In Energized Detroit, Savoring an Architectural Legacy

I have seen this article so many times in the past few days that I figured it’s worth a share here. It’s a glorious profile of Detroit’s architectural legacy and a wonderful story of a journey worth taking. I can’t wait to go and explore Detroit.

 

The Archaeology of a Rebellion: Reframing the Story of Nat Turner and American Society

A guest post by Laura Macaluso

Virginia is a state (technically a “commonwealth”) with a unique pedigree in American history. The site of the first permanent English settlement (Jamestown, 1607), Virginia can claim several things: more American presidents come from here than any other place; its historic houses are among the most visited in the country (Mount Vernon, Montpelier and Monticello among them); and the capital of the Confederate States of America was here (Richmond, mostly) as is Arlington National Cemetery, created out of Robert E. Lee’s home and property.

It’s no wonder that among these many events that literally changed the course of history, there are hundreds if not thousands more stories rising up out of the ruins of what used to be a singular version of American history. The 20^th century, with its world wars, nationalistic narrative and eventual heaving social changes, is no more—the 21^st century is about inclusive history: history told from the “bottom up” with emphasis on people heretofore neglected in mainstream history books. Further, the practice of public history places the research and writing and sharing of history in the hands of anyone who wants to participate. Public history is done far away from the Ivory Tower, and strives to connect the past to the present.

A recent headline-grabbing story from the ashes of American history is undergoing such treatment. It is the history of Nat Turner, known to most as the name in “Nat Turner’s Insurrection,” but unknown to most as a husband, father, and preacher, who was enslaved on plantations in Virginia.

Five Destinations in India with a Glorious Past to Explore

A guest post by Rohit Agarwalhe

All countries have a past, with a distinct heritage, and India is no exception. Sadly, several places in India with a glorious past have been almost forgotten now. These places had been the epicentres of monarchy and had the luxury to illustrate the lavish lifestyle. These were the devoted and the enlightened places where the grandeur of art and architecture could be witnessed.

India has witnessed civilization earlier than most parts of the world and has contributed an incredible amount to the world’s glory. The wonderful past of a few cities is listed here for travel buffs,  history admirers and culture enthusiasts to have a look and explore.

Strange Bedfellows: Indigenous People’s History and American Presidential Portraits

A guest post by Laura Macaluso

Last week two very different tours of portraits of American presidents were offered on the same day, in the same city: Washington, D.C., the capitol of the United States since 1790, when Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and Alexander Hamilton made their compromise (in, you know, “The Room Where It Happened.”) Only in the capitol city could two such different tours occur. The first was “The Brush Stops Here: Portraits of Presidents” at the National Gallery of Art on the Mall. The second was the Indigenous Corps of Discovery’s tour of “America’s Presidents” at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, a few blocks up from the Mall at the edge of Chinatown.

Everyone Eats: Food, History & Cultural Preservation at the National Museum of African American History & Culture

A guest post by Laura Macaluso

The Smithsonian Institution’s newest museum—and the last projected to be built directly on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.— the National Museum of African American History & Culture (NMAAHC), opened to great fanfare on September 24, 2016. Crowds appeared on that day and haven’t ceased; except for a handful of timed tickets given out every morning, the museum is sold out through the spring of 2017. The building, clad in a multi-tiered framework of intricate geometric patterns burnished with a bronze colored coating (the framework is actually aluminum, for lightness and durability), is juxtaposed against the whiteness of the Washington Monument nearby. Thus, the first monument built on the Mall (1848-1888) and this latest addition to the American story—elevating and celebrating African American people through the shared experience of visiting monuments and museums—continue to demonstrate how great places contribute significantly to the practice of public history and the preservation of culture.

Branding a Man, Branding a New Country: Abel Buell’s New and Correct Map of the United States of America, 1784

A guest post by Laura Macaluso

Preservation comes in all shapes and sizes. Adventures in Preservation focuses their partnership projects on buildings and historic sites both in the United States and across the globe, but heritage preservation also encompasses other forms of culture, such as archaeology, artwork, oral history, foodways, and landscape design, just to name a few. In other words, the practice of preservation is applied to all forms of culture and heritage, because all of these things need care and attention in order to survive and be useful to the present and future.

Library of Congress, North Great Hall Gallery, First Floor, Thomas Jefferson Building. Photograph by the author.

One example of a precious work of art and history preserved—in very fancy digs—is Abel Buell’s map of the eastern seaboard of North America, described by the Library of Congress as the first map compiled, printed, and copyrighted in a new country, called the United States of America, by an American. After seven years of war, the Treaty of Paris in 1783 between Great Britain and the revolutionaries made this so. Although today Abel Buell’s name doesn’t roll off anyone’s tongue, the display case built to preserve and showcase his map demonstrates its significance, and suggests that Buell deserves attention, not only for this hand-painted map—one of the first to show the “Stars and Stripes” (the flag)—but for his early American life, which could be the subject of a movie. How many other maps preserved in the Library of Congress were made by a man branded on the forehead for counterfeiting?

There are only seven known copies of this map and it only recently came to the Library of Congress—the largest library in the country, founded around a collection of books belonging to Thomas Jefferson—so the story of its preservation is also of note. When documents of “extraordinary significance” come to auction, these objects might be purchased by collectors for their private collections, never to be seen by scholars, let alone the public. But David Rubinstein, currently a leading figure in the preservation of early American history and material culture, purchased the map and placed it on view in the Library of Congress, which is located directly behind the United States Capitol building. Rubinstein, co-founder and managing director of The Carlyle Group and a philanthropist, is helping to change the face of many historic sites, from Monticello to Montpelier to the National Mall, by giving millions of dollars towards renovation and preservation projects.

Abel Buell Map display case, Library of Congress, North Great Hall Gallery, First Floor, Thomas Jefferson Building. Photograph by the author.

The primacy of the Buell map is seen when walking into the gallery—the map display case features the mapmaker’s name in large block letters lighted from behind and the case is placed at the head of the narrow Great Hall Gallery, which is itself heavily decorated with murals and inlays of marble. The Library of Congress describes the preservation of the Buell map and its “state-of-the-art” display case as: “This hermetically sealed, anoxic encasement was designed and constructed in collaboration with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to allow the Buell map to be placed on exhibit for an extended period of time. The encasement, tooled from a single block of aluminum and covered with hurricane-proof glass, enables tight control of the map’s environment, reducing its potential degradation by oxygen and moisture.” Purchasing the map cost Rubinstein 2.1 million USD, but there are high costs too, in the preservation of the map—this copy is considered in the best condition of all seven, but likely received a conservation treatment before being placed into the specially made case.

Rubinstein’s loan to the Library of Congress has made the map available for anyone to view and use in research—thanks to the digitization and online exhibit built around the map’s purchase—but it is also an indicator of just how hard it is for history museums to sustain themselves in the 21^st century. The New Jersey Historical Society owned the map for more than a century before selling it via Christie’s in late 2010, in order to help pay down more than two million dollars in debt. The story of the organization’s debt and sale of collections is not unusual, replaying itself over and over across the United States in recent years. In this case, New Jersey’s loss is the public’s gain, albeit with the knowledge that everything comes with a price.

Benjamin Franklin (designer), Abel Buell (diesinker), Fugio copper cent, manufactured in New Haven, Connecticut, 1787. Courtesy of the Yale University Art Gallery.

The Abel Buell map became the centerpiece of the map exhibit, Mapping a Growing Nation: From Independent to Statehood, with early examples of state maps filling out the rest of the cases. In this presentation, details of map designs are noted, but the men behind these maps remain unknown. Although Abel Buell’s map gets top billing and his name appears in lights, Buell is in the shadows. Buell (1742-1825) lived and worked in New Haven, Connecticut—a small port city with a balance of maritime trade, educational institutions and deep religious underpinnings. Buell’s map work was tied directly to his expansive entrepreneurial endeavors built on silversmithing skills learned as an apprentice. As a young man, Buell put these skills with metal plate and engravers tools to a foolhardy purpose: he was caught counterfeiting, and the punishment was branding, which was done at the top of his forehead. In addition, the top part of his right ear was chopped off (although he was then allowed to have it sewn back on). Despite this early calamity, Buell went on to create the dies (molds) for the country’s first copper cent, the Fugio, which was designed by Benjamin Franklin. Like many early American entrepreneurs at the beginning of the industrial revolution, he invented machines and tried his hand at a number of money-making ideas, but he died in the city’s almshouse.

Looking at the preservation history of one object, a map, allows us to travel back and forth across time. You can see Buell’s New Haven made map and many others from the earliest days of the United States in the online exhibit Mapping a Growing Nation: From Independence to Statehood.

 

Laura A. Macaluso, Ph.D. holds degrees in art history and the humanities from Southern Connecticut State University, Syracuse University in Italy and Salve Regina University. She has worked as a grants writer and curator in historic sites, museums, art, and park organizations. She held a Fulbright at the Swaziland National Museum in 2008-2009, and returned in 2010 under an Ambassador’s Fund for Cultural Preservation award from the State Department. She curated the exhibit “An Artist at War: Deane Keller, New Haven’s Monuments Man” and authored the accompanying article in Connecticut Explored magazine (Winter 2014-2015). Her newest book, New Haven in World War I (forthcoming from The History Press, 2017) was endorsed by the World War One Centennial Commission. 

Giving the Past a Future: Historical Preservation at Kulla Isuf Mazrekaj – Drenoc, Kosovo

Here’s a very thorough description of how Adventures in Preservation’s latest adventure went!

The Runaway Bunny

Like anything that’s been around for several centuries, the Isuf Mazrekaj kulla is finding that it needs to adapt in order to survive. These stone towers, potent symbols of traditional Islamic Kosovar culture, were particularly targeted during the recent war, and now only a couple dozen survive. The Mazrekaj family has survived warfare, regime changes, and economic instability, and so has their kulla, but now that Kosovo has found independence and relative stability, helping the kulla participate in modern tourism is the surest way to ensure the survival of the historic structure, and the prosperity of the family who have held it for three centuries. Adventures in Preservation, an American company partnering with Cultural Heritage Without Borders Kosovo, brought seven volunteers to spend two weeks working on the kulla alongside the Mazrekaj family, guided by conservation architects and local craftsmen. The result? A historically-minded rehabilitation of the 18th century…

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American Grand Hotels of the Gilded Age

The American Grand Hotel

Some of the greatest architectural treasures in American history were produced in the Gilded Age, including grand hotels, which would ultimately attract a certain social class and grand hotels are considered an American concept and invention. These grand hotels were built to accommodate America’s wealthy, and their construction coincides with America’s industrialism, and the expansion and growth of incredible wealth that was seen in the gilded age. These hotels were also meant to be efficient, well-managed machines that provided timely meals, clean rooms, and an attentive and inconspicuous hotel staff. These grand hotels were built to attract wealthy businessmen, socialites, political leaders, and even some unsavory characters.

Mount Washington Hotel, Bretton Woods, New Hampshire. Built 1902

The Rhythms of Life: Drenoc

One of our jammers’ impressions of Drenoc, where they’ve been volunteering for two weeks on the kulla restoration project.

The Runaway Bunny

As I write this I’m sitting in the communal living room of an 18th century kulla, a traditional Ottoman-Albanian tower-house, in the small historical village of Drenoc in the west of Kosovo. The “guest room,” as they call it, is a large elegant space in the top floor of the tower, with a perimeter of sheepskin cushions for sitting on. The floor is covered in red woven carpets, while the datk wooden beams of the ceiling add to the cozy atmosphere.

The shoes come off at the door, so we’ve all padded softly up here in socks and house slippers. Our hosts have explained that this room was the traditional cultural hub of village life – the place where disputes were settled, business deals struck, and marriages arranged – while Turkish coffee stimulated the mind and eased conversation.

This is where we’ve come to work for two weeks. The magnificent…

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Rock Me, Amadeus: How Mozart Helped Me Become a Rock and Roll Preservationist

A guest post by Sheryl Davis

Travel played a big part in my journey to become a historic preservationist specializing in rock ‘n’ roll landmarks. In May 2006, ten years ago this month, my twin sister Sherry and I decided to make a pilgrimage to the three music capitals of Vienna, Salzburg and Prague for the “Mozart Year,” a worldwide celebration of Mozart’s 250^th birthday anniversary. It was when literally walking in Mozart’s footsteps and hearing his music played with his own instruments in the places where he lived, worked and played, that I first realized how I might combine my interests in music history and architecture into a unique career path all my own.

Sheryl in May 2006 overlooking Mozart’s hometown of Salzburg, Austria, from Hohensalzburg Fortress (c. 1077)

I thought, while we do not have nearly the depth in years of music history or indeed architecture as European, African or other indigenous countries do, from those ancestral influences we have created many genres of American popular music such as rock ‘n’ roll, jazz, blues, country, gospel, bluegrass, zydeco, Cajun, soul and R&B which have arguably been some of our country’s greatest contributions to the world. Who’s to say that in 250 years, people will not want to see and experience the places that tell those stories, to have that authentic sensory experience just as we had during our Mozart pilgrimage? It was a formative moment in my life to be sure, and at that point my career path was set ablaze,

When we returned home I immediately set out to explore the field of historic preservation while remaining conscious of my specific interest in the places significantly linked to American popular music, especially rock ‘n roll, for which I’ve had an affinity since childhood. It led to an internship, field school, a graduate degree in historic preservation and now, approaching four years out of school, first efforts in documenting and preserving rock ‘n’ roll landmarks in the US.

Sheryl in May 2o13 at the “Honeymoon Cottage” at Elvis Presley’s Circle G Ranch, opening to the public this summer after an international effort to preserve it

Last month I accepted the position as Interim Museum Director at the Iowa Rock ‘n’ Roll Music Association (IRRMA) in Arnolds Park, Iowa. IRRMA, now nearing its 20^th anniversary in 2017, was the first state non-profit created to preserve its rock ‘n’ roll history and the first to induct its landmarks into its Hall of Fame. That pioneering legacy and vision for expanding the landmarks programming in the future is what really drew me to the job.

So as I celebrate National Preservation Month with so many others around the country, I will also be taking to Facebook and Twitter to celebrate this ever-important anniversary and hallmark year in my life and the composer who inspired it. Come join me!

Sheryl Davis is a historic preservationist dedicated to documenting, preserving and interpreting the architectural legacy of rock ‘n’ roll, and more broadly, American popular music. In addition to her new position as Museum Director at the Iowa Rock ‘n’ Roll Music Association, Sheryl provides consulting services for music heritage projects in the US and abroad. You can find her on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.