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The Documentary: Yellowstone: The first national park

Yellowstone: The first national park 

06/06/2023 GMT

Yellowstone: The first national park

BBC World Service - The Documentary, Yellowstone: The first national park

The pivotal role of art in the creation of Yellowstone, the world's first national park

The pivotal role of art in the creation of Yellowstone, the world's first national park.

In 1872, Yellowstone became America and the world's first national park. Alongside erupting geysers, bubbling hot springs, canyons, and bison herds, we uncover the pivotal role of art in winning over the public and convincing politicians to set aside this unique landscape, which today spans 2.2 million acres.

Shirl Ireland is a landscape and wildlife painter from Gardiner, Montana, a small town at the Northern entrance to the park. Accompanied with naturalist and guide Ashea Mills, she treads the same terrain as painter Thomas Moran and photographer William Henry Jackson. 

Jackson and Moran provided some of the first images of Yellowstone. The photographs proved that the surreal moon-like geysers and mud volcanoes really existed, while Moran’s watercolours revealed the extraordinary colours and sublime grandeur of the waterfalls and canyons.

But Yellowstone’s founding wasn’t simply a story of conservation - there were (and still are) economic influences. The expansion of the railroads was crucial to the park’s creation. Moran’s enormous oil painting -The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone - took on a political significance as America expanded West and forged a new national identity after the civil war.

Native Americans had been using the area for millennia before the arrival of European Americans. Francesca Pine Rodriguez (Apsáalooke/Crow and Tsitsistas/Northern Cheyenne) and Dr Shane Doyle (Apsáalooke/Crow) share how they marked the 150th anniversary of the park’s founding, in a series of events that aimed to provide healing and reconnect local tribal groups with the land.

Presenter: Shirl Ireland
Producer: Victoria Ferran
A JustRadio Ltd production for BBC World Service

(Photo: An erupting geyser in Yellowstone Park. Credit: Victoria Ferran)

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