Now in a fully updated edition, this invaluable reference work is a fundamental resource for scholars, students, conservationists, and citizens interested in America's national park system. The extensive collection of documents illustrates the system's creation, development, and management. The documents include laws that established and shaped the system; policy statements on park management; Park Service self-evaluations; and outside studies by a range of scientists, conservation organizations, private groups, and businesses. A new appendix includes summaries of pivotal court cases that have further interpreted the Park Service mission.

Two men played a crucial role in the creation and early history of the National Park Service: Stephen T. Mather, a public relations genius of sweeping vision, and Horace M. Albright, an able lawyer and administrator who helped transform that vision into reality. In Creating the National Park Service, Albright and his daughter, Marian Albright Schenck, reveal the previously untold story of the critical "missing years" in the history of the service. During this period, 1917 and 1918, Mather's problems with manic depression were kept hidden from public view, and Albright, his able and devoted assistant, served as acting director and assumed Mather's responsibilities. Albright played a decisive part in the passage of the National Park Service Organic Act of 1916; the formulation of principles and policies for management of the parks; the defense of the parks against exploitation by ranchers, lumber companies, and mining interests during World War I; and other issues crucial to the future of the fledgling park system. This authoritative behind-the-scenes history sheds light on the early days of the most popular of all federal agencies while painting a vivid picture of American life in the early twentieth century.

It's here! Now you can stamp your way through the entire National Park System with the newest addition to the Passport To Your National Parks line of products: the Collector's Edition Passport. Beauty and practicality meet artfully in this deluxe version of the popular Passport, taking you above and beyond the original by providing space for Passport stickers and cancellation stamps for every single park, as well as space for extra cancellations. The park sites are color-coded by region, each area featuring a color map that pinpoints park locations. With a spiral binding that makes it easy to lie open flat, a hard cover that ensures durability and longer life, and pages graced with beautiful color photographs, it's the ultimate stamping ground.