A Perspective Into Preservation

Before my freshman year in high school my parents dragged me to one of the most stereotypical family vacations that anyone could encounter: the great Washington D.C. The trip was thoroughly interesting, but history was never quite my cup of tea. The highlight of the trip was a haunted tour of downtown Alexandria in Virginia. Just the word “haunted” had sparked a wild interest in me to see one of the oldest towns in the United States. Thinking back on the tour, it is kind of hard to remember any of the botch ghost stories, but rather all that I can draw up is the atmosphere of Alexandria’s historic nature. Many of the roads and buildings still made up of their original brick. Many of the old shops still holding up old trades like candles, quilts, foods, anything of older character. So long ago and still I can remember it feeling as if I had stepped into the past. For the most part the entire experience was positive, still being the best part of the entire trip out east. I guess the fact that I could seemingly be apart of a time that was so far out of reach was so unreal.

It appears that there is a gimmick to the ambiance of what Alexandria was. What got my family there was the ghost tour, but there were so many themed shops and restaurants that a stigma was definitely present. Very much so, Alexandria deserves to remain preserved in all the most practical ways it could be, but the town is subjected to be a most odd display. It felt as if the tone of the town was leaning more towards a theme park rather than a museum or national park.

Women had the upper, more dominant, hand when it came to fighting for preserving the historical places of the United States. Government officials, who were all men, had little to nothing to do with the preservation system. This left everything up to the citizens. Male leaders didn’t feel the need to try to preserve, and with leading ladies such as Ann Cunningham there was a following of interest and passion. The whole idea was sort of domestic in a way, it was definitely not organized to the degree of government, but it held up. For me men had the opportunity to move the country forward, to expand, and this left little to think about the past. And since women weren’t given the equal chance to help run the government, they had to fight for things that were changing, things like buildings and places that had significance that was being overlooked. I feel the role of women in preservation is important to the fact that they began the process of motion. Even though the level women worked at was lower in the chain of command, there is a sense of honor that was accomplished through making the way up the food chain.

The idea of the National Trust of Historic Preservation was to begin preserving places and parts of cities and towns through the help of many different organizations. It began by creating the National Council for Historic Sites and Buildings and that lead its way to becoming the latter. The National Trust became this outlet for many organizations to seek out help and begin a process of preserving buildings or places or things their certain group was interested in. I feel this was a great tool to start organizing the whole system in preservation. Having people come to you, your organization, would give an idea to what the people felt needed to be preserved. It was a genius way to get committees to start the preservation process themselves, and a great way to overlook all projects to deem and help if needed.