Jenny McBurney, a government publications librarian at the University of Minnesota, joined a global response last year to the Trump administration's deletion of government datasets related to topics such as “gender ideology,” environmental justice, and diversity. While working with the Data Rescue Project to archive these censored datasets, McBurney witnessed a parallel campaign by the Trump administration to censor American history and science within the National Park Service (NPS).

NPS rangers were instructed to remove signs that discussed slavery, Indigenous history, and the climate crisis if they were deemed to “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living” or to promote a “corrosive ideology.” Recognizing that national park signs represent publicly funded information, McBurney and colleagues launched Save Our Signs last July. This crowdsourced initiative aims to document every sign in the more than 400 national parks and historic sites across the United States before the Trump administration removes them.

“One goal, of course, is to take pictures of the signs before they’re removed so we have a record of them,” McBurney said. “But a second goal is that we want to engage the public and make sure that people know that this is happening and ask them: What do you think about this? Is this OK with you? What do you think our American history story should be?”

Isabelle Boelter, a library assistant at the University of Minnesota, described Save Our Signs as an opportunity to confront and protect history that the administration is attempting to erase: “In a lot of helpless moments, we look for control and look for something to put our hands into. Save Our Signs is that opportunity and chance: it allows us to face the history that the administration is trying to remove and disappear, and instead, we’re able to help protect it.”

Volunteers have documented “before” photos of signs at multiple national parks where removals or alterations have been confirmed, including Acadia National Park, Cape Cod National Seashore, Fort Sumter and Fort Moultrie National Historic Park, Gateway National Park, Independence National Park, Muir Woods National Monument, the National Mall, and Virgin Islands National Park.

The project has even influenced travel plans, such as rerouting a family road trip from Minneapolis to Montana to visit sites along the Niobrara National Scenic River in Nebraska and the Missouri National Recreational River, a 100-mile stretch of the Missouri River spanning Nebraska and South Dakota.

The initiative highlights ongoing tensions over the presentation of American history and the preservation of public information amid government censorship efforts.

Sources

Guardian US