The National Parks: America's Best Idea S01E04 · Going Home (1920 – 1933)

Overview

While visiting the parks was once predominantly the domain of Americans wealthy enough to afford the high-priced train tours, the advent of the automobile allows more people than ever before to visit the parks. Mather embraces this opportunity and works to build more roads in the parks. Some park enthusiasts, such as Margaret and Edward Gehrke of Nebraska, begin "collecting" parks, making a point to visit as many as they can. In North Carolina, Horace Kephart, a reclusive writer, and George Masa, a Japanese immigrant, launch a campaign to protect the last strands of virgin forest in the Smoky Mountains by establishing it as a park. In Wyoming, John D. Rockefeller Jr. begins quietly buying up land in the Teton Mountain Range and valley in a secret plan to donate it to the government as a park.

Torrents

Subtitles

Episodes

1. 1 1. The Scripture of Nature (1851 – 1890)2009-09-27 · 1h 54mIn 1851, word spreads across the country of a beautiful area of California's Yosemite Valley, attracting visitors who wish to exploit the land's scenery for commercial gain and tho
2. 2 2. The Last Refuge (1890 – 1915)2009-09-28 · 2h 11mBy the end of the 19th century, widespread industrialization has left many Americans worried about whether the country - once a vast wilderness - will have any pristine land left.
3. 3 3. The Empire of Grandeur (1915 – 1919)2009-09-29 · 1h 51mIn the early 20th century, America has a dozen national parks, but they are a haphazard patchwork of special places under the supervision of different federal agencies. The conserv
4. 4 4. Going Home (1920 – 1933)2009-09-30 · 1h 55mWhile visiting the parks was once predominantly the domain of Americans wealthy enough to afford the high-priced train tours, the advent of the automobile allows more people than e
5. 5 5. Great Nature (1933 – 1945)2009-10-01 · 1h 54mTo battle unemployment in the Great Depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt creates the Civilian Conservation Corps, which spawns a "golden age" for the parks through major renovation pr
6. 6 6. The Morning of Creation (1946 – 1980)2009-10-02 · 1h 54mFollowing World War II, the parks are overwhelmed as visitation reaches 62 million people a year. A new billion-dollar campaign – Mission 66 – is created to build facilities and in