The Park Service's 1972 Blazer Uniform: Camel Jackets, Yellow Shirts and a Polka-Dot Dress

The green pants and jacket, gray shirt, badge and broad-brimmed flat hat are the ranger's familiar look, carried with few changes since 1920. For a short time in the 1970s, the National Park Service (NPS) tried to add to it — perhaps even replace it — with a blazer uniform.

An optional uniform, 1972

Director George B. Hartzog Jr. approved a new optional men's uniform on March 10, 1972. No record has been found that staff were told before July 10, 1972, when the NPS Newsletter printed a reader's question about it — possibly a staged letter — which served as its formal debut.

It would not replace the standard uniform, the answer said, but be worn alongside or instead of it by Washington, regional and service center staff who often represented the Service outside, and by park staff in interpretation, administration and other jobs with frequent public contact. Field directors and superintendents decided who wore it.

Associate Deputy Director Joe Rumburg (left) and Procurement Analyst Ray O'Dell debut the blazer uniform, with Frances Reynolds, Director Hartzog's secretary, in the 1970 women's uniform and Carole Scanlon in the 1972 centennial dress. NPS History Collection.

What it looked like

A sharp break from the "green and gray":

The arrowhead patch went on the left of the blazer, just below the pocket opening, and on these blazers it was trimmed in gold rather than the usual brown thread.

The NPS arrowhead patch with gold trim. NPS History Collection, HFCA 1109.

Chosen from the top

Every field director helped choose colours and fabrics, and Rumburg and O'Dell made the final picks with the major uniform suppliers in Washington on March 1 — unusual, since uniforms normally came from an NPS uniform committee of field and central office staff.

The Newsletter then printed no letters at all about it — striking, when field staff usually spoke up about uniforms and were writing in at the time about women's uniforms, cravats and facial hair. Perhaps letters went unprinted, the top-down rollout discouraged comment, or too few field staff were affected to bother.

Camel (left) and leaf green (right) blazers, with the gold shirt under the green one and the arrowhead patch on the left breast of each. NPS History Collection, HFCA 897, HFCA 574 and HFCA 583.

Not just for the centennial

R. Bryce Workman, whose history of NPS men's uniforms ends in 1970, mentions this one in his volume on women's uniforms and suggests it was made for the 1972 centennial of the national parks. Little supports that:

• the centennial's official start was March 1 — nine days before Hartzog approved the uniform;
• major suppliers such as Alvord and Ferguson and Gregorys had already issued the year's catalogs without it;
• the field heard of it only in July — probably to give makers time to stock it.

The July article said Hartzog hoped to see as many employees as possible in it "during the centennial year and thereafter" — so it was meant to last. His son, George B. Hartzog III, remembers him wearing it, though no photograph has been found.

The blazer uniform's tie: green with gold and brown stripes, where the standard tie was solid green. NPS History Collection, HFCA 1087.

Workman called it the "urban uniform", a term found nowhere in the records (perhaps borrowed from horse patrol uniforms, split into urban and backcountry). It wrongly ties the uniform to cities: what decided who wore it was contact with the public.

Jerry Wagers, of the New York District, in the blazer uniform, October 1972. NPS History Collection, HFCA 1645.

Career apparel

In the early 1970s many American industries were moving from uniforms to "career apparel", following the airlines' lead. Fashionaire, the women's division of Hart, Shaffner and Marx and maker of the 1970 NPS women's uniform and the centennial dress, was an early promoter, and Alvord and Ferguson's January 1974 catalog listed the blazer under "career apparel".

Two things stood against it:

• more than 50 years of a ranger image embraced by generations of staff and visitors;
• staff had to buy it themselves — $115–$123 without shoes, a lot for an interpretive ranger who already owned the standard uniform.

So the photographs show superintendents from New York to Yosemite, regional directors and other senior managers in it: they earned more and were expected to lead by example. Fashion alone is unlikely to explain the uniform.

A trial run for interpreters?

The uniform was also meant for interpreters — a detail usually overlooked. Was it a test of how the public, and above all the staff, would take a radical change for interpretive rangers?

After the Stoneman Meadow riot at Yosemite in July 1970, and with crime and drug use rising in the parks, Hartzog won more funding. In 1971 he set up a law enforcement program, expanded the US Park Police (USPP) in Washington, DC, with new offices in New York and San Francisco, and began law enforcement training — while also pushing interpretation: environmental education, living history, and parks relevant to urban communities.

George Hartzog with US Park Police Chief Grant Wright, 1972. NPS History Collection, HFCA 1607.

After the unrest of the 1960s and early 1970s, dozens of police departments were trying blazers and trousers by 1972 to soften their image — Richmond, Indiana, for talks and public appearances, while Lancaster, Pennsylvania's chief expected them to seem less abrasive. Few trials lasted.

Was Hartzog's blazer meant to set interpreters apart from law enforcement rangers, and make them more approachable? The evidence is thin, but the ranger badge — the sign of legal authority — was not approved for the blazer, and a soft launch would have been a shrewd test. Like his changes to the ranger badge and his plan to take the arrowhead off uniforms, though, the blazer does not seem to have caught on in the field.

After Hartzog

Hartzog, likely its champion, left office on December 31, 1972, but the blazer stayed in the rules for at least a couple more years. The February 1974 Uniform Standards made it the main uniform for regional and Washington Office staff on public contact assignments, worn as the superintendent judged appropriate. They date its adoption to 1971 — apparently a typo: the 1971 standards do not include it.

The "Open Road" Stetson of the blazer uniform, about 1972–1975, worn without the NPS leather hatband. NPS History Collection, HFCA 914.

By 1974 the shirt was gold, the tie gold and green with no brown, and a gold nametag and arrowhead tie tack were added; the Stetson and a small shirt patch stayed optional.

When the option ended is not clear. Alvord and Ferguson's 1973 catalog offered the blazer in limited sizes, and by 1974 it was marked down by up to 40 percent. The April 21, 1975 Newsletter still showed Carlos Goff, acting chief of maintenance at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, wearing it. The 1976 standards do not mention it at all — not even to retire it.

TV star Joe Campanella (with scissors) cuts a ribbon beside Ivan D. Parker, superintendent of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, at the Old Courthouse in St. Louis, 1972. Two women wear the polka-dot centennial dress, and Parker's arrowhead patch is on the wrong side of his blazer. NPS History Collection, HFCA 1607.

The centennial dress

The July 1972 debut photograph also showed Carole Scanlon in the centennial dress, which led Workman to conclude, wrongly, that the dress was authorized together with the blazer as its companion. In fact the dress came out in January 1972 — which is why the article mentions it only in the photo caption.

Secretary Esther Dezendorf models the centennial dress, January 1972. NPS History Collection, HFCA 1607.

NPS women could wear it at any centennial event: a lined A-line dress in white with small orange polka dots, matching the NPS scarf of the December 1970 standards, with an optional belt of the same fabric and no arrowhead patch. The NPS Women's Organization and the NPS Employee & Alumni Association promoted it, and women bought it from Fashionaire in Chicago — $32 for the dress, $8.50 for the scarf.

No sales figures survive; the few photographs suggest it was less popular than hoped. It was authorized for 1972 only, and no example is known to survive; the NPS History Collection's archivist would like to hear from anyone who has one.

Sources

Based on "50 Nifty Finds #41: What in the Blazers?," National Park Service, NPS History Collection; a work of the United States government in the public domain. Its sources include the NPS Newsletter, the collection's records, 1969–1972 newspapers and R. Bryce Workman's National Park Service Uniforms. It spells Scanlon's name both "Carole" and "Carol" ("Carole" follows her Newsletter byline); newspaper and personal statements are rewritten in hubnx's own words.