Sustainable Commons: A forum for ideas and actions

National Parks
Environmental & Science Education
Edward Hessler

Vintage photographs of national parks and public lands from the United States Library of Congress.

Sarah Gilbert of the Guardian writes that in the late 1800s the beauty of American public lands were first shown by means of "a photographic technique called photochrom...which allowed color to be introduced to black and white negatives. The process was used extensively by William Henry Jackson, whose early pictures of Yellowstone helped convince Congress to make it the first national park in 1875."