From Nature Guiding to Nature Interpretation in the United States (1872-1920). The origins of the professional practice of heritage interpretation, between protection and education

Born and raised as ‘nature guiding’ for visitors to North-American parks and reserves, the professional practice of heritage interpretation – as it is nowadays wellknown at international level – is analysed here by comparing the writings and actions of the founding fathers of this practice, particularly of John Muir (1838-1914) and Enos Mills (1870-1922), along with the thought and work of some contemporary American influential educationalists and educators. In order to shed light on the very pedagogical roots of this practice, the article aims to retrace, in the historical context of the time, the most crucial connections between the birth of ‘interpretation’ and the claims of educational renovation, especially embodied by the Pestalozzi’s object lesson or the Nature-Study Movement, claims which were emerging in American society and culture between the last two decades of the XIX and the beginning of the XX centuries.