Toward the end of World War I, park rangers were sparse, creating the opportunity for first female park ranger – Claire Marie Hodges – to take to the forest. According to Heather Hansman’s article “Historical Badass: Claire Marie Hodges, first female national park ranger,” on Adventure Journal, a trail in Mariposa County was named after Hodges and her husband.
“Female park employees weren’t allowed to wear the same uniforms as men until the 1970s — they wore pillbox hats and dresses modeled after flight attendant’s uniforms — and even now, only about a third of park employees are women,” Hansman wrote.
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While women regularly work in national park lands now, Hodges was the leading lady who started working in National Parks in 1918.
