A Woman in the Great Outdoors: Adventures in the National Park Service

Melody Webb's reflections on her twenty-five-year-long career in the National Park Service is an insider's account of a public bureaucracy. As a woman, she was working in a male-dominated agency; as an idealist, she attempted to champion the wise use of the national parks in a pragmatic political agency.

Webb's career began in Alaska during President Gerald Ford's administration. She helped set up the mechanism that permitted Alaskan Natives to claim up to 2 million acres of federal land to preserve culturally significant areas. Following a dozen years of historic preservation work in Alaska and New Mexico, Webb spent the second half of her tenure in management positions. She served as superintendent at the Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park and then as assistant superintendent, in charge of all park operations at Grand Teton National Park. During this period the Park Service was faced with conflicting mandates: there was a growing demand for recreational land use and, at the same time, environmental requirements and tight budgets limited the NPS's options.

Webb's frankness about the day-to-day politics within an institution that many Americans feel should be above politics make this book an eye opener for historians and anyone who has an interest in the National Park System.

Author: Melody Webb
Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
Published: 10/01/2007
Pages: 286
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.93lbs
Size: 8.88h x 6.25w x 0.74d
ISBN: 9780826331762

About the Author
Webb, Melody: - Melody Webb received her Ph. D. in history from the University of New Mexico. She is also the author of Yukon: The Last Frontier. She resides in Georgetown, Texas.