Preservation: Independence Hall

Diana Lea has written, "The strongest initial impetus for preservation in America was the new country's conscious effort to memorialize the heroes of the Revolutionary War.  One of the first buildings to be preserved as a shrine to the Revolution was Philadelphia's Old State House, later called Independence Hall." (Stipe, ed., A Richer Heritage, p. 1)

Do you know why the Old State House was picked first?  The Marquis de Lafayette wished to see it.

A few weeks ago I had the honor of attending the panel discussion, Public History: Making 18th-Century Life Relevant to 21st-Century Lives, presented as part of the 2009 annual meeting of the East-Central American Society for Eighteenth Century Studies hosted by Lehigh University.  One of the panelists was Diane Windham Shaw, Director of Special Collections & Archives at Lafayette College, who spoke on "Retooling an 18th Century Hero for the 21st: A New Look at the Marquis de Lafayette."

The Marquis de Lafayette was a hero of the American Revolution, a protege of George Washington, and one of the young country's greatest fans. In 1824-25, the Marquis visited his adopted home, touring the country on his "Farewell Tour."  Cities in America outdid themselves competing to offering him the best welcome.  As Lafayette had voiced an interest in seeing the site where the Declaration of Independence was signed, the city of Philadelphia scurried to clean and refurbish the somewhat neglected building, bringing the Old State House to a condition worthy of being viewed by a man then held in extremely high regard by most Americans.

A few related links: press release for another Shaw lecture on Lafayette's Final Tour, Lafayette College's web site about the Marquis, a NPS document on Independence Hall.

Lived Reality

The syllabus for my Managing History class lists this week's discussion topic as "Preservation Politics." Professor Seth Bruggeman joked that he chose the terminology because he liked the alliteration.  Alliterative allegations aside, preservation is politics.  Individuals may chose to actively preserve a location or concept or object because they love it.  Preservation as a movement and a component of our society exists because of laws, policies, and court rulings.  The means and the ends are connected.  Diane Lea, in the intro to A Richer Heritage: Historic Preservation in the Twenty-First Century tells us, "Historic preservation has flowered and endured in the United States because the very concept incorporates some of this nation's most profoundly defining ideals.  The concept of preservation is built on a finely wrought and sustained balance between respect for private rights on one hand and a concern for the larger community on the other." 

Historically, fights for private rights have often been battles for private comforts.  Cathy Stanton, in her ethnographic study of public historians The Lowell Experiment: Public History in a Postindustrial City, explores, and questions, the balance reached in Lowell when park rangers take visitors "beyond public historical space and into the lived reality of the city."  Stanton's work explores many of the concerns of the larger Lowell community and the push-pull within both historians and visitors to reconcile realities of modern Lowell with their internal, middle class comfort levels.  

Stanton goes beyond and behind the scenes of historic preservation and education efforts in Lowell, Massachusetts to examine the perspectives, needs, and expectations through which individuals craft their realities within a postindustrial society.  By placing the ethnic backgrounds, class status, political opinions, and reasons for interest in Lowell of the public historians who work at Lowell, the visitors who take the Park Service tours, and herself within the context of a postmodern society, she exposes us to concepts not necessarily taught on the tour. (A few of these are Lowell's continued existence as an immigrant city that struggles with high poverty and unemployment levels, the dynamics of a community with clear local/outsider identities, and her contribution to discussions of levels of comfort within historic-tourism contexts.) White, middle class visitors and historians, posits Stanton, are seeking to connect with working class and ethnic roots while reassuring themselves of the safety of their own position in society and culture. Furthermore, public historians are concerned with the negative societal effects of capitalism, frustrated about how to balance discussing historic fact and modern realities without encroaching on comfort levels, and somewhat unaware of their own place as benefactors of a postmodern society via their employment in the creation of culture.  Is Stanton's concern that middle class needs for internal comfort mask the needs of the remaining members of an urban community relevant outside of Lowell? 

I recently received my first copy of Preservation, the magazine of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.  (It happens to be the September/October 2009 issue.)  Flipping through the pages, one finds an article on the first four-year academic program teaching the hands-on skills of preservation, highlights of preservation successes, and pages of tourism ads for historic destinations.  There's no discussion of economic concerns or urban worries.  Instead, there's information on a career path similar to those discussed by Stanton, with pictures of white, mostly male participants.  

Preservation is a fascinating magazine and has been a hit with everyone in my house, read cover to cover by all three adults and even perused by the ten year old.  Said adults do, however, exactly fit the demographic Stanton discovered at Lowell.  We are white, educated beyond the high school level, interested in history, and employed in postmodern service professions. Like many of Stanton's subjects, we are able to point to members of our families making the move from wage to professional labor within the last two generations.  Two of us are also representative of the "twilight of ethnicity," being several generations away from a clear connection to one specific ethnic heritage.  Reading Preservation makes me excited that we're saving building and skills and long to see these places myself.  It does not upset my comfort level or raise my curiosity about how my desire for preservation may affect the lives of others.  This isn't overly surprising.  Discomfort doesn't sell magazines, or memberships to cultural organizations.  Having stopped to think about it and look for it, I am a bit surprised that there isn't any (obvious) reference to political legislation or court concerns.  Is all quiet on the preservation front or does political intrigue not sell subscriptions, either?  

Stanton's book is a critical read for anyone interested in pursuing public history as a career or interested in social history of the 20th century.  Lea's article in a crisp, concise summary of the preservation movement in America, an excellent background for anyone who appreciates the phenomenon but may not know its history.