From World’s Fair to National Park: Heritage and Fantasy in the Design of the American West (Works in Progress)

This talk by Rebecca Houze, Professor of Art and Design History, Northern Illinois University, argues that Yellowstone, Glacier, and Grand Canyon National Parks were initially constructed as open-air museums of cultural heritage. As unique expressions of national identity, the parks were designed into the landscape and promoted to tourists by transcontinental railroad companies with sophisticated advertising programs and an emerging vocabulary of corporate identity.