Freeman Tilden: a fiction writer who became the father of national park interpretation

Freeman Tilden was 59 when he turned his attention to national parks. He is widely regarded as the father of interpretation and is still held in high esteem. His foundational work remains relevant even as the National Park Service (NPS) moves towards audience-centered interpretation. He also made groundbreaking contributions to the NPS without ever wearing the "green and gray" uniform. The NPS History Collection holds objects he owned, along with documents, photographs and recordings.

NPS History Collection photo by M. Woodbridge Williams, ca. 1960s.

A writer's early life

Tilden was born on August 22, 1883, in Malden, Massachusetts, one of nine children of Samuel Jones Tilden and Millicent Green Dalton. His father edited the Malden News, and he grew up learning to write and set type. Before he was 16 he wrote, set, printed and bound a book of fairy stories for his sisters and ran a monthly newspaper, Humor, for about a year. He graduated from Malden High School in June 1901. Some authors say he began writing book reviews for the paper at 10, which the NPS says is not substantiated.

He worked at a series of papers: the Boston Globe, starting as an office boy at 19; the Boston Herald; and the Charleston News and Courier in 1905. A trip to Europe in 1903, paid for by an aunt, is documented only by a passport application listing him as a journalist. In 1907 he went to South America to write articles and worked at The Standard in Buenos Aires after the magazine that sent him ran into financial trouble.

Fiction and a nomadic life

Tilden married the schoolteacher Mabel Sara Martin on October 9, 1909, and they had four children. His stories were serialized in newspapers and appeared in the Saturday Evening Post, The Century, Puck, Ladies' Home Journal and other magazines. In 1912 he published Second Wind, whose protagonist starts over as a farmer at 62. In 1914 he won Puck's first $100 prize for the week's most humorous contribution. His bestselling 1923 novel Mr. Podd was inspired by people he met in Fairhope, Alabama, and its first-year royalties bought the family a car. His play Five O'Clock opened on Broadway on October 13, 1919.

The family moved often and lived outdoors in summers. In the 1930s he turned to non-fiction and travel writing, wrote a radio travelog on California state parks, studied European economies for his 1935 book A World In Debt, and in 1939 began a newsletter, The Open Door. By 1940 he had written 17 books, 10 book-length serials, hundreds of articles and a handful of plays and radio scripts.

From fiction to facts

At 87, Tilden told an audience that he had removed himself from the natural world and wanted to focus on facts. After reportedly meeting NPS Director Newton B. Drury, he went to Washington in 1941 and was hired as a literary consultant, free to roam the park system. His first park book, The Fifth Essence, appeared in 1950, and the next year Knopf published The National Parks: What they Mean to You and Me. His 1957 book Interpreting Our Heritage came to define the profession, with six principles that became its foundation for about 40 years.

NPS History Collection.

Tilden said he had worked on the concepts of interpretation for about twenty-five years and was never completely satisfied with his definitions: it is not just relating facts, but making facts live and tell a story. After retiring he wrote the text for two NPS brochures, one for Yellowstone's 1972 centennial and one for Yorktown for the 1976 bicentennial. He died on May 13, 1980, aged 96, in Nashua, New Hampshire. NPS Director Russell E. Dickenson called him "our longtime friend, teacher, and colleague." In 1981 the NPS and the National Parks and Conservation Association established the Freeman Tilden Awards for Excellence in Interpretation and Education, still given each year.

Sources

• National Park Service, "50 Nifty Finds #23: Second Wind", https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/50-nifty-finds-23-second-wind.htm; rewritten in hubnx's own words.