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Horace M. Albright

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Horace M. Albright
2nd Director of the National Park Service
In office
January 12, 1929 – August 9, 1933
PresidentCalvin Coolidge
Herbert Hoover
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Preceded byStephen Mather
Succeeded byArno B. Cammerer
Personal details
Born(1890-01-06)January 6, 1890
Bishop, California, U.S.
DiedMarch 28, 1987(1987-03-28) (aged 97)
Van Nuys, California, U.S.
SpouseGrace Noble
Children2
OccupationConservationist
Awards
Albright enjoys a "bear dinner", Yellowstone National Park, 1922

Horace Marden Albright (January 6, 1890 – March 28, 1987) was an American conservationist and the second director of the National Park Service.

Early life and education

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Horace Albright was born in 1890 in Bishop, California, the son of George Albright, a miner. He graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1912, and earned a law degree from Georgetown University. Albright married his college classmate Grace Noble and they had two children.

Early Career

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After graduation, he worked for the Department of the Interior in Washington, D.C. Albright worked as a lawyer until being introduced to Stephen Mather who took him on as an assistant.[2][3] When Mather became Assistant Secretary in charge of the national parks, Albright assisted Mather when the National Park Service (NPS) was established in 1916.[2] As legal assistant, he helped acquire land for several new national parks in the east. After the first year and a half of being apart of the newly created park service, Albright created a list of management polices that were looked over by a wide group of people including conservationists which was sent to NPS director Mather by Franklin Lane in what is called the "Lane Letter".When Mather became ill, Albright managed the NPS as acting director.[4]

In the early years of the national parks idea, Horace Albright and Stephen Mather focused on getting people to come to the parks which influenced Albright's policies related to the preservation and use of the parks.[5][2] Together, they also pushed for expanded park boundaries to accommodate more wildlife habitat and, in the case of Yellowstone National Park, added the Grand Teton mountain range as a visitor attraction to complement Yellowstone National Park.[5][2]

He later served as superintendent of Yellowstone National Park from 1919 to 1929. He viewed Yellowstone as the flagship of the National Park Service and worked to make it a model for park management. During his tenure, he established visitor services and park museums, which became foundational elements of the National Park Service. His leadership in Yellowstone set standards that influenced the management of other national parks. In the early years of being superintendent, Albright would get the support of John D. Rockefeller Jr. who bought land around the Teton Mountain range to preserve it and eventually make a park.[2] He would also be a key person who helped preserve the culture and lands of Jackson Hole town which helped the community support the creation of the Grand Teton park idea.[2]

Horace Albright as Superintendent of Yellowstone

For a short time he served as superintendent of Yosemite National Park. On October 18, 1922, he was elected Associate Member of the Boone and Crockett Club, a wildlife conservation organization founded by Theodore Roosevelt and George Bird Grinnell, in 1887.

Horace M. Albright, Superintendent of Yellowstone, 1922

Director of NPS

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On January 12, 1929, Albright succeeded Mather as the second director of the NPS and held the post until August 9, 1933. As the new director of the NPS, Albright advocated that the preservation of animals should still have ways in which to make interactions with the visitors possible.[4] This view was opposed by many biologists such as George Melendez Wright at Yellowstone National Park, where this practice had animals such as bison being seen as more of a tourist attraction compared to the other wildlife at the park.[4] Albright would continue to put visitor use over biological concerns when they came up as he saw the parks being more for the people rather than the animals both during his time as director and after.[4]

Along with adding historical military sites, Albright also helped create and develop a history program for the National Park Service.[3] Starting with Verne. E. Chatelain, one of the achievements being the creation of the national historical park at Morristown. Additionally, the first Branch of Research and Education was created under Albright to help collect data about the various wildlife and natural resources in order to develop facilities to educate visitors and expand the known knowledge of the park.[5] In 1931, Albright decided to place a limit on overnight visitors to facilities located in the Giant Forest in Sequoia National Park which added preservation concerns alongside the tourism concerns.[5]

During his time as Director of the National Parks, Albright was instrumental in adding new national parks such as the Everglades. When Albright was invited in 1930 to the Everglades to see the place that different groups of people wanted to either preserve or destroy, he decided at the end of the trip to put forth the concept of it becoming a national park although it would take a few years.[2]

Late Life

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He next worked for the U.S. Potash Corporation and U.S. Borax and Chemical Corporation, serving variously as director, vice president, and general manager. During this time, the Albrights lived in New Rochelle, New York. In 1937, Albright's portrait was painted by artist Herbert A. Collins.[6]

Albright died in Van Nuys, California, in 1987.[7][8]

Legacy

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In 1969, Albright received the National Audubon Society's highest honor, the Audubon Medal.[9]

On the 64th anniversary of the National Park Service, Albright was honored with the nation's highest civilian award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. President Jimmy Carter announced the award in August 1980, and Assistant Secretary of the Interior Robert L. Herbst presented it during a ceremony held in Van Nuys, California, on December 8th of that year.[10]

Albright Peak Grand Tetons National Park

Albright Grove, a grove of old-growth hemlocks and tulip poplars located in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, was named in Albright's honor.[11] The Albright Training Center at Grand Canyon National Park, the Albright Visitor Center at Yellowstone National Park, and Albright Peak in Grand Teton National Park also bear his name.

References

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  1. ^ "Berkeley Citation – Past Recipients | Berkeley Awards".
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Runte, Alfred (2022). National parks: the American experience (Fifth edition ed.). Guilford, Connecticut: Lyons Press. ISBN 978-1-4930-6182-2. OCLC 1225067711.
  3. ^ a b Bearss, Edwin C. (1987). "The National Park Service and Its History Program: 1864-1986: An Overview". The Public Historian. 9 (2): 10–18. doi:10.2307/3377327 ISSN 0272-3433.
  4. ^ a b c d Sellars, Richard West (2009). Preserving nature in the national parks: a history: with a new preface and epilogue(New ed.). New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-15414-6
  5. ^ a b c d Keiter, Robert B. (2013). To conserve unimpaired: the evolution of the national park idea. Washington: Island press. ISBN 978-1-59726-659-8.
  6. ^ Biography of Herbert Alexander Collins, by Alfred W. Collins, February 1975, 4 pages typed, in the possession of Collins' great-great grand-daughter, D. Dahl of Tacoma, WA.
  7. ^ "Horace Albright Dies. Founded Park Service". New York Times. March 29, 1987. Retrieved 2009-09-30. Horace Marden Albright, a conservationist who was a co-founder and second director of the National Park Service, died of heart failure early yesterday at a convalescent home in Los Angeles. He was 97 years old.
  8. ^ "National Park Service Co-founder Dies," Yosemite 49(1):4 (Spring 1987).
  9. ^ "Previous Audubon Medal Awardees". Audubon. 2015-01-09. Retrieved 2020-07-12.
  10. ^ "About Horace M. Albright". UC Berkeley Rausser College of Natural Resources. Retrieved 2020-12-02.
  11. ^ "Albright Grove Trail - Maddron Bald Loop Trail in Great Smoky Mountains National Park". Mysmokymountainvacation.com. Retrieved 2013-06-19.

Further reading

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  • Becher, Anne, and Joseph Richey, American Environmental Leaders: From Colonial Times to the Present (2 vol, 2nd ed. 2008) vol 1 online p. 15.
  • Swain, Donald C. "Harold Ickes, Horace Albright, and the Hundred Days: A Study in Conservation Administration." Pacific Historical Review 34.4 (1965): 455–465. online
  • Swain, Donald C. "The Passage of the National Park Service Act of 1916." Wisconsin Magazine of History (1966): 4–17. online
  • Swain, Donald C. Wilderness defender; Horace M. Albright and conservation (U of Chicago Press, 1970) online
  • Swain, Donald C. "The National Park Service and the New Deal, 1933-1940." Pacific Historical Review 41.3 (1972): 312–332. online

Primary sources

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Government offices
Preceded by Director of the National Park Service
1929–1933 		Succeeded by
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