The American Tradition of Trying to Address Anxiety with Parks

Summary

As summer approaches, America’s national parks are bracing for an influx of visitors, even as deep federal cuts to park services likely mean fewer camp employees, closed campgrounds, long lines, and cancelled programs. Travelers have been warned away from some national parks by experts, urged to reschedule for next year.But millions are still opting to go. Last summer, a record 332 million people visited America’s 63 national parks. Based on yearly upward trends, the estimates for this summer are even higher. In a “hold-your-breath year” for national park tourism, Americans are still turning en masse to the natural environment as respite from the stresses of modern life.The frenzy shouldn’t surprise us. With festering worries related to economic uncertainty, inflated costs, and federal policy whiplash, the popularity of park vacations is no coincidence. Rather, the rush to escape to these beautiful sanctuaries echoes a long history of Americans turning to nature for relief from anxiety, particularly during moments of sudden and widely felt changes.In the 1870s, the United States was in the midst of the most spectacular transformations yet in its history. The end of the American Civil War brought an end to slavery and the emancipation of some 4 million Black people, while a slew of new innovations brought irreversible changes to the day-to-day lives of all Americans.Read More: When History Tourism Puts Profit Before the PastNew machinery brought advanced manufacturing, jobs, speedier production of goods, and lower costs for consumers. Hundreds of thousands of miles of telegraph cable delivered information at break-neck speed, forever reshaping how Americans accessed news, communicated, conducted business, and envisioned the world. And the completion of a continent-crossing railroad in 1869 revolutionized travel, making it possible to move people and cargo across vast distances in hours, rather than weeks or months.Spurred by monumental developments in technology, ind...