Women’s Impacts to our National Parks

I learned a lot about some unsung heroines of our parks from an email from the National Parks Conservation Association. One link took me to “Trailblazers: Women Who Broke the ‘Green Ceiling,’” an article spotlighting 7 stars of the National Parks.

https://www.npca.org/articles/3077-trailblazers-women-who-broke-the-green-ceiling

Another link to “She Was the First” added 7 more women to the list of heroines no one’s ever heard of.

https://www.npca.org/articles/3093-she-was-the-first

And a side-article brought me to a third article, “These 10 National Parks Wouldn’t Exist without Women.”

https://www.npca.org/articles/1478-these-10-national-parks-wouldn-t-exist-without-women

Here’s one of those 24 women, Susan Pricilla Thew, who was born in 1878. She championed Sequoia National Park in her book, The Proposed Roosevelt-Sequoia National Park. She sent this photographic collection to members of Congress who were debating the 1926 expansion of the Sequoia N.P. After its passage, the park tripled in size.

I selected Sue Kunitomi Embrey from the 10 National Parks article. Sue had been incarcerated in Manzanar during the Second World War because of her Japanese ancestry. She returned to Manzanar in 1969 and every year thereafter — a pilgrimage — to protest this treatment. She spearheaded the campaign to designate Manzanar a National Historic Site. In 1992 George W. Bush signed the bill making it official.

I hope you take a few minutes to read these short articles about women in the environmental protection field.

Submitted by Teresa Wilmot