On January 20th, 2025, the inauguration of Donald J. Trump signified more than just the passing of a Democratic to Republican administration; it initiated a reevaluation of not only the composition of federal bureaucracy but also the expression of American values and what constitutes public service.
From 2022 to 2023, I served as a remote volunteer for the Cultural Resources Division at the Upper Delaware Scenic and Recreational River (UPDE), a National Park located in my home state of Pennsylvania. Primarily, I assisted with the digitization and transcription of oral history interviews of locals residing in the Upper Delaware region. In the summer of 2024, notably the summer before the last presidential election, I was invited back to work as an in-person intern for the Park’s Cultural Resources Division.
My first summer working for the Upper Delaware gave me a glimpse into what seemed to be the character of normal operations of a federal agency. Projects, though somewhat slow-moving due to the trials and tribulations of internal bureaucratic red tape, felt like they were on track for completion. My co-workers appeared content with their work and aligned with the agency’s mission: a dual mandate to protect the natural and cultural resources of the park as well as to provide the public with unimpaired access to these resources. At UPDE, every time a member of the public adventured down the river or immersed themselves in our museum’s exhibits, it served as a testament to the impact of our work.
When I took on the role again this past summer, the Trump administration’s deep shift in policy priorities changed the agency and our park in monumental ways, reaching down to the core mission of our park itself. I arrived to find an agency almost entirely unlike the one I had known the year before. The mass bureaucratic downsizing efforts of the new administration, although they had not been effectuated at UPDE, manifested as fear and dread throughout the department. My co-workers were acutely aware that they could receive an email notifying them to pack up their things at any moment. It was not surprising, then, that this clouded my co-workers’ sense of enthusiasm and motivation toward the agency’s mission. For the duration of my internship, we did not have any of our team removed, likely due to UPDE’s small workforce and efficient operations. Still, firings and buy-outs of employees from other parks had seismic impacts. This was especially foundation-shaking when it was an employee with specialized expertise, such as a tribal liaison, a position whose ranks were drastically reduced. This led to miscommunications, project delays, and a general loss of institutional knowledge, adding frustration to the already low morale.
The core missions of both our cultural resources and interpretive divisions are to preserve and publicize the park’s authentic history. Executive Order 14253, “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” empowered the Secretary of the Interior to begin conducting content reviews of historical exhibits. Parks were also directed by the secretary to publish signage encouraging the public to report “any signs or information that are negative about either past or living Americans or that fail to emphasize the beauty, grandeur, and abundance of landscapes and other natural features.” This did not apply widely to our park, as the exhibit spaces are focused on the history of industrial America and of Zane Grey, an author of western dramas, subject matters that, despite their complexity, are often admired as representative pinnacles of American progress and spirit. Nevertheless, the tension between our divisions’ missions and the executive order’s mandate left our team deeply torn between our original idea of public service—the call to preserve the park’s unabridged history to educate the public—and the executive order’s request to suppress unsavory parts of American history.
My initial idea of “public service” was simple: a government using its resources to provide a service for public benefit. In our case, this was access to the river and historical resources. What I did not consider was that the administration has an effect on a national definition of “public service” as well. The benefit that public works provide is reliant on what the sitting administration considers acceptable and is always subject to political change. Public servants, those providing the benefit, are left to adapt to provide the new result.
While the aftermath of the executive order muddied how we carried out our divisions’ missions, our team at UPDE persisted in navigating these waters with the clear objective of serving the public to the best of our ability. We successfully implemented efforts to improve workflows within our park, even amidst various setbacks throughout our work. To raise morale, the interpretation staff created a “Fun” committee tasked with creating competitive and fun team-building exercises for workplace events. Not only did these initiatives display a workforce desperate to do its job in an effective and organized way, it also showed the resilience of my co-workers through difficult change. Above all, the way UPDE reacted to the dramatic changes of its surroundings demonstrated its unwavering commitment to the National Park Service and to serving the public.