National Park After Dark - Celebrating Women’s History Month: Women of Our National Parks

Episode Date: March 15, 2021

Throughout history women of all ages, backgrounds and ethnicities have made monumental impacts on National Parks here in the US and throughout the world. But why don't we learn about them? Men like John Muir and Theodore Roosevelt make frequent appearances in our history books when it comes to National Park history, but as the old saying goes - behind every great man is an even greater woman. In honor of Women's History Month we want to share stories a sampling of stories from the great women of the past and present. Learn more about: Women in Parks Program &  The Thin Green LineFor the latest NPAD updates, group travel details, merch and more, follow us on npadpodcast.com and our socials at:Instagram: @‌nationalparkafterdarkTikTok: @‌nationalparkafterdarkSupport the show by becoming an Outsider and receive ad free listening, bonus content and more on Patreon or Apple Podcasts. Want to see our faces? Catch full episodes on our YouTube Page!For a full list of our sources, visit http://npadpodcast.com/episodes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, everyone, and welcome back to National Park After Dark, episode eight. My name is Danielle. And my name's Cassie. And I'm really excited for this week because Danielle has quite the surprise for us. Don't you, Daniel? I do. I tried very hard to not text you and spoil the story. I never say everything to you.

And you don't really tell me much about your stories either. But we always have some sort of idea, whether it be the park it's in or the theme of the story. So this week, I really tried my best to keep it under wraps until today because it was an idea that I was really excited about and I didn't want you doing any sort of recon work on it. Well, you did a really good job because I have absolutely no clue about anything about this episode except for that we're heading into a different country briefly for it. So that's all I know. So this episode is going to be a little bit different than the others we've done. I felt like we needed a little bit of a palate cleanser. We've been harping on a lot of sad and depressing subjects, which is clearly the theme of the

podcast and one that we are going to continue with. But researching these stories every single week for many, many hours can get a little depressing, especially when we're working in a field that can also be depressing. And there's a lot of depressing stories going on in the world. It's just kind of a lot. Yeah. And I think that this, yeah, this week I wanted a little bit more of an uplifting story. That's why I decided to do this.

Okay. So before we get into this story, we do have an announcement. We did. We had a couple people ask us to add different tiers on our Patreon. So we did that. We added a second tier that you can go on. And if you go onto our website at p.addpodcast.com or onto our Instagram National Park after.

dark, you can go to the link to our Patreon. And we are actually adding a bonus episode once a month for all of our patrons, no matter which tier you choose. But we also have a lot of other information on there. So if you go on to our website, MPADpodcast.com or our Instagram National Park after dark, you can go to those links and you can see the full description of both tiers and join and subscribe. And it also helps us a lot for growing this podcast. Patreon really helps us out a lot. And we get to put more content out there for you guys. So check it out. Again, you can go on to our Instagram, National Park After Dark, or our website. And thank you to all the patrons that we have so far. You are so very appreciated. I think that's the housekeeping for this week. So let's get started.

Yeah, I'm ready. Well, then here we go. Let's get into it. So when we're speaking of early leaders of national parks, many minds go right to the big names. like John Muir, Theodore, and Franklin Roosevelt. But while these men have undoubtedly made monumental contributions to the creation of what you now recognize as National Parks and Monuments, what is seriously lacking is giving some of the love to the women that were right there

alongside them. Where are the women? Yes, where are the women? Tell me. In that spirit, today we are going to show some love to the women, in honor of Women's History Month. Today, we are going to share some of the stories of the badass women of our national parks. I love that.

I'm really excited for this. First and foremost, I just want to say that this episode is going to be, instead of a main dish and a main story, it's going to be more so of a little sampling, a little charcutory board of stories. Because I was doing so much research on women and women. national parks and the amount of information is amazing. There are tons of stories and tons of information of all of these amazing people who made huge contributions to different national parks in our country, around the world. And if I was to just pick one, I feel like I would not be doing justice to just how many women there have been in the past. I did want to just let you know

that we're going to be bouncing around a little bit, but I think that you're going to like it. All right. So not surprisingly, in the early years, the Park Service, so I'm talking early 1900s, women found it very difficult to find employment. It was a male-dominated profession, and there wasn't much of a warm welcome for women in the field, which isn't too surprising. I mean, it's the early 1900s. So specifically right now, I'm talking about the United States. And I'll specify when I'm talking about a different country, but for now, in general, the history of the Park Service I'm going to be talking about here in our country in the U.S. In the early 1900s, it was very difficult for women to find work in a field that was predominantly ruled by men, and the Park Service

was definitely one of those professions. Although women were married to National Park Service personal and had assisted their husband for years as I, unpaid help. They didn't really become official employees of the National Park Service until 1918. So this is almost 20 years after the Park Service was founded and there wasn't really a space for women. So they were unpaid help. So they were actually helping in duties in the National Park, but they were just unpaid. Okay. So I'm going to read some excerpts from a handbook that was put out by the National Park Service. If you want to look it up, it's actually a 24-page PDF. online through the National Park Service page. So you can look it up if you'd like and read it in its entirety.

But I read it and just took a few little gemstones from it. And I'm going to read them to you. Okay. And I want you to, I want you to guess at the end what year this was published. This was called the National Park Service Wives and Women Employees Handbook. And this was a document that was published and handed out by the National Park Service. Okay. First issue is wives and employees. Isn't that so weird? Why is there a handbook for wives and why are wives and employees handbook combined into one? But I'm excited to hear these excerpts of this that I know I'm going to hate. First one. Dear friend, welcome, new neighbor to the National Park Service way of life. You are married to a very special man or you would not be reading this. There will come a day when you think all you do is move, move, move, move. And yet each move is a new opportunity for your husband, perhaps an advancement in his career. Okay.

Interesting. You have moved and moved and moved, but your successful husband is the reason for it. Continue. I want to hear these other ones. Next. Most men choose the park service as a career. because of a special interest or skill. They quickly become very involved in their work.

If you don't want to be left out, share his interests. Read everything you can get your hands on that pertains to his field of work and listen to him. So this is literally a handbook on how to be a good wife. Take interest in his job and read articles. If your brain can process reading, you should read this and talk to him about his daily duty. so he's impressed with you. Yeah, I'm rolling my eyes into the back of my skull right now. The worst part is that this was like the norm.

I'm sure women were talked to like this all the time. So I'm sure it was even when women were reading this at the time, it wasn't weird. It wasn't abnormal. Like now we look back and it's crazy. We're like, what? If someone gave me this, I would light it on fire. Well, it just gets better. Oh, good.

Just one word of coffee. This is his job, not yours. Don't intrude onto his official duties. Whatever your husband's position, how he looks on the job is very important. The image he projects is the image the public associates with the National Park Service. This goes for everyone, regardless of the type of clothing worn. As a Park Service wife, it is your responsibility to see that his clothes are ready when needed, clean and neatly pressed. I'm sorry, are they getting paid for this? Because why can't He did his own laundry. It is your job and your duty to do his laundry.

It's like, okay, if that's true, then pay me a salary. That's wild. That's so wild. Yeah. Last and not least, this one's just, it just gets under my skin. Okay. While putting on the coffee and opening extra cans or making an extra sandwich, tell him of your joy in the area.

Sorry. Hold on. I'm sorry. Your enthusiasm for life will make the most. tired man, relax and appreciate your efforts. While you're making. We are laughing. Sorry, but laughing, but this is not, like this was, like you said, the norm.

And it's absolutely not funny because I would riot. I think God, I was born in 1990 and grew up in this time because if my exact soul was born. And oh yeah, okay, wait, what year do you think this is? I have to guess like the 1930s. Oh, think again. Oh, no. Think again.

So this idea for this handbook, wives' employee handbook was presented in 1967, but actually wasn't published and handed out until 1969. That's like our parents. our parents were alive. My parents were born in the 1950s, so they were like almost teenagers at this point. Yeah, like if I was born in a different time, whether it be then or earlier, I would have been, oh my God, if I was in Salem, circa 1600, I would have been burned at the steak, I'm pretty sure. I'd been like, this girl doesn't want to make a sandwich, burn her, she's a witch. Don't tell me.

I mean, I am fiercely independent and maybe to a fault, probably to a fault. I don't listen to anybody. And if you tell me what to do, I'm going to do the opposite. Unless it's my idea. I just, I could never, ever imagine reading this and be like, oh, okay. It is a different time. Yeah, I'd love to do that with my life. Right.

And I mean, it is a different time. And these are things like you do in a relationship because you want to and you do it for each other. If someone was writing a handbook for me of this is what you have to do to be a good spouse, that's horrible. Like these things, it's your job to make him an extra sandwich. It's like, no, I make a sandwich because we're eating sandwiches and then he makes a sandwich to Right. It's a give and take.

It's called an equal relationship, which existed, I'm sure, in particular circumstances. This was just the norm for a lot of people not very long ago. And I think it's really important that that gets put into perspective. This wasn't the 30s. This wasn't earlier than that. This is within people's lifetimes that are still around today. And it's monumental how far we've come since then. And of course, there's more work to be done.

And there's a lot of situations in this country and especially in others where women are not equal and do not have opportunities that men have, but we've come a really long way. Yeah, especially in this country. And I actually, I read this really cool article recently about these women in the Middle East and they are riding motorcycles across the country to raise awareness for like women's rights and women weren't allowed to drive. So the fact that they're like on motorcycles, like these badass women who are. advocating for women's rights in that country and it's dangerous for them. I thought was really cool.

So women's rights are still a huge fight. And we see that, especially women's safety in every country across the world is a huge issue right now. So that story you just told me about, there's a difference. And I think we need to think about it as women speaking on a podcast that we are free and able to do. we can put out with no reprimand and no fear of somebody coming for us because we're speaking about this on such a big platform. I mean, those women who are riding motorcycles and speaking up for women's rights, that may be a story if we heard in the U.S. of, oh, that's nice. But in that context, those women are risking their life to take a stand like that. Yeah. Like, that's a very real

possibility that they could be killed for that. Or go to jail for a really long time. There was just a story about this woman. She posted a photo of herself dancing on Instagram and she's from the Middle East and they put her in jail for it. She's not naked. Even if she was, it wouldn't matter. But she's literally just dancing in her living room and posted a video on Instagram, which we see all the time. And she got arrested and put in jail for it in the Middle East. Wow. Yeah. It's so crucial that even though this the rest of the stories I'm going to tell you are uplifting and they do give you a sense of wow like I'm so proud as a woman to learn about and hear these stories of people facing different situations of adversity and overcoming them and making progress

for our gender that there's still so much to be done in other countries and there's still so women that would kill to be in the position that we are currently in, that I think it's really important to get the full scope of that, because sometimes it's lost on us when we're just so wrapped up in our own problems and our own struggles and where we're at. So just because women weren't officially employed by the service regularly until the 60s, it didn't mean that they weren't doing important work. Like I said, they were behind the scenes for many, many years. And I want to just briefly highlight some of those contributions that they made during this time. These are people that founded organizations to preserve land.

They lobbied for the protection of ecosystems, read word about natural areas, and so, so much more. I'm just going to tell you a little bit about a couple different people. So starting with Minerva Hoyt, she created the International Desert Conservation League and advocated for the protection of this fragile ecosystem. Her efforts proved successful in 1936 when the creation of Joshua Tree National Monument, which is now a national park, which I haven't been to. Yeah, so she created this league that lobbied the government for protection of the area that we, so many people now flock to, Joshua Tree.

Joshua Tree is a really cool place, too, because it has all of those trees that are only, they only grow there in very few other places in the world. I'm not even sure if they do grow in other places in the world, but they are called. Oh, yeah. When I was going through Death Valley and I sent you a picture of those trees, I'm like, is this it? And you're like, no, it's not. Yeah, they're the, they're the Yucca palm trees.

That's what they are. And they grow there. And I think they don't grow anywhere else in the world or they grow. or they grow in very, very few other places in the world. So preserving this area is huge. She clearly recognized the importance of protecting that area, and she did. Next, Virginia McClurg. She visited the area that's now Mesa Verde National Park back in 1882.

She fell in love with the land, and that sparked her fight to protect the area and other surrounding areas that included cliff dwellings. She founded the Colorado Cliff Dwellings. Association, she lectured and personally led tours to Mesa Verde. And the Colorado Cliff Dwelling Association is largely responsible for the creation of what is now Mesa Verde National Park back in 1906. If it wasn't for people like her, those cliff dwellings may not be there now.

They may be apartment buildings in that area. You know, you never know. Yeah. What year was she advocating for this? What year was it? So the park became officially a national park in 1906, but she first visited it in 1882. Wow. So the fact that she was able to get this attention for this park, women weren't even allowed to vote until 1920.

So you just think of that where she has this huge impact on making this place a park that's recognized and preserved when the government and people didn't think women were smart enough to vote. the fact that she was able to get through to these people is really incredible. She had to have worked really hard for it. Yeah. And in that same vein, there's two other women that come to mine, Jean Corlett and Myrtle Woods. So these two women were heavily involved in a local chapter of the philanthropic educational organization. And this organization lobbied state and federal government agencies about the importance of Colorado Sand Dunes. So they lobbied for years, and they did so until the Great Sand Dunes National Monument was created in 1932, and then it later became a national park.

I've been to the Great Sand Dunes, and I can't imagine that area not being protected because it's so unique. It's something like I've never seen before. Yeah. Next, we have Susan Priscilla Thu. she reminded me actually a little bit of view because she contributed to the expansion of Sequoia National Park by navigating rough terrain and photographing corners of the high Sierra that were not yet protected. And through her photos, she advocated for the expansion. And she actually wrote a book called the proposed Roosevelt Sequoia National Park. And in 1926, the park's acreage actually tripled in size partially due to her.

efforts. She used photos as a way to explain and give people a visual of why it's so important to protect our wild spaces. Yeah. The power of photography and photographs, like, that's amazing. And I'm sure she took, I mean, I don't know what the camera quality was then, but she had to have taken these beautiful photos that people were like, wow, we do. She's right. We have to preserve these. So just seeing, I think that's so cool. I mean, you know how much it is. I love photography and stuff. So I think it's really cool using it in a way that positively impacts the environment is really cool.

And you have to think as well, like, like you said, the quality probably wasn't great. But that's based on what we now know as photos and what we're used to. Like a lot of people had no access to a camera and or photos. Yeah. And to see hearts and had never seen any place outside of the bubble that they lived in. So to see photographs of a far off place, a different part of the country that you never have even heard of, that must have been so shocking. And it really elicited a response, a powerful response.

Yeah. Like imagine seeing, you know, it's kind of like when we see pictures of different planets. It's like, wow, I never knew something like that existed, but there it is. Yeah. That's how I imagine people. 100 years ago, seeing pictures of Sequoia. Yeah, someone going to a place that they've never been and maybe will never go, but you get to see a photograph of it so you know what it looks like.

And you're like, wow, this is real. This is important. I mean, now we have Instagram. So we've all seen lots of places that we've never been before. And it probably inspires. I mean, Instagram inspires a lot of travel, I think. Definitely. Yeah.

It inspired a lot of my travel for sure. Same. So next we have Marjorie. Douglas, and she wrote a book called the Everglades River of Grass in 1947, and that book detailed the Everglades ecosystem and really dove deep into the workings of the ecosystem and why it's important. And that book is actually still used today in reference to the Everglades. So, you know, however many, here we go with math, but 70 years later, ish.

Yeah. Next we have Charlotte Hill. And this one I have a little bit of a personal connection to just because of the area that this story takes place. So I really liked this one. So she was born Charlotte Copland and she moved to Colorado in 1861 when she was 11. When she was 27, she got married to a man named Adam Hill and they both purchased land in the Florescent Valley where they built a home and they called it petrified stump ranch. This land that their home was on was located about two miles south of. the settlement of Florissant, which was fast becoming the center of one of the richest,

newly discovered fossil sites in the world. So Floracent, I don't know if they've experienced a population boom in the last four years since I've been there, but I lived very close to that area, and I worked the Colorado Wolf and Wildlife Center in Divide. And at last count, when I was there, Florissant had maybe 200 people. Oh, wow, so like no one. Yeah, very, very small. out in the middle of nowhere type of place. Charlotte spent a lot of her time on her land digging for fossils because that area was full of them. And in 1877, scientists from Harvard and Princeton arrived in the area to study them

because up until that time, the area knew that it was rich in fossils, but the world didn't really know. So in 77, when work started getting out, a lot of people were very interested in what the land had to offer. So they came to the area to visit, and they visited Charlotte and her family on their ranch, and they were blown away at the amount of specimens that she had been collecting on her own. And a lot of these specimens had never been documented before. So these are brand new to the scientific community.

News spread fast and so fast that the local paper even referred to her as a naturalist. And this is just like someone who she had an interest in fossils, obviously. She was out there, spent a lot of her time collecting them and categorizing them and storing them. But she had no formal training. But the specimen she collected were of scientific importance, so much so that some of them can actually still be seen today at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. And the ranch that had, they sold, and it changed hands a couple times, But it's now part of the fluorescent fossil beds National Monument. So you can walk the same trails that she did and you can visit the same sites that she did and you can visit her home.

That's really cool. So she was essentially doing what scientists and archaeologists and stuff do today with education, with years of college. And she was doing this a long time ago before women were really doing this. So that's really cool. Next, Inez Mexia. She was one of the most successful botanists and female plant collectors of her time. And she didn't even start her career until she was 55. It's never too late.

It's never too late. So she went back to school when she was 51, which was a decision that is pretty uncommon now, I would say. But it was even more uncommon back then, especially for a woman. Yeah. So she spent her time studying. UC Berkeley, and during that time, she started to collect and categorize plants and started working in the field of botany. She was a fierce conservationist and was an early pioneer in fighting to preserve the Redwood

Forest of Northern California. She was described as my type of girl, things that people have said about her, included that she was assertive, brave, and not afraid to challenge racism, sexism, and ageism. So she spoke really passionately about the preservation of these landscapes, and she was really at the forefront of the National Park Conservation Movement. And when she died in 1938, she left the majority of her estate to the Save the Redwoods League and the Sierra Club. And most of where her work was done is now in the area known as the Golden Gate National Recreation Area and the Muir Woods National Monument. So again, someone who faced a lot of different challenges and really found her passion and her voice and committed her life to something she really believed in later in life.

So like you said, it's never too late. So when I'm having a panic attack about how I've made all the wrong choices and I'm never going to do anything important, it's my life at age 30. I have hope. You have time. You have plenty of time. All right. So that was just a little bit of information on a few different women here in our country. I now want to talk about kind of the female first of employment in the National Park Service.

So they were called, and I shit you not, rangersettes. Rangerettes. Wow. It reminds me of like a Power Puff action figure doll or something. Like a pink Power Ranger. Yeah. Not that I didn't like the pink power ranger. I did. But in my first fishing pole was a pink power ranger.

It was like the button-tined and the lure was the head of a pink power ranger. I just feel like rangerette is almost like condescending. You know, it sounds. Yeah, a little bit. It sounds less than a ranger. Absolutely. The first of them were two women named Claire Marie Hodges and Helene Wilson. and they made their marks as the first women in the parks.

Claire was the Park Service's first female park ranger, and do you want to guess where? In what park? Yosemite. Bingo. And I knew because you always guessed Yosemite, no matter what we're talking about. I almost said Yellowstone, and then I was like, no, I always say Yosemite. It's going to be Yosemite. Yeah, so that was back in 1918.

And she was originally a grade school teacher, but she was called. called in to fill in as a ranger when men were being called for duty during the First World War. So she just got called to fill in a position because at the time, female employees completed different types of work like clerical work, desk work, things like that. But now that she was a ranger, she did a lot of the same duties that her fellow male employees did. Unfortunately, her park ranger position was only temporary. and she only worked in that position from May to September of 1918, so less than a year.

Okay. And the second woman hired as a ranger for the National Park Service was Helene. And she checked in vehicles in the Mount Rainier National Park Nisqually Entrance Station. And again, she was hired to fill a vacant position left by someone who had entered military service. After that, women as rangers kind of fell by the wayside. There have been other female rangers in different parks as well after the war, but they were very few and far between. When the males returned from the war, the female employment in the parks kind of took a nose dive, and it didn't really pick up again until the 60s when they were regularly employed again.

So what was that like 40 years later? Yeah. Wow. They just let women work there because all their men were off at war, and they didn't. It was like their second choice. Essentially. And like I said, there have been other women that did serve as naturalists and guides and park rangers here and there. But it was by no means the norm.

Yeah. It was so rare, in fact, that they didn't even have an official uniform. The park service had no plan set in place for an official uniform for a woman for a long time. So there was obviously a thought that there was a place for women, but it's. certainly wasn't in a ranger uniform. So they didn't have a design for women until 1927. So essentially the women have been employed with the park since 1918, but they didn't decide to give them uniforms until 1927. And even then, it was a rocky road. So they varied for a really long time. And I think I'm going to post a picture of their sketches of the uniforms through the years.

It's kind of like a little timeline. And it's crazy the amount of different, obviously different styles through the years. But it's weird in looking through the lines of park uniforms because male park uniforms have pretty much stayed consistent for all of time. Yeah, there are slight variations in the style, but they're not, you know, up. down, left, right, the women's were. So there were tons of different versions. And it even started as no official version at all. If you got hired as a woman in the park service before uniform regulation started, they were just like, all right, figure it out and just wear whatever you can find. So there was no sort of format. And women had to just put something together and hope for the best.

After that, they started getting some sort of continuity and the Park Service issued uniforms, but they ranged from high-collared shirts with neckties, dresses, go-go boots, kitten heels, A-line style double-knit polyester type deals. And some of them were even nicknamed the McDonald's uniform because it looked like the uniform that fast food workers would wear. Oh, my God. Wait, heels and go-go boots? Oh, yeah. So I'm going to post a picture of this woman. She's beautiful, but she's wearing, so she's wearing a park ranger hat, which gave it away. Like, if she wasn't wearing that hat, I would have never attributed what she was wearing to a park service ranger. It was like a dress, like a 70s-type dress with go-go boots and the park ranger hat. Oh my God. And like a little pin or something.

To work in the outdoors, you're wearing a dress and go-go boots is what they deemed appropriate for women. Yeah. And they were starting to get pissed. I mean, they had worked so hard to get to where they were to actually be employed by the park service. And now this lack of continuity in the dress code was starting to translate to lack of respect. To the point of they didn't even have, so some of the uniforms were made out of different materials. And some of the uniform tops didn't have the breast pockets like the men's did. And they were also made out of really loose material. So they didn't support a name badge or an identification badge. So some women just couldn't wear them.

Some women didn't mind and some had a really big issue with it. So they petitioned the National Park Service and the Park Service did create a badge for them. and it was a different version of the men's badge, and it was made out of a lighter weight material so it wouldn't pull down on their shirts. So that's great. But the public actually thought that it was a souvenir that you could buy in the gift shop

because it looked really cute. So I'm just like picturing like a little, like a costume badge type thing. Like you would never go up to a ranger now and be like, oh, is that in the gift shop? I want to wear that. You imagine? Like, how disrespect.

It's so disrespectful. So it wasn't until 1977 that a uniform regulation recommendation was petitioned to the Park Service that suggested that both men and women would wear the same uniform, with the exception giving women a choice to wear a skirt if they would like. So finally in 1979, women had the right to wear the same uniform and accessories as men. So it took a couple of years between the first petition to when it was actually put into regulation. But here we are, almost. in the 80s and we're finally on the same page as far as dress code.

And I mean, okay, so also totally forgot this little part of my life. When I worked at Colorado Parks and Wildlife, which is an extension of the National Park Service, I had to wear a uniform. And I didn't have a choice of which style, like, there was no like, oh, okay, women can wear this and that, whatever. like I wore the same thing that all my male co-workers did. And it was the button-up khaki shirt with the patch and my badge. I had to wear, you know, certain type of pants and shoes, which I didn't mind and I actually liked because it gave me like an even playing field, the men that I worked with.

Yeah, there was no difference. I remember when I worked in outdoor education and we did a lot of hikes and rope courses and, and canoeing and things like that. And I worked down south when I did this is I used to, we all had the same shirts that we had to wear. They were these t-shirts that had the name of the company, their logo that you had to wear. And then me and a lot of the other girls would wear yoga pants.

And we used to get a lot of comments from families and parents being like, it's not appropriate for women to wear yoga pants. I'm like, well, what would you like me to wear? I am hiking. Like, that's what I normally wear to go hiking. And we also, we weren't allowed to wear shorts because they were too revealing. Guys could wear shorts. We could wear shorts if they were to our knees, which are not made for women.

To find shorts that were made in women's that go down to your knees was very difficult. And there's also like the outdoor khaki pants that you can buy for hiking, but it's 90. degrees and they're heavy and also a lot of them were really expensive and we weren't getting paid very much either. So, but we used to get a lot of comments, not from my work. My work didn't care at all, but we used to get a lot of comments from families being like, oh, it's not appropriate for women to be wearing yoga pants and hiking. And I mean, that was in 2016. So I just think about it. This whole uniform thing is reminding me of that because that was always something that was crazy to me that we would get so many comments of what we were wearing.

But there was what were we supposed to wear? Like if we wore shorts, they were too short. If we wore, essentially we were supposed to wear really loose clothing because it was inappropriate to show our legs and our butt at all, which makes no sense to wear really loose clothing while you're hiking. And also while, and I never wore shorts either. Like I would wear the quarter legging pants. So it was like my calves down kind of thing.

we were working with kids and shorts in the woods when you're getting like stabbed by prickers and stuff, which just wasn't something I wanted to wear. But it was crazy how criticized we were on what we were wearing and how almost body shamed we were because we had butts that would kind of show in yoga pants. And our shirts were kind of long too. So it's not like, I don't know, it was so weird. Well, that reminds me, I didn't include it in my notes, but just reading back on all this stuff about the uniforms. There was a lot of quotes from Park Service employees that were women that were complaining about very similar stuff

because a lot of times with the dresses and the short skirts that they had or the footwear that they were assigned was not conducive to work in the outdoors for those exact reasons that you just mentioned. And they were kind of like, all right, well, what are we supposed to do? Because this isn't working. And you're looking over here at the men that are well equipped with proper footwear, pants that are long, shirts that move easily. Like, we don't want to be here with a necktie and blouse and kitten heels trying to guide a group through Yosemite or whatever. Like,

thinking about that now, you would kind of look at someone with, like, they have two heads. Like, what are you doing? Yeah. But yeah, that was a big point of content. several years ago about that same exact thing. Which is crazy. That's still happening now. I mean, it was crazy the amount of comments that we would get. And it was like, what do you want us to do? There's nothing we can wear that's appropriate.

And at the same level of that, it's like, I don't care. This is what I'm comfortable in. Like, if it makes you uncomfortable that you can see the size of my legs with my pants, like, I don't care. I'm out here hiking. I'm hot. I'm working hard. Yoga pants are not inappropriate.

I'm not out here walking around in a base. bathing suit or thong with your children. I'm wearing pants. Well, that's definitely a struggle that seems to continue then in different ways. Yeah. But kind of flash forwarding now to present day, there's been a lot of women that continue to make history in the National Park world. So one of those people is Roxanne Quimby, who's the co-founder of Bird's Bees, which I love. I love birds be. Me too. Love their chapstick. She actually purchased. just large areas of land in Maine, and she had the intention of donating it to the Park Service. And she did. So today, in parts of Maine, a lot of land that make up the Kataddin Woods and Waters

National Monument that was created in 2016 was donated by her. So that's really a cool. That is really cool. A little kind of close to home story. Yeah, that is really cool. So now that we kind of went through a brief history, we kind of went close to home, now we're going to go far away. Obviously, this podcast has focused a lot on United States National Park Stories and History, but there are hundreds and thousands of sites within the National Park system around the world, and they encompass a lot of different countries. And we've definitely been waiting to share some stories from them. And although this isn't a first true episode dedicated to one of those stories abroad, I couldn't do a story about women in national parks

without at least mentioning the first female rangers of one of the world's most deadly parks. And that park is located in Africa. And it is called Varunga National Park. I have wanted to go to Africa so bad for so many years. Like, I'm talking 14, 15 years old. I was looking up volunteer trips that you could do, begging my family to help me get the funds to go, looking up all the vaccines you needed, like the steps and procedures that you had to do in order to go there. If I could financially swing it, working at a restaurant in high school.

I was like, I'm going to make it. Making $8 an hour, whatever hell I was making. And I had my site set on South Africa. You know, it's really funny and sad about that, too, is that Africa is that Africa has been my number one bucket list for so long and not as early as high school, but as early as college, or maybe it was even senior year of college. There are groups that do these volunteer trips to go work with the elephants or the rhinos in Victoria Falls and South Africa. And I have looked into those. I swear every single year, I actually just looked into it like two months ago and

then with COVID and everything. Really? Yeah, I swear to God. And I actually just got another opportunity again is this group is hiking Kilimanjaro next year. And I was invited to go on it. So I have no idea if it's actually going to happen or not. It costs $6,000 and vaccines and COVID and everything. I don't know if it would happen.

And Kilimanjaro is not on my list of hiking. I mean, it would be so cool. and I would love to do that, but that's not what my bucket list things have been in Africa. So I don't know if spending six grand to go. I don't know. It would be so cool, though, to say that you hike Kilimanjaro. I have a friend who's done it before. I don't know.

Africa is just funny that you mentioned that because Africa has been my bucket list place to go for so long. Yeah. I mean, I had, and it's like, obviously my decor taste have changed, but ask anybody of Friends family, I, for a really long time, my room in my house growing up, was Savannah-themed. So I had even a bed spread that had like a panel at the bottom of safari animals. And I had home goods, T.J. Max galore as far as like the little statues of, you know, women with the baskets on top of their head. and lions and elephants and giraffes. And I had a poster that I actually ripped down from the wall my freshman year of college in the science department.

And it was, I don't know what it was even advertising, but the main picture was a veterinarian with a surgical cap on and a mask holding a lion cub. And I'm like, that's what I want to do. And I ripped the poster off the wall and took it on. But yeah, yeah, so Africa, love it. We both love it. If you have experience in any of the national parks in Africa, please let us know because that would be a dream to read about. And hopefully one day we'll get there. But I don't know if I'm going to want to go to Varunga and I'll tell you why. Okay. So Varunga National Park is located in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo and is the oldest and most diverse park in all of Africa. It covers over 3,000 square miles and contains savannah, grassland, forests, snowfields, and foxes, and forest. volcanoes, and it's home to some of the most iconic species of wildlife in the world to include elephants, lions, and hippos. But most notably, it is home to some of the last mountain gorillas in the world. They have about 300 individuals of the remaining 700 left on the planet.

So the mountain gorillas are kind of the crown jewel of this national park. And for good reason, they're critically endangered, once in a lifetime opportunity to see them. A lot of of people travel from all over the world to see these animals in their natural habitat. To say that working in this park is dangerous would be a huge understatement. Since it was established in 1925, over 500 Rangers have been killed in the line of duty. Wow. That is something that you, I mean, obviously, sometimes Rangers die in the U.S. And it's super tragic and horrible. But 500, that is crazy.

So why are they dying? I mean, I'm sure you're going to say it, but... Yeah, so there's... The reasons are really complex, and there's a lot of different factors at play. But to kind of boil it down, there's a lot of hostility between local militias and the park and the park rangers themselves. And a lot of it is rooted in land disputes that go back many, many years since the creation of the park itself.

So I read a lot of different articles on this, and I'm going to cite them up. all in the show notes. But one of these articles was from Manga Bay News and they said that you have the Congolese Institute for Nature Conservation on one hand. And then on the other hand, you have the population that mostly lives off of agriculture. And they need access to the land to survive. And they also believe a lot of the land has been taken from them by the park. And now it's available for the animals and not them, but they need access to the land. Again, looking at it, through a different lens. We aren't in direct competition with Yellowstone National Park or Yosemite or Great Smoky Mountains. The fact that the national parks have been established in the U.S.

does not directly affect the vast majority of people living here. But it's a different story in this area of the world. These people don't get in their cars and drive down to Target and punch the clock nine to five and then go home. You know, they live off of the land. And a lot of their livelihood comes, most of it comes directly from the land to have now the government saying, okay, well, actually three thousand square miles of what you used to call home is now not your home anymore. And you need to figure something else out because now this area is protected and we're using it for other purposes. So it created a lot of animosity between the park service. and the native peoples of the area.

But there's also something to be said about the park itself. This area is poverty-stricken. It has a lot of crime. And the park itself draws in a lot of tourism dollars that they would not have otherwise. So the park does have benefits. And obviously, other than the main benefit of protecting the land and the animals, and we're losing a lot of wild places.

So that's a benefit. of its own, but as far as economic benefit, there is one as well. So like I said, this area is full of crime. And guerrilla warfare groups actually use areas in and around the park to hide out. And there has been a lot of cases of people armed with guns and machetes that have beaten and tortured, murdered, and raped hostages in an effort to extort money from their families. You can type it in on Google. There's a ton of stories of a lot of people, tourists, you know, from Britain, Australia, whatever, who are visiting the park and get kidnapped by these groups of people in an effort to, you know, the people are like, all right, well, if you want to see your family

again, give us ex-ins of me. That would be, that would be, that right there would be a huge nope for me. I want to visit everywhere, but that right there would be a huge, no, I'm not going. Yeah, it's one of the many different reasons that they, I expect. experience violence there. A lot of it is also rooted in illegal wildlife poaching. That's a huge business, unfortunately. It happens a lot. I mean, people are killed there all the time. Like I said, that number, that about 500, this happens, it's not a historic number. This is continuously happening. Most recently, January of this year, six Rangers were killed in an ambushed by a local militia group,

and all the victims were between ages 27 and 30. So these are young people. who are working to protect the park, and they're putting their lives on the line. Wow. Okay, so now on to the women of the park. So a lot of this information I got from National Geographic articles, I'll link them in the show notes as well, because they're awesome reads. Despite the danger being a ranger, or they're called Guardian DuPark, in Varunga, this job is highly coveted. It's a really prestigious job to be considered a ranger. And women have applied for this job for many, many years, but none of them had passed the

intense selection process and training until January of 2014. What I was doing in 2014 was nothing special. I'll tell you that. Just graduated college, got my first job after college, living at home, not living the dream. So it was then in 2014 that four women officially became Varunga's first female rangers. And to date, about 26 have since completed the training and are now employed by the park, but at this point, these women were making history. And two of the first female rangers that were named in the article are named Aileen Masika Kismaya,

Kismaya, she was 26 at the time, and Solange Kahumbu Malalissa, and she was 24 at the time. And this training is not a walk in the park. This isn't, you go in for a week of orientation, you watch a slideshow about the park, learn about it, learn the terrain of the park, and off you go. This is a six-month brutal boot camp in Open Savannah. They have to undergo rigorous exercise. They have to learn battle zone tactics, remote survival techniques, and they sleep out in the open Savannah alongside of their guns. They have to carry heavy packs over huge distances. they have to exhibit great marksmanship.

They have to identify and describe hundreds of plant and animal species. They have to orienteer their way through dense jungle. And all of this stuff is scored. So they're continuously being graded and scored on all of these skills. And this is after they've been selected from the initial selection process before training even starts. And then if you get through all of this initial selection process, your scores are good enough, then you have to go through a final interview. And if you're finally selected, then you can be named a ranger of Varynga National Park.

And all of these skills are done equally by men and women. So they don't make any exceptions based on your gender. So they're not going to go easier on you because you're a girl. You still have to carry the same weight, go the same distance, all of that. Exactly. So if you think that training is wild, the job duties themselves are even more intense. So their shifts are up to 24 hours long. And it can include anything from guarding visitors, escorting tourists, patrolling deeps inside the park.

They have to worry about wild animals. I mean, this place is full of all those animals I just told you about. Another reason my family didn't want me to go to Africa, you're going to get eaten by something. Lines, hippos. I think hippos kill more people in Africa than any other animal. Yeah, you don't want to come across a hippo or piss one off. Just a matter. Have you seen those videos of people like kayaking and then a hippo comes up,

next them and, like, charges their kayak. Yes. Why would you ever, I could, it makes my stomach hurt even thinking of kayaking or even coming close to a river in Africa. Count me out. Count me out. Yeah. Water source for all of these predators.

No thank you. Octodiles, hippo. Yeah. I know I look like. For someone who really wants to go to Africa, I'm like, really not making my case, but. I know I look like lunch to these animals. I know I'm not thinking. scary, so I would definitely be in a group if I'm doing something like that. So it's not just the

animals that they need to watch out for. They also have to be prepared for armed animal poachers, illegal loggers, and anti-government rebels that, like I said, make home and spend a lot of time inside of the park. Since the early 90s, this area of the world, so the Eastern Congo, they have been involved in a civil war that is. hard to even wrap your mind around these numbers, but nearly five and a half million people have died in this war, and more than two million people have been displaced. Wow. This war has been going on since I've been alive. That's horrible. That's really, that's really sad. And it's something that I never learned about in school, which blows my mind. If it's a,

if it's a war that has been going on since I've been alive, you would think that it would hold enough significance to be taught. I don't know. The U.S. education system is so weird, though. Like, I'm sure this kind of thing is taught in other countries because they focus more on, like, worldly things. And the U.S. is just like George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, the end.

You know, like, I just feel like their education system has not caught up. Like, most of the stuff I've learned. I never learned about other countries at all, ever. The only one I learned about was angry. England, and that's because we came here from there. Growing up, everything I've learned about other countries was not in high school or elementary school or anything like that. Yeah, it's self-taught. Yeah. I mean, I have educated myself on a lot of global affairs, and I wish that things would change in our education system because there's a huge world out there, and there's so much more to learn,

including about these women. I mean, this was news at the time. Clearly, National Geographic did article about it, but this is a huge deal. Like, this is a really dangerous job and a prestigious one at that. And a lot of people who apply and start trying out for it never make the cut. Now women are starting to emerge in the field because they're proving that they are just as worthy and can do exactly what men can do. And they've proven their place in Ferunga. The director of the National Park, Emmanuel Demirot, he says that the women that They are tough and they don't make any concessions for them. They make it just as hard as it would be for the male ranger.

And that the women who apply for it really appreciate that and thrive on the challenge, which is kind of like what you said, why would you want to have anything be made easier for you? Because then, like, if you did pass because you had to run two miles less or your pack was 10 pounds lighter, you wouldn't be taking it seriously. Yeah. And I, just hearing this story of these women, these rangers in this national park being in Varunga and part of the Congo, the Congo is nicknamed the rape capital of the world. So these women are out here with these militia groups that are known for kidnapping and raping. They use rape as warfare.

That's a weapon of warfare for them out there. So that in itself is terrifying. and they are putting themselves in this position knowing that they're going to be a target. I think that's really brave and courageous to be so passionate about the wildlife in the park and preserving it that you put yourself in that position. And not only do you put yourself in that position, but you go through months of hardcore training. What you said earlier, badass women of the national parks. Yeah, they definitely live up to that.

And I couldn't think of anyone better to illustrate that point. because women are contributing to national parks in all sorts of ways, writing books, photographing landscapes, putting their lives on the line. We do it all. And I couldn't mention women in the parks without mentioning them. And if you want to learn more about it, I highly recommend the Netflix documentary called Buringa. It was released several years ago, I think maybe four or five, but I did look it up and it is still on Netflix right now. Please take the time if you're interested in the work that these rangers are doing, how dangerous Varunga is as far as the Civil War going on,

but also how important it is to preserve that land and the mountain gorillas that live in it. It's just a really well-done documentary if you're really interested in learning more about the park. Definitely check that out. Yeah, I've never seen it before. So that will be what I watched tonight, for sure. All right. So to kind of wrap this up, I know this episode has been kind of long, but I do want to kind of highlight some things moving forward. We talked a lot about the past, kind of what's going on in the present, but now what the plans are for the future as far as women in national parks. In the summer of 2020, the National Park Foundation announced a new initiative. And it's one, that they say will make stories about pioneering women, which will include black women,

indigenous women and women of all color, more visible through the Women in Parks program. So right now, there are park sites as part of the national park system that are focused on or dedicated to women. So just a few examples, the Clara Barton National Historic Site in Maryland. Clara Barton was the founder of the American Red Cross, which is what she's most known for, arguably. But she also ran the Office of Missing Soldiers, which helped to reunite wounded soldiers with their family members. And they also helped identify and bury the remains of a lot of men who died in battle. There's the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Monument, also in Maryland. Harriet Tubman's one of the first female figures I ever learned about in school.

Yeah, now that you say that, she's definitely the first woman that I ever. Yeah, she in the 1840s, she escaped the people who enslaved her, and she risked her life a lot of times. She returned to rescue family members and others through the underground railroad system until the Civil War in the 1860s. And during that time, she dedicated time to serving the union as a nurse, a scout, and a spy. She helped free a lot of people, and she risked her life over and over and over. I mean, imagine getting caught as an escaped slave, A, B, one that keeps coming back to free more enslaved people. And walking this whole way. I mean, she is walking up and down from north to south over and over.

Did you know she carried a gun on her? No. So she carried a gun on her. And the first thought you think of is to protect herself from people hunting them, trying to stop them from fleeing and finding freedom, but she didn't. She carried the gun on her because once you were on the Underground Railroad and heading north, that was it. You could not turn back.

So she actually used the gun as an initiative of if you turn around, we have to kill you because no one can find you're risking the lives of every single person who is trying to escape right now. So you cannot turn around. You cannot leave. And it was like a third. I don't know if she ever did end up killing anybody. but she used it as a threat of you will compromise our entire operation if you leave because they're going to question you and they are going to torture you into finding this information out.

So she actually used to carry a gun on her. I did not know that. It makes a lot of sense. Yeah. And everyone involved. Everyone involved who's helping her, who helped her along the railroad, all the families and all the lives that wouldn't be saved because of this person. So she did do that. And I was like, what a badass.

What a power move to do. to do that. Yeah. She wasn't even caring it to protect herself. When you first said that, my first thought was if she was to ever get caught, that she would turn it on herself. So she wasn't tortured for information. Yeah.

Yeah, I didn't know that. Fun fact. She and Amelia Earhart were the first women that I learned about in school. Yeah, first grade, Mrs. Eastman's class, I learned about Amelia Earhart. And I'm pretty sure Harriet Tubman as well. Next is Rosie the Riveter World War II Homefront National Historic Part out in California. The site has a memorial to the estimated 18 million women who joined defense and support industries during World War II. This site has a lot of photos and quotes from real-life women who are considered rosies.

They have like a little walkway that features a timeline of events from the war's home front. So kind of like the women we were talking about in Yosemite and Mount Rainier, Claire Hodges and Helene Willis. and they had to step up when the men were shipped out for service during the World Wars. So at home, they were referred to as Rosie's, you know, the classic sign. We can do it. That site is dedicated to them. And then lastly, there's one that's close to home for us, the Lone National Historic Park in Massachusetts.

And this site shares the story of Mill Girls who worked in the textile looms in their early 1800s. So I'm pretty sure I've been to this site during school field trips and things like that. Have you been to that? No, I've never been there. I actually hadn't even heard about it until you just talked about it. Really? Yeah. But you know what I'm talking about.

I mean, even in Manchester, they're apartments now, but all the old mill buildings. I can picture what you're talking about because Nashville, Manchester, Lull, all that area has all the old mill buildings along the river. It gets the Southegan River. Just something quick before we finish out that. Again, another story that stuck in my mind during one of those field trips to a mill. I remember one of the tour guides explaining that it was really hazardous to work in the mills. And one of the reasons was fire danger and everything was flammable back then. But another reason it was so dangerous is the machinery itself could cause you a lot of harm.

One of the girls, and these are girls, not women. I mean, there were women, but there are girls like eight, nine years old being forced to work at the mills. Because it was just the way of life back then. And this girl was leaning down to pick something up and her hair got caught in the machine, the textile loom machine. And it ripped her scalp off and she died. Oh, my God. What a way to go. What a way, yeah.

And this was a little girl, like a child? Yeah, she was really young. That's horrible. The details are very foggy because I was also very young when I learned about it. But yeah, it was not uncommon. I don't think it was a very uncommon thing for that to happen. Or for your hand to get stuck or, you know, just injuries. It's just a really dangerous.

Probably why there's a historic park in recognition of that because a lot of women manned a lot of those mills. The National Park Federation said that the reason they wanted to start this women in parks program, is because they put out a survey and the results indicated that the respondents believe that women history was being vastly underserved and that they'd like to learn more about it. So they plan to fund a total of 23 sites devoted to women's history and activism. And the original grant was funded for about $460,000, but donations are ongoing to help create these 23 different sites. So I'm going to link in the description of the episode. I link to the official donation page for this project. And so you can learn more about it.

Donate if you'd like, if this is something that you would like to support. And I'm also going to link information about a foundation called the Thin Green Line. This organization helps families of rangers in over 60 different countries that are killed in the line of duty. So in developing countries, that doesn't have, you know, life insurance, the ranger is often the only earner of the family. So the contributions that this foundation gathers are necessary for the survival of the families that are left behind if a ranger is killed in the line of duty. Jane Goodall is actually one of their ambassadors. If you want to learn more about that, I will link their page as well. In conclusion, Park Rangers around the

world fill a variety of job functions, including interpretive guides, law, enforcement, maintenance, wildlife rangers, emergency personnel, historians, you name it, you can work in the park system in different niches. And even though we have come so, so far since the 1900s when the Park Service was first established, being a woman in the Park Service now still does have its challenges. Like we mentioned before, we have a long way to go, gender discrimination, sexual harassment, etc. Today in the U.S., less than 40% of the National Park Services Rangers are women. And as we have learned, so many of the women that came before us helped blaze the trail that we

walk on today. So I think that the best homage that we can pay to their legacy is to encourage women today to apply for that job, sign up to be a volunteer, donate, get involved in any way that you can. You never know who you are going to inspire. I loved that you did an entire episode dedicated to women and their contributions, especially in the outdoor world, because not that it's new based on everything you've told us today, but it's always, there's not as many women in the outdoor realm, I guess, which is really cool actually with this podcast is we are seeing all of the women who are, which is really cool. So I think it's, I really like that you decided to focus on them and I think we can all relate to them.

Everyone listening can relate to them in our love for the outdoors. And not that we don't have men listening as well, but a lot of our listeners are women who clearly enjoy the outdoors. So I really liked that you chose this topic this week. Thank you. It was empowering to research as well because it gives you a sense of pride because there are so many factors that our gender has faced and has overcome and are currently working towards, you know, overcoming and to just see the strides that we've

taken in the past 50 years is really inspiring. So it kind of inspired me more to research this and to spread information about it. And men can be involved as well by supporting women and encouraging them, whether it be your girlfriend, your wife, your mom, your sister, your daughter, whoever it is to. you by encouraging them and treating them as equals and advocating for what they want to do in life and their rights as a woman, you're helping the cause. So whoever you are, you can make a positive impact. That's the story of women in our national parks. And next week, we will be right back to our schedule programming of death and despair and whatever else we talk about.

This week, I just really wanted a kind of like a sigh relief. Yeah, I think it was a good change up from all the murder and disappearances and sad. This is more of an empowering episode than a sad episode. We hope you enjoy the week. Hope you're listening to this on Monday morning, Monday afternoon, and it kind of sets the tone for your week to go out there and kick ass. We will see you next week. Yeah.

So in the meantime, enjoy the view. But watch your... back. Bye everybody. Bye, guys. Oh, no. Are you still there? Where'd you go? Oh, here I am. Oh, my God. You just be scared the shit out of me. Okay. I ended the call and then I rejoined because I was like, what's happening right now? Did you hear anything I said? No. Since when? I've been disconnected for like two minutes. No. When did you last? When did you last here? It was so long ago now.

I'm just talking about. Oh, my God. Lastly, I do want to shout out my sources. So the National Park Service and National Park Service Association websites provided a lot of the articles used for the content of this episode, as well as mental floss.com, nationalgeographic.com, switchbackkids.com, manga bay news.com, and I-U-C-N-N-N-U-C-N. So if you're interested in reading those articles in full, they will be linked in our show notes. You're listening to this podcast, so I know you've got a curious mind. Here's a helpful fact you may not know yet. Drivers who switch and save with Progressives save over $900 on average.

Pop over to progressive.com, answer some questions, and you'll get a quick quote with discounts that are easy to come by. In fact, 99% of their auto customers earn at least one discount. Visit progressive.com and see if you can enjoy a little cash back. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. National average 12-month savings of $946 by new customers surveyed who saved with Progressive between June 2024 and May 2025. Potential savings will vary.