Pu'uhonua
o Honaunau National Historical Park
1994
REVISION
OF THE NATIONAL PARK SERVICE'S THEMATIC FRAMEWORK
Preamble
Grounded
in the latest scholarship in history and archeology, this revised thematic
framework responds to a Congressional mandate to ensure that the full
diversity of American history and prehistory is expressed in the National
Park Service's identification and interpretation of historic properties.
It resulted from a workshop held June 18-20, 1993, in Washington, DC,
cosponsored by the Organization of American Historians and the National
Coordinating Committee for the Promotion of History and supported by the
American Historical Association. Participation was evenly divided between
academic scholars and NPS professionals.
New
scholarship has changed dramatically the way we look at the past. In the
introduction to The New American History (1991), historian Eric
Foner, a former president of the Organization of American Historians,
describes this transformation: "In the course of the past twenty
years, American history has been remade. Inspired initially by the social
movements of the 1960s and 1970swhich shattered the 'consensus'
vision that had dominated historical writingand influenced by new
methods borrowed from other disciplines, American historians redefined
the very nature of historical study." That remaking or redefining
of the past has expanded the boundaries of inquiry to encompass not only
great men and events but also ordinary people and everyday life.
So
profound have been these changes that the group charged with infusing
the new scholarship into the NPS thematic framework quickly concluded
that an entirely new approach was needed. The first NPS framework, adopted
in 1936, was conceived in terms of the "stages of American progress"
and served to celebrate the achievements of the founding fathers and the
inevitable march of democracy. Revisions in 1970 and 1987 substantially
changed the framework's format and organization but not its basic conceptualization
of the past. The present revision represents a clear break with that conceptualization.
The
revised framework will guide the NPS, working independently and with its
partners in the private and public sectors, in:
(1)
evaluating the significance of resources for listing in the National
Register of Historic Places, for designation as National Historic
Landmarks, or for potential addition to the National Park System;
(2)
assessing how well the themes are currently represented in existing
units of the National Park System and in other protected areas; and,
(3)
expanding and enhancing the interpretive programs at existing units
of the National Park System to provide a fuller understanding of our
nation's past.
The
use of the framework need not be limited to the federal level, however,
for the conceptualization it provides can equally inform preservation
and interpretation at local, state, and regional levels.
The
framework's themes are represented in the following diagram. They embrace
prehistory to the modern period and a multiplicity of human experiences.
The diagram reflects how scholarship is dramatically changing the way
we look at the past, reconstructing it as an integrated, diverse, complex,
human experience. Each segment in the diagram represents a significant
aspect of the human experience. The reality of the interrelationships
is reflected in the overlapping circles.
The
framework draws upon the work of scholars across disciplines to provide
a structure for both capturing the complexity and meaning of human experience
and making that past a coherent, integrated whole. For purposes of organization,
the following outline, like the diagram, provides eight seemingly discrete
categories, but they are not meant to be mutually exclusive. Cutting across
and connecting the eight categories are three historical building blocks:
people, time, and place.
People:
The centrality of people may seem obvious but should not be taken for
granted. In their work, recent scholars have emphasized that people are
the primary agents of change and must be the focus when we try to recapture
the past. The framework also recognizes the variety of people who have
populated our past. In every category of the outline, consideration of
the variables of race, ethnicity, class, and gender will help us better
grasp the full range of human experience. This approach does not mean
forsaking the whole and breaking up our past into small unrelated pieces,
but rather recognizing how the whole has been shaped by our varied histories.
Time:
Time is central to both prehistory and history, not simply as a mechanism
to locate or isolate events in history, but also as the focus of our concern
with process and change over time. The emphasis is not on "what happened"
but rather on "how and why," on the transformations that turn
the past into the present.
There
is no assumption of progress or inevitability in interpreting these transformations.
Instead, the emphasis is on the tension between change and continuity
and on understanding why and how particular choices were made. There is
no fixed periodization scheme in this new framework. While the committee
of scholars who worked on this revision recognizes that there are moments
of significant change in our past, it has not proved valuable to break
the past up into rigid segments of time that often ignore or obscure the
complexity of historical change.
Place:
The outline that follows was developed to address issues of national significance,
yet it recognizes that region, community, and other dimensions of place
are relevant. This framework acknowledges the richness of local and regional
experiences and recognizes difference in placeparticularly regional
differenceas an important factor in a fuller understanding of both
the origins of national change and the impact of national trends and events.
Because place is the concrete context in which our history unfolds, a
richer reconstruction of the past must include local and regional experience
to help build appreciation for our national experience.
People,
time, and place reach across all eight themes and contribute to the interconnections
among the themes. One example that can be used to illustrate this interconnectedness
is a Southern plantation dating from the 1830s. A quick survey suggests
that the significance of this site cuts across every category of the outline.
The move of a planter, his family, and his sizable household of slaves
from Tidewater Virginia to land purchased from the Choctaws in Alabama
would fall obviously under "Peopling Places," but the economic
imperatives and agricultural developments that triggered the move and
the adaptation of the plantation system to the new environment would fit
under "Developing the American Economy," "Expanding Science
and Technology," and "Transforming the Environment." While
the lives of the plantation's white and black, male and female inhabitants
fall under "Peopling Places" and "Creating Social Institutions
and Movements," the design and construction of the distinctive "big
house" illustrates the theme of "Expressing Cultural Values."
The transfer of the planter's political power from Virginia to Alabama
and the role of the planter class in antebellum Alabama falls under "Shaping
the Political Landscape." Finally, the planter's dependence on the
cotton economy and his influential role in international trade on the
eve of the Civil War tie directly into "Developing the American Economy"
and "Changing Role of the U.S. in the World." The outline suggests
that users think broadly, not narrowly, that they look beyond traditional
categories of historical significance in an effort to recapture the larger
meaning and depth of past experience.
The
framework rests on the assumption that, just as our understanding of the
past has been reshaped in recent decades, so it will continue to evolve
in the future. It should not be viewed as a final document or definitive
statement. It is a part of an ongoing effort to ensure that the preservation
and interpretation of our nation's historic and prehistoric resources
continue to be informed by the best scholarship available.
This
new conceptualization will assist the National Park Service in deepening
and broadening its identification and interpretation of sites. It suggests
fresh opportunities to assess the significance of sites from new perspectives
and at regional and local as well as national levels.
I.
Peopling Places
This
theme examines human population movement and change through prehistoric
and historic times. It also looks at family formation, at different concepts
of gender, family, and sexual division of labor, and at how they have
been expressed in the American past. While patterns of daily lifebirth,
marriage, childrearingare often taken for granted, they have a profound
influence on public life.
Life
in America began with migrations many thousands of years ago. Centuries
of migrations and encounters have resulted in diverse forms of individual
and group interaction, from peaceful accommodation to warfare and extermination
through exposure to new diseases.
Communities,
too, have evolved according to cultural norms, historical circumstances,
and environmental contingencies. The nature of communities is varied,
dynamic, and complex. Ethnic homelands are a special type of community
that existed before incorporation into the political entity known as the
United States. For example, many Indian sites, such as Canyon de Chelly
National Monument in Arizona, are on tribal lands occupied by Indians
for centuries. Similarly, Hispanic communities, such as those represented
by San Antonio Missions National Historical Park, had their origins in
Spanish and Mexican history. Distinctive and important regional patterns
join together to create microcosms of America's history and to form the
"national experience."
Topics
that help define this theme include:
1.
family and the life cycle
2.
health, nutrition, and disease
3.
migration from outside and within
4.
community and neighborhood
5.
ethnic homelands
6.
encounters, conflicts, and colonization
II.
Creating Social Institutions and Movements
This
theme focuses upon the diverse formal and informal structures such as
schools or voluntary associations through which people express values
and live their lives. Americans generate temporary movements and create
enduring institutions in order to define, sustain, or reform these values.
Why people organize to transform their institutions is as important to
understand as how they choose to do so. Thus, both the diverse motivations
people act on and the strategies they employ are critical concerns of
social history.
Sites
such as Women's Rights National Historical Park in Seneca Falls, New York,
and the Eugene V. Debs National Historic Landmark in Indiana illustrate
the diversity and changeable nature of social institutions. Hancock Shaker
Village, a National Historic Landmark, and Touro Synagogue, a National
Historic Site, reflect religious diversity. This category will also encompass
temporary movements that influenced American history but did not produce
permanent institutions.
Topics
that help define this theme include:
1.
clubs and organizations
2.
reform movements
3.
religious institutions
4.
recreational activities
III.
Expressing Cultural Values
This
theme covers expressions of culturepeople's beliefs about themselves
and the world they inhabit. For example, Boston African American Historic
Site reflects the role of ordinary Americans and the diversity of the
American cultural landscape. Ivy Green, the birthplace of Helen Keller
in Alabama, and the rural Kentucky Pine Mountain Settlement School illustrate
educational currents. Walnut Street Theater in Pennsylvania, Louis Armstrong's
house in New York City, the Chautauqua Historic District in New York,
and the Cincinnati Music Hallall National Historic Landmarksreflect
diverse aspects of the performing arts.
This
theme also encompasses the ways that people communicate their moral and
aesthetic values. The gardens and studio in New Hampshire of Augustus
Saint-Gaudens, one of America's most eminent sculptors, and Connemara,
the farm in North Carolina of the noted poet Carl Sandburg, both National
Historic Sites, illustrate this theme.
Topics
that help define this theme include:
1.
educational and intellectual currents
2.
visual and performing arts
3.
literature
4.
mass media
5.
architecture, landscape architecture, and urban design
6.
popular and traditional culture
IV.
Shaping the Political Landscape
This
theme encompasses tribal, local, state, and federal political and governmental
institutions that create public policy and those groups that seek to shape
both policies and institutions. Sites associated with political leaders,
theorists, organizations, movements, campaigns, and grassroots political
activities all illustrate aspects of the political environment. Independence
Hall is an example of democratic aspirations and reflects political ideas.
Places
associated with this theme include battlefields and forts, such as Saratoga
National Historical Park in New York and Fort Sumter National Monument
in South Carolina, as well as sites such as Appomattox Court House National
Historical Park in Virginia that commemorate watershed events in the life
of the nation.
The
political landscape has been shaped by military events and decisions,
by transitory movements and protests, as well as by political parties.
Places associated with leaders in the development of the American constitutional
system such as Abraham Lincoln's home in Illinois and the birthplace of
Martin Luther King, Jr., in Atlantaboth National Historic Sitesembody
key aspects of the political landscape.
Topics
that help define this theme include:
1.
parties, protests, and movements
2.
governmental institutions
3.
military institutions and activities
4.
political ideas, cultures, and theories
V.
Developing the American Economy
This
theme reflects the ways Americans have worked, including slavery, servitude,
and non-wage as well as paid labor. It also reflects the ways they have
materially sustained themselves by the processes of extraction, agriculture,
production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services.
Vital
aspects of economic history are frequently manifested in regional centers,
for example, ranching on the Great Plains illustrated by Grant-Kohrs Ranch
National Historic Site in Montana. Individual economic sites, such as
Lowell National Historical Park in Massachusetts, may be distinctive in
representing both the lives of workers and technological innovations.
In
examining the diverse working experiences of the American people, this
theme encompasses the activities of farmers, workers, entrepreneurs, and
managers, as well as the technology around them. It also takes into account
the historical "layering" of economic society, including class
formation and changing standards of living in diverse sectors of the nation.
Knowledge of both the Irish laborer and the banker, for example, are important
in understanding the economy of the 1840s.
Topics
that help define this theme include:
1.
extraction and production
2.
distribution and consumption
3.
transportation and communication
4.
workers and work culture
5.
labor organizations and protests
6.
exchange and trade
7.
governmental policies and practices
8.
economic theory
VI.
Expanding Science and Technology
This
theme focuses on science, which is modern civilization's way of organizing
and conceptualizing knowledge about the world and the universe beyond.
This is done through the physical sciences, the social sciences, and medicine.
Technology is the application of human ingenuity to modification of the
environment in both modern and traditional cultures. Alibates Flint Quarries
National Monument in Texas reflects pre-Columbian innovations while Edison
National Historic Site in New Jersey reflects technological advancement
in historic times. Technologies can be particular to certain regions and
cultures.
Topics
that help define this theme include:
1.
experimentation and invention
2.
technological applications
3.
scientific thought and theory
4.
effects on lifestyle and health
VII.
Transforming the Environment
This
theme examines the variable and changing relationships between people
and their environment, which continuously interact. The environment is
where people live, the place that supports and sustains life. The American
environment today is largely a human artifact, so thoroughly has human
occupation affected all its features. Cuyahoga Valley National Recreation
Area, which includes portions of the Ohio and Erie Canal, for example,
is a cultural landscape that links natural and human systems, including
cities, suburbs, towns, countryside, forest, wilderness, and water bodies.
This
theme acknowledges that the use and development of the physical setting
is rooted in evolving perceptions and attitudes. Sites such as John Muir
National Historic Site in California and Sagamore Hill National Historic
Site in New York, the home of President Theodore Roosevelt, reflect the
contributions of leading conservationists. While conservation represents
a portion of this theme, the focus here is on recognizing the interplay
between human activity and the environment as reflected in particular
places, such as Hoover Dam, a National Historic Landmark.
Topics
that help define this theme include:
1.
manipulating the environment and its resources
2.
adverse consequences and stresses on the environment
3.
protecting and preserving the environment
VIII:
Changing Role of the United States in the World Community
This
theme explores diplomacy, trade, cultural exchange, security and defense,
expansionismand, at times, imperialism. The interactions among indigenous
peoples, between this nation and native peoples, and this nation and the
world have all contributed to American history. Additionally, this theme
addresses regional variations, since, for example, in the eighteenth century,
the Spanish southwest, French and Canadian middle west, and British eastern
seaboard had different diplomatic histories.
America
has never existed in isolation. While the United States, especially in
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, has left an imprint on the world
community, other nations and immigrants to the United States have had
a profound influence on the course of American history.
The
emphasis in this category is on people and institutionsfrom the
principals who define and formulate diplomatic policy, such as presidents,
secretaries of state, and labor and immigrant leaders, to the private
institutions, such as the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,
that influence America's diplomatic, cultural, social, and economic affairs.
Monticello, the Virginia home of Thomas Jefferson, a National Historic
Landmark, reflects the diplomatic aspirations of the early nation.
Topics
that help define this theme include:
1.
international relations
2.
commerce
3.
expansionism and imperialism
4.
immigration and emigration policies
Participants
in the Working Group on the Revision
of the National Park Service Thematic Framework
CONSULTING SCHOLARS
Dr. J. Barto Arnold III Texas Historical Commission
Dr. Carol Berkin History Department Baruch College
Dr. Richard Betts School of Architecture University of Illinois
Dr. David S. Brose Royal Ontario Museum
Prof. Michael Conzen Geography Department University of Chicago
Dr. Linda De Pauw History Department George Washington University
Dr. Leon Fink History Department University of North Carolina
Dr. Brent Glass Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
Dr. Albert Hurtado History Department Arizona State University
Dr. Alan Kraut History Department American University
Dr. Earl Lewis Center for Afroamerican and African Studies University of Michigan
Mr. Hugh J. McCauley Architect
Dr. Don Ritchie Senate Historical Office
Dr. George Sanchez History Department University of California-Los Angeles
Dr. Philip Scarpino History Department Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis
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NATIONAL PARK SERVICE STAFF:
Mr. Frederick Babb Denver Service Center
Dr. Marty Blatt Lowell National Historical Park
Mr. Warren Brown Park Planning and Protection
Dr. Robert S. Grumet Mid-Atlantic Regional Office
Ms. Patricia Henry History Division
Dr. Antoinette Lee National Register of Historic Places
Mr. Benjamin Levy History Division
Mr. Barry Mackintosh History Division
Mr. Cecil McKithan Southeast Regional Office
Dr. Dwight T. Pitcaithley National Capital Region
Dr. Michael Schene Rocky Mountain Regional Office
Mr. Michael Spratt Denver Service Center
ADVISORS TO THE WORKING GROUP:
Mr. Bruce Craig National Parks and Conservation Association
Dr. Jim Gardner American Historical Association
OBSERVER:
Dr. Heather Huyck House Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests,
and Public Lands
PROJECT DIRECTOR:
Dr. Page Miller National Coordinating Committee for the Promotion
of History
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