ABSTRACT
Although the nation and the parks are always associated, as we saw, for example, in Olmsted's ideas on democracy, in Yosemite's wonders being asserted as a sign of America's being superior to Europe, and in Yellowstone's being described as revealing the greatness of America, the “See America First” campaign is exemplary of this tendency. First the railroads and then the federal government urged travel to America's wonders as requisite to good citizenship and the way to reconnect with America's primal powers. We will focus on Grand Canyon and Glacier to examine the literal and symbolic construction of the national parks that occurred in this time of prosperity and anxiety and how their construction mirrored and responded to issues of the larger culture. In both the Southwest and the Northwest Native Americans, in very different ways, played significant roles in reconnecting to a time and place of harmony and wholeness.
