The National Parks: America's Best Idea S01E06 · The Morning of Creation (1946 – 1980)

Overview

Following 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 infrastructure that can accommodate the flood of visitors. A biologist named Adolph Murie introduces the revolutionary notion that predatory animals, which are still hunted, deserve the same protection as other wildlife. In Florida, Lancelot Jones, the grandson of a slave, refuses to sell to developers his family's property on a string of unspoiled islands in Biscayne Bay and instead sells it to the federal government to be protected as a national monument. In the late 1970s, President Jimmy Carter creates an uproar in Alaska when he sets aside 56 million acres of land for preservation – the largest expansion of protected land in history. In 1995, wolves are re-established in Yellowstone, making the world's first national park a little more like what it once was.

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