thenationalparksamerica’sbestidea.docVIP

THE NATIONAL PARKS: AMERICA’S BEST IDEA Episode descriptions 10/9/08 The National Parks: America’s Best Idea – a six-episode Ken Burns film – tells an epic story spanning a century and a half of our nation’s history and ranging from one corner of the country to the other: from the southernmost tip of Florida to the frozen tundra of Alaska, from the rocky coast of Maine to the volcanic Hawaiian islands. It is the story of an idea as uniquely American as the Declaration of Independence and just as radical: that the most magnificent places we possess belong not to royalty or the rich, but to everyone – and for all time. Set against the most spectacular landscapes on earth, it chronicles that idea from its first expression in the mid-1800s through the late 1990s. Like the idea of America itself -- full of competing demands between local rights and those of the nation; between the impulses of idealism and exploitation, the sacred and the profitable; between the immediate desires of one generation and its obligation and promise to the next – the national park idea has been constantly debated, constantly tested and is constantly evolving, ultimately embracing places that also preserve the nations first principles, its highest aspirations, its greatest sacrifices – even reminders of its most shameful mistakes. Most of all, the story of the national parks is the story of people: people from every conceivable background – rich and poor; famous and unknown; soldiers and scientists; natives and newcomers; idealists, artists and entrepeneurs. People who were willing to devote themselves to saving some precious portion of the land they loved -- and in doing so, reminded their fellow citizens of the full meaning of democracy.  EPISODE ONE The Scripture of Nature (1851 – 1890) Beginning with a montage of breathtaking scenery that sets the stage for the human drama of the entire series, this first episode establishes the national parks as both a “treasure house of N