservation photography informs us about how best to affect change in the current era of ever-increasing environmental degradation.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Virginia, 1998. / Description based on content as of June 1999. Title from title screen.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Harvard University, 1982. / Vol. [2]: Plates, Checklist. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (vol. [1], leaves 351-357).

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Nevada, Reno, 2008. / "December, 2008." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 79-81). Online version available on the World Wide Web.

This thesis examines the evolving relationship between protected landscapes and the corporate through the lens of tourism in US national parks, with Yosemite National Park as the empirical case study. It provides an understanding of how protected landscapes are managed by examining wise-use, its connection to responsible actions and sustainable development, and the role ‘corporate natures’ have within this management process - framed around corporate social and environmental responsibility (CSR). This work is concerned with how wise-use is employed alongside the national park priorities of protection and access, so as to understand why private capital is invested in public lands to maintain public good. Such investment is examined through the role of the corporate, to show how making landscape dollarable, its commodification through tourism [visitation and access] has actually provided a safety net and enhanced protection, rather than being the antithesis to it. Tourism has not only created landscapes of economic value but also ones of social and cultural value, places that people connect with and appreciate through an identity of both place and feeling. The main findings of this thesis are that wise-use and corporate actions have evolved and are driven by a new process of CSR, representing corporate social resilience. This new process of CSR is determined by the inclusion of all relevant stakeholders, and advances adaptive co-management, offering a more robust process than the subjective and voluntary ideals of responsibility. This thesis approaches this work through a qualitative empirical study undertaken through archival research, literature reviews and research in the field at Yosemite National Park, which included documentary analysis, interviews and meetings with the main stakeholders in commercial and governance activity. This research forms an important and valuable contribution to environmental management strategies, not only for tourism but also a wider audience.

abstract: The study of American national parks provides invaluable insights into American intellectual, cultural, and sociopolitical trends. As very popular tourist attractions, parks are also depicted in art, film, television, books, calendars, posters, and a multitude of other print and visual media. National parks therefore exist both physically and in the American imagination. Comparing Yosemite National Park, one of the oldest and most popular national parks, to Mineral King, California, a relatively unknown and far less-visited region in Sequoia National Park, unveils the deep complexity of the national park idea. From the mid-nineteenth to the late twentieth centuries, the visual and written representations of each area, including art, photographs, advertisements, and government publications, evolved and shifted, sometimes rapidly and paradoxically, depending upon the aims and needs of historic societies. The power of imagery and production of knowledge to influence visitation, management, and land designation is revealed through this comparative study. Park representation and interpretation in the cultural consciousness, moreover, uncovers how societies perceive and, thus, will ultimately use certain environments. A place cannot truly become a national space until it is viewed and valued as such in the American imagination. The creation of cultural material, especially visual works, is vital for forming and sustaining national park narratives. Popular parks like Yosemite need to have their legacies reinforced, and lesser-known units, such as Mineral King, deserve the chance to have a cultural legacy created—thereby helping to ensure that both remain for future generations. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation History 2019

The North American Wall mafic dikes and the diorite of the Rockslides mafic complex in the intrusive suite of Yosemite Valley show evidence of mixing with their host granites as well as with earlier components. Whole rock major element variation diagrams indicate the mafic rocks mixed with a more silicic component, but extrapolating to the silica end member does not yield the same result with each element. Trace element concentrations show a wide variation in concentration of Cr and Ni, with two samples showing enrichment in Cr (>300 ppm) and Ni (~44 ppm) compared to other samples (Cr =13-94 ppm; Ni = 5-26 ppm). These samples have the most primitive epsilon Nd values (-3.3, -3.5 at 100 Ma) analyzed thus far for the intrusive suite, indicating the suite has a larger range of isotopic values than previously thought. Delta 18 oxygen for Rockslides samples vary from 6.6 to 7.5 per mille (6 samples, average 7.03), higher than the 5.5 + 0.3 range for the mantle, indicating the presence of a crustal component in the system. Plagioclase phenocrysts within each unit display bimodal compositional populations. Subhedral to euhedral partially resorbed calcic cores (mode = An84-88) are reminiscent of a mafic magma, while sodic rims (mode = An48-50) are the product of a more silicic component. Very little to no intermediate zoning is present between cores and rims. Mineral-scale 87Sr/86Sr analysis of plagioclase cores and rims are consistent with previously published enriched bulk-rock ratios for the suite (0.7065-0.7078), but are unable to distinguish between mixing components. The plagioclase isotopic data show no direct evidence for a depleted mantle melt component contaminated by crustal assimilation. However, the mafic rocks are comparable to high-alumina basalts, whose generation involves crystal fractionation and magma mixing/crustal assimilation. The evolution of these high-alumina basalts provides an opportunity for magma contamination to take place before plagioclase crystallization, thus explaining why plagioclase core-rim analysis could not distinguish between mixing components. Therefore, it is possible but not necessary to derive the rocks from an enriched mantle source, especially since the bulk-rock oxygen isotopic values indicate a significant crustal component is present.

A man does not always see himself as others see him. John Muir is venerated by several generations of Americans as a man who left a legacy of State and National Parks, State and National Forests, outdoor beauty and untouched wilderness areas which would never have survived has it not been for this dedicated man. He did not plan such a course. He did what he found necessary to be done, without thought of personal gain or public honor. However, during his lifetime there were those who did not view him with such veneration. Countless ranchers, lumberman and politicians must have considered him a formidable foe. The purpose of this paper is to show how involved he was politically. He really became quite an adept politician, although the whole idea would have been extremely distasteful to him if he had heard himself designated as such.