Cotton mill weave room, with green and red mill machines

Labor History in Parks

The history of the labor movement and the fight for better working conditions is preserved in the stories of our national parks.

Environment, Technology, and Labor

The effects of industrialization on people and the environment is a prominent story across national parks. Lowell National Historical Park and Saugus Iron Works National Historic Site examine the intersections of technological change and labor in New England.
Revolutionary Work

Battlefields and other national park sites associated with the Revolutionary War and Civil War are giving greater attention to labor. Park staff and partners examines slavery in both a national and local context, connecting military and political history to the lived experiences of free and enslaved African Americans.
Union History Preserved

In the 1890s, a strike and boycott by employees of the Pullman Company called attention to inequality in the Gilded Age. The following creation of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the first African American labor union, transformed the American labor landscape. These stories are forever preserved at Pullman National Historical Park.

The Stories of a Country at Work

In Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the remnants of log camps, sawmills, and company towns remain visible on the landscape. At Keweenaw National Historical Park, copper mining sites with a history spanning millennia are interpreted by National Park Service (NPS) staff and partner organizations. And, at Hampton National Historic Site, the lives of enslaved African Americans who labored in nearby iron furnaces, as well on the estate itself, have become a central focus of research and public programming.

The National Park Foundation (NPF)’s work helps safeguard the historic sites and collections that hold our shared history through dynamic educational programs, professional development opportunities, rehabilitation of historic sites, and the preservation or irreplaceable artifacts and places.

NPF and NPS are working together to expand storytelling at parks to share a more comprehensive history of the U.S., including the contributions and stories of forced laborers, enslaved people, and advocates of the labor movement. The histories of work and working people help us explore the lives of a broader range of individuals – each with their own labor history to share – and invite us to imagine a better future.

NPF's Work in This Space

NPF supports national parks, programs, and projects that highlight the stories of America at work.

Area of Work

History & Culture

NPF's work in preserving history and culture supports programs and projects that unearth and share more inclusive stories in parks across the country.

Learn More

PROGRAM
National Park Service Mellon Humanities Fellowships
Supports the work of a collection of humanities scholars, including those focused on labor history, to help us discover untold stories and new voices.
PROGRAM
Inclusive Storytelling
Supports contemporary research in parks, as well as projects which transform that research into relevant interpretive products.

Recent Projects

Pullman National Historical Park

Educating Students About Labor History

An NPF Open OutDoors for Kids grant is connecting students to Pullman National Historical Park and the A. Phillip Randolph Pullman Porter Museum, to learn about the history of the Pullman community and the significance of the Pullman Porters in the Great Migration and to the labor movement in the United States.

Lowell National Historical Park
Workers, Agency and Landscape
At Lowell National Historical Park, a Mellon Humanities Fellow is researching the pre-industrial landscape of the area, which will inform a major exhibition that highlights the contributions of enslaved and waged workers to American Industrialization.
Pullman National Historical Park

Preserving Pullman

NPF has provided a total of $10 million to support Pullman National Historical Park, providing critical funding for the revitalization of the site and improvements to the grounds and historic buildings, programming at the park, as well as the construction of its visitor center.
NPS Intermountain Region
New Perspectives in Transcontinental History
In collaboration with NPS’ Intermountain Region’s History Program, a Mellon Humanities Fellow is using the lens of the Transcontinental Railroad to explore the themes of labor, western identity, and Indigenous sovereignty.

César E. Chávez National Monument

Vanishing Voices of the Farmworker Movement

At César E. Chávez National Monument, an NPF Inclusive Storytelling grant is enabling the park to catalog and assess the oral histories related to the farmworker movement and conduct a gap analysis to determine which stories are not represented. The park will then work to fill these gaps.
Hampton National Historic Site

Log Quarters Exhibits

Thanks to an NPF Inclusive Storytelling grant, Hampton National Historic Site is working with its nonprofit partner, Historic Hampton Inc., to update 20 outdoor wayside panels and four exhibit panels to incorporate findings from recent research highlighting the lives and contributions of free and enslaved African Americans and others who lived and worked there.

César E. Chávez National Monument

Highlighting Women’s Contributions

A 2020 Women in Parks grant from NPF supported César E. Chávez National Monument’s research and documentation of the experiences of Mexican, Filipina, and Chicana women farm workers in California, including their role in the farm workers movement.
PROJECT
Dressing the Part
Through an NPF Women in Parks grant, NPS created a website highlighting the history of women working for NPS. “Dressing the Part” aims to tell stories of NPS women through a series of webpages, articles, and other features.
Independence National Historical Park
“Reframing the Nation’s Origin Story”
A Mellon Humanities Fellow is working with Independence National Historical Park in reframing the nation’s origin story, acknowledging and honoring the contributions of all Americans, by focusing their research on the impact and legacies of people of African descent during the revolutionary and early national periods.