A new grant will help fill gaps in the histories of America’s national parks with a collection of online stories.
From Cesar Chavez to the Stonewall riots to the struggle for racial equality — the National Park Foundation (NPF) wants to diversify its historical offerings.
National parks saw 297 million visits in 2021. And a recently announced $13 million grant from the Mellon Foundation seeks new history projects that educate the public about the parks’ complex histories.
The money will pay for 30 postdoctoral fellowships in the humanities, providing opportunities for public engagement at parks across the country. It’s an expansion of a 2017 pilot program called the National Park Service (NPS) Mellon Humanities Fellowship.
The initiative aims for “further exploration of the national parks’ untold stories,” according to a news release from the Mellon Foundation.
Like the recent decision to co-manage Bears Ears National Monument with Native Americans, the grant is meant to improve diversity in the park system.
A Successful Pilot Program
The initial 2017 program resulted in several history projects already available on park websites. Examples include:
- For the César E. Chávez National Monument, Dr. Eleanor Mahoney created a series of articles on labor history. She also made a story map titled “Marching for Justice in the Fields.”
- Dr. Mia Carey hosted a service-wide program, “A Candid Conversation with Black Women in the NPS,” in June 2020. Dr. Carey also wrote a series of nine articles to highlight Black women’s distinctive standpoint from which to understand the intersection of race and gender: “Black Women and the Struggle for Equality.”
- Dr. Eleanor Mahoney and Dr. Sylvea Hollis conducted research and interviews, planned, and hosted five episodes of the podcast “Ballot Blocked – Labor History.”
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