Participant Info
- First Name
- Joan
- Last Name
- Zenzen
- Country
- United States
- State
- MD Maryland
- joanz10@verizon.net
- Affiliation
- Self-employed Historian
- Website URL
- http://joanzenzen.com/
- Keywords
- National parks, administrative history, public history, nature, environment, oral history
- Availability
- Media Contact
- Additional Contact Information
- PhD
- PhD
Personal Info
- Photo
- About Me
Joan M. Zenzen is an independent public historian who has written histories about the management of and preservation challenges at national parks. Her book Battling for Manassas: The Fifty-Year Preservation Struggle at Manassas National Battlefield Park chronicles the efforts by developers and others to build everything from an interstate highway through the park to a regional shopping mall next to the park’s boundary. According to former National Park Service chief historian Ed Bearss, in his foreword to her book, Zenzen’s analysis and descriptions are “insightful and invaluable. . . . [She] does not ignore the people, long gone, who dreamed the dream.” Zenzen completed a history of Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park, examining the vigorous efforts to preserve and interpret four Civil War battlefields encompassed by the park, stretched across 70 miles and five jurisdictions. She has also written about American Revolutionary War battlefield parks Fort Stanwix and Minute Man.
Most recently, Zenzen has completed a history of Voyageurs National Park in Minnesota. This history examines such controversial topics as snowmobiling in the park and land acquisition strategies.
Zenzen has conducted more 150 oral history interviews with government representatives, elected officials, preservationists, neighbors to national park units, business leaders, and people expressing disagreements with national park actions.
- Recent Publications
Building a National Park: A History of Voyageurs National Park, Minnesota (NPS, 2017)
At the Crossroads of Preservation and Development: A History of Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park (NPS, 2011)
Fort Stanwix National Monument: Reconstructing the Past and Partnering for the Future (SUNY Press, 2008)
Bridging the Past: An Administrative History of Minute Man National Historical Park (NPS, 2010)
Battling for Manassas: The Fifty-Year Preservation Struggle at Manassas National Battlefield Park (Penn State University Press, 1998)
- Media Coverage
- Social Media
- @historizen
- Country Focus
- USA
- Expertise by Geography
- United States
- Expertise by Chronology
- 20th century, 21st century
- Expertise by Topic
- Art & Architectural History, Environment, Government, Public History
