Freeman Tilden

Freeman Tilden ( born August 22, 1883 in Malden (Massachusetts ), † 13 May 1980, Warren ( Maine) ) was an American author and journalist. He is considered the founder of the natural and cultural interpretation.

Life

Freeman Tilden was born in 1883 as the eighth of nine children of Millicent Tilden in Warren (Maine) north of Boston. Tilden's father Samuel is the editor of the Boston Transcript. He leads the young Freeman early in the literature zoom so that it already finds joy in writing and reciting as a child and the family blessed with long passages of Shakespeare. He received private lessons and can contribute with 14 first reviews for the newspaper his father.

After Freeman Tilden has graduated from high school, it is his father's wish that he attended Harvard University. But instead, he travels extensively, is suited to a number of foreign languages ​​and foreign correspondent for several major newspapers. In this context, he lives among other things, a few years in London. At the same time, he wrote short stories and novellas that appear partly in the form of series in several newspapers, poems and scripts for radio shows and plays.

On a trip to Vermont met Freeman Tilden teacher Mabel Martin, whom he married in 1909. The couple moved to New York, is now occasionally accompanied by his wife due to the continuing lively travel activity in which Tilden, but none of the four children who should have the Tilden was born in the same place. It was not until 1929, the family moved to Warner (New Hampshire ) in order henceforth to lead a somewhat steadier life. From 1939 Freeman Tilden are there with Open Door publishes its own magazine, in which he increasingly turning to nature themes.

1941 Freeman Tilden met in New York the director of the U.S. National Park Service, Newton Drury, who took office in 1940 and in the same year, coined by John Muir and has long been common notion of natural and cultural interpretation (English Heritage Interpretation ) for has the information and educational work in the Park Service officially launched. Drury pulls Tilden with tales of the National Parks Yellowstone, Yosemite and Grand Canyon in its spell. Tilden traveled henceforth the national parks and begins in 1945, first to write posts for the Park Service, whose primary goal at this time is to persuade the Americans to visit "their" parks. Drury commissioned Tilden in this connection with the preparation of a book, which is to meet this goal. The National Parks: What They Mean to You and Me appears in 1951 and is soon to be the best publication that has been written so far about the national parks.

Tilden writes:

Tilden here can already guess what he considers the work with visitors to the parks to be significant. In addition to the requirement of preservation of the natural heritage are the direct reference to the lives of the visitors and to show a deeper truth that lies in the phenomena, and applies it to reveal.

The beauty of the North American natural landscapes impressed Freeman Tilden deep. All the affected makes him the finding that taking care of the visitors through the park service its purpose largely missed. The type of nature management, as has, for example, propagates Enos Mills at the beginning of the 20th century, a style given way that moves between spectacular slapstick and dusty display cases, and its success solely on the motivation and the skill of the Park Ranger on site depends, but for which there is no support to the visitors in terms of training standards. 1952 Tilden urges Conrad Wirth, who has worked since 1951 as director of the National Park Service to conduct a study on the interpretation in order. Wirth recognizes their need, and after the funds are granted, he commissioned Tilden order to formulate the basic principles of the natural and cultural interpretation in the parks. Tilden takes several trips again and holds, among others, a long time at the Castillo de San Marcos National Monument in Florida to perform there own interpretation courses and so to collect their own practical experience in working with visitors. As a result of his studies he sets in 1957 in his book Interpreting Our Heritage, a definition and six principles of interpretation before. At this time, Freeman Tilden is 74 years old.

Interpreting Our Heritage is the basis for the systematic development of information and educational work of the Park Service in the sixties of the 20th century Tilden in 1962 honored for his achievements with the Pugsley Medal, which is awarded to individuals who by nature conservation and have rendered outstanding services to the parks in the United States.

That same year, Mabel Tilden dies. Freeman Tilden initially lived for some time with the family of his son Paul near Washington DC, but then returns to the North, where he bought a farm in Warren ( Maine). There he wrote The State Parks and Following the Frontier and is a regular speaker in the training center built by him with the Park Service ranger for interpretation in Harpers Ferry ( West Virginia).

1970 Freeman Tilden takes again an eleven-month journey through the parks, to George Hartzog, who is director of the Park Service since 1964, to advise on how to deal with the energy crisis.

1980 Freeman Tilden died at the age of 96 years on his farm in Warren (Maine).

The U.S. National Park Service calls the 1982 Freeman Tilden Award in life, which is awarded annually since then for outstanding achievements in the field of natural and cultural interpretation. Tilden's Interpreting Our Heritage book will be launched for the fourth time in 2008 and is also more than fifty years after his first appearance as an indispensable entry literature in the natural and cultural interpretation.

Services

Freeman Tilden has first defined the natural and cultural interpretation in his major work, Interpreting Our Heritage and stocky with principles. He has created training bases for the natural and cultural performers in the U.S. National Park Service ( Interpretive Ranger).

It is Tilden's credit that the Park Service set up a separate department for interpretation as well as a training center for interpretation Ranger ( Stephen T. Mather Training Center ) and a design center for media interpretation ( Harpers Ferry Center ) were established.

As a consequence, interpretation has held as a field of study at several universities in the U.S. collection. Not only other federal agencies such as the U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management or the Fish & Wildlife Service, but also numerous state parks, zoos, botanical gardens and (open-air ) museums have adopted the concept.

Since 1973, interpretation has become the internationally most widely used concept of information and education in visitor-oriented facilities. In the associations of the natural and cultural interpretation more than 7000 members today are organized worldwide.

Works

Freeman Tilden: Interpreting Our Heritage. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill 1957 Freeman Tilden: Interpreting Our Heritage. 4th edition. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill 2008 Freeman Tilden: The National Parks - What They Mean to You and Me Alfred A. Knopf, New York 1951 Freeman Tilden: The State Parks - Their Meaning in American Life. Alfred A. Knopf, New York 1962 Freeman Tilden: Following the Frontier with F. Jay Haynes. Alfred A. Knopf, New York 1964 Freeman Tilden: Mr. Podd. The Macmillan Company, New York 1923 Freeman Tilden: The Spanish Prisoner. Doubleday Doran, New York 1928