In 1994 the OAH and NPS negotiated an agreement that has enabled the two organizations to work together on a number of projects calculated to provide support for the NPS in its efforts at historical modernization. Participating OAH members have also learned a great deal from their work with those NPS staff on the front lines of this most demanding and significant kind of public education. These efforts are supported at the top levels of NPS. In 1997 Robert Stanton, who had recently retired as regional director of the National Capital Region, became director of NPS. He is committed to the vision of a more inclusive Park Service and to telling a more scholarly and inclusive history of the national experience through the historic sites under the agency's guardianship. Bob, as almost everyone calls him, is fifty-nine years old, from Ft. Worth, Texas. He has served with NPS for over thirty years. His appointment broke with precedent in a number of significant ways: He is the first NPS director to have been confirmed by Congress; he is one of the few in recent times to have come from the ranks of the service; and he is the first African American ever to hold that office. Bob is very much a hands-on director who involves himself in much of the day-to-day operation of the NPS. Last summer he was kind enough to talk with me for almost two hours about his life in the NPS and his vision for the future of the Park Service.

James O. Horton: In this interview I would like to introduce you to the members of the OAH. Who is Robert Stanton and what is he all about?

Robert Stanton: I started working with the Park Service as a temporary park ranger in Grand Teton National Park during the summers of 1962 and 1963. I became a career employee with NPS in 1966.

JH: It is a long way from a temporary summer employee to the directorship.

RS: Yes, I was very fortunate and privileged to have been recommended by Secretary Babbitt to become the director of the Park Service, and his recommendation was accepted by President Clinton. The president then nominated me to become the director of the Park Service to the United States Senate and the Senate confirmed my nomination. I was sworn into office on August 4, 1997.

JH: Did working with NPS fit into your original career plans? When you were a kid doing summer internships with the Park Service did you ever think that you might have a career in the NPS?

RS: The summer experience in Grand Teton National Park had a great deal of influence on me with respect to eventually pursuing a career with NPS, but prior to working with the Park Service in 1962 I had never visited a national park, nor did I have much familiarity with the national parks throughout the country. I am a native of the State of Texas and our family was of limited economic means. We did not have traditional vacations nor did we travel outside, so there was no real awareness of the national parks. I appreciated having the opportunity to work in Grand Teton. That employment gave me the opportunity to become associated with career staff who were very impressive in terms of their professionalism and their dedication to the mission of NPS. Furthermore, it gave me an opportunity to become better acquainted with the mission of NPS and the value of our parks. This was a large part of the reason that eventually I pursued a career with the Park Service and again, it has been a very rewarding career.

JH: Was there any special influence that moved you toward a life long career in the NPS?

RS: I think the mission of NPS and preserving our natural and cultural heritage had some influence on me. But as I reflect on my early experience, it was the quality and the dedication of the assistant ees who were stationed in Grand Teton National Park at that time who had a great deal of influence on me. I think they epitomized what a professional Park Service employee should be. The chief ranger at the time of my first year's experience was Russell E. Dickenson who eventually became the director of NPS. My superintendent in my first year was Harthon Bill, known as Spud. Bill eventually became the deputy director of NPS. The assistant chief ranger under Russ Dickenson was Jack Davis who eventually became an associate director of operations for NPS. I mention these people to give you some indication of the quality of those whom I had opportunity to work with in my earliest years in the Park Service.

JH: What did you do in the NPS during your next few years?

RS: Primarily I worked in ranger activities, limited law enforcement, entrance station duties, and providing direct services to the visitors in Grand Teton National Park. Again, it was a great, great experience. The recruitment effort in 1962 was the first major attempt by the Department of Interior to attract African Americans to work in the national parks and the Fish and Wildlife Service. This was shortly after President Kennedy had taken office and had appointed Stewart Udall as Secretary of the Interior. Secretary Udall was committed to improving the diversity within the work force of Interior and he made a special effort to have recruiters go into historically black colleges and universities. For the very first time in the history of the Interior Department it actively recruited among the students at black colleges.

JH: Is that how you found out about job opportunities in the Park Service?

RS: That is right.

JH: Where were you in school?

RS: I was at Huston Tilletson College in Austin, Texas, a small, privately-endowed church-related school. The recruiter met with the president of the college, and told him that this was a new era and that while many facilities throughout our country were still segregated, the federal government was recruiting young people to go into parks and into locations where African Americans had never worked before.

JH: This was in the early 1960s?

RS: Yes, 1962. I was recommended along with some of my fellow students by the president of the college as one who might do a good job in this new environment. Each of us who worked throughout the country during that first year received letters from the secretary confirming our appointment. It was a beginning.

JH: What was your position?

RS: I was appointed as a park ranger for the summer. It was the start of my junior year in college. I returned the next year and worked prior to my graduation from Huston Tilletson. Then, while working there right after graduation, the college offered me a job to serve as director of Public Relation and Alumni Affairs and, with the support of the college, to do some graduate work in public relations and communications at Boston University, which I did. I worked at Huston Tilletson for two years and became permanent with the Park Service in 1966.

JH: What job did you fill then?

RS: I was here in our national office as a public information specialist and then eventually I worked in personnel. In 1968, I went into my first field position as a management assistant for National Capital Parks-Central here in Washington, DC. From there I was appointed to superintendent ofNational Capital Parks-East which included park areas in Washington, DC, and several in Maryland. I was very privileged to be appointed by then Regional Director Russ Dickerson and National Park Service Director George Hartzog, as the first African American superintendent in the National Parks Service.

JH: You were superintendent of National Capital Parks East?

RS:. Yes, and from there I became the superintendent of the Virgin Islands National Park.

JH: When were you in the Virgin Islands?

RS: From August of 1971 through January of 1974. It was a great learning experience. From the Virgin Islands I became the deputy regional director for the Southeast Region in Atlanta, Georgia. One of the few areas that had been authorized to commemorate African American history was the Tuskeegee Institute National Historic Site, and I had the opportunity to work with the college president and his staff in developing our first corporate agreement for the management of park.

JH: Then from Atlanta did you come back to DC?

RS: From Atlanta I became the assistant director for Park Operations under Director Gary Everhart at that time. Then I became the deputy regional director for the National Capital Region, where I served for eight years. I returned to the Washington office as the associate for operations and then to the regional director for the National Capitol Region.

JH: What do you think is the significance of the fact that you are the first Park Service director in some time who has actually risen through the ranks of the service? Have you found that your long experience gives you particular credibility with others in the service who have been around for a long time?

RS: Perhaps it helps me. Certainly I have a first-hand familiarity with the opportunities and the issues confronting us at the various organizational levels in the Park Service.

JH: I grew up in Newark, N.J. and, like you, I never heard very much about NPS. I do not think I had ever visited a national park before I went to college. Do you think that having an African American as the director of NPS will make a difference for black kids growing up in the inner-city?

RS: I would like to think so. I appreciate the fact that a number of organizations, the news media, have honored me with various biographical profiles, or articles, about my appointment. But I would hope that my appointment will encourage young people to consider a career in NPS, particularly young people in the minority community, African Americans, Hispanic, Asian Americans, and Native Americans. This is one of the critical missions of the Park Service. I would hope that they would look at the importance of the preservation of our rich diverse cultural and natural heritage. What keeps me motivated is the excitement of being an active part of preserving this rich heritage. I think that to the extent that we can make known, on a larger scale, the fact that we do have areas in the park system that focus on and commemorate American Indian, women, Hispanics, Asian Americans, and African Americans, young people will become excited about it and some may say, "Hey, I want to become a part of an organization that preserves these tremendous resources, these legacies."

JH: So if they see themselves reflected in the parks and the historic sites the Park Service will have greater meaning for them.

RS: That is right. And again, from a personal perspective, I came from a school system that was segregated, and a social system that was segregated. I first came to the Park Service before the 1964 Civil Rights Act. There were many public accommodations that were still segregated in various communities and the local city parks that I frequented in Texas were still segregated. There were certainly a limited number of African Americans working with NPS in supervisory/managerial positions in the early 1960s, and there were not many areas in the park system that reflected the contribution of African Americans. As a matter of fact, when I first worked seasonally as a park ranger in Grand Teton in 1962, Congress had authorized only three areas in the park system, associated with African American history, the houses of George Washington Carver, Booker T. Washington, and a memorial to Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune. I am pleased to say that today there are 12 to 15 areas in the park system that have specifically been authorized by an Act of Congress to commemorate the contributions of African Americans to the development of our nation. Last July we unveiled a memorial to the over 200,000 African-American troops who served in the Union forces in the Civil War. There have been areas added to the park system commemorating women's history, and that of American Indians, Asian Americans, Hispanics and African Americans, and I would think that there is a tremendous opportunity for young people to become aware of the significance of the park system in their lives.

JH: A few years ago, when I took leave from George Washington University to work with NPS, we set up a memorandum agreement with the OAH to do some joint projects. From your point of view, how well has that worked?

RS: It has been extremely helpful. The OAH has brought a perspective and certainly a scholarly approach that has helped us to enhance the quality of our historical interpretation and to expand the opportunities for the public to benefit educationally from the history programs of NPS. For example, when I was the regional director for the National Capital Region, the OAH assisted us at Gettysburg National Military Park and Antietam National Battlefield in reviewing and evaluating our interpretative and educational program and gave us excellent recommendations that we have acted upon.

JH: Are there any areas in the future that you are particularly focused on that you think the organization and its members might be able to help with?

RS: I think that in the broad spectrum of American history there is a great need for us to call upon the services of OAH, but we specifically want to improve our interpretative and educational program with respect to diversity. I want to make sure that we have our facts right and that we have the ability and the courage to convey to all Americans information about our history with respect to African Americans, American Indians, Hispanics, and women. We all know that there have been some difficult days in our history, and we have not always been as forthright or as factual in presenting all aspects of history to our visiting public, or to our employees. We need to deal with these issues forthrightly. Slavery is an example, as is the confinement of Asian Americans during World War II. We administer Manzanar National Historic Site, one of the internment camps in the state of California. And certainly with reference to the wars and treaties with American Indians, we need to be forthright in our historical presentation.

JH: We know that from time to time the Park Service comes under strong pressure from various elements in the community. Sometimes there is political pressure in one direction or another over the interpretation of a particular site or historical event. Is there some way that the OAH might help you to stand up for and to insist upon the best, most recent scholarship in NPS site interpretations?

RS: No question about it, and I think the reputation of the OAH gives support and reinforces the integrity of what we are all about if the organization and its members have contributed to the materials that we are using. We in NPS certainly need to caution ourselves against trying to interpret or package a presentation from a limited perspective. We need to draw upon outside organizations and bring in the scholarship that is needed to make sure that we have the facts straight. Then we must have the courage to present this information to the public. I think that as I have experienced the Park Service some 31 years, the scholarship may have been there, or the facts may have been there, but sometimes we, for whatever reason, become so concerned about how we are perceived or how the public might react, that we may have excluded information from our story about a given event or a given park. Exclusion of significant and relevant information is not consistent with our policy and certainly not consistent with what I expect the Park Service to do in carrying out our responsibilities as stewards of our national treasures.

JH: As someone who has spent his whole career, or almost all of it, teaching in a university setting, I found my time with the Park Service extremely instructive. I learned a great deal as I watched NPS historians deal with very sensitive issues outside of the protection that the classroom and the university structure offer. I developed a great respect for those who deal with these delicate situations under the most difficult circumstances. At this point, should people with graduate degrees in history look to the Park Service for career opportunities?

RS: Yes. We have a number of staff members in NPS who have advanced degrees-master's and doctor's degrees in history-and there is a tremendous need for us to increase the number of historians and historical interpreters in the Park Service with advanced degrees in history if we are sincere about improving our ability to research and to interpret the history of our nation. We need to have a scholarly approach.

JH: I know that there are a number of history research projects underway. Can you tell us about the NPS Underground Railroad effort?

RS: Yes. In 1990 Congress passed legislation directing that the Secretary of the Interior through NPS conduct a comprehensive study of how we as a nation could commemorate the Underground Railroad. This is a fascinating and very enlightening part of our history that, unfortunately, has not been widely known or discussed in our educational systems and certainly not in the Park Service. Congress has received our report which was formally transmitted in 1995, and I might add with a great deal of pleasure, that Congress is now considering a bill that will give national prominence to the Underground Railroad. [President Clinton signed the bill into law in July of 1998. -ed.] This bill would direct NPS to work cooperatively with states and their political subdivisions, educational institutions, civic organizations, preservation groups, and other groups of all background in the commemoration of the Underground Railroad. Pending the enactment of that legislation, through our own existing authorities, we have worked with a number of organizations to identify areas and historic sites that have played a prominent part of the Underground Railroad. This effort has resulted in the identification of a number of National Historic Landmarks. We have prepared additional materials that have been made available to the public concerning the Underground Railroad.

JH: We know about the NPS handbook on the Underground Railroad. It is advertised in a recent OAH Newsletter.

RS: Yes. That is one way of getting the story out and there has been a tremendous response from the American public. People write to say, "I did not know about this as a part of my nation's history or my history." I think there are lessons to be learned from the Underground Railroad, and it is a message applicable to today. When individuals and groups agree to work for a cause, a just cause, they can rally around that. It can result in excellence and in intergroup and interracial cooperation. You had individuals from all religions, economic backgrounds, and races, men and women who came together to do something that was right-to help their fellow brothers and sisters to breath the air of freedom.

JH: You and I have talked about this before, and agree that it also offers us the opportunity to talk about the institution of slavery in a way that may be more comfortable than in other contexts. The Underground Railroad as a fight for freedom and a struggle against slavery is a far more comfortable kind of history for most Americans to consider.

RS: I agree wholeheartedly on that.

JH: You know the president has called on all Americans to involve themselves in a kind of conversation on race . . .

RS: That is correct.

JH: He suggests that we consider racial issues, and take part in discussions on the topic of race, and its impact. Does the NPS have a role to play in those discussions?

RS: Yes it does. In 1984 I tried to come to some conclusions in my own mind in terms of the what national parks can contribute to improving race relations or intergroup relations in a multicultural society such as ours. I had an opportunity to address the first world conference on cultural parks that was held at Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado in 1984. I spoke on the subject of the values and influences of parks, particularly the cultural parks, on race relations or intergroup relations as I called it at that time. My point was that parks can play a very important role because, particularly our historical parks, our cultural parks, and our archeological parks, represent the rich diversity of this nation. They also tell the story of some events that we are not that proud of but must address nevertheless. I talked earlier about Manzanar and we now have Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site that deals with racial segregation in education and the major Supreme Court decision of 1954 that segregation is not equal, or cannot be equal in public schools. My hope is that as the visitor confronts these events and these places in our history, whether visitors are African American, Hispanic, American Indian or Asian American, they come away with an expanded appreciation of their role and contribution in our society. As organized groups or individuals visit the Frederick Douglass home or theMaggie Walker home or the Martin Luther King Historic Site, for example, they gain a greater appreciation of the African American experience. So I think that parks really serve as learning places and therefore as we experience our history as represented in the National Parks we can all recognize that we have a common heritage and, I think, a common future.

JH: Given the economic situation, and calls for downsizing government, how is the Park Service doing? Are they going to be able to meet your goals given the cutbacks?

RS: I believe so. One of the other objectives that we will establish is to improve upon the efficiency of the operation of NPS. We are certainly obligated to make sure that we are utilizing our fiscal, material, and human resources in the most efficient and effective manner possible. We need to make sure that our employees get an opportunity to be trained appropriately in the skills needed to carry out the job. We need to make sure that our organization is appropriate to the tasks to be done, and we need to make sure that we are functioning as an efficient organization. We expect to continue to receive an appropriate level of Congressional appropriations. In addition to that-and we certainly owe a great deal of thanks to President Clinton and to Secretary Babbitt and to other members in the administration working jointly with Congress-Congress has really taken the lead in giving the Park Service and some of the other land management agencies, authorization to retain the revenues that are generated through our recreational fee program such as entrance fees to the parks, recreational fees. We are authorized now to retain 100 percent of the fees collected.

JH: In the past, how much were you able to retain?

RS: In the past those fees went to the general treasury without any direct benefit to the parks other than through the normal appropriation process. Under a fee program that Congress authorized two years ago, we have identified 100 parks and programs that are participants in the demonstration effort. Of the fees generated by those 100 parks and programs we retain 100 percent. We anticipate this calendar year realizing in the neighborhood of $135 to $140 million over and above our normal Congressional appropriation. These are additional funds that we can apply towards improving park resources.

JH:I know that some of the physical resources in the parks, some of the housing for Park Service people and some of the structures are in desperate need of repair.

RS: That is right. And we could use this money to maintain the trails and the historic structures in a better condition. So that is another source of revenues. The other is that the president recently approved what I generally refer to as the surface transportation bill. The various land management agencies participate under the provisions of that bill so that while heretofore the Park Service had been receiving in the neighborhood of $80 to $82 million annually to rehabilitate our roads and bridges throughout the national park system-we maintain, as an example, over 8,000 miles of primary paved roads, and a large number of bridges. Under this new legislation, we would be receiving $160 million annually over the next six years, to upgrade our roads throughout the park system. And the fourth area is the increase interest on the part of individuals and organizations, both profit and nonprofit, in making substantial donations to NPS for upgrading our park resources and facilities. There are a number of organizations that have contributed financially. As an example, we have a major preservation project underway at the Washington Monument. Private corporations have contributed to that. I also take a great deal of satisfaction, pleasure and pride in the fact that many thousands of individuals are registered as volunteers in the park. They actually join with the men and women of NPS on a daily basis contributing their own personal talents. That could be as curators of some of the artifacts, or providing interpretative services at the Vietnam Veterans' Memorial, or grooming horses for our ranger and park police mounted patrols. There really is a sense of interest, of dedication and caring on the part of the American people. They want to donate their own personal services and that is very gratifying.

JH: Bob, thank you so much. I know you are incredibly busy and I appreciate you taking the time to do this interview. Is there anything that you would like to add to what you have said?

RS: I would like to thank the OAH for its contributions to the program of NPS. Those contributions are deeply appreciated and we see a continuing, in fact, an expanded role for the association in cooperating with the programs of the Park Service. If we are to be diligent and forthright in our educational and interpretative program, we need the kind of scholarship that you and your fellow historians are bringing to NPS. We are very proud of the partnership and the agreement that we have with the OAH and look forward to continuing a fine relationship.

JH: Thank you Bob, very much.