Stephen Mather
| Stephen Mather | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| 1st Director of the National Park Service | |
|
In office May 16, 1917 – January 8, 1929 |
|
| President |
Woodrow Wilson Warren Harding Calvin Coolidge |
| Preceded by | Office established |
| Succeeded by | Horace M. Albright |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
July 4, 1867 San Francisco, California |
| Died | January 22, 1930 (aged 62) Brookline, Massachusetts |
| Resting place | Mather Cemetery, Darien, Connecticut |
| Spouse(s) | Jane T. Floy (1893) |
| Children | Bertha Floy Mather |
| Alma mater | University of California, Berkeley |
| Occupation | Businessman Naturalist |
| Awards | Public Welfare Medal (1930) |
Stephen Tyng Mather (July 4, 1867 – January 22, 1930) was an American industrialist and conservationist who as president and owner of Thorkildsen-Mather Borax Company became a millionaire. With his friend and journalist Robert Sterling Yard, Mather led a publicity campaign to promote the creation of a unified federal agency to oversee National Parks administration, which was established in 1916. In 1917, Mather was appointed as the first director of the National Park Service, the new agency created within the Department of the Interior. He served until 1929, during which time Mather created a professional civil service organization, increased the numbers of parks and national monuments, and established systematic criteria for adding new properties to the federal system.
Stephen Tyng Mather was born July 4, 1867 in San Francisco, and named for the prominent Episcopal minister Stephen Tyng of New York, who was admired by his parents, Joseph W. Mather and Bertha Jemima Walker. Mather was educated at the private Boys' High School in San Francisco, and graduated from the University of California at Berkeley in 1887.
His family moved to New York, where Mather worked as a reporter for the New York Sun until 1893. During that time he met and befriended Robert Sterling Yard, another reporter, who would become a close friend. In 1893 Mather married Jane Thacker Floy of Elizabeth, New Jersey, with Yard serving as his best man. They had one daughter, Bertha Floy Mather. In 1906, Mather became the sole owner of the Mather family homestead in Connecticut, which had been built by his great-grandfather about 1778. He and his family used it during the summers and he regarded it as his true home.
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