Jared Frederick, Penn State Altoona instructor in history and former seasonal park ranger at Gettysburg National Military Park, in the National Cemetery.
Jared Frederick found his park a number of years ago. Long a fan of local history, Frederick—now an instructor in history at Penn State Altoona—spent five years as a seasonal park ranger at Gettysburg National Military Park. He has just published his latest book, Gettysburg National Military Park, as part of Arcadia Publishing’s Images of Modern America series. Frederick describes the book as “a visual history that looks at the park during the postwar era, from the 1950s onward,” a story he tells through photographs selected from the park’s archives and an accompanying narrative.
“What truly fascinated me was what happened in the decades after the battle,” Frederick says. What transpired in those years were battles over construction and destruction and struggles over social issues. “In many ways the park became a public forum for reconciliation and national forgiveness. To this very day it serves as a venue for things that have trickled down to us from the legacies of the Civil War—race, violence, the role of the federal government.” How does Frederick think his book fits into those struggles? “Photographs can serve as a platform to discuss these issues, which we do very vigorously.”
Gettysburg went through significant changes after World War II. “With the rise of the baby boomers and the birth of the modern-day family vacation, the National Park Service had to rebrand itself,” Frederick notes. “The Park Service initiated Mission ’66, meant in part to help commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Park Service. The Cyclorama was a spinoff of that mission.”
Most likely one of the best-known features of the 1960s’ Gettysburg National Park, the Cyclorama—which opened in 1962 in the Cyclorama Center, in time for the 100th anniversary of the battle—“was the IMAX of its day,” writes Frederick in the book. Titled The Battle of Gettysburg, “the massive 360-degree painting of Pickett’s Charge by French artist Paul Philippoteaux was completed in 1884 and premiered in Gettysburg in 1913. In the 1962 visitor center, a sound and light show followed by ranger commentary dramatized the battle.”
From the book: President Dwight D. Eisenhower (left) was an avid history buff and actively turned to the past for insight. Accordingly, Ike readily treated guests to battlefield tours. One such excursion that gained notoriety was Bernard Montgomery’s May 12, 1957 visit. (Eisenhower Presidential Library photo courtesy of Eisenhower National Historic Site.)
The Cyclorama Center is now gone, as is the Gettysburg National Tower, a hotly contested structure built just off the park property to give tourists a bird’s-eye-view of the battlefield, but Frederick’s book preserves both and many more parts of the park’s history. Some high and low points captured include President and Mrs. John F. Kennedy’s visit in March 1963, vandalism in the form of decapitated statues, various land management issues such as tree thinning and controlled burns, and the building and opening of the new visitor center in 2008 (which now houses The Battle of Gettysburg from the Cyclorama).
Frederick’s passion for history has never waned and, in fact, has shaped his life. “It was my interaction with a lot of local history that got me engaged with taking on history as my profession. I often found out, beginning at a young age, that local historical stories were a microcosm or symbolic of similar or perhaps bigger things that were happening elsewhere. For example, Gettysburg had many regiments from Blair County. That is part of what local history is, taking local history and applying it to larger events.”
Therese Boyd, ’79