This law gives the president of the United States the authority to, by presidential proclamation, create national monuments from federal lands to protect significant natural, historic, or scientific features.

The act resulted from concerns about protecting mostly prehistoric Native American ruins and artifacts—collectively termed "antiquities"—on federal lands in the West, such as at Chaco Canyon, New Mexico.

In 1902, Iowa Congressman John F. Lacey, who chaired the House Committee on the Public Lands, traveled to the Southwest with the rising anthropologist Edgar Lee Hewett, to see for himself the extent of the pot hunters' impact.

His findings, supported by an exhaustive report by Hewett to Congress detailing the archaeological resources of the region, provided the necessary impetus for the passage of the legislation.

[10] The Act was intended to allow the president to set aside certain valuable public natural areas as park and conservation land.

The aim is to protect all historic and prehistoric sites on United States federal lands and to prohibit excavation or destruction of these antiquities.

Protection of sites can include restrictions on mining, logging, grazing, commercial fishing, and hunting; known as land withdrawals, these are typically described in the presidential proclamation establishing the monument.

[11] The first use of the Act protected a large geographic feature: President Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed Devils Tower National Monument on September 24, 1906.

[16] The second time followed Jimmy Carter's use of the Act to create 17 national monuments in Alaska covering 56 million acres (230,000 km2).