Dorothy Waugh's National Park Service Posters

 

Dorothy Waugh's 1924 passport photo.

Dorothy Waugh (1896 - 1996) was best known for creating a series of posters promoting national and state parks in the 1930s. Her graphics were influential in the early use of art by the National Park Service to promote public lands. Until the other day, I had not heard of Ms. Waugh. I wanted to share some of her graphics here. 

Originally born in Vermont, her Dad was landscape architect. She would sit in on his classes at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.  She would study at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Massachusetts School of Art, the Museum School of the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Ecole des Beaux Arts d'Orleans, the John Herron School of Art. and the Trenton School of Art.

 Wikipedia:

 

"Conrad Wirth had studied with Waugh's father Frank while earning his Bachelor of Science degree in landscape gardening from Massachusetts Agricultural College (now the University of Massachusetts Amherst).^[14] Wirth joined the National Park Service (NPS) in 1931.^[15] With the coming of the New Deal, he supervised the service's Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) program in the state parks. Many CCC participants could not interpret blueprints or the accompanying directives.^[15] To address this he hired Dorothy Waugh in August 1933^[15] to develop simplified diagrams and instructions for constructing basic park structures.^[14] Waugh produced Portfolio of Comfort Stations and Privies (1934) and Portfolio of Park Structures and Facilities (1934).^[16] During this time she also drew color illustrations for Recreational use of land in the United States: Part XI of the Report on land planning (1934).^[1]

"Due to the scale and importance of this effort for the CCC, Waugh went from being the sole NPS employee working on the project to hiring and leading a team of male draftsmen. Additionally, the government hired architects to supervise the building projects who added their own drawings as needed.^[17] This meant that her portfolios were followed by manuals in which Waugh had an advisory role, but no longer was contributing drawings.^[1]

"In 1933, the Roosevelt administration designated 1934 as the 'National Parks Year.'^[18] This allowed for a small budget to create a marketing campaign for the National Parks. Waugh designed posters for the campaign, although she was hampered by the small budget for materials that required her to execute her design on the first try.^[19] By late summer of 1934, she had produced 'a set of six colorful posters depicting national park scenes.'^[20][21] In 1935, Waugh produced another five posters, with recreation the theme for two, cultural heritage for two, and wildlife preservation for the fifth.^[1]"