National Parks
Portfolio
The parks, in the words of their friends.
The legendary 1916 publication returns — one chapter for each of the 63 National Parks, written by the nonprofit friends group that knows it best. Coming 2027.
A Book That Built the Parks
In June 1916, two months before Congress created the National Park Service, the Department of the Interior published the first edition of the National Parks Portfolio. Written by journalist Robert Sterling Yard and championed by Stephen T. Mather, who would become the Service's first director, it introduced Americans to their national parks through richly illustrated, park-by-park profiles.
Its first edition of 275,000 copies reached every member of Congress and the nation's business, civic, and educational leaders — and helped build the public will that created the National Park Service itself that August.
The Portfolio ran through six editions, the last published in 1931. For nearly a century, the series has been dormant. Volume VII takes up the tradition where it left off.
The Original Portfolio
The first edition wasn't a bound book at all. It was nine separately printed, photograph-filled booklets — one per park — laid loose into a printed folder: a portfolio, literally. The nine even included the Grand Canyon, then still a national monument Mather hoped to bring into the fold. A map on the folder, "National Parks and Principal Railroad Connections," told readers how to go see the places inside.
Privately Funded
Congress allocated no budget. Stephen Mather personally paid the first $5,000 for the image plates, and seventeen western railroads contributed $43,000 — a $48,000 project, more than a million dollars today.
Sent, Not Sold
All 275,000 copies of the first edition were given away free to a handpicked list of civic, business, and educational leaders drawn from clubs, professional societies, and social registers — and to every member of Congress.
It Worked
Two months after publication, on August 25, 1916, Congress created the National Park Service. The Portfolio's second edition became one of the new agency's first official publications.
Read the Originals
Every edition is a United States government publication in the public domain, digitized and free to read.
Sixty-Three Parks. Sixty-Three Voices.
Where Robert Sterling Yard wrote alone, Volume VII is written by the people who know each park most intimately: the nonprofit conservancies, trusts, foundations, and friends groups that sustain them.
Each of the 63 congressionally designated National Parks receives one chapter, authored by its primary philanthropic partner — its landscape, its story, what makes it singular, and the citizen work that protects it. Together the chapters form a portrait of the National Park System at this moment in its history, told in sixty-three distinct voices.
Volume VII will be a large-format, photograph-rich hardcover in the visual tradition of the original, with a companion digital edition. After recovery of documented production costs, net proceeds will be divided 50/50 between the contributing friends groups and the publisher.
For Friends Groups
What we ask
- One original article of 800–1,200 words about your park and your organization's work
- Three to five high-resolution photographs your organization can license, with credits
- A one-paragraph note telling readers how to support you, closing your chapter
What you receive
- Full byline and organizational credit — your logo, website, and donation information
- You keep full copyright and unrestricted reprint rights to your own chapter
- Complimentary copies, and an equal share of the contributors' half of net proceeds
Volume VII succeeds only if every park's story is told by the organization that has earned the right to tell it. If you lead or serve a National Park friends group, we would welcome a conversation.
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