Preservation and Me.

I did not have many experiences with preservation as a child, there were no visits to large national parks or civil war sites. We did not go on vacations, or even small excursions as a family often. The few experiences I can relate to the subject though, would be in the poor areas of the city where I was raised. My father used to take me and my siblings to the small nature preserve five miles from our house – he would tell us stories of the military equipment and activities that had gone on there before the preserve was formed. He would take us on long walks in odd areas, driving us to a set of railroad tracks in some obscure part of the city, and walk with us for hours, telling us stories of what the area used to be like, and what the railroad was used for way back when. After church on Sundays, the only time when the whole family was together, we would take long drives on Lake Shore Drive, where my parents would point out the different aspects of homes they admired, features that I can now point out using the appropriate architectural terms. Then we would drive to Peter Sciortino's Bakery on Brady Street, where my father would point out to us all the changes that had taken place on Brady Street since the 1970's. Usually we would go home and make lunch, then watch a movie. My favorites were the Indiana Jones' movies. My brothers and I would pretend that we could go to a place and dig up treasures; usually this consisted of us digging holes in the backyard. My parents encouraged this though. One time I found a bone that I insisted was a dinosaur bone. My father knew it was a cow bone, but he still took me to the Milwaukee Public Museum to ask a professional. Though my experiences were not vast in the eyes of some, the encouragement and spirit of inquiry I was raised with have fueled my interest in all things historical.

In America, the role of gender in the preservation movement was large. Women were generally associated with acts of preservation due to their involvement in garden clubs. In 1853, when the bid for government support had failed to save Mount Vernon from being turned into a hotel, a spinster from South Carolina named Ann Pamela Cunningham, organized a group of women to canvas the South for contributions and support. Their efforts paid off and Mount Vernon was saved. These women formed the Ladies' Hermitage Association and encouraged other preservation groups to form in America, led by women.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation was formed in 1949. After the Second World War, more and more Americans became concerned with the preservation of the country's past as a tool for education, a show of pride, patriotism, and fortitude, and architecture for aesthetic admiration. The government had no part in preservation before this, but preservationists after the war saw a “need for a national, non-profit organization to unite expertise and leadership with the preservation movement's growing popular support” (Murtagh, 25). Grass roots leaders in the movement were learning of others doing similar work in other areas of the country and realized they needed a centralized government agency to achieve their goals. In 1949, members of Congress were urged to sign the charter for the bill for the National Trust to pass, which it did, unanimously, and was consequently signed by President Truman. Though the trust was formed as an organization for the stewardship of property, it now has a diversity of programs regarding other aspects of preservation.

Murtagh, William J. Keeping Time: The History and Theory of Preservation in America. 3rd ed. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2006. Print.