Saving Yellowstone, Megan Kate Nelson
Saving Yellowstone, Megan Kate Nelson
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Saving Yellowstone
Exploration and Preservation in Reconstruction America

Author: Megan Kate Nelson

Narrator: Cynthia Farrell

Unabridged: 8 hr 22 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 03/01/2022


Synopsis

From historian and critically acclaimed author of The Three-Cornered War comes the captivating story of how Yellowstone became the world’s first national park in the years after the Civil War, offering “a fresh, provocative study…departing from well-trodden narratives about conservation and public recreation” (Booklist, starred review).

Each year nearly four million people visit Yellowstone National Park—one of the most popular of all national parks—but few know the fascinating and complex historical context in which it was established. In late July 1871, the geologist-explorer Ferdinand Hayden led a team of scientists through a narrow canyon into Yellowstone Basin, entering one of the last unmapped places in the country. The survey’s discoveries led to the passage of the Yellowstone Act in 1872, which created the first national park in the world.

Now, author Megan Kate Nelson examines the larger context of this American moment, illuminating Hayden’s survey as a national project meant to give Americans a sense of achievement and unity in the wake of a destructive civil war. Saving Yellowstone follows Hayden and two other protagonists in pursuit of their own agendas: Sitting Bull, a Lakota leader who asserted his peoples’ claim to their homelands, and financier Jay Cooke, who wanted to secure his national reputation by building the Northern Pacific Railroad through the Great Northwest. Hayden, Cooke, and Sitting Bull staked their claims to Yellowstone at a critical moment in Reconstruction, when the Ulysses S. Grant Administration and the 42nd Congress were testing the reach and the purpose of federal power across the nation.

“A readable and unfailingly interesting look at a slice of Western history from a novel point of view” (Kirkus Reviews), Saving Yellowstone reveals how Yellowstone became both a subject of fascination and a metaphor for the nation during the Reconstruction era. This “land of wonders” was both beautiful and terrible, fragile and powerful. And what lay beneath the surface there was always threatening to explode.

About Megan Kate Nelson

Born and raised in Colorado, Megan Kate Nelson is a writer and historian now based in Boston, Massachusetts. She has written about US western history, the Civil War, and American culture for The New York TimesThe Washington PostThe AtlanticSlate, Time, and Smithsonian Magazine. Nelson earned her BA in history and literature from Harvard University and her PhD in American studies from the University of Iowa. She is the author of Saving Yellowstone; The Three-Cornered War, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; Ruin Nation; and Trembling Earth.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Casey

The main title of the book is a little misleading as portions of the book deal with Jay Gould and the building of the Northern Pacific railroad and with the demise of reconstruction in the South. The main focus of the book is the surveying and preservation of Yellowstone as a national park and the e......more

Goodreads review by Brandi

Wonderfully engaging book! The scenes read like a novel and Nelson's characterization of the historical individuals is fascinating. The bibliography holds a lot of gems for further reading.......more

Goodreads review by Ted

This is a short book (less than 200 pages), but it covers a lot of ground: the 1871 scientific expedition into the Yellowstone Basin, Reconstruction, the early 1870's conflict between the U.S. government and the tribes of the northern Plains, and the attempts to build a Northern Pacific Railroad. Af......more

Goodreads review by Nicole

I wish all History books were written like this! Amazing book with a clear focus on the years surrounding the first white Yellowstone surveys in the context of the reconstruction era in the US (post civil war). Loved this book. With one of the best closes too a book I’ve read: “In this context, Yello......more


Quotes

"Cynthia Farrell’s crisp voice suits this history of Yellowstone National Park. Whether carefully pronouncing the Sioux and other Native American languages or telling the many engaging stories of the early 1870s, she narrates with intelligence, a careful cadence, and an actor’s dramatic style."