Social and Ethnic Dimensions of Historic Preservation

1. Social and Ethnic Dimensions of Historic Preservation

2. What narratives tell the story of America? The authors of the essays contained in With Heritage So Rich did not have imagined that the historic preservation field would incorporate such a broad story into the narrative of the nation’s heritage. Why? This oversight is due in part to the nature of historical study in the mid-1960s. The focus of history instruction was on military and political events and zeroed in on the achievements of national figures, usually European American men. Architectural historians of the mid-1960s who played a major role in the development of the legislation, focused on significant examples of academic style architecture.

3. African-American History The participation of ethnic and social minorities in the practice of historic preservation is a very recent goal of the preservation community. This is an uncompleted goal and reflects unfulfilled expectations larger than heritage recognition. The first sites recognizing African American who made important contributions to American life to came from Congress. 1. In 1943, in the midst of World War II, Congress added the George Washington Carver National Monument in Diamond, Missouri, to the National Park System.2. In 1956, as the civil rights movement was gaining momentum across the South, the Booker T. Washington National Monument in Hardy, Virginia, was added to the NPS.3. In 1962 the NPS assumed responsibility for the Frederick Douglass House in Washington, D.C.

4. The unexpected consequences of the Bicentennial in 1976 The political reality of inclusion of the need to include every community’s heritage became part of the practice of historic preservation professionals in the decade of the bicentennial (1976). This included: It did not include: Women Hispanics African American Gay and Lesbians Asian American Native Americans Rural Americans Others?

5. The pattern of participation of minorities has been slow and uneven The earliest forms of recognition came from creating national monuments or shrines to national figures with minority status. The reaction to the need to recognize diverse heritage communities led to a renewed emphasis on E Pluribus Unum – “out of many one.” The Civil Rights movement produced a scrutiny of government actions and agencies and a desire to see how they sought out, or cared for the minority. 1968. The Society for the Preservation of Weeksville and Bedford-Stuyvesant History in New York City. Founder Joan Maynard, became a national figure promoting African American heritage in the historic preservation field. She later sat on the board of trustees of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

6. The Delivery of Services Approach The federal and state preservation agencies call for surveys specifically seeking sites associated with ethnic heritage in the 1970s—that met the standards of the Historic Preservation approach. This agenda did not change the structure of preservation practice, but added emphasis to the criteria A & B. The 1990s the issue of representation in decision-making becomes more critical and attempts begin to recruit ethnic participation in the preservation. Recruitment tools to credential minority preservation professionals, including scholarships and internship programs fails to bring broader minority participation into historic preservation. Why?

7. Creating distinct programs with the National Park Service National Park Service, Cultural Resources Diversity Program created in late 1998. Heritage Matters is one of the publications of this program. The Stonewell Controversy. Increasing diversity in the staff of the National Park Service.

8. What are the goals of minority communities? Carl Westmoreland and Mount Auburn, is a neighborhood in Cincinnati Ohio. Model Cities Physical Planning Program organized the Mount Auburn Community council. To improve housing and a community spirit in its own residents. Mount Auburn Good Housing Foundation purchased and renovated housing, then either resold or managed as low-income housing. The goal was to maintain community. The continued resistance to the widening of public preservation Harriet Beecher Stowe House.

9. The Gentrification Blues Mount Auburn was still threatened, but not by economically advantaged young urban professionals moving in, instead the older concern that large institutions, the University or the hospitals would encroach continued to be a problem. Preserving Maxwell Street, Chicago, from living to tourism. The forces for change is the University of Chicago and their expansion of the campus.

10. Gentrification The process of higher-income people moving into a transitional area and restoring or renovating much of the existing housing stock; typically accompanied by the displacement of many of the existing residents and businesses because of higher rents or purchase of the buildings they occupy.

11. Conflicting values In the United States we have had a freedom to travel. The ability to relocate in new areas has been upheld by the Constitution. All of the inner city neighborhoods potentially protected are cases of continuing replacement of one group by another. If we define neighborhoods by ethnicity, would they need to maintain a certain level of ethnic population to continue certification? Would this lead to quotas, that have historically been most detrimental for the very ethnic groups that it would not protect. Would zoning laws in place need to be rewritten at the local and state level in order to include ethnic and social fabric questions? Would the court accept these new standards accustomed to basing preservation zoning on aesthetics, property values.

12. Multi-culturalism Multiculturalism relates to the influx of immigrants in the past forty years. They do not meet the conventional standards of history, but how should the preservation community be recording their initial adaptations? How can standards be adjusted to gain “cultural equity.” On Nov. 2, 2001 the principle of cultural equity as a human right was affirmed in UNESCO’s Universal Declaration of Cultural Diversity, which put defense of culture on a par with protection of the environment and individual rights.

13. Challenges to historic preservation Can preservation provide humanizing influences? Can preservation provide the context for “civic discourse.” Gentrification merges into questions about whose property is this anyway? Should the neighborhood be considered as corporately owned by the community, or the property of the residents who live there? Government has the right to condemn property under eminent domain, but Does the city have a right to encourage tourism into the neighborhoods, that increases traffic and invite through brochures people to look at the homes as public property? Without giving the “attractions” a voice in the decision-making is this a taking?