Summary: Following World War II, the parks were overwhelmed as visitation reached 62 million people a year. This final episode describes how a billion-dollar campaign, Mission 66, was created to build facilities and infrastructure to accommodate the growing flood of visitors. Biologist Adolph Murie introduced the revolutionary notion that predatory animals deserved the same protection as other wildlife....
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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Summary: This episode tells how, by the end of the 19th century, industrialization had left many Americans worried about whether the country would have any pristine land left. Poachers in the parks were rampant, and visitors were littering or carving their names in wilderness sites. Congress had yet to establish judicial authority or set aside appropriations for protection of the parks. This sparked a...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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Summary: This episode follows the growth of the NPS after the advent of the automobile gave more people than ever the ability to travel to visit the parks. Stephen Mather embraced this opportunity and worked to build more roads in the parks. In North Carolina, Horace Kephart, a reclusive writer, and George Masa, a Japanese immigrant, launched a campaign to protect the last stands of virgin forest in the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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Summary: In the early 20th century, America had a dozen national parks, but they were a haphazard patchwork of special places under the supervision of different federal agencies. This episode traces how the conservation movement pushed the government to establish one unified agency to oversee all the parks. This led to the establishment of the National Park Service in 1916. Its first director, Stephen...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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Summary: As the 21st century unfolds, how are Americans adapting to urgent issues involving sustainable growth, quality of life, and community planning? Segment one of this NewsHour program examines the effect of urban sprawl on Atlanta's population, job and housing markets, the environment, and commuters. Segment two addresses the need for affordable housing in Burlington, Vermont, where the disparity...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: In this episode, Franklin D. Roosevelt, to battle unemployment in the Great Depression, created the Civilian Conservation Corps, which spawned a “golden age” for the parks through major renovation projects. In a groundbreaking study, a young NPS biologist named George Melendez Wright discovered widespread abuses of animal habitats and pushed the service to reform its wildlife policies. Congress...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
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Summary: In 1851, word spread of California’s beautiful Yosemite Valley, attracting visitors who wished to exploit the land for commercial gain as well as those who wished to keep it pristine. This episode relates how a Scottish-born wanderer named John Muir made protecting this land a spiritual calling. In 1864, Congress passed an act that protects Yosemite from commercial development—the first time in...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009