National Parks and the Woman's Voice

A decade has passed since the publication of the first edition of National Parks and the Woman's Voice: A History. Polly Welts Kaufman thought it time to revisit the subject of activism of women citizens in preserving national parks and to learn how far the promise of the inclusion of career women in the Park Service hierarchy has progressed.

Kaufman discovered the staff in a national park can no longer fulfill the Park Service mission without outside support. Both this new reality and the acceptance of women as leaders have affected Park Service culture, making it more collaborative, more inclusive, less paternalistic, and more open to partnerships.

What was said about the first edition: "[Polly] Kaufman used extensive sources from women's, environmental, and national park history; she interviewed almost four hundred women. . . . She analyzes effectively the ways in which various women dealt with the male-de?ned Park Service culture, contemporary patterns of service in which women are superintendents primarily in small to medium sized historic parks, problems of dual-career marriages, and ways in which women's perspectives and values, which often differ from those of men, helped shape today's national parks."--Sylvia W. McGrath, H-Net, the Popular Culture and the American Culture Associations