If you’ve been hankering for a national park visit, maybe you had Yosemite or Olympic National Park in mind. But look further and you’ll discover more than 400 National Park Service (NPS) sites across the US, from a national park for jazz in New Orleans, to a historical park inspired by Rosie the Riveter in California, to a national park along the Columbia River devoted to the journey of Lewis and Clark.
About 75 percent of all NPS sites commemorate a significant event in US history, which is why historian Turkiya Lowe (PhD, History, 2010) has spent more than two decades with the National Park Service. Since 2017, she has been the NPS chief historian and manager of the NPS park history program — the first woman or African American in that role.
Media credit: Courtesy of Turkiya L. Lowe