4
Crafting the Legislation
In July 1977 William J. Whalen was appointed director of the National Park Service. Whalen was the first director to work with a congressional mandate to annually set the agenda for consideration of new national parks by Congress. Prior to 1976, commonly trod paths to a new national park began when the public would petition their congressional delegation to create a new national park or individual members of Congress would submit their ideas. Congress might have been considering as many as two hundred ideas for new parks in any given year. But members decided to focus only on the best of the best candidates. P.L. 94–458, Sec. 2, directed the National Park Service to complete new area studies and to annually transmit to Congress reports on the studies that had been completed, along with a list of not fewer than twelve areas that had potential for inclusion in the park system.
Director Whalen pulled together a team of senior planners in the Denver Service Center to complete this assignment. But the new team said they were unable to complete the New Area Study for Seneca Falls. A New Area Study had not been funded and had never even waited in line to be funded; it had never received a priority number. The Service Center did, however, agree to print the study written by Terry Savage’s staff in Boston, as we saw. The printing offer was a gift; the printers in Denver even added a cover that looked like the cover of other studies actually completed in Denver. Because of that gift, the study looked more official, and more acceptable to the Park Service. Optics always matter.
On June 19, 1979, the Washington office for legislation requested that the Denver Center submit copies of the printed studies to the Washington headquarters. Denis Galvin, manager of the Denver Service Center at the time, wrote to the regional director in Boston on August 13 that he was forwarding fifteen copies of the New Area Study to Boston and also sending fifteen copies to the Washington office of legislation. The note from Galvin concluded, “A limited number of this report has been printed at the Denver Service Center because of other printing priorities.” Most fortunately, the Denver Center did not make the study wait its turn to be printed. The acting regional director in Boston Gil Calhoun forwarded the study to the director in Washington and recommended the most wide-ranging alternative, number four. Calhoun would have also been promoting the proposal with Director Whalen.
The park proposal had a crucial ally in Washington. Peggy Lipson worked just one corridor over from the office of Director Whalen in the Park Service headquarters and met frequently with him. As legislative specialist, she would brief him when he was invited to testify at a congressional hearing. Significantly, she would also accompany Whalen and his driver going to the Hill for each hearing, giving her at least twenty minutes alone with him in his car driving up to the hearing, and twenty minutes driving back again to Main Interior without any interruptions or distractions to her conversation, a privilege enjoyed by few. She used that time to relay her enthusiasm for the Seneca Falls proposal. William Whalen was an intelligent and bold visionary and would have observed that the Park Service had slighted women’s history.
In the fall of 1979, Whalen called the managers of the New Area Study teams to his office in Washington to present to him their best studies to recommend to Congress. Service Center staff flew to Washington with their list of choices, carrying their studies. Whalen reviewed the stack of studies but was puzzled by what he did not find. After a pause, he said, “Where is that study of Seneca Falls I keep hearing about?” The Denver Service Center had not included it among its recommendations. The planners had to scurry out of the meeting to find a copy. Peggy Lipson, however, knew where to find a copy. Director Whalen overruled his Denver planning managers and added the Women’s Rights study to the package to be forwarded to Congress.
In the Park Service, as elsewhere, there is often a fear that if one side wins something, the other must lose something. In this case, however, the park study was added to make a new larger total rather than pushing some other candidate off the list. The secretary of the interior submitted the package of fifteen New Area Studies to Congress on October 9, 1979:
- Women’s Rights Historic District, New York
- Alexandria Waterfront, Virginia
- City of Rocks, Idaho
- Georgia O’Keefe Home and Studio, New Mexico
- Georgetown Waterfront, Washington, DC
- Great Basin, Nevada
- Hopeton Earthworks, Ohio
- James A. Garfield Home, Ohio
- Kalaupapa Leprosy Settlement, Hawaii
- Mobile-Tensaw River, Alabama
- Potomac River, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia
- Salinas National Monument, New Mexico
- Tallgrass Prairie National Park, Kansas–Oklahoma
- Valles Caldera, New Mexico
- Vermejo Ranch, New Mexico
On December 7, 1979, the House Subcommittee on National Parks and Insular Affairs of the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs held a hearing on the fifteen New Area Studies. A contingent of Park Service officials were driven across town to the Rayburn House Office Building, Room 2226. Most of those providing testimony were from Washington headquarters or regional office, or from the Denver Service Center. Representatives from the Atlanta regional office and the Kalaupapa Leprosy Settlement in Hawaii also attended. The subcommittee chairman, Representative Phillip Burton (D), from San Francisco, presided. Director Whalen began the hearing testimony with a lengthy description of the challenges of meeting this new mandate to study possible new national parks. The authorizing committee had recommended $1 million in annual funding to complete the studies. However, the appropriations committee actually granted only $600,000 for the 1979 fiscal year, and funding was further reduced to $300,000 for the 1980 fiscal year. Seventeen of the staff assigned to New Area Studies had already been transferred out of the original task group of thirty-five. Whalen testified that the Park Service could not afford to complete the work for twelve studies in 1980 and might submit only six studies. In 1981, the Reagan administration would abandon the program and delete the funding from the budget. Catching the timing of this mandate was critical. The Women’s Rights Park proposal came through a narrow slit of a window of opportunity. If it had not been one of the New Area Studies submitted that year, the chances for the creation of the park would have been greatly diminished.
Following Director Whalen’s overview testimony on the program, individuals testified on the fifteen park proposals. The associate director for cultural resources Ross Holland testified that “the Women’s Rights Historic District would commemorate the first women’s rights convention held in the United States. The convention was basically the outgrowth of the antislavery convention that occurred in England about seven or eight years before.” And further, “the result of the convention was really the beginning of conventions all around the world to promote women’s rights. It was a most significant event in women’s history and the various sites associated with it have good integrity… . There is strong local support,” and “women themselves, throughout the nation have begun to rally around the proposal.”1 Describing the physical resources, Holland said that three of the four walls of the Wesleyan Chapel still stood (even though altered) and that the Elizabeth Cady Stanton home had been declared a national historic landmark and had good integrity.
Subcommittee member Jonathan Bingham (D) of the Bronx concluded this section of the hearing by announcing, “I am most interested in this proposal” and stated, “I must say that this whole area of women’s rights is one which has been ignored in the parks and sites for the National Park Service, with the exception of Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site… . I would like very much to pursue this proposal and I shall.”2
Congressman Bingham had been a leader who moved the bill through Congress to create the Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site, authorized on June 5, 1978.
The Women’s Rights New Area Study was also submitted to Senators Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D) and Jacob Javits (R), both of New York, in February 1980 and to the local congressman, Gary Lee (R), who had begun serving in Congress the previous January. Senator Moynihan enthusiastically welcomed this possible addition to the National Park Service in his state. Moynihan had only been sworn in as New York senator on January 3, 1977; his election and passionate support were critical for the proposal.
Moynihan promptly requested that the Park Service draft legislation to authorize the new park. Both the Senate and the House of Representatives have their own legislative counsel offices to draft legislation for their members; Moynihan, however, asked the Park Service to draft the bill. When a member of Congress requested drafting services from the Park Service the request was filled, without objection, without resistance, as a service for the member. When such a draft was delivered to the member, a cover letter would include a statement that “the Department does not take a position in support or opposition to this draft legislation.” By requesting the drafting services for the new park, however, Moynihan effectively leapt over any concerns that might have been raised among Park Service staff. Mike Lambe tasked the regional office in Boston with drafting the legislation to create the new park, and it became my assignment. I was thrilled with the assignment, which meant that I could include everything I wanted for the new park, including the largest possible park.
My draft legislation directed that the Stanton house and the Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls be acquired and preserved, managed, and interpreted, the traditional model for a national park. Acquisition was proposed only for the two properties with willing, and actually eager, owners who wanted to sell their property to the National Park Service. Frank Ludovico wanted to sell his laundromat so that he could retire. The Stanton Foundation was anxious to sell the Stanton house to the Park Service and be reimbursed for the funds it had raised.
To protect the resources in the neighboring village of Waterloo, partnerships were proposed for the Hunt and M’Clintock houses. They were designated only for cooperative agreements with the Park Service, to receive technical assistance with preservation of the properties. At that time, the owners of the Hunt home, Joan and Thomas Olmstead, were not willing to sell their home and move. The owner of the M’Clintock home was the church just feet away, creating difficulties of appearances if not realities, due to the separation of church and state in the Constitution. My draft legislation also included an advisory commission of eighteen members intended to raise awareness for the new park and also to support and continue the collaboration among the nonprofits in Seneca Falls.
My draft legislation also proposed a 450-acre park boundary, the same as the locally dedicated preservation district designed to preserve the context of the historic convention. The boundary included downtown Seneca Falls and the nearby neighborhoods that dated to the time of the 1848 convention. An independent commission, funded by the Park Service, was proposed to manage the preservation district.
Every national park has a boundary that is established by Congress when the park is first authorized. Typically, that provides for federal ownership and management for all properties within the boundary. The preservation district in my legislative draft was based on the recently enacted legislation creating the Lowell National Historical Park. The staff in Boston was excited by the new possibilities in the Lowell legislation, and I believed that the similarity would make it acceptable to the Park Service, and to Congress. My strategy was always to focus on what I gauged would be acceptable and still create the largest possible park.
I traveled to Washington to review the draft language with the Park Service chief of legislation and attorney Mike Lambe, who was the boss over my counterpart, Peggy Lipson. I had met him briefly when in the office for my week of training in September several months earlier. Lambe had a large corner office next to Peggy Lipson’s office. He sat behind an elegant massive wood desk that looked like it had been in the building since it was constructed in the thirties. There were two chairs across the desk facing him. He was surrounded by bookcases full of law and other reference books. Lambe was respected and a bit fearsome; he did have a fine smile but generally was serious looking, almost frowning. I met with him alone.
My draft named the park the “Women’s Rights National Historical Park.” Lambe countered the park name would have to be the “Seneca Falls National Historic Site.” But I countered that “National Historic Site” was generally used in the Park Service when there was just one historic structure, usually a single house. “National Historical Parks” generally had more than one building and often more than one site, as did the Women’s Rights proposal with several historic structures in two communities. I believed that calling it a historic site could diminish its impact within the Park Service and possibly in the eyes of the public. I argued that Lambe’s naming would also keep the 1848 convention in Seneca Falls practically a secret, as so few seemed aware of the history there. Also, other parks were named for their significance, not their geographic locations: the home of Clara Barton was the Clara Barton National Historic Site, not the Washington, DC, National Historic Site. The home of Eleanor Roosevelt was the Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site, not the Hyde Park National Historic Site. My arguments were rational and reasonable and based on Park Service practices. Lambe did not prefer the name I proposed but accepted it by the end of the meeting: Women’s Rights National Historical Park would be the name.
Lambe repeatedly emphasized the park’s mission must be the history of women’s rights, as interpreted through the historic structures in Seneca Falls and Waterloo. I agreed, and this language was added to clarify the mission: “It is the purpose of this section to preserve and interpret for the education, inspiration, and benefit of present and future generations the nationally significant historical and cultural sites and structures associated with the struggle for equal rights for women.”
I understood Lambe’s concern regarding possible political demonstrations drawn to the park in Seneca Falls, agitating over controversial current issues; that seemed anathema to Lambe. Lambe’s insistence on a mission focused on the history most likely eased the bill’s acceptance both in the National Park Service and within Congress, as well as in Seneca Falls. And it seemed to pave the way for his acceptance of my title for the park.
In our meeting, Lambe never questioned the significance of the events to be honored. And Senator Moynihan had requested bill drafting services and could not be denied. It was not possible to simply reject a park proposal that had been requested by Senator Moynihan. And Director Whalen had approved the New Area Study and referred it to Congress and to Senator Moynihan prior to our meeting on the draft legislation, so the director’s support was clear.
Significant change did happen to my draft. The proposed boundary for the park in Seneca Falls, the same as the locally enacted preservation district, was eliminated and replaced with “polka dots,” or simply the boundaries of the individual structures authorized for acquisition. Also, the commission I had proposed to manage the preservation district in order to preserve the context of the convention was deleted from the draft bill. I had duplicated the language for the preservation district and the managing commission from the legislation that created the Lowell National Historical Park. Lowell was a struggling mill town with a rich history of early industrialization, and the legislative purpose was both to preserve that historical legacy and revive the economy of the city. (Both goals were later considered to have been met, and the legislation is often credited for the rebirth of Lowell. Nevertheless, Peggy Lipson, now remarried and Peggy Halderman, said in 2020 that the Lowell legislation left the managers in the Park Service’s Hall of Heroes “fit to be tied” because of the lack of control.)
The classic national park had a boundary, and everything within the boundary would be owned and controlled and preserved by the Park Service. The hierarchical Park Service organization had evolved from the early years of administration by the Department of War, and a command-and-control management culture was ingrained. Lack of authority and lack of control could cause concern. There was also an often-stated resistance to the concept of spending Park Service dollars outside of a Park Service boundary and outside of Park Service ownership; it was considered by some a waste of precious funds. The preservation district authorization, as well as the managing commission, was cut from the legislation just before the language was submitted to Senator Moynihan. I was angry at the time. But deleting the preservation district and commission probably made the legislation more acceptable to the Park Service and probably eased and quickened passage through Congress. And it most certainly was more acceptable to the community, I later realized.
Mike Lambe reduced my eighteen-member advisory commission to eleven members. According to the final draft, its membership would be drawn from recommendations by the Elizabeth Cady Stanton Foundation, the Women’s Hall of Fame, the village of Seneca Falls, the town of Seneca Falls (which surrounded the independent village), and two members recommended by the governor of New York. The secretary of the interior was to select an additional five representatives, of which two were to represent national women’s rights organizations and one to represent an institution of higher learning. The secretary would designate the chair from among the group.
Mike Lambe hand-delivered the legislation to the office of Senator Moynihan.