See America

A Celebration of Our National Parks & Treasured Sites

Creative Action Network

• Publisher: Chronicle Books LLC
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781452148984
• eBook ISBN: 9781452149295
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: Art General

In homage to America's National Parks and their iconic art posters, this volume features new artwork for seventy-five parks and monuments across all fifty states.
"In this sepia-tinged homage" to the iconic National Parks posters "modern artists contribute dazzling new graphics" ( Entertainment Weekly).
From 1935 to 1943, the WPA's Federal Art Project hired American artist to create posters celebrating the National Parks Service. The icon See America posters inspired Americans to fall in love with the country's landmarks and wild spaces from the Golden Gate Bridge to the Gateway Arch and from the Grand Canyon to the Great Smokey Mountains.
Originally published to coincide with the centennial anniversary of the National Parks Service, the Creative Action Network has partnered with the National Parks Conservation Association to revive and reimagine the legacy of WPA travel posters. Artists from all over the world participated in the creation of this new, crowdsourced collection of See America posters for a modern era.

WASHINGTON MONUMENT

Established: 1848 — Washington, D.C.

In 1833, the Washington National Monument Society formed to build a monument to America’s first president. When the 555-foot tall Egyptian-style obelisk opened in 1888, it stood as the world’s tallest structure, a title it kept for only a year when the Eiffel Tower was completed in Paris, France. After a closure following a magnitude 5.8 earthquake in 2011 that caused more than 150 cracks in the structure, the monument was restored and reopened in 2014.

Illustration by Brandon Kish

YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK

Established: 1864 — California

On June 30, 1864, President Abraham Lincoln signed into law the Yosemite Grant, America’s very first bill setting aside land for preservation and public use. John Muir lobbied Congress to protect the land from overgrazing and logging of Sequoia trees, and in 1890, President Benjamin Harrison signed the legislation creating America’s third national park. In 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt took control of the park away from California and gave it to the federal government. Until the National Park Service was created in 1916, the park was protected by the Buffalo Soldiers, the all-black army regiments that served as America’s first park rangers.

Illustrations by Alyssa Winans, Nikkolas Smith, Naomi Sloman, Monica Alisse

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK

Established: 1872 — Wyoming/Montana/Idaho

The first national park in the country, Yellowstone was established by President Ulysses S. Grant on March 1, 1872. Early visitors were drawn by the park’s most predictable geyser, Old Faithful, which erupts every 63 minutes, shooting up to 8,400 gallons of boiling water nearly 150 feet in the air. Yellowstone remains the largest megafauna location in the United States and is home to grizzly bears, elk, wolves, and the largest bison herd in the country.

Illustration by Brixton Doyle

ANTIETAM NATIONAL BATTLEFIELD

Established: 1890 — Maryland

On September 17, 1862, General Robert E. Lee led his Confederate troops across Union lines in what would become the bloodiest single day in American history. Nearly 23,000 soldiers were killed, wounded, or missing in the first major battle on Union soil. Just five days after the Union victory at Antietam, President Lincoln gave the Emancipation Proclamation. The battlefield was first protected by the War Department at the urging of local citizens and ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Dedication
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• Introduction
• In the order in which they were established
• Artist Biographies
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Chronicle Ebooks