Model Rangers: The Park Service's 1970 Beige Women's Uniform

The beige women's uniform of the early 1970s is one of the most misunderstood National Park Service (NPS) uniforms, and one of the most talked about, though it was worn for only three years. Many people think it dates to the 1960s and came with miniskirts and go-go boots. It was also the uniform least like the standard green ranger outfit, and that was no accident: its colors came from a chart being considered for park signs, so it is not surprising that it did not suit many of the jobs NPS women did.

Claire Sampson wearing the work uniform to dust furnishings in an historic house museum. (NPS History Collection, HFCA 1607)

This is number 42 in the Park Service's "50 Nifty Finds" series from the NPS History Collection.

Miss Rolle (first name unknown) in the 1962 women's uniform, without its pillbox hat. Some called that uniform orthopedic and dowdy. NPS History Collection.

One uniform for everyone, except women

In July 1967 a management consultant, James M. Kittleman, reported to NPS Director George B. Hartzog Jr. that maintenance, interpretation, science, research and personnel staff lacked the status and prestige of rangers, though their work mattered just as much. To lift morale, Hartzog appointed a committee in February 1969 to recommend a uniform all employees could wear regardless of job. Hazel Oliff, Hartzog's secretary, may have been its only woman.

Hartzog approved the committee's standards on July 2, 1969. Despite their stated aim of uniformity for all employees except the U.S. Park Police, men and women did not get the same uniform. The new green women's uniform, replacing a 1962 design modeled on American Airlines stewardess uniforms, offered a knit dress, blazer, vest, blouses, an A-line skirt, a pillbox hat and culottes or slacks for field work. Skirts were to fall no more than two inches above the middle of the knee. The standards were to take effect on January 1, 1971.

Vista-Scope ’70, Glynn’s initial concept for the women’s uniform. (NPS History Collection, HFCA 1645)

Focus group with women of the National Capital Region, February 4, 1970. Left to right: Betty Gentry, Susan Hepler, Mary Dodd, Irene Beckman (Doyle Dane Bernbach, Inc.), Al Fields, and Carole Scanlon. (NPS History Collection photo by W.H. Spradley, HFCA-01249)

Apparel graphics

No record explains why the 1969 women's uniform was never put into use. Instead a women's uniform committee formed, chaired by NPS Chief of Operations Robert Gibbs, with Carole Scanlon, an interpreter at Independence National Historical Park, representing women in the field. Scanlon led the work. Wanting someone interested in function as much as fashion, and willing to listen to field staff, she turned to Mary Joan Glynn, head of product styling at the New York advertising agency Doyle Dane Bernbach, who had introduced knit dresses for American Airlines flight attendants. Glynn's colleague Irene Beckman assisted.

They talked with dozens of NPS women and surveyed the 250 uniformed women in the Service. Russell E. Dickenson, general superintendent of National Capital Parks and a future NPS director, said he would like to see women's uniforms "jazzed up," even in entirely different colors.

This experimental hat was considered for the women's uniform. It was worn by Betty Otto in a trial run at Antietam National Battlefield in early 1970. (NPS History Collection, HFCA 921)

Then Allen Fields, a civil engineer on the committee, gave Glynn a chart of colors under consideration for park signs and posters. She chose "a colorful wardrobe in shades of beige, orange, and white" over what was described as "murky green." Apart from the colors, the hat and outfits for support staff and volunteers, much of her design was already in the 1969 standards.

The design, first called "Vista-Scope '70," claimed colors drawn from earth, sand, air, snow and sun. Why NPS green was not among them is unclear.

Carole Scanlon models uniform variations for Director Hartzog on March 20, 1970: dress uniforms Class A through D, a uniform coat, a support-staff smock and a pop-on. NPS History Collection.

Fashion shows

The committee endorsed Glynn's sketches and swatches on February 25, 1970. On March 20, Scanlon modeled the samples for Hartzog while Glynn narrated. The NPS Newsletter described delighted women and beaming men, though photographs from the day show only one other woman present. Hartzog approved on the spot, reportedly calling it "beautiful, simply beautiful" and an important addition to the Service's public image and "to the many lovely ladies who work in our park system."

NPS women model the new uniform at the public unveiling at Independence National Historical Park on June 27, 1970. (NPS History Collection, HFCA-01249)

Mary Joan Glynn narrates the fashion show as Carole Scanlon models uniforms for the Director Hartzog (not pictured) and the uniform committee, March 20, 1970. (NPS History Collection, HFCA 1607)

A public unveiling followed on June 27, 1970, in the rose garden at Independence National Historical Park, before several hundred people. The models included park staff, among them Marion Riggs (later Durham), an archeologist at Walnut Canyon, and the wives of the director and a regional director.

The unveiling at Independence National Historical Park, June 27, 1970. Left to right: Marion (Riggs) Durham, Carole Scanlon, Louise Boggs, Ingar Garrison, Ellen Lang, Elaine Hounsell and Helen Hartzog. NPS History Collection, photo by Cecil W. Stoughton.

Durham later recalled that her first reaction to the design was dismay, and that nobody provided her a hat, so she borrowed a straw ranger hat from a man beside her. She was then sent to model the pieces at every park in the Southwest Region. Women rangers, she said, were delighted to finally have pants; secretaries mostly asked whether they had to wear the hat.

Evelyn Abeyta, employee at the NPS Southwest Regional Office, models Durham's culottes and tunic with a men's ranger hat. The white shoes were probably what Abeyta wore to work that day, before being asked to model the uniform. (NPS History Collection, HFCA-01249.

She also modeled it for Lyndon B. Johnson at his Texas ranch. When he asked how women felt about it, she told him it was better than what they had but not what they wanted: as the men's peers, they wanted the same uniform as men doing the same job. At the airport afterward, a child asked whether she was an elevator operator or a stewardess.

August 1970 “NPS Interpreter’s Newsletter” featuring photos of the women from the fashion show in an “interpreting in STYLE” double page spread. (NPS History Collection, HFCA 1645)

The wardrobe

Hartzog approved the uniform in an August 11, 1970, memo to "The Ladies of the National Park Service," with guidelines for a "wardrobe," a telling word: dress, jacket, tunic, culottes, slacks, smocks, hat and scarf, plus outerwear chosen from the 1970 Sears fall–winter catalog. Women prepaid their orders against a $125 allowance, but the uniforms did not arrive until January 1971.

Sketches compiled from the 1969 NPS uniform standards. Top: blazer, culottes, and slacks. Bottom: vest, pillbox hat, straw hat, wedge-heeled Oxfords, and pumps. (NPS History Collection photo)

The standard men's uniform and the new women's uniform at Yosemite National Park, 1971. NPS History Collection.

The final standards of December 1970 called the dress uniform "a departure from the traditional forest green" and said the dress hat would help visitors identify the wearer. Options were so many that charts were needed to explain them, with a work smock that, with a new men's uniform in 1971, was the first special uniform for maintenance staff, an orange pop-on for volunteers and a bright orange outfit for lifeguards.

1970 women's uniform cardigan jacket. (NPS History Collection, HFCA 1306)

Left to right: the 1970 Class A dress, support-staff zip-up smock, work smock and volunteer pop-on. NPS History Collection.

Setting the record straight

• Miniskirts: no skirts at all were part of the 1970 uniform, and the NPS never authorized a uniform miniskirt. The culottes in photographs are often mistaken for skirts. Dresses and culottes were to be no shorter than one inch above the knee; actual hems varied with the woman and her supervisor.
• Go-go boots: white go-go boots were never in the standards, which called for simple beige to light-brown leather shoes or boots. The myth traces to the cover of R. Bryce Workman's 1998 report on women's uniforms, which shows Durham in boots that look white in print but were tan. Durham told Workman she hated hearing them called go-go boots. The myth has sexualized the uniform and its wearers and drawn attention away from what NPS women were accomplishing and the barriers they faced.
• Badges: women could not wear the badge with this uniform, but under the 1969 standards neither could most men; it was limited to law enforcement staff. What kept women out was policy barring them from law enforcement jobs. From February 1974, women could wear the gold "National Park Ranger" badge with the traditional and field uniforms.

Women sometimes modified the 1970 uniform to meet their needs. Note that the woman here is wearing beige pants with pockets on the thighs with the tunic. She is also wearing the men's hat, as many women preferred it to the women's hat. (NPS History Collection, HFCA-01249.

Photographs of women wearing the 1970 uniform don't always show the women's feet but when they do, they aren't wearing boots. (NPS History Collection, HFCA 1607)

Cover of R. Bryce Workman's women's uniform book featuring Marion Riggs in culottes, tunic, and boots with that infamous tagline. (NPS History Collection photo).

How women judged it

In 1972, Kathleen Higgins, a supervisory park guide at Mesa Verde, wrote to the NPS Newsletter that the uniform was impractical: the fabric snagged and was too heavy for summer, seams split, and it cost so much that few could buy more than one of each piece. June T. Nichols of Chaco Canyon replied that her only problem was fit. Others found it too cold in winter, noted mismatched dye lots, and said the polyester could melt near a fire.

The women's dress hat, a "ranger lite" look was intended to serve as "initial identification" for visitors. The NPS leather hatband wasn’t worn with this hat. (NPS History Collection, HFCA 922)

Ruthanne Heriot recalled in 1984 that she ended up wearing beige jeans and a white shirt with the arrowhead patch instead. Durham wrote in 1996 that the fabric was a nightmare and the color useless outside city streets, and that the women rangers at Mesa Verde, who had to crawl through tunnels and climb rope ladders in tight skirts, saw little improvement beyond having pants.

The uniform was replaced in February 1974, but not by the one women wanted. The new version added a "traditional" option closer to the men's field uniform, yet its dress and field uniforms were dark-green polyester. Durham recalled that women had accepted the 1970 uniform as a first step toward the standard uniform, and that the 1974 change, a new fabric and color rather than equality, disappointed her even more. She was elated, she said, when women could finally buy the gray shirt and green pants.

Sketches compiled from the 1969 NPS uniform standards. Left to right: dress, work dress, and skirt with blouse. (NPS History Collection photo)

Sources

• National Park Service, "50 Nifty Finds #42: Model Rangers." https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/50-nifty-finds-42-model-rangers.htm
• The article draws on NPS uniform records, the NPS Newsletter (1970–1972, including letters by Kathleen Higgins and June T. Nichols), Courier articles by Ruthanne Heriot (1984) and Marion J. Durham (1989), the NPS Oral History Collection, and R. Bryce Workman, Breeches, Blouses, and Skirts, 1918–1991 (NPS, 1998). Personal recollections are paraphrased here.
• Pages from the 1970 Sears catalog shown on the Park Service's page are not reproduced. Pictures an earlier version of this page left out were restored on 2026-09-26.
• Words on this page from people and organisations outside the federal government are paraphrased; rewritten in hubnx's own words.