Stephen Mather

Infobox Person
name = Stephen Tyng Mather


image_size = 180px
caption = Stephen Tyng Mather
birth_date = birth date|1867|07|04
birth_place = San Francisco, CA [http://www.nrpa.org/admin/content/previewContent.aspx?documentId=7050 NRPA Hall of Fame bio] ] [ [http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/albright2/pdf/ch4.pdf Creating the National Park Service: The Missing Years. By Horace M. Albright and Marian Albright Schenck, 1999. Chapter 4] ] [ [http://pdfhost.focus.nps.gov/docs/NHLS/Text/66000877.pdf NHL Submission form] ]
death_date = death date and age|1930|01|22|1867|07|04
death_place = Brookline, Massachusetts [ [http://select.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=F60E15FD3E5F177A93C1AB178AD85F448385F9 NYtimes January 23, 1930 obit] ]
occupation = businessperson, naturalist, First director of the National Park Service
spouse = Jane T. Floy of Elizabeth, NJ in 1893
parents =
children = Bertha Floy Mather

Stephen Tyng Mather (July 4, 1867 - January 22, 1930) was a pioneering American industrialist and conservationist. He was the president and owner of the Thorkildsen-Mather Borax Company, which made him a millionaire. With journalist and writer Robert Sterling Yard, Mather spearheaded a publicity campaign to promote the creation of a federal agency to oversee National Parks. Mather eventually became the first director of the new agency, the National Park Service under the United States Department of the Interior.

National Park Philosophy

Mather felt that the scenery should be the first criterion in establishing a park. He introduced park concessions to the national parks, allowing vending of basic amenities and necessities to park visitors, including nature study aids. Mather encouraged cooperation with the railroads in order to encourage visitation to normally remote units of the National Park System, and thereby create a base of public support for the fledgling agency and its holdings with those who had seen them and gained a personal appreciation for them.

Legacy and Memorials

Various places within today's National Park System are named after Mather, including Mather Point on the south rim of Grand Canyon National Park, Mather District in Yosemite National Park, the Mather Gorge on the border of Great Falls Park and Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park, and the Stephen T. Mather Training Center serving the entire National Park System at Harpers Ferry National Historical Park in West Virginia. Stephen Tyng Mather High School in Chicago, Illinois is also named after him, as is the Stephen Mather Memorial Parkway (Washington S.R. 410) in the Mount Rainier National Park and the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest. His home in Connecticut, the Stephen Tyng Mather Home, was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1963.citation|title=PDFlink| [http://pdfhost.focus.nps.gov/docs/NHLS/Text/66000877.pdf National Register of Historic Places Inventory-Nomination: Stephen Tyng Mather Home / The Mather Homestead] |464 KiB |date=1963 |author=Blanche Higgins Schroer and S. Sydney Bradford |publisher=National Park Service (Includes a biography of Stephen Tyng Mather) PDFlink| [http://pdfhost.focus.nps.gov/docs/NHLS/Photos/66000877.pdf "and accompanying 8 photos, exterior, from c.1880 to 1974"] |1.40 MiB ]

In 1937, his portrait was painted by artist Herbert A. Collins.Biography of Herbert Alexander Collins, by Alfred W. Collins, February 1975, 4 pages typed, in the possession of Collins' great-great grand-daughter, D. Dahl of Tacoma, WA]

References

ee Also

*National Park Service
*Horace M. Albright- 2nd Director
*Arno B. Cammerer - 3rd Director

Further Reading

*Everhart, William C.; "The National Park Service"; Praeger Publishers, New York, 1972
*Shankland, Robert; "Steve Mather of the National Parks"; Alfred A. Knopf, New York; 1970

External links

[http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/sontag/mather.htm National Park Service Biography]