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Four years ago, National Park Service employees seeking a more robust look at the history of Muirwoods National Monument in Marin County began a “History Under Construction” exhibit.
The concept of this work was to expand on existing signs, featuring a timeline detailing the preservation of Muir Woods. Employees placed attention tape on the signs inside the founder gloves and used a yellow sticky note to add facts and dates that were missing from the original timeline. Among the added information was the efforts of the natives who originally maintained the land, and the role of women in creating national monuments.
The Plaque letter assures passersby that “all of this sign is accurate, but incomplete. The facts are not under construction, but the way history is conveyed.”
However, as of this month, there is no more yellowing.
The expanded exhibit became the first to be changed after a presidential order by President Trump in March, removing signs in any language he considers unpatriotic.
The president’s purpose was to restore a federal site he said had been changed since 2020 to perpetuate “a false reconstruction of American history,” including “inappropriate partisan ideology.” Muir Woods changes were first reported by SF Gate.
Former park ranger Elizabeth Villano, who helped create a new version of the sign, criticised the move, writing in a post about the medium that the Trump administration “actively censors American history to the public.”
She said the goal of the project is to make sure nothing is erased in the original sign, but to add details so that people can see the difference in how history was told and how it is expanded to include more voices.
“We wanted to tell the true story of the forest in a way that would help people learn from the past and help people apply those lessons to a brighter future,” she wrote. “In spite of this caution not to erase history, here I see history being erased.”
A spokesman for the Golden Gate National Recreation area, including Muir Woods, was unable to contact us immediately to comment Wednesday.
Before the memo was added in 2021, the first date included in the timeline of a sign called “Path to Preservation” was the establishment of the first national park in Yellowstone, the United States in 1872.
However, staff at the time discovered that the work of people in Miwok and South Pomo on the coast, which had leaned towards the land before Europeans arrived in North America, lacked some important information from the timeline. It also included the first campaign to save the area, launched by the women’s club in 1904.
Of course, not all the information added to the timeline was positive.
Staff detailed the details of Spanish missionaries who used the work of Indigenous people in the Bay Area to build California missions and legislative actions, and parliamentary actions that stripped the artisans of their ancestral lands, including Muir Woods.
The revised timeline was unashamed to point out the complicated legacy of the key figures who led the creation of the national monument. John Muir mentioned in his diary published several years before his death that indigenous people used racist language, pointing to William Kent’s vote in Congress to prevent non-citizens from owning or leasing the land.
Rangers were not responsible for omissions, saying the expanded narrative reflected an increase in the diversity of Parks Bureau employees over the years since the timeline was first released.
“From the conservation of Redwood to the legacy of the nation’s founders, American stories are enriched with complexity, dimensions and challenges. It is not our job to judge these stories or promote singular stories. It is our duty to tell a complete story that reflects who we are as a national park ranger.
Trump’s executive order directed the Home Office to identify public monuments, memorials, statues, or markers that have been removed or changed since 2020 to “perpetuate the false reconstruction of American history.”
The order also directed officials to ensure that the memorial did not contain content dissing Americans. Instead, the monument states “the greatness of the achievements and progress of the American people, or the nature of nature, the beauty, richness and grandeur of the American landscape.”
Critics said Trump’s instructions demand a rosy view of more complicated events that make up American history.
Former park ranger Villano writes in a medium essay that Americans are being criticized for stealing their ability to think critically and better understand history.
“Why doesn’t the White House want you to see a more complete version of history? Maybe when you see yourself in history, we realize we can reshape it,” she wrote. “For a government like this, it must feel like a threat. It doesn’t benefit people in power to understand that everyone can become part of history.”
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