CUSTODIANS OF COMMON GROUNDS: UNIFYING HISTORIC PRESERVATION AND ENVIRONMENTAL CONSERVATION, 1850-2011
Erica Lynn Hague
A Thesis Submitted to the University of North Carolina Wilmington in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts
Department of History
University of North Carolina Wilmington
2012
Approved by
Advisory Committee
Monica Gisolfi Kathleen Berkeley
T. Robert Hart Chair
Accepted by
Dean, Graduate School
Table of Contents
Abstract ...... iv
Acknowledgements ...... v
Introduction ...... 1
1. —Beginnings: The Nineteenth Century ...... 14
Early Preservation in the United States ...... 15
Role of Women in Preservation ...... 19
Early Conservation in the United States ...... 21
The Suburban and Outdoors Movements ...... 24
Case Studies: Creek Farm, Orton Plantation, and Poplar Grove ...... 27
The End of The Gilded Age ...... 34
Conclusion...... 37
2. – A New Departure: The Progressive Era and Beyond ...... 39
How Architects Changed Historic Preservation ...... 41
The Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities ...... 44
Environmental Conservation and the Progressives ...... 48
Tourism and the Management of Nature ...... 49
Creek Farm, Orton Plantation, and Poplar Grove in the Progressive Era ...... 54
Conclusion...... 62
3. — A Time of Peril Unmatched: 1920 - World War II ...... 64
The Automobile, Preservation, and Conservation ...... 65
The Great Depression, the New Deal, and the National Park Service ...... 71
Resource Rights and Dams ...... 75
ii
Case Studies ...... 78
Conclusion...... 83
4. — A Future With Greater Meaning: 1945-1970s ...... 85
The Rise of Automobiles and Suburbs ...... 86
Deurbanization and Urban Renewal ...... 89
Historic Urban Preservation ...... 90
Rise of Environmentalism ...... 94
Silent Spring ...... 97
Beautification and Environmentalism ...... 99
The Changing Use of Creek Farm, Orton Plantation, and Poplar Grove ...... 100
Conclusion...... 103
5. —A New Paradigm: The Past 30 years ...... 105
Urban Flight and Historic Preservation ...... 106
Conservation & Environmentalism in the Late Twentieth Century ...... 109
Development of Dual-Movement Sites: Creek Farm, Orton Plantation, and Poplar Grove ... 111
Creek Farm ...... 112
Orton Plantation ...... 117
Poplar Grove ...... 122
6. Conclusion— Where Do We Go From Here?: The Twenty-First Century & Beyond ...... 126
7. Bibliography ...... 131
iii
Abstract
This thesis traces national developments and presents local examples of both the historical preservation and environmental conservation movements from the late nineteenth century until today, including tensions and opportunities for cooperation between the two movements. Focusing on three case studies, chosen for their particular involvement with historic preservation and environmental conservation groups, this thesis explores recent partnerships that are emerging between these two movements on a local level and provides suggestions for the facilitation of future partnerships.
iv
Acknowledgements
I am indebted to many people who helped me make this happen. My first thanks go to my teachers, Mr. Jack Stoll who taught me to ask questions, Dr. Gordon Young who inspired me to change my major in undergrad, Drs. Michael Morrison, Nancy Gabin, and Michael Smith who made me at home in my new major, Dr. Sally Hastings for pushing me when I needed to be pushed, Dr. William Moore and Dr. Tammy Gordon, who gave me boundless opportunities for growth. I will forever be indebted to all of you.
Many thanks to my family and friends, my grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles who all supported me through this work, my brother Evan and his wonderful wife Jenna, my parents,
Mike and Becky, who supported all my decisions, urged me to dream bigger, and have always listened to my questions and hypotheses with the most rapt attention, my friends and peers who dealt with my craziness, and tempted me out of my self-imposed hermitage when I most needed it.
Special thanks go out to the countless archivists, librarians, and media specialists and library volunteers who I incessantly peppered with questions and who recommended many excellent books and resources, this thesis would not have happened without you; to the North
Carolina Coastal Land Trust, who hired me as a summer intern and opened up Orton Plantation and Poplar Grove while showing me what environmental conservation was about; to Will Abbott of the Society for the Preservation of New Hampshire Forests, who graciously shared much of his time answering my questions; and to Dr. Richard Candee of Boston University who shared his knowledge of Creek Farm with me.
v
Many thanks to my thesis committee, Dr. Hart, who took on the role of thesis chair and shared his time and knowledge with me, Dr. Monica Gisolfi, who graciously stepped into the role of reader and worked with me even while she was on leave, and last but not least, Dr.
Kathleen Berkeley who took over the position of reader, and gave me fabulous feedback when I most needed it. Even though I never had the chance to work with any of you before this, I feel very lucky to have had this committee.
Finally, I would like to thank my Aunt, Dr. Judi Jennings, who when I was little, showed me the world through her own travels, took me on adventures through her postcards, and has been a constant source of support and inspiration throughout my life. Regardless of your own work you spent countless hours working with me, time is such a precious gift and you have given yours so freely. You are an amazing woman, and have truly been a beacon for me to guide my life by.
All the merits of this work I claim for the people above, all the faults I must claim for myself. I hope you enjoy reading this work even more than I enjoyed researching and writing it.
---Erica “Iron” Hague
Spring 2012
vi
Introduction
In North America there are over 4,500 different historical societies and preservation organizations.1 It is more difficult to find an estimate of the amount of environmental conservation groups, mainly because of the myriad of different causes that groups under this umbrella heading endorse. It is likely, however, that the number is also quite high as there are over 100 organizations that have opted into the North Carolina Conservation Network alone.2
Both types of organizations have repeatedly called for building partnerships with each other on local, state and national levels, but have failed to follow up on this goal.3 Environmental conservation and historic preservation are sister movements, sprouting as separate and distinct movements during the mid-nineteenth century, but often nurtured through national policies as joint ideologies. The following chapters will trace the emergence and development of these important movements and the policies that shaped them at three sites. Case studies of Poplar
Grove and Orton Plantation in Wilmington, North Carolina, and Creek Farm in Portsmouth, New
Hampshire, contextualized within each chapter will exemplify the problems and the importance of cooperation between environmental conservationists and historic preservationists. These case studies were selected because they provide some of the few sites managed by environmental and historic preservation groups that have recently begun to work with their sister organizations.
Taken together, the overview of the movements and the three case studies reveal the challenges
1 Tim Cannan, “Welcome,” PreservationDirectory.com, http://www.preservationdirectory.com/HistoricalPreservation/Home.aspx (accessed Jan 5, 2012). 2 “2010 annual report,” North Carolina Conservation Network, http://www.ncconservationnetwork.org/documents/2010AnnualReport (accessed Jan 5, 2012). 3 The 1991 conference held by the National Trust for Historic Preservation officially put increased cooperation and communication with the environmental conservation movement as one of their major goals for the following 25 years, as seen in Antionette Lee, ed., Past Meets Future: Saving America’s Historic Environments (Washington: Preservation Press, 1992). Similarly, Conservation groups can be seen to be dedicating themselves to increased communication, such as the North Carolina Conservation Network, previously cited, which has one of their three major goals in their 2010 annual report as increased communication with likely and unlikely partners. that both historical preservation and environmental conservation face in becoming upstanding custodians of common grounds.
This thesis addresses key questions in public history such as, what can a shared history and common language do to help facilitate the cooperation of these organizations? When cooperation takes place between environmental conservationists and historic preservationists, does it result in adequate stewardship of historic properties? What can cooperation between these two movements bring to society? What are the benefits of working through the problems that naturally arise from such a partnership?
A special focus of these chapters pays attention to three case studies that illuminate the collaboration between the movements as a positive effort to encourage increased and improved cooperation. These three cases will be woven throughout the narrative of the growth of preservation and environmental conservation movements to show similarities and differences in specific locations and groups. Poplar Grove, Orton Plantation, and Creek Farm are three sites that have the interest and protection of both movements. While these sites vary in locale, size, and focus, they do have important similarities. All three sites have environmental easements, have been the focus of historic preservation efforts, and visited frequently by locals and tourists alike. While the use of the structures and land vary, all three places have found ways to preserve and make useful the land and buildings.
Orton Plantation, built in 1735, is also located near Wilmington, North Carolina, and was a functioning historic garden for the past several years, although a recent change in ownership has shifted the focus of the site. The North Carolina Coastal Land Trust holds about 2900 acres of this site under easement, and the Historic Wilmington Foundation has had a close relationship
2 with the property in the past.4 Currently the site is being reimagined by the new owner, Louis
Moore Bacon, who plans to revive the historic rice plantation and reverse the changes that were made to the forests, gardens, and house during occupation by the Sprunt family.5 Although the original house on the site was built in 1735, the house has been expanded several times throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, including a second floor, the iconic white Doric Columns, and wings on either side of the original structure.6
Poplar Grove, the main house of which was built in 1850 by the enslaved plantation workers, is located near Wilmington, North Carolina, and is a functioning historic house museum located on roughly 15 acres of land.7 The North Carolina Coastal Land Trust holds easements on the land surrounding the house.8 This guarantees that the land will be safe from the encroaching suburban developments that are pushing out of the city and closer to the historic house. The house is under the protection of the Friends of Poplar Grove, a group dedicated to the running of the entire site as a historic house museum that presents a history of southern farming before and after the Civil War. Even though the site has seen some development by its current owner, it still remains an active place in the community, used by both locals and tourists.9
4 Details of the size, location, and justification for this easement can be found in, Easement, Orton Plantation File, NCCLT, Wilmington, NC. A basic digital file of this information is accessible electronically, “Conservation Registry”, North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, http://ncwrc.conservationregistry.org/projects/18939 (accessed April 5,2012). HWF had held Gala events at Orton in the past, and in 2008 Orton and the Sprunt family were presented with the James and Rosalie Carr Memorial Plaque by the HWF. 5 The detailed plan for the site has not been revealed to the public, but the most recent release looks at these changes, Cassie Foss, “Orton’s Old is New,” Star News, March 23, 2012. 6 All these expansions were listed in the National Register Nomination, National Register of Historic Places, Orton Plantation, Southport, Brunswick Co., North Carolina, 73001294. 7 National Register of Historic Places, Poplar Grove, Scotts Hill, Pender Co., North Carolina, 79003346. 8 Details of the size, location, and justification for this easement can be found in, Easement, Poplar Grove Plantation File, NCCLT, Wilmington, NC. A basic digital file of this information is accessible electronically, “Conservation Registry”, North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, http://ncwrc.conservationregistry.org/projects/99784 (accessed April 5,2012). 9 The National Register listing has none of the currently standing outbuildings surrounding the house. Aside from the house tours that are conducted on a daily basis, the site is also used by the surrounding community as a farmers market on a weekly basis during the spring, summer, and fall. 3
Creek Farm, built 1887-1888, is located in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, is under easement through the state of New Hampshire, and under the ownership of the Society for the
Protection of New Hampshire Forests (SPNHF). The historic house sits on 30 acres of the original summer retreat of socialite Arthur Astor Carey, and was used to house the delegates of the Treaty of Portsmouth that ended the Russo-Japanese War in 1905.10 The SPNEF originally planned to demolish the house, but due to an outpouring of local support for the preservation of the building, the society decided to repurpose the building.11 The site functions as a public park, which is maintained with the money earned from renting the buildings on the site to Shoals
Marine Laboratory which houses student researchers on the site.12
The following chapters examine the developments and challenges of the historic preservation and environmental conservation movements since 1850. As explored in more detail in chapter one, the conservation and preservation movements began in the mid-nineteenth century, building grassroots support as more upper and middle class women became active in a variety of causes. At first these movements focused on rural places. Widespread natural settings, such as Yellowstone Park in 1872, and manor houses of socially elite men, such as George
Washington’s Mount Vernon estate in 1860, were among the earliest places saved by their respective movements.13 These early successes would become models for future conservation and preservation groups to emulate. In the period of national expansion following the Civil War, parks appeared across the nation, connected to major cities by rail, being developed into ‘natural’ oases from the urban sprawl, complete with hotel accommodations. Likewise, historic house
10 “Boston University Full Report on Creek Farm” (Presented to the SPNHF, Boston University, 2002). 11 Will Abbott, Interview by author, SPNHF offices, Concord, New Hampshire, May 11, 2011. 12 Ibid. 13 Carolyn Merchant, American Environmental History: An Introduction (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007). Patricia West, Domesticating History: The Political Origins of America’s House Museums (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press,1999), 29. 4 museums focusing on presenting American culture and tradition opened their doors across New
England in an attempt to instill patriotism and educate immigrants about the heroic forefathers of their new nation.14 Despite these movements having similar organizational approaches, and being run by people with similar socio-economic backgrounds, there is little evidence to suggest that they sought partnerships with one another in this formative period. This is most likely because of how the movements’ leadership emerged. As the nineteenth century came to an end, preservation and conservation groups included paid staff and held local and regional power. With the professionalization and politicization of historic preservation, women who had helped initiate the movement began to be steadily displaced from their positions as keepers of cultural heritage.15
Chapter Two explores how, during the Progressive Era, the conservation and preservation movements became more professionalized and gained new leadership. While the preservation movement gained the backing of architects, the environmental conservation movement’s utilitarian strategy was backed by railroad companies and important politicians, such as Gifford
Pinchot and President Theodore Roosevelt. With the creation of the Antiquities Act of 1906 and the National Park Services Act of 1916, the preservation and conservation movements were tied together with national policy.16 These ties would be strengthened with the beginning of New
Deal policies and programs.17
14 James Lindgren, Preserving Historic New England (New York: Oxford Press, 1995) covers several of these historic houses that were preserved by the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities. 15 Men had always been involved in Historic Preservation alongside women, such as the involvement of “superintendents” at Mount Vernon who worked the political angles that the lady “vice regents” often could not. After the nineteenth century though, less women acquired leadership positions in such organizations, and many women in such positions were pushed out by men. 16 “American Antiquities Act of 1906,” Title 16 U.S. Code, pts. 431-433. 1906 ed. ; “National Historic Preservation Act,” Title 16 U.S. Code, pts. 470. 1966 ed. 17 While not all New Deal programming was beneficial, even the negative programming (such as damming) brought local organizational leaders together to argue the negative aspects of the programs. 5
Chapter Three covers the Depression and New Deal years up to World War II. While the
Civilian Conservation Corps worked to recreate natural settings in parks, and build infrastructure, the Historic American Buildings Survey helped to document and preserve historic buildings across America. The environmental conservation movement built up its grassroots network, but became divided over the rights of resources such as water. The preservation movement continued to focus on preserving individual buildings, but widened its net to include edifices of architectural interest. Both movements enjoyed an increase in support from the populace. By the eve of the Second World War, the environmental conservation and preservation movements were inextricably linked through legislation but still operated largely in their own realms.18
Chapter Four shows how, after the Second World War, improved communications and increased scientific study changed how Americans saw and understood the natural and built environments. For environmental conservation, this meant an increase in battles over control of rivers, damming and an explosion of environmental concerns due to the run-offs of progress.
Americans, seeing the devastation of events outlined in books such as Silent Spring, began to better understand the impacts that convenient living had on their neighborhoods.19
Preservationists also saw a boom in interest as Americans began to see preservation of historic structures as creating permanence, which became important during this time of urban flight and
18 Major legislation that linked these movements is, the “American Antiquities Act of 1906,” Title 16 U.S. Code, pts. 431-433. 1906 ed.; “National Park Services Organic Act of 1916,” Title 16 U.S. Code, pts. 1-4. 1916ed.; “Historic Sites Act of 1935,” Title 16 U.S. Code, pts. 461-467. 1935ed. Despite these federal efforts to combine these cultural resources through legislation, local and state organizations remained largely separate until the late twentieth century. 19 Rachel Carson, Silent Spring (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1962). 6 urban renewal.20 Preservationists found themselves with a new mission of preserving historic downtowns as suburbia bloomed and cities were left to crumble.21
Chapter Five begins with the period after the America’s Bicentennial celebrations, a period marked by government malaise and increasingly radicalized groups. Preservationists realized that their scope needed to be widened and that buildings needed to find a purpose to truly be saved. The focus shifted from preserving individual structures to entire city blocks and communities.22 Environmental conservation moved away from the profitable use of the
Progressive Era, as well as the development of leisure grounds for the upper and middle class
Americans, and even moved beyond the beautification programs of the 1960s. Environmental conservation and new environmentalism became ideologically connected, but were distinct movements with different methods and goals. In more recent years, the preservation and conservation movements have begun to cooperate, since the long term preservation and conservation of some sites can be economically prohibitive, but the sites that these movements see as common ground are few and far between. Issues still plague the custodians of these inherently more complex sites, as teamwork is not always easily negotiated and stable monetary support is difficult to acquire.
20 While urban renewal did destroy many historic buildings in downtown areas, several cities (New Orleans’s French Quarter for example) used federal and state money provided for urban renewal to create surveys and management plans. For more on urban renewal see, Lina Cofresi and Rosetta Radtke, “Local Government Programs,” in A Richer Heritage, ed. Robert E Stipe (Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 2003), 117-156. 21 Urban flight during this time was known as decentralization or white flight, for more on the changing dynamics of cities during this time see, Jon Teaford, The Metropolitan Revolution: The Rise of Post-Urban America (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006).
7
Key texts shape the overview of the development of preservation and environmental conservation movements and frame the case studies in this thesis. Charles B. Hosmer Jr., cited as being the first to write a history of the historic preservation movement in America in his 1965 work, Presence of the Past, incorporated landscape preservation into the narrative of historic preservation pointing to purchasing of additional land surrounding the Hasbrouck House in
Newburgh, New York in order to “protect the site”.23 While Hosmer tended to mention in passing the idea of landscape preservation and cooperation between conservation and preservation efforts, this topic began to emerge as an important idea for the future.
William Murtagh, another early historian of historic preservation, dedicated an entire chapter of Keeping Time to landscape preservation, in which he points to historic preservations
“curious disassociation from its sister movement [natural conservation]”.24 Murtagh also acknowledges that efforts to treat the preservation and environmental conservation movements integrally have proven difficult, and points to a lack of cooperation and vision as the reasons for the failure of these organizations to work together.25 Murtagh’s contribution to this growing area is brief, only ten pages, but incorporates several case studies and landscape preservation theory.
Perhaps more importantly is how he links the theory and case studies into the following chapter on rural preservation.
Landscape preservation cannot be discussed without mention of John Brinckerhoff
Jackson, widely acknowledged as the premier writer in the field of landscape studies.26 While
23 Charles B Hosmer Jr., Presence of the Past (New York: G.P. Putnam’s sons,1965), 36. 24 William Murtagh, Keeping Time: The History and Theory of Preservation in America (New York: Sterling, 1988), 125. 25 Ibid, 125,134. 26 Jackson, of course, does not call himself this, but it is evident to books such as, Chris Wilson and Paul Groth, ed., Everyday America: Landscape Studies since J B Jackson (Los Angeles: University of Berkeley Press, 2003) as well as his lectures and books being in almost every historic preservation book. 8 most of his works are theoretical and based on case studies, his ideas of what landscape is, what purpose it serves, how people mold it to suit their own histories and purposes, are important, especially when thinking about what and why place should be preserved. Jackson takes Oswald
Spengler’s thought that, “landscapes reflect the culture of the people that were living there,” and refines it, finds evidence of it in the American landscape, and shows how Americans curate nature.27 While it is apparent that Americans are selective in what they preserve in historic buildings, it is less widely acknowledged that the natural areas that Americans have worked to preserve, have been selected, molded and modified for consumption by the public. Jackson sees this curation of the landscape as a natural activity for Americans who seek to create a community, and in the process alter the existing land into a landscape that reflects the culture of the group.28
Preservationist historians have worked to increase the cooperation with environmental conservation organizations in recent years. The 1991 conference for the National Trust of
Historic Preservation inspired a book entitled Past Meets Future, which identified the cooperation of organizations as an area to work on and improve in the next 25 years, ending in
2016.29 The essays from Past Meets Future are insightful, inspiring, and demonstrate that the gaps still hold true today. Murtagh contributed to this collection, and in his brief history of the historic preservation movement, notes that, “It is no longer acceptable in our country to intellectually, verbally, or physically separate preservation from conservation.”30 He also suggests that Americans should follow the lead of the British who, “use the word ‘conservation’
27 Oswald Spengler, Decline of the West (New York: Oxford, 1991); John Brinckerhoff Jackson, Discovering the Vernacular Landscape (New York: Yale, 1986); John Brinckerhoff Jackson, A Sense of Place, a Sense of Time (New York: Yale, 1996). 28 Jackson, Vernacular Landscape, 12. 29 Peter Brink and H. Grant Dehart, “Findings and Recommendations,” in Lee, 17,18, and 22. 30 William Murtaugh, “Janus Never Sleeps,” in Lee, 56. 9 to mean both the natural and built environment.”31 While this argument for the redefining of a term is a small one, it shows the importance of linking the ideologies of two movements that have been seen as historically separate, despite their shared goals and methods. Arthur P. Ziegler
Jr., also sees the failure of the movements to work together as a major problem and roadblock to the future development of historic preservation in his contribution to Past Meets Future.32
Others have continued this effort in their more modern histories of historic preservation.
Norman Tyler, in his introductory book to the topic, looks at rural and landscape preservation as fields that are still in development and refinement. 33 Despite his deft history of preservation, and brief history of the National Park Services, he largely ignores the ties to the environmental conservation movement. Max Page and Randall Mason likewise identify the need for bridges across the preservation/conservation gap, but they argue that many preservationists are clinging too tightly to their narrow views of preservation to do much good.34 Finally, Robert Stipe has also contributed to a greater understanding through editing A Richer Heritage, in which he includes several essays on landscape preservation that reiterate the recommendations in Past
Meets Future. 35 In his introduction he writes, “We must move beyond the problem of saving architectural artifacts and begin to think about how we can conserve urban neighborhoods, rural landscapes, and natural resources for human purposes.”36
On the environmental side there is less of a clamor to embrace historic preservation.
Environmental conservationists typically viewed buildings in natural areas as imperfections and
31 William Murtaugh, “Janus Never Sleeps,” in Lee, 57. 32 Arthur P Ziegler Jr., “The Early Years,” in Lee, 63. 33 Norman Tyler, Historic Preservation: An Introduction to its History, Principles, and Practice (New York: Norman, 2000). 34 Max Page and Randall Mason, Giving Preservation a History (New York: Routledge, 2003), 15. 35 Richard Stipe, ed., A Richer Heritage (Raleigh: Historic Preservation Foundation of North Carolina, 2003). 36 Ibid, xv. 10 usually removed them. Carolyn Merchant, in her widely used textbook, American Environmental
History, cites several examples of parks which removed all trace of the people who previously lived there, both American Indian sites and homesteads of rural farmers and woodsmen.37
Despite this desire to have idyllic, unspoiled, wilderness retreats, past park officials have also sought to develop their own places through which to experience nature, building a massive network of rail lines, hotels, eateries, and a multitude of other commercial necessities for the visiting elite.38 Many of these structures remain in the parks today, and most are considered historic.
Merchant offers important methods of managing nature that have been developed since the mid nineteenth century, including conservation, preservation, ecology, and also presents arguments over what the term environment entails. A term that seems so straightforward is not so easily defined. Merchant inspires readers to look more closely at National Parks as not only environmental areas, but also as curated places where nature has been altered to suit the current public.
While Merchant’s overview encompasses most environmental viewpoints and histories, it is important to look into more modern environmentalism as well. The Greening of a Nation, by
Hal Rothman, identifies the differences in the environmental movement in the Cold War era and beyond and tracks the influence of other social movements in the environmental movement.39
Other works that cover the development and importance of nature and National Parks to the environmental conservation movement, such as Selling Yellowstone are also important to note
37 Merchant, American. 38 While the commercialization of the National Parks will be covered in a later chapter, more information about the commercialization of Yellowstone can be found in, Mark Daniel Barringer, Selling Yellowstone (Lawrence Kansas: University of Kansas, 2002). 39 Hal Rothman, The Greening of a Nation?: Environmentalism in the United States Since 1945 (New York: Wadsworth, 1997). 11 since the influences that shaped the National Park Services plays a large part in how federal policy was created and adapted during different time periods.40
Public History and the Environment, edited by David Melosi and Philip Scarpino is perhaps the most important work that includes both preservation and conservation.41 This collection of essays is the first book that is inclusive of environmentalists, environmental historians, conservationists, historic preservationists, and public historians focused on the importance of the environment. Rebecca Conard’s essay, “Spading Common Ground,” effectively presents the differences and difficulties that face the organizations and block their cooperation.42
Despite the consistently stated desire over the past 20 years for cooperation, few partnerships have actually emerged. The case studies presented here, represent a few of the sites that are held by both preservationists and conservationists as common ground. These studies indicate that when cooperation between environmentalists and historic preservationists does happen, it rarely results in adequate stewardship of historic properties. This thesis will argue that the failure of these organizations to become upstanding custodians of common grounds is due to a disparity between the organizations because they lack a collective history and shared language.
While there has been a lot of talk about needing to bridge the gap between the environmental conservation and historic preservation groups, few articles and books have attempted to write their histories as a shared experience. This thesis addresses that gap and examines the development of these two important movements to contribute to building a stronger future for
40 Barringer, Yellowstone. 41 Martin Melosi and Philip Scarpino, eds., Public History and the Environment (Malabar, Florida: Krieger Publishing, 2004). 42 Rebecca Conard, “Spading Common Ground: Reconciling the Built and Natural Environments”, In Melosi and Scarpino, 3-22. 12 both. The case studies presented here provide examples of positive changes that are possible when collaboration exists between these types of organizations. When preservationists and conservationists know where we have been, then we will know where we can go together.
13
1. —Beginnings: The Nineteenth Century
“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.”-- John Muir, 191143
Historic preservation and environmental conservation emerged in the United States during the late nineteenth century as social movements hitched closely to the changes that were the hallmarks of modernization. This chapter will delve into how these movements were shaped by the rise in industrialization after the Civil War, what effect the emergence of the managerial urban middle class had, and why urban middle and upper classes women were especially important to the early historic preservation movement. It will also cover how urbanization and developments in transportation changed the way that people viewed nature and the environment.
During this period of expansion, as environmental historian Carolyn Merchant argues, changes in the national market economy meant that many Americans began to see nature as beneficial only for the wealth and status that the resources harvested from it could bring.44
Conservation, as the term is used today, developed from the idea to use and preserve nature, put forth in the late antebellum era by New England transcendentalists, such as Ralph Waldo
Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, and combined the need to preserve nature, threatened by the market economy, with the desire to use nature.45 Influenced by the Transcendalists, conservation then is the thoughtful management of natural areas and resources in order to preserve natural settings in perpetuity.46
43 John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1911), 110. 44 Merchant, American, 71. 45 Transcendentalists believed in the unity of all things, as such nature was valued as a part of creation. Emerson, however saw nature as a commodity for human consumption and progress. For more on Emerson’s ideals see, Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1903-1904). Thoreau though, believed in the minimum invasion and destruction of natural areas. For a contemporary biography of Thoreau and more on Thoreau’s ideals, see, Henry David Thoreau, Walden (Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1854). 46 While the wording of this definition is my own, the ideas expressed within this statement come from various sections of Merchant, American. 14
As this chapter will show, the suburbanization of the late nineteenth century both strengthened and challenged the idea of conservation. The increase in industrial manufacturing, improved and expanded mass transportation, which in turn led to the beginnings of the suburban growth.47 Upper and middle class families began to seek a way out of the mired air of the city, and sought out new homes in planned communities on the fringes of the city. These suburbs were connected to the city through networks of street cars and trolley lines, making the city, and the department stores that it offered, accessible. The city was no longer just the downtown area, but a sprawling conglomeration spurred on and made possible by technological advances.48
These suburban dwellers then, thrived through the conquest of nature, but secluded themselves away from the pollution that was caused by that conquest.
Early Preservation in the United States
These economic and social dynamics changed the status and use of buildings, and land, which embodied power and influence in the pre-Civil War era. The historic homes, manors, and plantations of socially elite men from the eighteenth century, many of which were originally on the outskirts of cities, began to be threatened by developers, speculators, and physical decay.
Places where former presidents and other men who helped to shape the United States lived or spent time became informal shrines, and impromptu picnicking spots. For example, Mount
Vernon, home of George Washington, inspired so many unwelcome pleasure seekers by 1822 that the owner at the time, Bushrod Washington, had a sign printed and posted warning away the
47 Kenneth T. Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985). 48 Ibid. 15 casual tourists coming by on steamboats that his farm was private property and picnics would not be tolerated.49
Since preservation did not become a widespread movement until the last few decades of the nineteenth century, some historically significant buildings were lost in the pre-Civil War era.
Prevalent attempts which failed to either gain popular interest or to raise enough money to buy the structures included the Old Brick Meetinghouse in Boston, which fell in 1808; the old
Governor Coddington house in Newport, Rhode Island in 1834; the Russell House in Brandford
Connecticut in 1835; and finally the Old Indian House in Deerfield Massachusetts in 1847. 50
These failures paved the way for future successes. Although some of these buildings had the support of a benefactor, it was not enough to result in a true, long lasting, preservation.
A few early attempts at preservation were also misguided, for example the ‘saving’ of the
Old State House in Philadelphia, better known as Independence Hall, in 1813.51 While popular interest and patriotism saved the structure, (with the purchase of it by the city in 1818), there were several arguments by city officials about how the building should be restored, leading to prolonged and often piecemeal restoration of the building.52 Public outcry against the renovations done by the city in 1824 prior to the Marquis de Lafayette’s visit of the same year, led officials to attempt to restore the building. The building was poorly documented, and there was not an accurate representation of what many sections of the interior looked like for the restoration of the chambers to be based off of. Workers eventually attempted to mimic the
Supreme Court Chambers paneling and woodwork, adding a misleading detail to the Assembly
49 Bushrod Washington, a printed notice, signed and dated July 4, 1822, Archives of the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association of the Union, Mount Vernon, Virginia (hereafter cited as MVLA Archives). 50 Hosmer, Presence, 29-34. 51 Ibid, 29-31. 52 Ibid. 16
Room. Other parts of the building were adapted to fit the needs of more modern city officials through the mid nineteenth century, until the city vacated its offices from the building near the end of the century. In 1897 the Daughters of the American Revolution stepped in to fund the restoration of the second floor, which replaced several original embellishments with inaccurate reproductions. The abuse of Independence Hall continued into the twentieth century as each new generation took it upon themselves to ‘fix’ the mistakes of the previous generation, each time ripping away more of the original fabric of the building. By having no long term plan for the restoration of the building when it was purchased, the city doomed the structure to constant renovations based on the whims of officials and the public.
While many preservation attempts failed, due to either lack of funds or an apathetic populace, these pre-Civil War efforts, by both individuals and local governments, set the tone for the success of later organizations. In the words of the report that saved the Hasbrouck House, in
New Burgh, New York,
“If our love of country is excited when we read the biography… how much more will the flame of patriotism burn in our bosoms when we tread the ground where was shed the blood of our fathers, or when we move among the scenes where were conceived and consummated their noble achievements.”53
This call to preserve places based upon their patriotic value would persist through the rest of the century, providing the rational for rural, suburban, and eventually urban, preservation. Buildings that were not fortunate enough to inspire the support of the local or state government usually fell to the wrecker unless a local group dedicated themselves to its cause.
53 Quoted in, Richard Caldwell, A True History of the Acquisition of Washington’s Headquarters at Newburgh by the state of New York (New York: Stivers, Slauson and Boyd, 1887), 21-23. The Hasbrouck House is known today as “Washington’s Headquarters State Historic Site,” and is the longest-serving headquarters of Washington during the American Revolutionary War. 17
In 1850, after years of effort by state officials, the Hasbrouck House in Newburgh, New
York was preserved and opened as a historic house museum.54 The Hasbrouck House was the longest-serving headquarters of George Washington during the American Revolutionary War, as well as the oldest house in the city of Newburgh, and the first property acquired and preserved by any U.S. state for historic reasons. In following years the land surrounding the site was preserved, and the size of the lot increased to erect a museum building on the site as well as a monument, called ‘The Tower of Victory’ to celebrate the centennial of Washington’s stay.
In 1856, a mere eleven years after Andrew Jackson’s death, the state of Tennessee successfully preserved The Hermitage, his estate outside of Nashville.55 Jackson was a hero of humble beginnings, not having an impressive genealogy or prestigious education, and this quick preservation of his home was a by-product of immense popularity and political success. The
Tennessee legislature allotted $48,000 to buy the houses and grounds, citing that, “it is good policy to… inculcate sentiments of veneration for those departed heroes…”56 The quick preservation of the site by an entity as powerful as the state proved beneficial, the buildings remained largely unaltered until 1889 when the Ladies’ Hermitage Associate formed and received ownership and control over the site.57 While this group was looked after by an all-male
Board of Trustees, the women successfully preserved several historic log buildings, one of which was a cabin the Jackson family had lived in prior to the manor being built.58
54 Hosmer, Presence, 35-37. The house was designated in 1961 as a National Historical Landmark. 55 Hosmer, Presence, 37. 56 Mary C Dorris, Preservation of the Hermitage, 1889-1915 (Nashville: Ladies’ Hermitage Association, 1915), 32. 57 Ibid, 14-17. 58 Ibid, 68-69. 18
Role of Women in Preservation
In the years before the Civil War, as the nation became more divided over the issues of slavery and states right, the preservation movement began to emerge as a cohesive movement.
Preservation moved from beyond the local community preserving a local building, to a wide network of individuals, linked through a highly mobile social network to preserve places they may have never seen before. One such example can be seen in the Mount Vernon Ladies
Association (MVLA) and the labors of Ann Pamela Cunningham. Cunningham, a tenacious woman born to wealthy southern planters, was in her late thirties when she first heard of Mount
Vernon’s problems. Crippled in a riding accident when she was a teenager, she was rarely considered an invalid as she worked within the accepted social boundaries to save Mount
Vernon.59 She found out about the threatening decay of Mount Vernon in a letter from her mother, Louisa Dalton Bird Cuningham, who, while traveling back to their South Carolina plantation in 1853, had passed Mount Vernon.60 Her mother lamented the state that the home of
George Washington had fallen into, pondering, “Why was it that the women of this country did not try to keep it [Mount Vernon] in repair, if the men could not do it? It does seem such a blot on our country!”61 This statement from her mother sparked a fire in Cunningham to save the historic house.
59 Diary of Benjamin F Perry, quoted in, Marion R. Wilkes, Rosemont and Its Famous Daughter (Washington: The Author, 1947), 5,17. I refer here, to her addressing all of her early media releases with the name “A Southern Matron”, ascribing to the belief that a woman’s name should never appear in the newspaper, excepting her marriage and death announcements. 60 Ann Pamela added the extra ‘n’ into Cunningham for reasons unknown, but her father, Captain Robert Cuningham, and his wife, Louisa, seem to have only one ‘n’. 61 Letter from Mrs. George W Campbell to Mrs. S. E. Johnson Hudson, September, 1897, MVLA Archives, ER IV, p. 1. Sadly the original letter does not seem to exist, which is very difficult for me to believe, but the author of this letter was read the original, and other claims by Ann Pamela herself seem to substantiate these claims. 19
For Cunningham, Mount Vernon, being in Virginia, a southern state, necessitated only the protection of “southern ladies.”62 Cunningham called first for southern women to band together, inciting support from both genders, including influential politicians such as former
Massachusetts Senator Edward Everett.63 Her cries were magnified by other women, such as
Octavia Walton LeVert who rallied other by writing, “…in this great world you [women] have your social duties, as imperative to your country as the political battles of your husbands and your brothers.”64 During the height of pre-Civil War sectionalism though, northern women wanted to become a part of the effort.65 Despite demands by several southerners to disregard the northerners, Cunningham embraced northern support as a method to influence the sale of Mount
Vernon, changing her addresses from “southern ladies,” to “the Daughters of Washington,” and reorganizing the association.66 She claimed that, “Woman, in her higher or better nature retained a sacred reverence for the Memory of Washington.”67 Despite the inclusion of northern women in the MVLA, sectionalism continued to brew, although creation of a national charter with equal state representation quelled some of the malcontent.68 While the MVLA was still very much an antebellum women’s benevolent society, it was immersing itself in the very politics that it claimed to be morally above.69 In seven years, Cunningham, with the help of several thousand women and men, from both the North and South, raised the capital to buy the house, and did so on the eve of the Civil War.
62 Ann Pamela Cunningham, “Letter to the Southern Matrons,” Charleston Mercury, Dec. 2, 1853. 63 Everett spent several years as a travelling orator, making tours across the eastern United States and speaking in support of Cunningham’s plan to preserve Mount Vernon. Manuscripts of the 53 papers that he presented can be found in the, Edward Everett papers, Massachusetts Historical Society, Reel 41, Vol. 194. 64 Grace King, Mount Vernon on the Potomac: History of the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association of the Union (New York: Macmillan, 1929), 31. 65 Cunningham’s call to preserve Mount Vernon was republished in several popular magazines of the day, such as Godey’s Lady’s Book which published several articles on the developments of the Association. 66 West, Domesticating, 10. 67 Mount Vernon Ladies' Association of the Union, and Ann Pamela Cunningham, To the Daughters of Washington! An Appeal for Mount Vernon (Philadelphia: Inquirer Print. Office, 1855). 68 West, Domesticating, 11. 69 Ibid. 20
Mount Vernon is an extraordinary case that has been explored in several books.70
Nevertheless, it is an important turning point in preservation history, because a private organization was formed with the mission of saving a historic structure. That this organization, comprised primarily of women, continued its efforts to raise $200,000 despite sectional issues, makes this an exceptional example of how important collaboration is to the preservation movement.71 After the Civil War, the grassroots movement of the Mount Vernon Ladies
Association became a guide for other groups rallying to preserve historic houses. These new organizations justified the preservation of new historic sites with patriotic sentiments prompted by the increase in immigration.
Early Conservation in the United States
The idea of conservation did not just appear from the industrialization of the mid nineteenth century. From the emergence of Jacksonian Democracy in 1828, and the market economy that it supported, environmental consciousness had been growing across the United
States. Transcendentalist writers were among the first to see the effects of the industrial changes, and writers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau expressed their feelings about industrialization alongside early environmentalists such as George Perkins Marsh and John
Muir.72
70 See, Hosmer, Presence, 41-62. Or West, Domesticating,1-37. Or Elizabeth R Varon, We Mean to be Counted: White Women and Politics in Antebellum Virginia (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1998), 124-136. 71 It is important to note, that efforts to save Mount Vernon had been brought up before Ann Pamela took it on as her own cause. Private citizens and Congressmen alike had, for five years prior to Ann Pamela’s efforts, been trying to find a way to purchase and preserve the structure. 72 While Emerson and Thoreau are strictly transcendentalists, and Muir is strictly an environmental conservationist, Walsh has his feet in several camps, as he subscribes to transcendental ideas, but advocated for practical and informed decision making when it came to the preservation or conservation of nature, because many times the benefits of the taming of nature would outweigh the negatives. 21
The early efforts of these writers were aimed at the preservation rather than conservation of natural areas and resources. They argued that these spaces should remain untouched and unused by humans. In Thoreau’s words, “in wildness is the preservation of the world.”73 Elite easterners began to think about the place of nature in human life.74 Environmental historian
William Cronon argued the role of nature was set in a narrative progression that can be seen in the artistry of members of the Hudson River School, which enjoyed a second generation of master painters from 1855-1875.75 In such paintings one can see the progression from the wild, to pastoral, and urban stages. These paintings, much like the changes brought about by the
Transcendentalists, were part of a culture shift from the market economy and rationalism of the eighteenth century to the romanticism of the nineteenth century.76 These paintings then depict not only the changes in the landscape, but their popularity at this time among the elite also stand as evidence of the increased interest in wilderness.
The conservation movement, found widespread support in 1852, when the “Mother of the
Forest,” a giant sequoia tree measuring 300 feet tall, was cut from the California hills in order to display it as a carnival sideshow.77 A popular Boston magazine, Gleason’s Pictorial, summed up the thoughts of many Americans when the editor wrote, ‘it seems a cruel idea, a perfect
73 Henry David Thoreau, “Walking,” The Atlantic Monthly ( Vol 9; 56, 1862), 657-674. 74 Merchant, American, 77. 75 Hudson River School artists were romantic landscape artists; The first generation was active during the early to mid-nineteenth century and included several painters including Thomas Cole. The Second generation ran from about 1855-1875 and was a period marked by increased prominence of this school of artistry. Pupils of Cole, such as Fredric Edwin Church, became celebrity-like and their exhibitions often drew large crowds to see the wonders of the natural world. Many of these paintings have been reproduced in, New-York Historical Society, and Linda S. Ferber, The Hudson River School: Nature and the American Vision (New York: Skira Rizzoli, 2009). More historical information on the Hudson River School can be found in, John K. Howat, American Paradise The World of the Hudson River School (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1987). For Cronon’s comments see, William Cronon, “Telling Tales on Canvas,” in Discovered Lands, Invented Pasts, by Jules David Prown et al. (New Haven : Yale University Press, 1992),45. 76 Merchant, American, 77. 77 United States, A Short Account of the Big Trees of California, Gifford Pinchot, (Washington: G.P.O., 1970), 13. The area that this tree was cut from later became part of Yosemite Park. 22 desecration, to cut down such a splendid tree.”78 This destruction of nature to fuel consumer speculation prompted a call by philosophers for Americans to think more about their influence on nature, and what role they should play in future environmental issues. James Russell Lowell, an influential thinker of the time, called for a society to preserve the forests in The Spectator,
“That is the best government for trees which governs least..." he wrote, "Nature knows better than any city forester."79
The forces of market economy persuaded businesses to use their power to influence government in order to increase their holdings and take advantage of land and resource rights.80
The Federal Government catered to these businesses throughout the mid to late nineteenth century, passing land use laws, such as the Free Timber and Timber and Stone Acts of 1878, which allowing for corporations such as mining, timber, and railroad companies to buy massive tracts of public land.81 These laws often ensured the continued destruction of natural resources, leading to many environmentalists arguing for private rather than public protection of sites such as Yosemite and resources such as the giant trees. These earlier acts were the impetus for later policy, at the end of the century, for the conservation of several large forests in national reserves, which would later become national parks.
Other prominent thinkers released books, such as Thoreau’s, Walden, which made upper and middle class individuals think more about the consequences of their actions and inaction.
“By avarice and selfishness, and a grovelling habit, from which none of us is free, of regarding the soil as property, or the means of acquiring property chiefly, the
78 "An Immense Tree," Gleason's Pictorial Drawing Room Companion, October 1, 1853: 217. 79 James Russell Lowell, "Humanity to Trees," The Crayon, March 1857: 96. For more on the ‘Mother of the Forest,’ see, Mark Neuzil and Bill Kovarik, Mass Media & Environmental Conflict (Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publishers, 1998), Chapter 3. 80 Merchant, American, 71-72. 81 Ibid, 69-70, 139-140. 23
landscape is deformed, husbandry is degraded with us, and the farmer leads the meanest of lives. He knows Nature but as a robber.” 82
Journalists also published travel journals and memoirs of travels west, such as the editor of the
New York Tribune, Horace Greeley’s, An Overland Journey, and Thomas Starr King, wrote an eight-article series on Yosemite for the Boston Evening Transcript.83 King wrote in 1860,
“How can I express the awe and joy that were blended and continually struggling with each other, during the half hour in the hot noon that we remained on the edge of the abyss where the grandeurs of the Yo-Semite were first revealed to us?”84
While these writings furthered the cause of environmental preservation and conservation, as seen in the 1864 protection of Yosemite through the state of California, these environmental successes are still the work of government institutions responding to public desires, and not private citizens or organizations buying up land. It was not until the later decades of the nineteenth century that societies, organizations, and associations would be formed by individuals to protect areas or aspects of nature.
The Suburban and Outdoors Movements
As industrialization created more upper and middle class families with disposable wealth and leisure time, these families began to seek places to retreat to; places where they could distance themselves from the city and escape the soot and smog caused by progress. Suburbs became the solution for many upper and middle class families to the problem of urbanization.
Accessible by street cars, trolleys, and later by car, suburbs emerged outside of major cities and towns as places for the moneyed to live within a comfortable distance of their workplaces, but
82 Thoreau, Walden. 83 Horace Greenly, An Overland Journey (Unknown, 1860); Thomas Starr King, A Vacation among the Sierras: Yosemite in 1860 (Book Club of California, 1962). 84 King, A Vacation, Letter Five. 24 without the squalor and problems of the city.85 Houses changed as well, as parlors were left out of designs in favor of larger family rooms, and large landscaped yards with gardens became fashionable. Country Clubs, such as the Cape Fear Country Club in Wilmington, North Carolina, opened in 1896, began to emerge and become popular, and bicycles started to be embraced by both sexes.86 These suburbanites were spending more time outside in sporting endeavors, and when local clubs and areas grew stale, they could always escape to their gardens, parks, and even the countryside.
Outdoor clubs and magazines began to be developed. In the words of environmental historian Roderick Nash, “Wilderness… acquired importance as a source of virility, toughness, and savagery—qualities that defined ‘fitness’ in Darwinian terms.”87 The earliest club, which survives to this day, was the Audubon Society in 1872. Named after the French-American naturalist, John James Audubon, the society was built with the goal to, “conserve and restore natural ecosystems, focusing on birds, other wildlife, and their habitats for the benefit of humanity and the earth's biological diversity.”88 With these goals in mind, several other clubs and organizations started to form.
The Boone and Crockett Club, organized in 1887, was a major conservation minded group, dedicated to preserving the habitats and stock of wildlife for ethical hunters.89 The club roster contains many important names, and it is no surprise that they played an integral role in
85 Kenneth Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier, 118-119. 86 Diane Cobb Cashman, A History of the Cape Fear Country Club, 1896-1984 (Wilmington, N.C.: Cape Fear Country Club, 1987). 87 Roderick Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind (New Haven: Yale Nota Bene, 2001), 145. 88 “Audubon Mission Statement,” National Audubon Society, http://www.audubon.org/about-us (accessed Jan 10, 2012). 89 The term “ethical hunters” defines the club members as sportsmen who wished to ensure the longevity of the species of wildlife that they hunted. In this way they sought the management of wildlife and nature through environmental conservation to protect their own interests and hobbies. 25
the creation of the National Parks. Many of the original members were elite easterners, such as
Theodore Roosevelt, General William Tecumseh Sherman, and Gifford Pinchot, coming from
urban centers such as New York, Philadelphia, and Washington DC, although the club was
headquartered in Montana and most of the lands that they frequented were in the West.90 The
club’s mission was, “… to promote the conservation and management of wildlife, especially big
game, and its habitat, to preserve and encourage
hunting and to maintain the highest ethical standards
of fair chase and sportsmanship in North America.”
91 To this end they became a major influence in
making conservation appear on the federal agenda.
Magazines also focused on outdoor pursuits
and conservation. Sports Afield is possibly the oldest
outdoor magazine, first published in 1887, and was
followed with Field & Stream in 1895 and Outdoor
Life in 1898. These three magazines, delivered the
great and grand outdoors to mailboxes across the
country. Soon families were buying camping
supplies from the expanding department store
catalogues, and catching trains to rural areas to
90 George Bird Grinnell, ed., American Big Game in Its Haunts: The Book of the Boone and Crockett Club (1904), Figure Part1-A Sears,6. Roebuck and Co., Spring 1896, p 499 91 Language adapted from the, “Certificate of Incorporation of the Boone and Crockett Club,” May 23, 1923, Washington, D.C., as presented by Theodore Roosevelt, Charles Sheldon, Kermit Roosevelt, George Bird Grinnell, et al. 26 experience nature.92 One such family sought a retreat from the bustle of Boston at Creek Farm in
Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
Case Studies: Creek Farm, Orton Plantation, and Poplar Grove
Situated on the coast, 60 miles from Boston, Massachusetts, Portsmouth was a perfect place for elite Bostonians to retreat and build their summer homes. In 1888 Arthur Astor Carey who had recently purchased the Creek Farm area, employed his former Harvard schoolmate,
Alexander Wadsworth “Waddy” Longsfellow to design and build the shingle style colonial revival summer home along the Little Harbor area along Sagamore Creek.93 The original part of the house, seen in figure 1-B above, was completed in 1889 and additional wings were put on around 1890 to accommodate Carey’s interest in music and for housing guests as seen in figure
1-C.94
Figure 1-B Creek Farm c. 1888 Figure 1-C Creek Farm in 2011 Photo courtesy of SPNHF Archives Photo by Erica Hague
92 Sears’ Spring 1896 catalogue has an entire section dedicated to sporting and outdoors goods, which includes firearms, rods and fishing tackle, clothing, sports gear, hammocks, tents, and other outdoor equipment.p453- 505. See figure 1-A. 93 “Boston University Full Report on Creek Farm” (Presented to the SPNHF, Boston University, 2002). 94 Karen Davis, "Arthur Astor Carey, A Man of Wealth in Colonial Revival New England" (Unpublished Seminar Paper, Boston University, 1995), SPNHF Archives. 27
Carey wasted no time in occupying his new abode, and although the structure had a studio for him to paint in, he found hobbies to justify expansion of the house. With a reputation as a dabbler, Carey’s artistic thread took a musical turn and Longfellow indulged his friend by designing additions for the original house to allow for a music room.95 Molly Coolidge Perkins, who was a summer neighbor during her childhood, remembered that, “[Carey] soon decided that he would never paint well, and would become a musician; so he bought a fine cello and had a large music room added to his house. He soon decided that his ear was not true enough to play in tune, and hung his cello on the wall.”96 Although he did not seem to have practiced music for very long, it was in the music room, dining room, and gardens that the Carey family entertained other prominent families, thinkers, and artists of this summer community.97 Alida Carey Gulick, born in 1893 remembered watching guests arriving from upstairs, “The ladies, friends of our family, summering, as we were, in the neighborhood, in elegant décolletage, the gentlemen in white tie and tail.”98
Figure 1-D Map of Little Harbor Figure 1-E Detail of Music Room SPNHF Archives SPNHF Archives
95 “Boston University Full Report on Creek Farm” (Presented to the SPNHF, Boston University, 2002). 96 Mary Coolidge Perkins, Once I was Very Young (Portsmouth: Peter E. Randall, 1960), 58. 97 Cottage is known to have housed and entertained the Russian and Japanese Diplomats, as well as President Theodore Roosevelt from the Portsmouth Peace Treaty of 1904 that ended the Russo-Japanese War. 98 Alida Carey Gulick (1893-1983),Unknown interviewer, transcript, SPNHF Archives. 28
Carey’s choice location was not surprising, given the setting, scenery, and neighbors. The
Portsmouth area has been continually settled since the 1600s, and the peninsula of land called
Little Harbor was no exception with its waterfront views. Carey and his brother had originally bought Creek Farm for twenty-five hundred dollars in 1887.99 Formerly a working farm, the land had fair prospects and was rural enough to be quiet, but close enough to good roads and railways to be convenient. Nearby neighbors were also from the upper class and some, like J.
Templeman Coolidge who owned the nearby Wentworth Mansion, were college classmates.100
Carey continued to buy up surrounding land in the Little Harbor area, expanding his property to include land on both sides of the peninsula.101 Creek Farm was meant to be a summer home for the Carey family as well as an artist retreat, a place to relax, be inspired, and restore the spirits.
A patron of the arts and craft movement, Carey and his neighbors at Little Harbor were not alone in their pursuit of a summer home. They were some of many prominent men who took part in the Summer Home Movement in New Hampshire. This movement was led by the state in order to repurpose abandoned farm land. Due to the industrialization and urbanization that was sweeping the nation, several farms in New Hampshire were abandoned by their owners.102 The state advertised these areas as prime real estate for the elite to build summer bungalows and escape the city.103 New Hampshire natives and out-of-towners responded to the call and soon retreats like Creek Farm dotted the sea and country side of New Hampshire.
99 Deed Book, New Hampshire, Rockingham co., Book 0502, Page 0453, 0455. Sept 13, 1887. 100 The Little Harbor area became a hot spot for Elite Bostonians, summer residents included historian Francis Parkman, author Barrett Wendell, poet Edmund Clarence Stedman, philosopher John Albee, Architecht R. Clipston Sturgis, and artist Edmund Tarbell. Frequent visitors to the house in the area were Sumner Appleton and Barrett Wendell. New Hampshire Division of Historical Resources, Inventory Form for Creek Farm. 101 For instance, Deed Book, New Hampshire, Rockingham co., Book 0532, Page 175, July 25, 1892. Carey paid Sturgis $4,000 for about 36 acres of land. 102 “Topics of the Times: No More Abandoned Farms in New Hampshire,” The American Agriculturist 53 (June 1894), 358. 103 Ibid. 29
Figure 1-F Orton Plantation, circa 1840-1890, Courtesy of the North Carolina Department of Archives and History
Although built much earlier than Creek Farm, Orton Plantation in North Carolina was also shaped by the late nineteen century preservation movement, nestled in the woods, along the banks of the Cape Fear River in North Carolina, Orton Plantation is similar to Creek Farm in several aspects. Although the first floor of the house was built much earlier, a claim of its original brick structure being built in 1735, the house was expanded in 1840 to the two and a half story Colonial and Greek Revival house with iconic fluted Doric Columns.104 Originally built by the prominent Moore family, who came to the Cape Fear area to find new rice fields, Orton was a thriving rice plantation prior to the Civil War.105 After the Civil War, the house fell through several hands until it was bought in 1884 by a former Confederate officer, Colonel Kenneth
MacKenzie Murchison, who in the spirit of historic preservation, restored the house and used it as his winter retreat until his death in 1904.106
104 James Sprunt, Chronicles of the Cape Fear River: Being Some Account of Historic Events on the Cape Fear River (Raleigh: Edwards & Broughton printing company, 1914), 40. 105 Ibid. 106 Ibid, 348-349. 30
Post-Civil War Orton was very similar to Creek Farm. Both were former agricultural areas, used as seasonal retreats by the wealthy elite. Murchison was a Cape Fear native, born near Fayetteville, North Carolina, who had worked in New York for several years as a businessman before returning South to support the Confederacy.107 When he bought Orton
Plantation, he combined his business pursuits, investing in banks, hotels, building supplies, insurance and real estate, with his love of outdoors. One of his great joys in life was hunting, and he owned prime hunting areas across North Carolina.108 Orton Plantation served as one of his hunting grounds, the expansive forest that was once used to harvest naval stores and timber, now played host to game.109 The “primeval forests” were saved from the local naval store industry and timber mills during Murchinson’s life.110
Orton also hosted the local elite community, albeit on a smaller scale than Creek Farm.
Murchison was an older man, and although he entertained local elite frequently, his pursuits were more solitary than that of the Careys of Creek Farm. Family and friends were repeatedly invited to the grand plantation house, and although they may not have been entertained musically by their host, the wildlife in the garden and grounds undoubtedly proved entertaining. Sprunt notes in his Chronicles of the Cape Fear River that many species of wildlife sought refuge in the waterways and forests surrounding the home, suggesting that the area was not just populated by game but also by rare birds.111
107 Sprunt, Chronicles, 348. 108 Ibid. 109 Ibid. 110 Ibid. Murchison’s Son-in-law, Dr. James Sprunt, used this term to refer to the forest. 111 Ibid, 62. 31
Figure 1-G Poplar Grove Plantation House Photo by Erica Hague, 2011 Poplar Grove, also outside of Wilmington, deviated from the pattern set forth by Creek
Farm and Orton Plantation. Located farther away from the waterfront, this plantation house built in 1850 by Joseph Mumford Foy continued to function in its agricultural capacity after the Civil
War.112 James Foy Jr. originally bought the 628 acre plantation from Francis Clayton, secretary of the Wilmington Committee of Safety, in 1795.113 The plantation produced mostly peanuts, although it grew several different crops.114 The house currently on the site was built around 1850 by James’s son Joseph Foy after the original manor house burned in 1849.
The Poplar Grove Plantation Manor is a two and one-half story, twelve room, Greek revival style house.115 The house was built near the plank road that ran alongside the railroad, and which is now part of US-17.116 A significant feature of the house is the basement, which is accessible from the back, but invisible from the front. The inclusion of a basement not only expands working space in the house, but also reflects a style and layout that was found in
112 Friends of Poplar Grove, “About Us,” Poplar Grove Plantation, http://poplargrove.com/About_Us.htm (accessed January 10, 2012). 113 “Plantation Opens Thursday,” Wilmington Star News, April 5, 1980. John Moore, History of North Carolina, (Raleigh: Alfred Williams &co, 1880), 184. 114 Poplar Grove Foundation, “About Poplar Grove Plantation,” Poplar Grove Foundation, www.poplargrove.com (accessed October 3, 2010). 115 National Register of Historic Places, Poplar Grove, Scotts Hill, Pender Co., North Carolina, 79003346. 116 Poplar Grove House Tour by volunteer, July 20, 2010. 32
Wilmington during the mid-nineteenth century.117 The house follows typical styles of the period; two parlors a living room and a dining room make up the main floor, while bedrooms occupy the top floor. The basement was originally used as a kitchen and for indoor workspace.118
The house was built almost entirely from plantation grown or made products. The heart- pine that was used to frame and build the house was chosen expressly for that purpose by Joseph
Foy from his timber holdings; enslaved Africans made the bricks used in the building on-site.119
The plantation had sixty four slaves before the Civil War.120 Inside too, enslaved African craftsmen carved molds by hand which were used to make plaster and horsehair castings to be placed around the interior of the house.121
Joseph T. Foy, son of the original builder, continued to operate the family plantation after the Civil War and cultivated peanuts instead of the more typical cotton or tobacco.122 The Foys were an important family in the community to be sure. Poplar Grove served as the local postal pickup point for several years, and the family frequently hosted social functions at the plantation house.123 The family also ascribed to the social responsibilities of the time by becoming involved in local welfare efforts, donating to several nearby churches.124 However, the function of this site did not change like Orton Plantation and Creek Farm. The Foys continued to plant peanuts after the war, with the help of their former slaves turned sharecroppers.
117 Ruth Little-Stokes, "The North Carolina Porch: A Climatic and Cultural Buffer," in Carolina Dwelling, Doug Swaim ed., (Raleigh: North Carolina State University, 1978), 109. 118 House Tour, July 20, 2010. 119 National Register of Historic Places, Poplar Grove, Scotts Hill, Pender Co., North Carolina, 79003346. 120 Ibid. 121 House Tour, July 20, 2010. 122 Ibid. 123 Ibid. 124 Ibid. 33
The End of The Gilded Age
Untouched land was becoming increasingly scarce in the United States as a result of the economic growth and territorial expansion of the nineteenth century. In 1893 Fredrick Jackson
Turner published his, now famous, frontier thesis. Because of decades of Manifest Destiny and thousands of citizens seeking a new life and land, the West was widely settled and cultivated, with a population density of roughly two people per square mile.125 This increase of population came as a shock to many of the easterners who spent their free time in the ‘wilderness.’ Turner’s thesis, paired with the urging of other environmental advocates, like George Perkins Marsh, made society aware of the boundaries of the nation, and the need for wiser uses of land and resources. Marsh himself urged settlers to “become a co-worker with nature in the reconstruction of the damaged fabric… [to] aid her in re-clothing the mountain slopes with forests….”126 Newly published journals echoed these sentiments as well, creating a surge of literature and outlets for scholars and advocates. The ideology and the importance of nature was changing in the United
States.
Preservation, which had thrived during the nineteenth century under women’s advocacy, became a more masculine endeavor as the century turned and their importance increased. As the last decade of the nineteenth century closed, men began to take over the leadership of wide ranging preservation organizations in a burst of professionalization. Pre-existing house museums, running mostly with volunteer crews, continued to be run and protected by ladies organizations, but larger societies that focused on multiple buildings in a region began to emerge and take
125 Frederick Jackson Turner, The Frontier in American History (New York: Henry Holt and Co, 1921). 126 George P. Marsh, Man and Nature, or, Physical Geography As Modified by Human Action (New York: C. Scribner, 1864), 35. 34 over.127 The focus of these men remained patriotic, but began to include architectural details due in part to the need to justify the worth of old buildings not owned by prominent people. More efforts were made to not only preserve the historic houses, but to scrape away the modern changes to the buildings in an effort to return them to their original condition.128 In many instances, this meant large scale demolition of additions and a reimagining of what the original structure looked like based on journals, sketches and other existing buildings. This was the case for the Paul Revere House in Boston.
This scrape ideology of restoration is not indigenous to the United States, having been first endorsed by Eugene Emmanuel Viollet-Le-Duc. A French theorist and Gothic-revival architect, believed that, “To restore a building is not only to preserve it, to repair it, or to rebuild, but to bring it back to a state of completion such as may never have existed at any given moment.”129 Viollet-Le-Duc’s methods were questioned and there were critics of his work. Paul
Leon argued that, “To pretend to restore it to its original state is dangerous and deceitful; we must preserve buildings as they are, respecting the contribution of successive generations.”130
Similarly, Englishman John Ruskin argued for the preservation of structures and not the restoration of them into what they once were, he wrote, “The greatest glory of a building is not in
127 The first multi-structure organization that emerged as a competent protector of properties was the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities (APVA) known today as Preservation Virginia. Founded in 1889 to protect properties across the state of Virginia. Today they hold over 160 properties. It is interesting to note, that this first widespread organization sprouted from the same state that saw the first successful preservation, that of Mount Vernon by the MVLA a scant thirty years or so before. For more information about the history of Preservation Virginia see, James Lindgren, Preserving the Old Dominion Historic Preservation And Virginia Traditionalism (Charlottesville: UVA Press, 1993). 128 Such would be the case for turn-of-the-century restorations at Independence Hall in Pennsylvania and the Paul Revere house in Boston. See James Lindgren, Preserving. 129 Quoted in, Tyler, Historic Preservation, 19. 130 Quoted in, Norman Williams Jr., Edmund H. Kellogg, and Frank B. Gilbert, Readings in Historic Preservation (New Brunswick, N.J.: Center for Urban Policy Research, 1983), 16. 35 its stones, or in its gold. Its glory is in its Age.”131 To Ruskin, the very idea of restoration was a
“…lie from beginning to end.”132 These philosophies would be put into practice and debated by preservationists in the twentieth century and are still debated in preservation circles today. While the historic preservation movement in the United States developed on its own, it was influenced, at least in part, by the European movement.
The historic preservation continued to be largely ignored by the United States government throughout the nineteenth century. The federal government did not perceive the acquisition of historic sites as one of its role. While a slight breakthrough was made in 1889 with the designation of Casa Grande, Arizona, a historic Native American structure, as the nation’s first national monument, little was actually done with the $2,000 allotted for the protection of the site, except for the construction of a giant pavilion type structure to cover the ruins.133 These ruins, some of which date back to the fourteenth century, were prone to demolition and looting by passing settlers. Nearby Mesa Verde was also discovered in 1888, although the government would not step up to protect the cliff dwellings until the early twentieth century. While these are admittedly conflicted examples, since the government at this time was dedicated to the eradication of Native Americans from these and other nearby areas, they are the closest examples of historic structures that the federal government made commitments to protect.
The conservation field fared slightly better than its sibling, preservation. Land use had been a topic near and dear to the hearts of politicians for years, due to the economic gains that could be made through development. During the late nineteenth century, major strides were
131 John Ruskin, “The Lamp of Memory,” in The Seven Lamps of Architecture (London: Hazell, Watson, and Viney, 1891), 353, 339. 132 Ibid, 185. 133 Aside from the construction of this massive shade, little or no policing of the site was done to prevent removal of artifacts. For more on the early Mesa Verde preservation efforts, see Tyler, Historic Preservation, 35-36. 36 made by the federal government to conserve natural areas. Yellowstone National Park was first designated as a protected area by the government in 1872 as a tri-state natural area. Efforts by the federal government to obtain and protect Civil War battlefields were also begun around this time.
These battlefields, many of which were originally open farm-land or countryside, were not meant to become pastoral pleasure grounds and parks, but instead left to remain the way they were at the time of the battle to honor those who died there.134 While the Federal Government was not yet creating a policy or new service branch to manage these areas, they were beginning to think about what these places would mean for the future, how these sites could be misused, and the opportunities that they might have for developing these sites in a way that would benefit the public and the government. As the nineteenth century and the American frontier came to a close, the preservation and conservation movements redoubled their efforts to seek out new groups to enfranchise, find new sources of income, and find political benefactors in order to be successful.
Conclusion
For preservation, the mid and late nineteenth century was a period of grassroots development. After the Civil War, through failures and successes, middle and upper class supporters of preservation discovered what arguments worked with the populace or federal government and exploited their social ties to obtain their goals.135 The increased leisure time that middle and upper class women enjoyed during the second half of the century enabled them to play a leading role in the development of the preservation movement and helped to widen the role of women in areas outside of their own home. Although many of the places that were saved
134 Timothy B. Smith, The Golden Age of Battlefield Preservation: The Decade of the 1890s and the Establishment of America's First Five Military Parks (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2008). 135 The ladies groups were especially good at this, and seem to have flung the names of esteemed local ladies with gusto, often with the express consent of the ladies who owned the names. They also went door to door soliciting donations. For more details see, Varon, We Mean To Be, 128-130. 37 during this time were shrines to heroic national figures, this narrow reasoning to preserve historic structures spread into a wider movement, moving towards the need to educate immigrants and see buildings as pieces of art.
For conservation, because of the closing of the frontier, the nineteenth century saw the end of one era and the beginning of the next. The West was lost as a wild area, though there was still the lure of the great unknown. But influential individuals and groups successfully displayed the importance of conservation to the nation. They argued that places, animals, and environments were important to maintain, to save for future generations. The scenic beauty and clean air provided by these natural spaces were prime areas for camping, hunting, and a variety of other outdoor activities. Conservationists had highlighted these spaces and now needed only to convince others of the importance of those spaces.
Both movements emerged from the early nineteenth century, urged on by similar developments in United States history, such as industrialization and urbanization, as shown here.
As the historic preservation and environmental conservation movements began to evolve, their growth was similarly affected by changing social, political, and cultural viewpoints. The formative developments of the nineteenth century set the stage for the tensions and challenges of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
38
2. – A New Departure: The Progressive Era and Beyond
“The growth of this nation … has been due to the rapid development, and alas that it should be said, to the rapid destruction, of our natural resources.” – President Theodore Roosevelt, 1909136
During the Progressive Era, widespread social, political, and economic changes affected the development of both the historic preservation and environmental conservation movements in the United States. This chapter will explore how these changes influenced the transformation of the leaders of the preservation and environmental conservation movements, federal policy, and ultimately the holdings of the movements themselves. This chapter will also seek to answer questions such as, Why were woman edged out of the historic preservation movement? What caused the professionalization of historic preservation? How did the ideals of environmental conservation change during this time? What influence did these organizations hold in the Federal
Government?
While the previous century had perfected the development of national shrines, protected by grassroots organizations of women, this chapter will explore how the Progressive Era saw the masculinization and professionalization of historic preservation. These new preservationists created organizations that focused on the widespread preservation of architecturally important buildings instead of focusing on individual houses of prominent elite men. This new organizational structure relied on the same grassroots fundraising and like its forbearer relied on the interest of wealthy upper and middle class urban families. The rationale behind the preservation of the buildings shifted slightly though. No longer was it acceptable to simply preserve a place based on the patriotic feelings it may stir. Instead the new professional preservationists encouraged architectural analysis and historic research. Women were useful only
136 “President Roosevelt’s Opening Address,” Proceedings of a Conference of Governors (Washington: GPO, 1909). 39 in minor roles to these new organizations because of the lack of advanced training available to them. Yet, despite these changes, historic preservation, unlike its sister conservation movement, did not enjoy an increase of federal interest in their projects.
The idea of environmental conservation became politicized and embraced by the federal government largely through the efforts of Theodore Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot. Embracing the ideals of conservation along with the new study of ecology, the federal government began to set aside large areas of scenic land as National Parks. Learning from the expensive mistakes made in order to create urban parks, like Central Park in New York during the mid-nineteenth century, eastern urban elites endorsed the responsible management of pristine natural wonders by the federal government as a way to ensure long lasting political and monetary support for these natural areas.137 These endorsements were also backed by powerful railroad companies, who wanted to develop natural areas into tourist destinations. While the conservation movement had been, from the start, an overwhelmingly masculine endeavor, the politicization of the movement further denied women a place in the organizations. Contrary ideals of conservation and the development of natural sites stirred the discussion over resource use, and the environmental conservationists of the early twentieth century began to diverge into two separate groups. This division came as ‘progress’ began to be the rallying cry across the United States.
137 Colin Fisher, “Nature in the City: Urban Environmental History and Central Park,” OAH Magazine of History 25, no. 4, (2012): 27-31. In was costly for cities to buy up land and demolish buildings, or move graves to repurpose land for open park area. To create the pastoral landscapes that the elite sought was also costly and difficult to maintain. Problems also arose with how people interacted with the space, leading to the development of a park police force which enforced rules about the use of the space, such as no walking on the grass, no sports, no picking flowers, etc. 40
How Architects Changed Historic Preservation
Preservation in the United States started at places like Mount Vernon, and the homes of other politically important elite men, but it evolved during the Progressive Era into saving buildings imbued with culture. This section looks at architects and city planners becoming more involved in preservation, especially in the more historic New England cities, and why they became involved in the historic preservation movement. Many of the buildings saved during this time were public places such as courthouses, city halls, and state houses, which had been built alongside the cities that they served. As the cities grew, these revered buildings became overcrowded. By the beginning of the Progressive Era, several cities had already begun to look at the choices available to them for expansion.
With rapidly increasing immigration, space for new public offices in cities became rare.
Immigration into these established cities caused a building boom as older homes were torn down to make way for tenements.138 The ‘new’ wave of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe came primarily to the cities of the East Coast of the United States in the 1880s. New technologies, such as the transatlantic steamship, made traversing the Atlantic easier and faster than ever before.139 The population of Boston tripled from around a quarter of a million people in
1870 to three quarters of a million people in 1920.140 Due to the expense of demolition and rebuilding, some older cities, Boston for example, began to look at preservation and expansion as
138 U.S Bureau of the Census, Campbell Gibson, “Population of the 100 Largest Cities and Other Urban Places in the United States: 1790-1990,” Population Division Working Paper No. 27, http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0027/twps0027.html (accessed February 09, 2012). 139 The first transatlantic steamship to cross the Atlantic was the Savannah in 1819, but the steam engine was used in combination with the sails, the first steam-only crossing was made by the Dutch Curaçao in 1827. Steamships did not become the primary mode of transatlantic travel and shipping until the late nineteenth century. Francis Boardman Crowninshield Bradlee, The First Steamer to Cross the Atlantic: The Record of the Steamship "curacao" of the Royal Netherlands Navy, (Salem, Mass.: Salem Institute, 1925). 140 U.S. Census, Gibson, “Population 1790-1990,” (accessed February 09, 2012). 41 an economically sound alternative. City officials brought in architects as consultants and asked them to survey historic structures, and consequentally committees chose between demolition and restoration. The Bulfinch Statehouse in Boston, designed by Charles Bulfinch and completed in
1798, was the first building where architects rallied behind preservation.141
Beginning shortly after the Civil War, Bostonians began to debate the social value of preserving the Bulfinch statehouse. The debate culminated in the late 1890s. To many
Bostonians it was a symbol of the crumbling past; the ancient wooden dome and handmade brick walls were in disrepair and restoration looked to be impossible. “To rebuild the courthouse…” using long lasting modern techniques and materials, would that not be the ultimate sign of progress and success?142 Other Bostonians thought that preserving the building and expanding into additions to accommodate the growing number of civil servants would be a better way to show their permanence; that, preserving this building would be something for Boston to take pride in.143 Americans were deciding what role architecture would play in the development of a uniquely American culture amidst all the European immigrants.
The United States had typically followed European trends and during the early
Progressive Era various new architectural styles were becoming popular one after another. Many of these styles had become popular again through the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, which showcased Beaux Arts and Revival buildings.144 For socio-economic elite Americans the ability to build in the newest style was a way to display wealth and status. Following the 1893 World’s
Fair, several architects reacted against foreign styles and sought to create a new American style
141 Michael Holleran, Boston’s Changeful Times (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, 1998), 143. 142 Massachusetts General Court, Hearings… Concerning the Bulfinch Front, 1:21; 2:36. 143 Ibid. 144 William Walton, Art & Architecture: Paul V. Galvin Digital History Collection, Illinois Institute of Technology, Paul V. Library Digital History Collection, 1999. Originally published in 1893 for the World’s Fair, this book covers the architectural styles and their histories. 42 of architecture. Across the states, this resulted in a revival of many different styles of historic architecture, as well as the creation of a few new styles.145 For the Boston architects, the
Bulfinch statehouse was a shining example of an original architectural style that had become popular once again.
Architects had been sought out by city planners and committees to provide recommendations on historic public structures before the Bulfinch statehouse and had typically recommended that the old structure be razed.146 The value placed on progress, which gave this era its name, often resulted in a revolving door of new trends from clothing to architectural styles.147 The statehouse though, proved to be different. It was architecturally sound, the bricks that made up the building were well made and the walls were a staunch four feet in width.148 The wooden dome was damaged, having only been covered by a tin roof, but the building could easily support an iron replacement.149 Despite the statehouse being too small to house all the offices that resided within it, there was nothing fatally wrong with the building.150 Its Federal
Style façade had inspired similar statehouses across the country, and architects were not yet ready to pull down such an iconic structure to only have it replaced with a revival styled building.151 To do so would be akin to breaking Michelangelo’s David and carving it again in a
Neo-Classical style.
145 The primary example of these new schools of architectural design and thought is the Prairie school, made famous by Frank Lloyd Wright. See also, James Lindgren, Preserving the Old Dominion: Historic Preservation and Virginia Traditionalism (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1993), 206. 146 Holleran, Changeful, 143. Razing was the recommendation by architects for the Old State House and Old State Church in Boston. 147 John W. Chambers, The Tyranny of Change: America in the Progressive Era, 1890-1920 (New York: St. Martin's, 1992). 148 American Architect & Building News, April 27, 1895, 39-40. 149 Ibid. 150 Ibid, only reports major damage to the wooden dome. 151 Holleran, Changeful, 144. 43
Charles A. Cummings, head of the Boston Society of Architects, defended the preservation of the statehouse, citing the cultural significance of the unique style of the building.152 Cummings had previously held a role in the destruction and rebuilding of another historic structure, having designed the replacement for the 1875 Old South Church in Boston.153
But when considering the Bulfinch statehouse, he endorsed preservation. While Cummings personal views on preservation may have been influenced by his study of British preservationist
John Ruskin, many other changes had taken place since the Old South Church rebuilding.
Advances in metallurgy increased the use of steel in construction, which changed the methods open to preservationist to preserve buildings. Added to this was the impact of the World’s Fair on architecture. Cummings led the Society to lobby for the preservation, restoration and expansion of the Bulfinch statehouse starting in 1894.154 The architectural society promoted the preservation of the structure by basing its argument on the soundness of the buildings, proposing practical methods to preserve the structure, and by educating both the legislature in charge and the public about the quality and importance of the building in American architectural history.155
This method of arguing for the preservation of buildings was adopted by preservation societies and organizations in the years following and the second phase of preservation began.
The Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities
With the exception of few firms, the overwhelmingly male architectural profession ensured that women had little room in this new era of preservation156. Even though women had
152 Holleran, Changeful, 143. 153 Ibid. 154 Clement K. Fay, in Massachusetts General Court, Hearings… Concerning the Bulfinch Front, 3:17. The committee consisted of Fay, H. Langford Warren, and William R. Ware. 155 Holleran, Changeful, 143-144. 156 Frank Lloyd Wright was one of the few that hired women to work as architects in his firm, in 1895 he hired Marion Mahony Griffin. There were a few other firms that hired women architects during the early Progressive Era, 44 been the original leaders of the preservation movement in the United States, because of the movement becoming professionalized, they were soon demoted to on-site caretakers and volunteers.157 While historic house museums would continue to be shaped by women well into the contemporary era, women were no longer on the political fore or the ones planning the future of buildings.158 Upper class men, most with a background or interest in architecture, took over as the presidents, trustees, and chairmen of historic preservation organizations. With the increasing stress on professionalization during the Progressive Era, these new leaders often did not focus on one building but worked to preserve several structures in a wide area.
Although Preservation Virginia had been established in 1889, the Society for the
Preservation of New England Antiquities (SPNEA) was a new preservation organization that would serve as a model for other budding urban-based preservation groups. The founder of the
SPENA was an admirer of architecture, William Sumner Appleton Jr., and had graduated from
Harvard amidst what his peers saw as the continual invasion of historic Yankee areas by new immigrants.159 Appleton was a member of the New England elite. A grandson of Nathan
Appleton a Boston industrialist and politician, he had Puritan roots and viewed the rising numbers of new immigrants as a threat to American values.160 He lived on a annuity of six thousand dollars, made possible by his grandfather’s success in industry, which allowed him to live comfortably, and pursue his interests without worry.161 Appleton was a Progressive and
for more information on these, see, Sarah Allaback, The First America Women Architects, (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2008). 157 Megan Stubbendeck, “A Woman’s Touch,” in, Entering the Fray: Gender, Politics, and Culture in the New South, Johnathan Daniel Wells and Sheila R. Phipps ed., (Columbia: University of Missouri 2010), 118-135. 158 Ibid. 159 Lindgren, Preserving, 22-23. 160 “Obituary: William Sumner Appleton,” The Boston Herald, November 25, 1947; Louise Tharp, The Appletons of Beacon Hill, (Boston: Little, Brown, 1973), 308-315. It is also interesting to note that Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was Appleton Jr’s Uncle. 161 Lindgren, Preserving, 23. 45 historian James Lindgren claims that Appleton was determined to use preservation as a tool to bring together Yankees, whose heritage was being overrun by immigrants who had taken over
Boston.162
These immigrants newly arrived from Southern and Eastern Europe came to
Massachusetts and other New England states at a rapid pace, rocking the bedrock of elite society.
In Boston alone, the population more than doubled in the years between 1870 and 1905.163 By
1915 more than seventy percent of Boston’s population was foreign born or first generation
American.164 As the population grew, so did the city itself, sprawling out in a ten mile radius with the help of new transportation systems.165 The cityscape was changing too. With this influx of foreigners, elite Bostonians abandoned parts of the city, including the historically elite Beacon
Hill where Appleton had grown up, and moved into the more popular neighborhoods in the city such as the Back Bay area.166 Boston became even more divided as the elitist Yankees abandoned their original historic buildings to the immigrants and moved into revival styled buildings.167 Appleton claimed in an article in the Boston Post that it was this built heritage that had the ability to link together the old blooded Yankees and the un-Americanized immigrants through patriotism.168
In 1905, Appleton had taken his first step as a preservationist by restoring the Revere
House as part of the Paul Revere Memorial Association. The charter for the organization set
162 Ibid, 26-31 163 Gibson, US Census, “Population of 100 largest cities” 164 Boston Committee on Americanism, A Little Book for Immigrants in Boston (Boston: City Printing Department 1921), 56. 165 Lindgren, Preserving, 29; See also, Sam Bass Warner Jr., Streetcar Suburbs: The Process of Growth in Boston , 1870-1900 (Cambridge: Harvard University, 1978). 166 Lindgren, Preserving, 29; See also, George Lankevich ed., Boston: A Chronological & Documentary History, 1602-1970 (Dobbs Ferry, NY: Oceana Publications, 1974), 54,57. 167 Lindgren, Preserving, 35. 168 W. Sumner Appleton to ed., “Ask Aid to Patriotism,” Boston Post Memorial, 16 June 1905. 46 forth the idea that the preservation of the house would foster. “Patriotism, philanthropy, civic virtue, and pride,” not only among the elite, but also in “visitors from all parts.”169 The Revere house was restored following the scrape mentality of Viollet-le-duc, but through the destruction of parts of the house, the PRMA was able to more easily remind visitors of Revere’s willingness to Americanize.170 While some progressives sought to limit the inflow of immigrants, Appleton and others set out to Americanize them through the restoration and preservation of historic buildings.
Using the Revere house as a springboard, Appleton launched into the preservation world, leading him to create the SPNEA in 1910 in order to collect more sites of Yankee traditions and culture.171 Appleton, inspired by a trip to Europe the previous year, came back to the states with a renewed interest in preservation and restoration, only to be angered by the current state of preservation affairs.172 Appleton created the SPNEA calling it, “a new departure in historic patriotic work.”173 In the first published Bulletin for the SPNEA, Appleton put forth his plan for the association, claiming “Our New England Antiquities are fast disappearing because no society has made their preservation its exclusive object. That is the reason for the formation of this
Society.”174 Appleton’s Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities would serve as a model preservation organization, just as the Mount Vernon Ladies Association had.
169 “By-Laws of the Paul Revere Memorial Association,” Article II, Revere house file. 170 Lindgren, Preserving, 40-41. 171 Appleton’s path to the SPNEA is more closely covered in the first two chapters of Lindgren, Preserving, 15-49. 172 Ibid, 17-49. 173 Appleton, Diary, 28 December 1909, Quoted in Lindgren, Preserving, 49. I use the quote here to reference the title of this chapter. 174 The Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, Bulletin 1, no.1 (Boston: May 1910), 1, 4. 47
Environmental Conservation and the Progressives
The Progressive Era also brought major changes to the environmental conservation movement because of the increased interest shown by the federal government. The preservation movement held little appeal for local, state, or federal government. This was mostly due to its inability to generate money, the environmental conservation movement gained a strong backer with Theodore Roosevelt who worked with Gifford Pinchot to bring conservation to the national level. The definition of utilitarian conservation, first written by W.J. McGee, then echoed by
Pinchot was the efficient use of natural resources for the “greatest good of the greatest number for the longest time.”175 Using this concept, Roosevelt and Pinchot brought the outdoor movement to a national level, and called for it to be part of a national program.
Progressive politics and ideals brought conservation to the attention of the Federal
Government. Movements such as the City Beautiful Movement, and the Suburban Movement, which were both spurred on by increased immigration and by the growing prosperity of the managerial middle class buoyed the interest of natural parks. Improvements in technology and the ever expanding network of railroads also allowed elite Americans to travel to these natural areas. Yellowstone had been a popular destination since its creation as a state park and national landmark in 1872, and with railroad companies lobbying for the expansion of the national parks, it was joined in 1890 by Yosemite, Sequoia, and General Grant.176 These parks were administered by the United States Army until the creation of the National Park Service in
1916.177 While Roosevelt, Pinchot, and other conservationists were more interested in managing the forests, rangelands, and watersheds that had remained in a natural state for the greater good,
175 Gifford Pinchot, Breaking New Ground (Washington DC: Island, 1947), 326. See also, Merchant, American, 143. 176 Barringer, Yellowstone, 14-16. 177 Merchant, American, 148-150. 48 railroad companies sought to develop the parks into resorts.178 This treatment of nature as a commodity to be managed and commercialized soon led to heated debates about land and resource use.179
Tourism and the Management of Nature
Park tourism had been developed in national parks since the 1870s and the creation of
Yellowstone. Camping had become popular and as railways expanded closer to Yellowstone to take advantage of the surge of tourism, wealthier Americans sought out comfortable housing for their stay in the park.180 These visitors became the ideal residents of the parks; tourists romantic ideals about nature called for the removal of any frontiersmen homes and the building of new concessions and hotels.181 To maximize profit, the concession and hotel monopoly, run by the railroad companies, in the parks institutionalized tourism and transformed nature into the romantic ideal that the elite classes believed it to be.182 In doing so, they not only transformed the park physically, by removing all traces of the people previously living on the lands but changed how people experienced the park and how they thought about nature.
Visitors to the national parks no longer needed to travel to these remote locations by horseback or carriage. The train stopped at the gates to the park from which stagecoach lines and later automobiles would take tourists to a hotel of their choice, each one near a picture perfect feature of the park. Nature was no longer a thing to live in and wander through, as it had been in the early nineteenth century, but instead a thing to be consumed through a planned and guided
178 Ibid. 179 This battle was led by Muir and his allies, and the first clash happened over the Hetch-Hetchy Valley from 1906- 1910. For more on the Hetch-Hetchy case read, John Muir, The Yosemite, (New York: Century, 1912), 249-262. 180 Barringer, Yellowstone, 15, 30. 181 Merchant, American, 153. 182 Barringer, Yellowstone, 15-33. 49 tour. So altered were the accommodations in national parks that Muir wrote in a personal letter in
1912 that, “In the development of the Park [Yosemite] a road is needed …. Good walkers can go anywhere in these hospitable mountains without artificial ways. But most visitors have to be rolled on wheels with blankets and kitchen arrangements.”183
Figure 2-A Tent Hotels at Yellowstone 1903 Figure 2-B Camping in Yosemite 1902 Photo courtesy of Library of Congress Photo courtesy of Library of Congress
Natural parks began to be cultivated and developed for consumption in the early twentieth century, much like Colonial Williamsburg would be preserved and cultivated as a historic village near the end of the Progressive Era. Railroad companies lobbied for the creation of more national parks and sought rights-of-way and concession privileges in order to capitalize on the increased interest in nature; and they succeeded.184 Conservation of many of the original
13 national parks, such as Yellowstone and Yosemite, was due to the combined interest of railroad companies and conservation minded organizations.185 The influence of these groups led to the early politicization of parks as places to conserve, and manage. By 1912, Muir lamented
183 John Muir to Howard Palmer, Secretary American Alpine Club, 1912 Dec 12, John Muir Correspondence, University of the Pacific Library Holt-Atherton Special Collections. 184 Barringer, Yellowstone, 21-29. 185 Barringer, Yellowstone, 40. 50 that Yosemite had been forgotten amidst the commercialization, “as if its thousand square miles of wonderful mountains, cañons, glaciers, forests, and songful falling rivers had no existence.”186
In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, women had not only been involved in the historic preservation movement but had also played an active role in conservation. During the
Progressive Era, groups such as the General Federation of Women’s Club (1890), the Daughters of the American Revolution (1896) and the Garden Club of America (1913), became involved in conservation by forming special committees, writing letters and lobbying their congressional representatives about saving natural areas.187 Sportsmen and outdoorsmen clubs had formed earlier in the twentieth century and had similarly advocated for the protection of wildlife and natural spaces. These groups of women and men had both the leisure time and money to enjoy the areas that they wanted to protect.188
With the increased regulations, a utilitarian form of environmental conservation emerged politically. Based on nineteenth century utilitarian English philosophers, Jeremy Bentham and
John Stuart Mill, environmental conservation focused on using the land to promote the happiness of citizens for the longest time possible.189 American conservationists mixed in earlier American ideas about environmental conservation and land use to adapt utilitarianism to their own uses.
WJ McGee’s ideal of, “the greatest good of the greatest number for the longest time,” captured what this new generation of conservationists wished to achieve. With this ideology, the federal government began to look at nature as an exhaustible resource, a resource that should be
186 Muir to Palmer, 1912 Dec 12. 187 Merchant, American, 142. 188 A roster of the Boone and Crockett Club for example, has the names of several prominent national figures such as Theodore Roosevelt, George Bird Grinnell, and General William Tecumseh Sherman. The Garden Club of America, made up of several smaller local clubs, also had prominent members such as, Mrs Logan of Stenton, Philadelphia and Mrs. Frank A. Bourne of Beacon Hill, Boston. 189 For more on their ideals about utilitarian conservation read, John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism (London: Parker, Son, and Bourn, 1863); Jeremy Bentham, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (London: T Payne& Sons, 1789). 51 managed. In 1905, the head of the Division of Forestry Gifford Pinchot successfully agitated for moving the forest reserves out of the Department of the Interior and into the Department of
Agriculture, and renamed the division as the United States Forest Service.190 This move was made by Pinchot on the grounds that forests should be managed “as if they were a crop.”191 By
1908 the idea of utilitarian conservation had gained enough political support to necessitate a
White House Conference on Conservation in 1909.
This conference was important in several ways. It promoted the regulation of the conservation movement by the federal government, and also worked to solidify the idea of resource conservation. Roosevelt stated in his opening address that, “All these various uses of our natural resources are so closely connected and should be treated as part of on coherent plan...”192 At this conference, the scientific and political community brought together forests, water, and rangelands that had been developed separately and unified them into a cohesive unit of natural resources.193 This original meeting inspired a yearly gathering from 1909-1913 and continued to bring together many different groups, including women’s organizations, in order to bring attention to the conservation movement.194 These conferences would not only spread the word across the nation about conservation, but would also influence policy makers, who would develop the role of the Federal Government in conservation, a role that would be tested in the years to come.
190 Merchant, American, 143. 191 Quoted in, Ibid. 192 “President Roosevelt’s Opening Address,” Proceedings of a Conference of Governors (Washington: GPO, 1909). 193 Letter to the Governors from President Roosevelt, November 1907, Proceedings of a Conference of Governors (Washington: GPO, 1909). President Roosevelt also invited Governors to attend accompanied by three advisors or aides of their choosing, He sent letters to Senators, Representatives, Justices, and Cabinet members also. In December, he invited the leaders of a wide variety of organizations. The program was divided into Mineral, Land, and Water resources, and capped with “Conservation as a National Policy.” 194 A complete listing of the organizations invited to the first conference can be found in, Proceedings of a Conference of Governors (Washington: GPO, 1909). It is unclear why these gatherings halted, but WWI most likely played a large part. 52
An early challenge to federal conservation policy came in 1913 with the passage of the
Raker Act. This act authorized the construction of a dam across the Tuolomne River in the
Hetch-Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park in order to provide a consistent and reliable supply of both electricity and water to the population of San Francisco, and led to many discussions over resource rights.195 After the devastating 1906 earthquake, Mayor James Phelan hired agents to survey suitable water sources in the area, and had other options; however in 1909
Pinchot advocated the use of the Hetch-Hetchy Valley, citing the conservation movement’s ideal of “the greatest good.”196 Pinchot claimed that providing water for San Francisco would be the highest use of the land. Naturalist John Muir disagreed strongly and wrote several articles about the effect the dam would have on the valley and the beauty that would be lost. In one such article
Muir wrote,
“…like anything else worth while, from the very beginning, however well guarded, they have always been subject to attack by despoiling gainseekers and mischief-makers of every degree from Satan to Senators, eagerly trying to make everything immediately and selfishly commercial, with schemes disguised in smug-smiling philanthropy, industriously, shampiously crying, “Conservation, conservation, pan-utilization,” that man and beast may be fed and the dear Nation made great. Thus long ago a few enterprising merchants utilized the Jerusalem temple as a place of business instead of a place of prayer, changing money, buying and selling cattle and sheep and doves; and earlier still, the first forest reservation, including only one tree, was likewise despoiled.”197 Muir’s writings stirred the nation, and women’s clubs across the country, many whose members had never seen Yosemite, let alone Hetch-Hetchy, wrote to Congress to lobby for the protection of the valley.198 Muir’s arguments, even supported by the women’s groups, could not sway the government and Hetch Hetchy Valley was dammed. The Raker Act, passed in 1913, allowed for
195 The loss at Hetch-Hetchy led to massive damming programs throughout the New Deal Era, as I will explore in the following chapter. 196 Merchant, American, 150-151. 197 Muir, Yosemite, 261-262. 198 Merchant, American, 151. 53 the O’Shaughnessy Dam to be built between 1915 and 1920. The dam brought water and electricity to San Francisco and would stand as a precedent for future water rights and damming issues. This was a “monumental crime” to Muir and other environmental conservationists who sought the preservation and careful use of federal parks.199
Creek Farm, Orton Plantation, and Poplar Grove in the Progressive Era
Figure 2-C Creek Farm Garden Entrance Lions Figure 2-D Creek Farm, Front of garden retaining wall photo by Erica Hague, 2011 photo by Erica Hague, 2011 During the Progressive Era, Creek Farm, Orton Plantation, and Poplar Grove were models for the time. The grounds and house at Creek farm and Orton Plantation were both expanded during this time, reflecting the revival architecture of the day and desire to have expansive grounds. While the world around these sites changed, these houses and their surrounding land remained in the same families that had lived in them during the previous century; the tradition of elite control of historically significant buildings and land continued. The garden and grounds at Creek Farm were improved, wings were added on to Orton Plantation and the existing plantation house at Poplar Grove was modernized. While the houses changed hands from one generation to the next, the new generations of custodians followed in their
199 John Muir to Dr. C. Hart Merriam, Feb. 11, 1914, reprinted in whole in, The Life and Letters of John Muir, William Frederic Bad , ed., (Boston and: Houghton Mifflin Co, 1924). 54 predecessor’s footsteps to protect and thrive in the homes that were left to them, updating the great houses to fit the current vogues and trends.
In Massachusetts and New Hampshire, the Carey family continued to follow the vogues of the era. Family patriarch Arthur Astor Carey continued his interest in the arts, becoming the second president of the Society of Arts and Crafts: Boston in 1899.200 During his presidency he financed a handicrafts shop and journal entitled Handicraft for SACB. 201 After Carey resigned from his role as president for SACB in 1902, he built a nondenominational chapel on Little
Harbor road where he preached in the summer.202 Carey and his summer neighbor J. Templeman
Coolidge began to develop an arts community around them at Little Harbor, summer residents included historian Francis Parkman, author Barrett Wendell, poet Edmund Clarence Stedman, philosopher John Albee, and artist Edmund Tarbell.203 This community was augmented by various prominent visitors to the area, such as William Sumner Appleton and Barrett Wendell who would establish historic house museums in the city of Portsmouth.204
The Carey family was in the habit of entertaining visitors and guests as well as the summer residents of Little Harbor. Often alternating events with the Coolidges, the Carey family had an assortment of grand dinners, picnics and garden parties alongside the rather routine swimming and boating excursions. One of these events came in 1905 when they entertained the delegates for the Portsmouth Peace Treaty which ended the Russo-Japanese war. A garden party,
200 The Society of Arts and Crafts: Boston sought to foster the development, sales, recognition, and education of American crafts in Boston according to their mission. “SAC Mission and History,” Society of Arts and Crafts: Boston, http://www.societyofcrafts.org/about/about.asp (accessed April 10, 2012) 201 Allen H. Eaton, “Handicrafts of New England,” Handicraft (1949), 281-294. 202 Karen Davis, "Arthur Astor Carey, A Man of Wealth in Colonial Revival New England" (Unpublished Seminar Paper, Boston University, 1995), SPNHF Archives. 203 J. Dennis Robinson, “How the Coolidge Family of Boston Saved Wentworth Mansion,” Seacoast NH (2009) http://www.seacoastnh.com/History/History_Matters/How_the_Coolidge_Family_of_Boston_Saved_Wentworth_M ansion/ (accessed April 10, 2012). 204 Appleton established the Governor John Langdon House through the SPNEA, and Barrett funded the private preservation of The Warner House. 55 given outside Creek Farm in the formal Italian garden, was “rather disastrous,” with both delegations arriving separately and in sequence instead of enjoying the party together.205 They also gave dinners to both the Russian and Japanese delegations, which were well attended, with
President Theodore Roosevelt joining the festivities, and remembered by Alida Carey Gulick who recalled the, “…tremendous noise of voices when the Russian delegation were dining and very little sound indeed when it was the night for the victorious Japanese…”206 The house still bears the traces of this event today, gifts of a Japanese tree, planted in the courtyard, and a
Russian-made ornate knocker on the main door of the house.
A prominent Bostonian elite, Carey was cut from the same mold as his elite Yankee peers. A progressive social reformer, he continued to support Arts and Crafts ideals through the monetary support and creation of programing dedicated to education. Like Appleton, who ran in the same social circles, Carey sought to preserve traditional Yankee culture. While Appleton had created SPNEA and focused on traditional architecture, Carey began to fund arts and education programs. Carey funded the building of two dormitories for the New Church School in Waltham,
Massachusetts, and eventually moved into the Waltham area in 1910, paying for the construction of Hillside, a colonial revival sanatorium for nervous patients.207 Carey also funded the creation of the Free Reading Room at Waltham in 1905, a nondenominational community center, and bought a schooner for the summer seaman summer camp program. Following Victorian ideals of the wilderness cult, he also began to endorse the Boy Scout movement in 1910, and in 1915 wrote The Scout Law in Practice.208
205 “Negotiations: Carey Creek Farm Reception,” Portsmouth Peace Treaty, http://portsmouthpeacetreaty.org/process/negotiations (accessed April 10, 2012). 206 Alida Carey Gulick (1893-1983),Unknown interviewer, transcript, SPNHF Archives. 207 “Boston University Full Report on Creek Farm” (Presented to the SPNHF, Boston University, 2002). 208 Arthur Astor Carey, The Scout Law in Practice, (Boston: Little, Brown, 1915) 56
The Boy Scouts were an institution that emerged during the Progressive Era first in
England around 1907, and then later in the United States around 1910. This movement incorporated Christian teachings on morality with physical development through outdoor activities in order to create better citizens.209Carey’s contribution to the Boy Scout movement emphasizes these points with chapters dedicated to “Our Duty to God,” “Our Duty to Our
Country,” and “To Keep Myself Physically Strong, Mentally Awake, and Morally Straight.”210
The use of outdoor areas for the scouts prepared them physically and mentally to overcome any situation that they might find themselves in, thus reemphasizing the importance of self-reliance, and preparedness.
Carey’s family also began to extend their stays at Creek Farm. The formal Italian garden was improved in 1899 with the addition of a sundial, and Venetian stone lion statues were erected facing the Creek at the granite steps that led up to the garden (see figures 2-A & B).211
This garden was the pride of Mrs. Carey, who improved upon it and spent several months outside of the summer visiting and tending to. Gardens such as the one at Creek Farm were seen as the middle ground of the continuum from wilderness to urban. Gardens provided a controlled form of nature to interact with. While it is unclear if Mrs. Carey herself joined the Plant and Garden
Club of Cambridge, her friend Lois Lilly Howe was a landscape architect and influential member of the club, having once been president.212 In 1904 Howe helped Carey to convert the stable at the Carey’s Boston home at 48 Fayerweather Street into Mrs. Carey’s own personal apartments, later numbered 50 Fayerweather.
209 Ibid, see also, Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell, Scouting for Boys: A Handbook for Instruction in Good Citizenship, (London: Horace Cox, 1908). 210 Carey, Scout Law, ix. 211 “Historical and Architectural Significance: Life in the Arts Community around Creek Farm” (Presented to the SPNHF, Boston University, 2002). 212 “ Lois Lilly Howe,” Cambridge Women’s Heritage Project, http://www2.cambridgema.gov/historic/cwhp/bios_h.html#HoweLL (accessed April 10, 2012). 57
Figure 2-F Sunnyside at Orton circa 1920 Figure 2-E Luola's Chapel, 1919 Cape Fear Museum Image courtesy of NC Department of Cultural Resources
Orton Plantation also changed hands in the early twentieth century but continued to be a retreat for the owners and their friends. Colonel Murchison died in 1904 and his son-in-law Dr.
James Sprunt bought the plantation from the Colonel’s estate for his wife, Luola Murchison
Sprunt. Dr. Sprunt was interested in the history of the area, and had written Tales and Traditions of the Lower Cape Fear in 1896, which included the history of Orton as well as Chronicles of the
Cape Fear River in 1916.213 Like her father and husband, Mrs. Sprunt loved Orton, and worked like many other women of her social standing to expand the house and gardens. In 1910 the
Sprunt’s increased the living space of the house by adding on two wings to either side of the house. The wings, designed by Mrs. Sprunt’s brother, K. M. Murchison Jr. an architect working out of New York.214 In 1915 they built a chapel near their home, no doubt spurred on by Dr.
Sprunt’s interest in religion, which was later renamed ‘Luola’s Chapel’ after Mrs. Sprunt’s death in 1916.215
Mrs. Sprunt was, like other wealthy women of her day, active in a variety of causes. Her personal cause was the North Carolina Society of Colonial Dames. From 1906 to 1912, she
213 Sprunt, Tales and Tradition ; James Sprunt, Chronicles of the Cape Fear River, (Raleigh: Edwards & Broughton printing co, 1916). 214 James Lawrence Sprunt, The Story Of Orton Plantation (Wilmington, Unknown, 1958), 16. 215 Ibid, 15-16. 58 served as president of the society.216 Her primary activities within the society were the purchasing and placing of historical markers at places of interest, and she even served on the
Historical Research committee for the National Council of Colonial Dames.217 This interest in history led her to establish two yearly essay contests through the Colonial Dames at the
University of North Carolina in order to stimulate, “the interests of the young manhood of the state in the virtues and exploits of their Commonwealth.”218
Mrs. Sprunt was also remembered to be involved in a variety of local children’s charities, a supporter of several Presbyterian missions abroad, and a benefactor to the YWCA-
Wilmington.219 She also “Found her rest and relaxation in restoring the old place [Orton],… and the old and new were blended into a perfect colonial home.”220 Mrs. Sprunt was also remembered by her friend Ellen Hale Wilson as having a genuine, “sentiment for nature,” which undoubtedly led to her expanding the gardens at Orton.221 Her sister-in-law, Lucile Murchison recollected, “Mrs. Sprunt in her rose garden, her arms full of lovely blossoms she was gathering for her visitors,” visitors that included President Howard Taft in 1909.222 Dr. Sprunt continued to improve Orton after his wife’s death in 1916. In 1919 he bought the adjoining plantations of
Lilliput and Kendal, increasing the size of Orton to over three thousand acres.
Dr. Sprunt also held an interest in birding. A member of the North Carolina Audubon
Society, he was responsible for protecting the only colony of egrets and heron in North Carolina
216 North Carolina Society of the Colonial Dames of America, Jean Dalziel Wood, and Luola Murchison Sprunt. Register of the North Carolina Society of the Colonial Dames of America (Raleigh, N.C.: The Society, 1912). 217 Sprunt, Story, 16. See also, James Sprunt, ed., In memoriam, Mrs. James Sprunt (Wilmington, James Sprunt, 1916), 49-50. 218 Sprunt, In memoriam, 71. 219 Ibid, 67-68, 79-84. 220 Ibid, 21. 221 Sprunt, In memoriam,14. 222 Ibid, 18. 59 at the time, which nested at Orton Pond.223 During this time there were a total of 20 colonies on the Atlantic seaboard, and only three of those were protected solely by an individual.224 Egrets and heron had become scarce during this time due to plume hunters who sought feathers to adorn ladies hats. Sprunt’s efforts were obviously prosperous, as the curator of the North Carolina State
Museum, H.H. Brimley was cited as saying, “The pride taken in this interesting heron colony by its owner, Mr. J. Sprunt, of Wilmington, and his interest in the conservation of all wildlife, is responsible for its immunity from being ‘shot-up’.”225 Sprunt himself claimed that, “…it is a joy and satisfaction to afford the heron wise enough to seek refuge at Crane Neck complete protection from the mercenary and merciless plume hunter.”226 The conservation efforts of the
Sprunt family led to the restoration of the heron and egrets around the Cape Fear and across the
Atlantic seaboard.
Poplar Grove during this time continued to be held as an operating farm by the Foy family. Joseph Thompson Foy, whose father --Joseph Mumford Foy-- built the house which stands on the property today, continued to keep up the plantation through farming peanuts, a crop that their former slaves, who became tenant farmers, had recommend to the Foys. In addition to their planted crops, the Foys were also had a sawmill on the plantation and augmented their income by refining salt in salt vats at the river.
223 Rosa Pendleton Chiles, “Crane Neck Heron Colony on Orton,” in Chronicles, Sprunt ed., 61-63. Sprunt Joined the North Carolina Audubon Society sometime after the turn of the century. 224 Ibid. 225 Ibid. 226 Ibid. 60
Figure 2-G Turpentine Laborer's homes near Wilmington, NC Louis T Moore Collection, New Hanover Public Library, North Carolina Room Digital Archives
The sawmill was kept busy through the vast timber holdings of the Foy family and employed several workers who settled near Poplar Grove. Timber and Naval Stores had been important to North Carolinians before the Civil War, and had overtaken rice and other crops. The production of turpentine, tar and lumber then was a lucrative business that altered the landscape through the harvesting of trees, as can be seen with photos of the time (see figure 2-G). After the land was cleared of trees, it was then often used for cotton and tobacco.227 Nora Dozier Foy, wife of J.T., became postmistress for the area, picking up the local mail from the railroad and running the post office out of a front parlor in the house for the benefit of these workers.228
J.T. Foy, much like his father and grandfather, became an influential community member. He became a state senator in 1901 and influencing railroad planners to build a stop in nearby Scotts Hill. Foy was a director of the People’s Savings Bank in Wilmington and served
227 Lloyd Johnson, “Naval Stores,” North Carolina History Project, http://www.northcarolinahistory.org/commentary/103/entry (April 16, 2012). 228U.S. Census of Population and Housing, 1910: Summary Population and Housing Characteristics: Topsail, Pender, North Carolina (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1911), Has Nora’s profession as “Postmaster of Scotts Hill”. Nora and Joseph are also living with their Nephew who would inherit Poplar Grove, Robert, at this time. 61 on the Board of County Commissioners of Pender County for twelve years, holding a chairman position for eight years.229 He served as a Pender County Representative for the North Carolina
General Assembly in for several years and became involved in the fraternal order, ‘Royal
Arcanum,’ along with his brother-in-law Dr. Joseph C. Shepard.230 While it is unclear if Mr. Foy endorsed historic preservation or environmental conservation endeavors, his efforts to bring the railroad to Scotts Hill shows his interest for the development of the rural area.
Conclusion
The preservation and conservation movements underwent a reformative process in the
Progressive Era. The early movements had evolved separately, but during the same time and within the same social circles. The conservation movement had, early on, sought and received the protection of the national government due to the enormity that they sought to protect. The preservation movement continued on with private organizations, since several early sites, like
Mount Vernon, had been ignored by the Federal Government. Historic Preservation gained ground with the professionalization of the movement and the backing of the architectural world.
However, preservation would not be embraced federally until New Deal programs were implemented, and preservation brought under the umbrella of conservation of National Parks.
The conservation movement gained ground, but lost meaning, as the National Park System strove to develop park lands into recreational areas and modified the landscape to suit the ideals of the tourists who visited them. While the protection of both natural areas and historic buildings
229 Wilmington, N.C. directory v.8 (1911/1912) (Richmond, VA: Hill Directory Co., 1911), 22.; R. D. W. Connor, ed., A Manual of North Carolina Issued by the North Carolina Historical Commission for the Use of Members of the General Assembly Session 1913, (Raleigh: E. M. Uzzell & Co. State Printers, 1913), 303. 230 Connor, Manual, 303, 750. The years that JT Foy is listed as serving as representative are 1901, 1903, 1909, and 1913.
62 arose from the need to cling to remnants of an earlier society, these spaces were capitalized upon as they were developed and made into attractions.
As the case studies show, national changes and trends did not always permeate to the local level; private families of the privileged classes such as the Careys, Sprunts and Foys, continued to use their homes and land as places to live and work. While the only home that could have been called historic contemporarily was Orton, the changes made to these homes during the
Progressive Era were very much in line with the trends and vogues of the time. All three of these sites developed, and in some case expanded, their gardens, shaping the land around their homes to better suit their tastes. All of the families made improvements to the houses, and at least two of the sites increased their land holdings in the area.
For the Careys, expanding their holdings meant a less of a chance for the commercial interests of Portsmouth to find a foothold in Little Harbor. Likewise, the Sprunts expansion of
Orton through the purchase of Lilliput and Kendall plantations insured that the ‘primeval forests’ that they enjoyed would not soon be toppled. While it is unclear if the Foys sought to expand, they were in a rural enough area that it would still be several years until they would be threatened by encroaching urban development.
63
3. — A Time of Peril Unmatched: 1920 - World War II
“…my conception of liberty does not permit an individual citizen or a group of citizens to commit acts of depredation against nature in such a way as to harm their neighbors, and especially to harm the future generations of Americans.” —President F.D. Roosevelt, 1937231
As the United States roared into the 1920s, there were some hold overs from the previous
Progressive Era. This chapter will explore how technology changed the National Parks and historic preservation. What did the increase in automobile ownership mean for environmental conservation? How did it influence developments in Historic Preservation? What did the New
Deal policies mean for these movements? What was gained with the increase of federal support at National Parks? What was lost? What support did the federal government give to the historic preservation movement?
When the National Park Service came into being in 1916 thirteen parks were already established. Even after the end of the Progressive Era, the NPS continued to focus on utilitarian conservation to increase and develop the lands they held. As this chapter will show, resource rights became an issue as developers, cities, and citizens scrambled to claim ownership of precious natural resources. State officials and local residents also lobbied for development of these natural areas to gain the federal money for construction of dams, railways, and outposts.
As the U.S. struggled to recover from the Great Depression, the federal government began supporting historic preservation through New Deal policies. Historic Preservationists continued to increase their holdings through local organizations, such as the Colonial
Williamsburg Foundation, and gained a valuable resource with the creation of the Historical
231 Speech by Roosevelt, Bonneville Dam, Oregon, September 28, 1937, reprinted in, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Conservation Vol2 1937-1945, Roosevelt, Franklin D., and Edgar B. Nixon, (Hyde Park, N.Y.: General Services Administration, National Archives and Records Service, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, 1957). 64
Architectural Building Survey (HABS) through the New Deal. While the goals of the environmental conservation and historic preservation movements were, seemingly, disconnected, the validation of both movements was through visitation and tourism. As the nation prepared for war, a time that President F.D. Roosevelt announced as, “a time of peril unmatched in the history of the nations of all the world,” preservationists and conservationists were fighting their own battles between national policies, consumer desires, and divergent policies.232
The Automobile, Preservation, and Conservation
As the Progressive Era and World War I came to a close, new organizations continued to be created to preserve historic structures in an effort to protect Yankee culture, and National
Parks continued to evolve into tourist destinations. The change that overshadowed other advancements during this time of transition was the increasing mobility of a wider range of
Americans due to the increase in manufacturing of automobiles.233 The number of automobiles per thousand of Americans increased from about 5 in 1910 to about 87 in 1920, and continued to increase throughout the pre-World War II decades with 217 per thousand in 1930 and 246 in
1940.234 As this section will show, this increase in mobility also meant an increase in domestic tourism as families packed into their cars and struck out for the historic houses, monuments and vistas that they had previously only been able to read about.
One such tourist destination was Williamsburg, Virginia, where Dr. W.A.R Goodwin and
John D. Rockefeller Jr. in 1926 began to preserve, restore, rebuild, and recreate a 301 acre
232 Speech by Roosevelt at the Chickamauga Dam Celebration, near Chattanooga, Tennessee, September 2, 1940, reprinted in, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Conservation Vol2 1937-1945, Roosevelt, Franklin D., and Edgar B. Nixon, (Hyde Park, N.Y.: General Services Administration, National Archives and Records Service, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, 1957). 233 Daniel Sperling and Deborah Gordon, Two billion cars: driving toward sustainability (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 3-9, Tables 3.3 and 3.5. 234 Ibid. 65 historic village in Williamsburg, Virginia that they named Colonial Williamsburg.235 The
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation was formed, and the development of the site began with a massive buyout of property owners beginning in 1926, although the organization was not incorporated until 1928.236 Goodwin wrote in 1930 that through the restoration of Colonial
Williamsburg, “…a shrine will be created that will serve to stimulate patriotism, that will develop in American citizens a deeper love for their native land as they come to understand the things that happened here, without which the foundations of the federal republic could not have been securely laid.”237 The ideals of Goodwin, Rockefeller, and the Colonial Williamsburg
Foundation (CWF) were still very progressive and echoed the “Americanization” ideals of the
Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities (SPNEA) and other preservation organizations. Williamsburg had been chosen by Rockefeller because, unlike other older patriotic urban areas, Boston for example, it was the least urbanized.238 Like other historic preservation societies of the time, the CWF was overwhelmingly male, focused on architectural analysis, and worked with a Viollet-le-Duc scrape mentality.239 The scale that the Foundation worked on was much larger though, despite its deceptively small area.
The creation of Colonial Williamsburg began with the destruction of any building built after the American Revolution within the three hundred and one acre site.240 The CWF bought the property in order to acquire the eighty eight colonial era buildings.241 Included in this space
235 Richard Handler and Eric Gable, The New History in an Old Museum: Creating the Past at Colonial Williamsburg ( Durham: Duke University Press, 1997). 236 Ibid. 237 Reverend Dr. W.A.R. Goodwin, transcript of phonograph recording made in Wythe House office July 29, 1930, transcript reproduced in "The Far-Visioned Generosity of Mr. Rockefeller", Colonial Williamsburg Journal, Winter 2000-01. 238 “Company History,” Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company- histories/Colonial-Williamsburg-Foundation-company-History.html (accessed April1,2012) 239 Handler & Gable, Old Museum. This entire book covers the institutional history of Colonial Williamsburg. 240 “History,” Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. 241 Ibid. 66 however, was an additional seven hundred and twenty buildings of nineteenth century origin that the foundation saw as corrupting its ideal colonial image.242 While much of the land that these demolished edifices stood on became open green space, the CWF also brought in architects to act as archeologists, whose mission was to research and find the foundations or footprints of historic structures, so that the buildings might be rebuilt in the pre-colonial styles.243 These reconstructions, over four hundred in number, still make up a large part of the site today. This developed colonial village, built up with all the same amenities as the national parks, became a new type of historic house museums as visitors flocked to the manicured landscapes when it opened in 1932.244
While several historians have studied the impact of the continued inauthenticity of
Colonial Williamsburg, it was this idyllic setting that drew people to the grounds. In 1934 visitation was at 31,000 annually, and within two years it had tripled.245 Visitors to the site were greeted by the last vestiges of females in the preservation field, as costumed southern ‘hostesses’ saw to the tours of the houses and town during the early years, to be joined in 1936 by blacksmiths and other costumed craftspeople.246 By the 1940s African Americans had joined the ranks of costumed workers, cast to play the role of slaves.247 African Americans had been caretakers of other historic sites, such as Mount Vernon and Monticello, during this same time and regularly asked to give tours of the houses and grounds, and their role at Colonial
242 “History,” Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. 243 Ivor Noël Hume, “Public Archaeology Address,” (address, Society for Historical Archaeology Conference, Williamsburg, Virginia, January 13, 2007), accessible online at, http://soap.sdsu.edu/Volume2/2_Noel_Hume.pdf 244 “History,” Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. 245 Ibid. 246 Ibid. 247 Handler & Gable, Old Museum, 233; See also, James Oliver Horton, “Slavery in American History,” in Slavery and Public History, James Oliver Horton and Lois E Horton ed., (New York: New Press, 2009) 35-56. 67
Williamsburg was akin to these previous roles.248 Reconstructions were made so believable and the absence of modern items allowed people to believe that here was a historic village untouched by time, when really most of the structures were new.249 This type of attraction, where preservation was used to lend credibility to resurrected buildings, became the new model. While organizations like the SPNEA continued to preserve scattered buildings across the country, rich philanthropists née developers, began to spawn Colonial Williamsburg-esque investments such as Henry Ford’s Greenfield Village (established 1933 Michigan), Eli Lilly’s Connor Prairie
(established 1935 Indiana), and Henry Hornblower’s Plimoth Plantation (established 1947
Massachusetts).
While these new attractions varied in scope and integrity, they all echoed the desires of
Goodwin at Colonial Williamsburg and drew motor-tourists. Henry Ford’s Greenfield Village was a museum made up of buildings imported from across the country and placed on new foundations. At its opening, Ford said that, “we shall have reproduced American life as lived; and that, I think, is the best way of preserving at least a part of our history and tradition.”250 Eli
Lilly believed that by restoring Connor Prairie that he would be able to, “connect people with history in ways books cannot.”251 Henry Hornblower II began Plimoth with the idea of “a
248 For Mount Vernon see, Scott Casper, “Sarah Johnson’s Mount Vernon: African American Life at an American Shrine, From Slavery to Jim Crow,” (presentation, Virginia Foundation of the Humaniteies Fellow’s Seminar, Oct.31, 2006). For Monticello see, Stubbendeck, “Women’s Touch”, 126. 249 Handler and Gable, Old Museum; covers the confusion of visitors throughout the decades over what is perceived as a real historic building. 250 Quoted in, Henry Ford Museum Staff, Greenfield Village and the Henry Ford Museum, (New York: Henry Ford Museum, 1972), 10. 251 “Who we are: Connor Prairie History,” Connor Prairie, http://www.connerprairie.org/About-Us/Who-We- Are/History-Of-Conner-Prairie.aspx (accessed Feb 15, 2012). 68 memorial to the Pilgrim Fathers.”252 Despite the Great Depression, these cultural sites were visited by tourists from across the country, in the pre-World War II years as roads improved.
National Parks also enjoyed an increase in tourism thanks to the automobile. The entrance of the United States into the first World War crippled the railroad system as rail yards struggled to meet the demand placed on them, eventually leading to the government control of railroads in 1917 for the duration of the war.253 Americans who were wealthy enough to purchase automobiles, latched onto them for the freedom and travel that they afforded. Automobiles began inundating national parks and the new mobile lifestyle that came with them forced the concession operators to adapt.254While automobiles had been discouraged by park officials citing unfit roads, public pressure held fast and beginning in 1908 automobile traffic was allowed at
Mount Rainier National Park.255 Other parks soon followed, and in 1916 Yellowstone admitted
13,500 automobiles, only to be topped the next year with 19,000 automobiles, this trend of increasing automobile traffic in National Parks would continue throughout the next two decades.256 With the creation of the National Park Services in 1916, reorganization of park concessions and transportation was facilitated by the director of the NPS, Stephen T. Mather, so that by the 1917 tourist season there would be adequate roads and accommodations.257
252 “Presenting the Story of Two Cultures,” Plimoth Plantation, http://www.plimoth.org/about-us/two-cultures (accessed Feb 15, 2012). 253 Woodrow Wilson, and Albert Bushnell Hart, Selected Addresses and Public Papers of Woodrow Wilson (New York: Boni and Liveright, Inc, 1918), 238-240. This public address was made 1917 Dec 26, and states that the power had been given to the president in August. President Wilson claims that “This is a war of resources no less than of man, perhaps even more than of man, and it is necessary for the complete mobilization of our resources that the transportation systems of the country should be organized and employed under a single authority and simplified method of coordination which had not proved possible under private management and control.” 254 Barringer, Yellowstone, 61. 255 Ibid, 62. 256 Ibid. 257 Ibid, 62-67. 69
NPS officials believed that their continued existence was dependent on tourism, and to expedite their success Mather strengthened ties with the American Automobile Association and national publications, as he began the “See America First,” campaign.258 Gone were the horse carts of the last century, tourists could now also hire out private cars or join others on a bus to tour the parks and travel between hotels and attractions.259 As visitors in automobiles began to tour the park in greater numbers, park concessions changed. Motor tourists were less apt to stay at the grand hotels that dotted the parks, preferring instead to camp at sites provided by the NPS for free that dotted the parks and ‘Auto-camp’ (See figures 3 A& B).260 So popular was auto- camping that entire how-to guides were printed and bought up by the public who were soon outfitting their cars for such excursions.261 Soon well-built roads linked these camping spaces; improved sanitary facilities were made available, and electric lights improved the camp grounds and inns, making visit well worth the $7.50 toll on automobiles.262
Tourism boomed through the 1920s, only to be interrupted by the Great Depression.263 At
Yellowstone, the 1929 season had seen 275,000 visitors, but which dropped in 1932 to less than half of that, a scant 136,000.264 Auto travel had become the dominant form of transportation not only within the park, but also to the park, supplanting rail-travel265.
258 Barringer, Yellowstone, 66. 259 Ibid, 67. 260 For more on autocamping see, James Belasco, Americans on the Road: From Autocamp to Motel, 1910-1945 (Cambridge: MIT Press,1979). 261 Elon Jessup, The Motor Camping Book (New York and London: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1921). 262 Barringer, Yellowstone, 75. 263 Ibid, 79-81. 264 Ibid, 87. 265 Ibid. 70
Figure 3-A Auto-camp at Cedar Breaks, Utah c.1930 Figure 3-B Auto-campers at Yellowstone c.1920 Photo courtesy of PBS and the Hertsch family Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress
The Great Depression, the New Deal, and the National Park Service
The depression began a new era at the National Parks. Around this time the leadership of the NPS was changing, NPS Director Mather retired in 1929, and his replacement, Horace
Albright, stayed only until 1933.266 Mather and Albright had seen the development of the concession and transportation businesses within the park as a positive; they catered to the tourists whose presence justified the conservation of the park land and the operations of the NPS. The
NPS was undoubtedly seen as a needed entity and had some measure of credibility. Under
Executive Order 6166 the NPS was renamed as the Office of National Parks, Buildings, and
Reservations and gained the administration of all public buildings, reservations, national cemeteries, and national monuments.267 This shifted the focus of the National Park Service from a strictly western environmental view to a fully national scope. When President Roosevelt secured the passage of the Historic Sites Act in 1935, the NPS gained further national jurisdiction over the National Historic Sites. This act did more than transfer property into the
266 "Directors of the National Park Service," National Park Service, http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/hisnps/NPSHistory/directors.htm (accessed Feb, 15, 1012). 267 Executive Order no. 6166, issued on June 10, 1933. 71 control of the NPS, as it opened with “It is hereby declared that it is a national policy to preserve for public use historic sites, buildings, and objects of national significance for the inspiration and benefit of the people of the United States.”268 Thus, claiming historic preservation a matter of national policy.
With the transference of battlefields, presidential birthplaces and buildings of cultural interest such as the White House into the holdings of the NPS, the management and public became confused about the mission of the NPS as well as confused about what the parks themselves were.269 Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes had addressed the national park superintendents in 1934, calling for a change in the development of the parks. He challenged the
NPS to reconsider the way nature should be enjoyed, and who it should be enjoyed by, stating,
“…parks ought to be for people who love to camp and love to hike and who like to ride horseback and wander about and have a real community of interest, a renewed communion with
Nature. That is what they ought to be.”270
Ickes stated that, “I want as much wilderness, as much nature preserved and maintained as possible.”271 He continued, that for decades visitors to the National Parks had been primarily of the privileged classes, people that could easily afford the cost of the travel and accommodations for the weeks or months that they would be traveling. The concession owners and park officials had catered to their ever-changing needs, and the parks had become akin to country clubs. “Parks are for the reasonable use of all the people…” Ickes claimed, intimating that the privileged class that were frequenting these parks for months on end, necessitating use of
268 “Historic Sites Act of 1935,” Title 16 U.S. Code, pts. 461-467. 1935ed. 269 Barringer, Yellowstone, 95. 270 Ibid. See also, T. H. Watkins, Righteous Pilgrim: The Life and Times of Harold L. Ickes, 1874-1952 (New York: H. Holt, 1990). 271 Hon. Harold Ickes, “Secretary of the Interior Address,” (address, National Park Superintendents Conference, November 20, 1934). 72 federal monies to build lavish resorts for them to stay were not the ideal patron; “Frankly, we don’t want that kind of people in the park...” he stated.272
Some conservation minded visitors and staff began to work for a return to simpler, wilder, and less socially divided, National Parks, in 1935 when they founded the Wilderness
Society.273 Echoing the previous generation’s President Roosevelt, the Wilderness Society believed that, “Conservation means development as much as it does protection,” but that the,
“…natural resources must be used for the benefit of all our people, and not monopolized for the benefit of the few…”274 These ideas returned to the root of conservation that had been set up in the 1890s, that of the greatest good for the greatest number for the longest time. As the role of the NPS and use of the National Parks began to become muddied in the changes of the New Deal
Era, non-elite personnel and visitors were seeking a return to a more egalitarian ideal of what conservation was and what it strove to accomplish. These ideals would play a large part as programs such as the Civilian Conservation Corps, Works Progress Administration, and Public
Works Administration became involved in the development of the parks.
New Deal programs began to become active in the National Parks in 1933. Funding for the parks had stayed consistent, and in some cases increased, during the road building projects of
1931-1932. In 1933 the National Parks received sixteen million dollars under the Public Works
Program of the National Industrial Recovery Act for the sole purpose of building roads and trails
272 Hon. Harold Ickes, “Secretary of the Interior Address,” (address, National Park Superintendents Conference, November 20, 1934). 273 Harvey Broome, “Origins of the Wilderness Society,” The Living Wilderness 5, 5 (July 1940): 13-15. This society was heavily influenced by Robert Marshall, “The Problem of the Wilderness,” Scientific Monthly 30, 2 (February 1930): 148. Which called for an organization to “fight for the freedom of the wilderness.” 274 Theodore Roosevelt, “The New Nationalism,” (Speech, August 31, 1910), accessible online at http://www.presidentialrhetoric.com/historicspeeches/roosevelt_theodore/newnationalism.html (accessed Feb 20, 2012). 73 within and to the parks.275 By June of 1933 four camps of Civilian Conservation Corps were at
Yellowstone alone, working in various capacities to improve the developed areas and upkeep of natural areas.276 Many of the historic campsites, roads, rest stops, and other amenities in the
National Parks today were built by the CCC. Despite the economic problems of the entire nation, it was in the 1933 season that automobile visitation began to pick back up in the parks as people explored the parks via the new roads and campsites built by government funding and the CCC.277
These visitors were staying less time than the elite pre-Depression visitors, and were not frequenting the inns or concessions, instead preferring to camp out, but were spending time in the parks.278 Visitation continued to increase until the beginning of the Second World War.
New Deal programming also influenced the role of the NPS at its newly held historic sites. Previously, the NPS had been solely responsible for overseeing the development and continuation of the National Parks, and to this end had become rather successful. For the first time the Federal Government put a federal organization in charge of the management, preservation, and development of historic sites. While the Antiquities Act of 1906 had sought to preserve historic sites of interest, it had not named a single government organization to administer the sites.279 With the 1935 act, these cultural resources were being protected alongside the natural resources within the NPS. Federal policy now mandated the research, documentation, preservation, restoration, and development of historical sites and buildings of interest.280 This act justified the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) that was a part of the New Deal
275 NPS, “The History of the Construction of the Road System in Yellowstone National Park, 1872-1966,” Yellowstone Historic Resource Study, http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/yell_roads/hrs1-9.htm (accessed Feb 20, 2012). 276 Ibid. 277 Ibid. 278 Ibid. 279 “American Antiquities Act of 1906,” Title 16 U.S. Code, pts. 431-433. 1906 ed. 280 “Historic Sites Act of 1935,” Title 16 U.S. Code, pts. 461-467. 1935ed. 74 programming, which gave work to architects, draftsmen, and photographers. The HABS program documented thousands of buildings and sites across the United States, and made these historic spaces be noticed.281 The NPS would continue to research, preserve, and develop these nationally important historic spaces, using the same ideology and mentality that they had used with the development of the Parks System. This unique duality, the blending of these two movements in a federally mandated organization, gave the NPS foothold of interest across the country and began to blend historic preservation into the Federal environmental conservation program.
Resource Rights and Dams
While the Hetch-Hetchy Valley dam project had been villainized by Muir and his followers in the 1910s the successful construction of the dam in 1923 was only one of many that began to spring up. While several of the dams, most of which were federally funded aid projects during the New Deal era, such as Hoover Dam, Grand Coulee and TVA, were built because of a real need to protect low lying towns from flooding and provide development and electricity for the surrounding community, there were many more with less pure intentions. Senator Alva
Adams of Colorado was one of the politicians seeking to gain federal monies in 1937 through the
Colorado-Big Thompson Reclamation Project. Writing to an Assistant Secretary to President
Roosevelt on June 23, 1937, Adams claimed, “Colorado has had no reclamation project nor any major project during the present administration. Every state in the west has one or more major projects. The lack of such a project is highly prejudicial to the standing of the administration.”282
Adams’ project was quite worthy of completion; like most damming projects, the gains in hydro-
281 Evidence of this is the HABSurveys, many of which are accessible online at, www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/hh/ 282 Senator Alva B. Adams of Colorado to Marvin H McIntyre, Assistant Secretary to the President [Washington] June 23, 1937, reprinted in, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Conservation Vol2 1937-1945, Roosevelt, Franklin D., and Edgar B. Nixon, (Hyde Park, N.Y.: General Services Administration, National Archives and Records Service, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, 1957). 75 electric power and irrigation to the local communities would reduce electric bills and increase crop yields. But it was still opposed by congressmen and other politicians who argued that it may inhibit the scenic views of Rocky Mountain National Park where the construction would take place and might alter the landscape. Adams retorted that “Construction of the project will improve and not impair the scenic beauties of the Park… there is no single feature of it which will be detrimental socially, economically, financially, or from the standpoint of scenic beauty and attraction.”283 Although a few conservation minded National Park supporters still opposed the project, construction on it began in 1938.
This was not the only project to shake conservationists. The discussion over water rights became heated during the New Deal era as politicians sought the construction of dams and other water control projects in their states. These damming projects were part of the dominant philosophy of the Roosevelt administration as they focused on regional development during the
Depression. Many of these projects would have the side benefit of also harnessing hydro-electric power for the region. As more states began planning dams for little reason than increase of federal funds flowing into their state, heated arguments between politicians over local short term gains through the destruction of public lands were voiced. Secretary of the Interior, Charles West wrote to Marvin McIntyre, Assistant Secretary of President Roosevelt, in the summer of 1937 to urge the government to reconsider projects that were to be built in National Parks. West claimed that at certain sites, the local people would, “…profit at the expense of hundreds of thousands of actual and potential park visitors.”284 He went even further later in the letter, claiming that if such
283 Senator Alva B. Adams of Colorado to Marvin H McIntyre, Assistant Secretary to the President [Washington] June 23, 1937, reprinted in, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Conservation Vol2 1937-1945, Roosevelt, Franklin D., and Edgar B. Nixon, (Hyde Park, N.Y.: General Services Administration, National Archives and Records Service, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, 1957). 284 Charles West, Secretary of the Interior to Marvin McIntyre, Assistant Secretary to the President. June 30, 1937. Republished in, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Edgar B. Nixon, Franklin D. Roosevelt & Conservation, 1911-1945 76 projects were passed, “…precedent would be established for utilization of resources in national parks throughout the country in connection with purely local irrigation, power development, and other schemes.”285 If this were to happen, “the economic values of the high public service to which the parks have been dedicated would shortly be gone.”286 West’s worries were justified.
Reclamation officials often saw themselves as champions of the local public, but their own understanding of the needs of the people were often skewed, leading to discussions over what ‘the greatest good’ meant.287 These officials sought to harness the rivers to be the keystone of regional economic growth, and tended to disregard the conservation of nature as an acceptable goal.288 The projects that they endorsed, and were funded by the federal government, sought to provide electricity and regulate water for irrigation. The NPS, which had for so long focused on the development of natural areas, found several of its sites at the center of land use discussions and questions about tangible and intangible values. These questions voiced by officials, local residents, and park tourists, would have no simple answer.
The outbreak of the Second World War did not stop the development of these types of projects. By the early 1950s the Bureau of Reclamation had no less than eighty dam sites in the
West selected; over two dozen of these sites had already been prepared for construction.289 But the changing environmental views in the post-World War II United States would begin to reverse these projects, and start to answer these value questions.
(Hyde Park, N.Y.: General Services Administration, National Archives and Records Service, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, 1957). 285 Ibid. 286 Ibid. 287 Rothman, Greening, 36-38. 288 Ibid. 289 Ibid. 77
Case Studies
The Carey, Sprunt, and Foy families during this time were all continuing to use their homes in the manner to which they were accustomed as private owners. During this time, the houses were passed on to a younger generation to maintain, and enjoy. This section will explore the ways that these families continued the legacies that had been set as precedence in the
Progressive Era, during the Depression years, instead of embracing new ideologies.
Figure 3-C Creek Farm from walking trail Photo by Erica Hague, 2011
The Carey’s of Creek Farm in New Hampshire continued to enjoy their vacation home.
After Carey’s death in 1923, Mrs. Carey continued to spent large amounts of time at Creek Farm accompanied by her children and grandchildren until her death in 1932, when she was buried on the property.290 Before her death, she deeded some of the property at Little Harbor over to her
290 Davis, “Arthur Astor Carey,” SPNHF Archives. 78 son Arthur Graham.291 At her death, the remaining property of Creek Farm was divided between
Arthur Graham and the heirs of his brother, Henry Reginald.292
Arthur Graham Carey had inherited his father’s love of art and religion. Graduating from
Harvard in 1914, he soon joined the US troops fighting in World War One. He went directly into military action, driving an ambulance in France for the Allies.293 After he returned from the First
World War in 1919, he entered into the Harvard Architectural school for two years before becoming a draftsman at Bigelow and Wadsworth in 1921.294 He gave up his position at the architectural firm in 1926 to pursue his hobbies in metallurgy, but by 1933 had developed into more of a thinker, spending most of his time writing and discussing theoretical matters.
Henry Reginald Carey had graduated from Harvard in 1913, and after a single year of medical school, joined the military efforts during WWI as a secretary at the American Embassy in Paris.295 After his return to the United States, he married Margaret in 1920 and they settled in
Pennsylvania and had four children, Henry, John, William, and Alida, while he pursued his career as a professional writer before his death in 1931 at the age of 41.296
While the Careys had enjoyed prosperity and been influential in the Portsmouth and
Boston communities, the children of the family seem to have had less attachment to the summer home at Creek Farm than their parents. After Mrs. Carey’s death in 1932, Arthur Graham Carey and Henry Reginald Carey’s family spent only a few years enjoying the property before
291 New Hampshire, Rockingham Co. Register of Deeds, Book 0795, Page 0407, Jun 26, 1925. 292 New Hampshire, Rockingham Co. Register of Deeds, Book 0894, Page 0240, Feb 06, 1934. 293 Harvard University. The Harvard Freshman Red Book; The Year Book of the Class of 1914 (Cambridge, Mass: Caustic-Claflin Co, 1914). 294 Harvard College, Secretary's Third Report (Cambridge, Mass: University Press, 1921); See also, Davis, “Arthur Astor Carey,” SPNHF Archives. 295 Harvard College, Secretary's Second Report (Norwood, Mass: Plimpton Press, 1917). 296 U.S. Census of Population and Housing, 1930, Philadelphia (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1991). 79 permanently quitting the house sometime before 1941.297 Henry Reginald’s children and widow had little interest in the house, living and spending most of their time in Germantown,
Philadelphia.298 Eventually Arthur Graham realized that he was too old to truly enjoy the work put into the house and spent most of his time at his house in Cambridge, Massachusetts.299
Figure 3-D Approach to Orton Plantation Photo by Associated Press
In Wilmington, Orton Plantation also changed hands during this time. Dr. Sprunt died in
1924 and the plantation passed onto his son, James Lawrence Sprunt, and his second wife Annie
Gray.300 J. Lawrence worked after his father’s death in 1924 to open a road through the forest to
NC133.301 Born in 1927 Laurence Gray Sprunt, Son of J. Lawrence and Annie Gray, wrote that
“Orton House faces the Cape Fear River because water was the chief means of access… By the end of the 1920s, the automobile and improved roads made the river steamboats obsolete, and I do not remember ever coming to or from Orton on river transportation.”302 The picturesque drive
297 Davis, “Arthur Astor Carey,” SPNHF Archives. 298 New Hampshire, Rockingham Co. Register of Deeds, Book 0894, Page 0240, Feb 06,1934. 299 Davis, “Arthur Astor Carey,” SPNHF Archives. 300 Sprunt, Orton, 16-17. 301 Ibid. 302 Laurence Grey Sprunt, The Past-- A Stairway to the Future, (Wilmington, NC: L.G. Sprunt, 2007). 80 from NC133 to the plantation house (see Figure 3-D) was yet another of the improvements made at Orton to accommodate the changing times and technology.303
Figure 3-E Sign erected near Wilmington City Limits by Chamber of Commerce Photo by Louis T Moore, 1923, Louis T Moore Collection, New Hanover Public Library
This generation worked to preserve the historic plantation home and continued to expand the gardens that Dr. and Mrs Sprunt had begun. By the 1930s the garden had expanded into several of the old rice fields, and covered 20 acres.304 Annie Gray sought the help of landscape architect Robert Swan Sturtevant and horticulturist Churchill Bragaw, who made significant contributions to the garden.305 The Sprunts opened their garden to the public sometime after this expansion, charging an entrance fee of twenty-five cents. The gardens that had remained largely private before were made accessible to all through new roads and people were happy to pay the fee to tour the expansive grounds.
303 Wilmington began to cater to motor tourists in 1923, posting signs like the one seen in figure 3-E. Perhaps it was because of the expansions that Wilmington was doing at this time that the Sprunt family decided to build a road. 304 Ibid. 305 Susan Taylor Block, “The Majestic Plantation,” Wrightsville Beach Magazine, July 2007. 81
Figure 3-F Back of Poplar Grove Photo by Erica Hague 2010
Across the Cape Fear, in Pender County, Poplar Grove Plantation was also changing hands. Despite their social and political success, J.T. and Nora Foy faced personal tragedies when all four children died in childbirth. They turned to J.T. Foy’s younger brother, Henry Foy for an heir, and he sent his eleven year old son Robert Lee Foy Sr. to inherit Poplar Grove.306
Robert would live with his aunt and uncle at Poplar Grove and grow into his position as heir.307
Robert Foy inherited the plantation in 1918 after his uncle’s death, and continued to improve the house and grounds, as well as continue to farm peanuts through the mid twentieth century.308 He, perhaps at the prompting of his wife, Elizabeth, integrated new technology into the house, building a windmill to pump water into the house and a new kitchen area soon after he inherited. He also had the house wired for electricity in 1937, the same year that Robert Jr.
306 House Tour, July 20, 2010. 307 Robert reportedly moved to Poplar Grove when he was 11, about 1898, he was recorded living there in the 1900 census.U.S. Census of Population and Housing, 1900; Topsail, Pender, North Carolina, (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1900). 308 House Tour, July 20, 2010. 82 graduated from highschool.309 These modern touches to the nearly century-old house breathed new life into the home as the next generation of Foys began to fill the house.310
Conclusion
The post-Progressive, Pre-Second World War United States was a time of reevaluation for many environmental conservationists and of political acceptance for historic preservationists at the national level. Both movements had set backs with the stock market crash of 1929 and subsequent Depression, but both gained the support of the federal government. In the case of historic preservation, the movement gained government endorsement and legitimacy with the passage of the Historic Sites Act of 1935. Historic Preservation continued to gain power and legitimacy as a movement with the interest of corporate developers who sought to highlight portions of the nation’s past through architectural remembrances of Yankee heritage and tradition. Conservation continued to become entrenched in political struggles as the NPS grew from a concession management line item to a multi-faceted department, responsible for developing heritage tourism and protecting natural and historical areas.
While the Progressive Era changed the conservation and preservation movements into larger, more professional, and more politicized movements, the Depression and New Deal eras brought more federal interest and money into both areas than ever before. It was during this time that these two movements were inextricably linked in the federal view through legislation and interest. While both sister movements had developed largely apart from one another, they were
309 House Tour, July 20, 2010. See also, “Obituary: Robert Lee Foy Jr.,” Star News, May 27, 2011. 310 Robert’s first two daughters were born in 1914 (Elizabeth) and 1917(Gertrude), his first son Robert Jr. was born in 1919 and worked alongside his father on the farm. U.S. Census of Population and Housing, 1920: Topsail, Pender, North Carolina (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1920); For Robert Jr’s profession see , Records of the Selective Service System, 1926-1975, North Carolina World War II Draft Registration Cards, Record group 137, Box Number: 122. 83 bound together in this era. While organizations in these areas were still very hesitant to work together, many seeing the disarray that the NPS spiraled into with the incorporation of historic sites into their realm, they could not avoid the association.
In the cases of Creek Farm, Orton Plantation, and Poplar Grove, they too were vulnerable to the technologies that were emerging during this time. The Careys at Creek Farm continued to retain their land holdings in the Little Harbor area, keeping the land privately held within the family. The Sprunts at Orton also retained their land, while giving into the new technologies of the time to build a road to Orton, which would become their primary mode of transportation into the estate. The Sprunts also expanded and opened their gardens to tourists, which would lead to the gardens becoming an important area for locals in the coming decades. The Foy family also remained in control of their land, but adopted modern necessities such as electricity and running water. While none of these families acted expressly for the sake of environmental conservation or historic preservation, all of them took steps to ensure that their land holdings and buildings would remain unchanged during this time period.
84
4. — A Future With Greater Meaning: 1945-1970s
“In sum, if we wish to have a future with greater meaning, we must concern ourselves not only with the historic highlights, but…with the total heritage of the nation and all that is work preserving from our past as a living part of the present.“ —With Heritage So Rich, Conclusions,1965
At the end of the Second World War, the United States soldiers who returned home came back to a very different nation than they had left. The United States had rebounded from the
Great Depression with the help of New Deal programs and the economic stability brought on by the war efforts in the early 1940s. This chapter will explore the effects of the bountiful years that followed World War Two on the historic preservation and environmental conservation movements. How did automobiles and suburbs continue to change communities? What did preservationists do to adapt to the changes to cities during this time? What sparked the rise of new environmentalism? How did the federal government react to the changes in the environmental conservation and historic preservation movements?
The United States entered an era of unparalleled growth and wealth after World War
Two. The middle class boomed as returning soldiers came home to jobs to produce automobiles, household electronics, and other consumer goods that would feed the development of the nation.
Goods developed by the military during the war, such as plywood, entered into the public sphere and increased the development of suburbs as everyone sought the American dream of a family home out of the city. Automobile production and ownership soared, and the interstate highway system was planned, developed, and built. In its wake was the destruction of thousands of historic sites.
This chapter will show how the historic preservation movement rapidly developed its fledgling ties to the federal government after World War Two. Legitimized as a movement with
85 the 1935 Historic Sites Act, the historic preservation movement had yet to become a priority for the federal government until the 1960s with the passing of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966. During the gap between World War II until the passage of the 1966 Act, the federal government took part in the destruction of several thousands of historic buildings and sites which were in the path of the network of interstates built with the passage of the 1956 Interstate
Highway Act. Further damage was done to historic buildings and cultural sites during the repetitive urban redevelopment programs, which waxed and waned during the 1940s, 50s, and
60s.
The environmental conservation movement also saw changes in federal policy and public involvement during this time. While visitation of the national parks increased with the availability of automobiles; environmental consciousness began to increase as well. People began to realize the impacts that their modern conveniences were having on society as a whole.
This chapter will look especially at the case of Silent Spring and the affect it had on the movement as it continued to discuss resource rights, and water projects. The post-war era brought about extensive changes for both the conservation and historic preservation movements federally and locally. More sites became inundated with cultural tourists, who travelled the freshly paved roads in their newly built automobiles, seeking to affirm their heritage.
The Rise of Automobiles and Suburbs
As World War Two ended, Americans began to seek out the consumer goods that they had given up during the war. Many members of the rising middle class strived to purchase automobiles, new homes, and technology particularly. The automobile rose from a mechanical oddity to an important mode of transport before World War Two for many wealthy Americans.
86
After the war, this mode of transportation was opened up to more individuals as car manufacturing plants made use of federal monies to retool war production factory lines into civilian transportation lines. While this took time, and resources were scarce directly after the war, by 1949 most major automobile manufacturers were at pre-war levels of production.311
Automobiles were more than just a social status item, they served their purpose as a mode of transport from suburban homes which saw an increase in production with the development of new building materials such as plywood.312 Returning veterans embraced the idea of suburban homes as the American Dream, which was pushed and advertised by developers.313 Elite white families were no longer the only residents of suburbs, working class Americans could now also afford to have their own homes, yards, and automobiles. For these veterans, home ownership equated to material success and well-being.314
These new suburbs were different than the streetcar suburbs of the Progressive Era.
Developed further from town and requiring interstates and highways in order to commute to the city center, these new suburbs were a melding of city and country.315 These areas did not develop on a grid, like earlier suburbs, but instead focused on curved streets and cul-du-sacs.316 Typically neighborhoods were formed by developer-builders, who offered similar designs from a catalogue, such as those designed and built by Levitt & Sons.
311 Ibid. 312 Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1965. Volume I, entry 54, 155-165; excerpt taken from, Special Message to the Congress on Conservation and Restoration of Natural Beauty, February 8, 1965 (Washington, D. C.: Government Printing Office, 1966); President Johnson claimed that, “For most Americans the automobile is a principal instrument of transportation, work, daily activity, recreation and pleasure.” 313 Jackson, Crabgrass. 314 David L. Ames, “Interpreting Post-World War II Suburban Landscapes as Historic Resources” published in, Preserving the Recent Past, Deborah Slaton and Rebecca A. Schiffer ed., (Washington, DC: Historic Preservation Education Foundation, 1995). 315 Ibid. 316 Jackson, Crabgrass, 236. 87
Abraham Levitt, and his two sons, William and Alfred, took the ideas of interchangeable parts and mass production and applied it to the housing industry. Focusing on speed and cost effective design, Levitt& Sons was able to build 30 houses a day by the summer of 1948.317
Their focus was on returning GIs and their families; Levitt& Sons catered to community needs by including pools, schools, and postal delivery. While the first Levittown focused on renting homes, subsequent communities offered payment plans for home ownership, for around eight thousand dollars, payable by installments, the American dream could be bought.318 These cookie-cutter homes, outfitted with appliances, televisions, and carports, were viable housing options for families with automobiles because of their distance from cities and amenities. Despite their low walkability and architectural singularity, by 1950 more Americans lived in suburbs than anywhere else.319
The combination of consumer demand and production of more middle class homes in the suburbs reinforced the need for automobiles throughout this period. Automobile ownership surged during this time, rebounding from about 220 per thousand at the end of World War Two to 323 by 1950.320 The number of automobile owners continued to rise even higher after the passing of the National Interstate Highway Act in 1956. The amount of cars per thousand in
1960 stood at about 410, and in 1970 the halfway mark was broken with 545 automobiles per thousand. By 1980 the amount had risen to 710.321
317 Kenneth T. Jackson, "The Baby Boom and the Age of the Subdivision," http://us.history.wisc.edu/hist102/readings/Jackson_BabyBoom.pdf (Accessed March 1, 2012). 318 Lynne Matarrese, The History Of Levittown, New York (Levittown, N.Y. : Levittown Historical Society, 1997). 319 Robert E England and David R. Morgan, Managing Urban America (North Scituate, Mass: Duxbury Press, 1979). 320 Daniel Sperling and Deborah Gordon, Two billion cars: driving toward sustainability (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 3-9, Tables 3.3 and 3.5. 321 Ibid. 88
Deurbanization and Urban Renewal
As Americans migrated out of cities and towns after World War Two, they pushed suburban areas further out. These former city dwellers had no interest in the preservation of the urban homes, stores, and community areas and instead focused on building new amenities closer to their new homes. The abandoned urban centers created large areas of urban decay. By midcentury, community leaders and politicians of many of these places lobbied for urban renewal to remove areas that they considered as permanently blighted from their towns and cities. The Department of Housing and Urban Development led the urban renewal movement in the United States with the passage of the Housing Act of 1949. As part of President Truman’s
Fair Deal, this act focused on rehousing Americans that lived in slums and tenements. While this act provided some of the urban poor with the ability to move into improved housing, it often destroyed more housing than it created. Poor immigrants and African Americans, who had been the primary tenants of these urban slums, were often displaced by these ‘improvements,’ due to the expense of the new housing.322 These minorities though, were not the only victims of urban renewal.
In 1957 a national conference of city developers met to discuss the decline of cities.
Filled with professors, architects, real estate experts, industrialists, and government officials, this meeting focused on rehabilitating the outmoded cities and breathing new life and meaning into these urban areas.323 This group decided that a reorganization of urban spaces was required, and that cities would no longer be the industrial meccas that they had been but instead become the
322 Bernard J. Frieden, and Lynne B. Sagalyn, Downtown, Inc.: How America Rebuilds Cities (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1989), 29. 323 Ibid, 15-16. 89 cultural and educational heart of the community.324 Held one year after the passage of the
National Interstate Highway Act, this conference sought to expand highways and roads, bring in educational, cultural, commercial, green spaces and tourist areas and to push out the warehousing and industrial factories and the slum housing.325 While this group of elite experts sought the destruction of the industrial city, in order to create a new community focus that would draw in suburbanites, they often neglected to plan for the people who lived and worked in the cities. This disregard of the mostly poor and ethnically diverse people who actually lived in these urban communities would be a hallmark of urban renewal. Urban renewal would be repeated in city after city in the latter half of the twentieth century, and its impacted on the historic preservation movement would be long-lasting and widespread.
Historic Urban Preservation
With the destruction of historic cities and the rebuilding of many urban centers, preservationists saw the need to protect the historic structures in many of these urban areas.
While the historic preservation movement as a whole had gained legitimacy and federal interest with the passage of the Historic Sites Act of 1935, it had yet to gain a national organization dedicated to leading the movement. Large institutions such as Colonial Williamsburg, and societies like SPNEA had acted as models for similar local private organizations, but no national organization existed to bring these groups together and focus on widespread issues such as urban renewal. The NPS was supposed to be leading the historic preservation field with the endorsement of the federal government, but had not fulfilled its task in urban areas. By 1947
324 Frieden and Sagalyn, Downtown, Inc, 15-16. 325 Ibid, 16-17. 90 preservationists had begun to organize nationally, and in 1949 they were rewarded with the passing of the National Trust for Historic Preservation Act.326
This National Trust Act of 1949 expanded the 1935 Historic Sites Act to create the educational non-profit organization named the National Trust for Historic Preservation. This organization was to “facilitate public participation in the preservation of sites, buildings, and objects of national significance or interest.”327 However, this act did little in its first years, as historic preservation was overshadowed by the Korean War and then later the Vietnam War. It was not until the interests of Ladybird Johnson inspired her husband, President Lyndon Johnson, to make preservation a part of his Great Society administration that the National Trust gained strong support.328 The First Lady was interested in national beautification and saw historic preservation playing a role in improving cityscapes.329 Conservation, too, was an important part of this national beautification plan, as President Johnson emphasized in his 1965 inaugural address, “We must make a massive effort to save the countryside and to establish--as a green legacy for tomorrow--more large and small parks, more seashores and open spaces.”330 Soon after, he made a special address to congress on conservation that focused on national beautification, specifically targeting the National Trust as an organization to support for the improvement of the future.331 For the President, conservation and preservation were already linked interests.
326 “National Trust for Historic Preservation Act,” Title 16 U.S.Code 468. 1949 ed. 327 Ibid. 328 Murtagh, Keeping Time, 64. 329 Ibid. 330 Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1963-64, (Washington, D. C.: Government Printing Office, 1965), 112-118. Annual Message to the Congress on the State of the Union, January 4, 1965 331 Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1963-64, (Washington, D. C.: Government Printing Office, 1965), 155-165. Special Message to the Congress on Conservation and Restoration of Natural Beauty, February 8, 1965 91
In May 1965, the First Lady opened the White House Conference on Natural Beauty.
This conference formed a committee on historic preservation, which was supported by the
National Trust and filled with public and private organization leaders.332 This committee published the iconic, With Heritage So Rich, which would lead to the passage of the 1966
National Historic Preservation Act and influence a new generation of preservationists.333 The conclusions of With Heritage So Rich pointed out the need for the preservation movement to reorient itself in order to better serve the rootless American public that craved the stability and belonging that historic buildings embodied.334 To this end, countless organizations across the nation became active in preserving not just the houses of famous men, nor houses that were of architectural interest, but entire neighborhoods. The scope of Historic Preservation widened again, and drew in support from a more diverse range of community members seeking to save their historic neighborhoods from urban renewal, and finally cemented federal interest.
Federal attentiveness to historic preservation was also impacted with the creation of With
Heritage So Rich, and led to a new wave of urban preservation. With the passage of the National
Historic Preservation Act of 1966 and the subsequent creation of the National Register of
Historic Places, sites of national state, local, architectural, and cultural interest were recognized and documented.335 While at first many of these were singular buildings or estates, the national register today boasts many different kinds of areas, including districts. This piece of legislature also encouraged an increase in federal grants towards rehabilitation and restoration of historic structures, buildings, and districts.336
332 Murtagh, Keeping Time, 64. 333 Ibid. United States Conference of Mayors, With Heritage so Rich; A Report (New York: Random House, 1966). 334 Mayors, With Heritage, 207. 335 “National Historic Preservation Act of 1966,” Title 16, U.S. Code, Pts. 470.1966 ed. 336 Murtagh, Keeping Time, 66-68. 92
Perhaps most importantly, the National Historic Preservation Act provided legal basis for preservationists to voice complaints about federal works in regard to the built environment.
Historic sites would no longer be bulldozed over for roads, or swallowed up by damming projects as they had earlier in the century. This act required federal organizations and private groups that were funded or licensed federally to take cultural property into account before any changes were made to the built environment.337 For federally funded programs the widespread destruction of structures would be slowed down, or stopped altogether.
The 89th Congress, in session from 1965-1966, was also responsible for passing other pieces of preservation legislature that served to reinforce the National Historic Preservation Act.
In 1966 the Department of Transportation Act mandated policy that natural and man-made sites along highway routes be preserved.338 This put an end to the bulldozing of sites and established positions for preservationists within federal and state Departments of Transportation. This
Congress also passed the Demonstration Cities act in 1966, which changed the way that preservation was funded.339 This act provided funding for urban preservation through the
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, altering some of the methods of urban renewal.
By the 1970s there had been an increase in local organizations, tied to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, working to preserve sites of national, state, and local interest. These organizations, sought to protect historic sites and districts, and to bring new life into these old places. Historic house museums had proven, for the most part, to be unprofitable because of their high costs of maintenance. These historic structures had to be put to use or risk losing public interest in them. While historic houses could always be houses, the late 1970s saw the beginning
337 Murtagh, Keeping Time, 66-68. 338 “Department of Transportation Act of 1966,” Title 49, U.S.Code, Pts. 103. 1966 ed. 339 “Demonstration Cities and Metropolitan Development Act,” Title 42, U.S. Code, Pts. 4231. 1966 ed. 93 of the adaptive reuse ideology as historic buildings became refitted as offices, bars, businesses, galleries, and a multitude of other purposes in order to make these historic spaces relevant and useful to the public that would occupy them.
Rise of Environmentalism
While the conservation movement of the Progressive and New Deal eras focused on the management of nature and its resources, the post-World War II era gave way to new environmental concerns. Old issues, such as air and water pollution, were revisited and expanded to include soil pollution, in response to new agricultural technologies that caused health risks.340
Much of this new environmentalism was led by the suburbanite class that emerged from the
Second World War. Many of these suburbanites were concerned with their own personal environments and quality of life first, and the management of national nature preserves second.341
With the increase of domestic affluence and international power during the Cold War
Era, some Americans began to argue that the nation could seek social and economic progress without destroying nature. They believed that America had the power and wealth to be able to have new buildings, suburbs, and technologies, without the destruction of natural areas. Unlike the early conservation movement, 1950s environmentalism could employ a wide range of interests and methods. Environmentally minded Americans adopted a wide range of issues and a
340 Pollution had been a concern since the Progressive Era, and had at that time spurred many elite Americans to leave the city for the cleaner country. Pollution during the Progressive Era was, for the most part, a women’s cause. For more information on early pollution movements, see, Martin V. Melosi ed., Pollution and Reform in American Cities, 1870-1930 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1980). For information on late 20th century see, Martin V. Melosi's, Effluent America: Cities, Industry, Energy, and the Environment (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2001). 341 Samuel P. Hays, Health, and Permanence: Environmental Politics in the United States, 1955-1985 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 2-5. 94 varying degree of involvement. For example, radical groups emerged during the social unrest of the 1960s, seeking to remove themselves from the consumerist society and live in and with nature.342 This commune movement was vastly different from the ‘radical’ woodsmen of the
Progressive Era and before, like Thoreau and Muir, who sought individual freedom and a low impact relationship with nature. However, very few Americans subscribed to the ideals of these communes. Environmentalists of the 1950s and 60s were much more likely to focus on either the beautification, anti-development, or pollution.
With the increase of highways, suburban sprawl, and urban decay, important national figures such as Lady Bird Johnson, as has been seen, sought to beautify these landscapes using natural areas, parks, and forests, The purpose of these beautification efforts was to increase appreciation of the aesthetic and recreational qualities of the natural world. These ideals fell in line most closely with the national park movement of the previous decades, and continued to link conservation of natural spaces and the preservation of historic structures.
The Sierra Club, founded in 1892, followed this line of thought, but also opposed the pace of the consumerist society that necessitated the need for a beautification program. It drew in members who sought to work against the building of dams. While many of these proposed dams would destroy natural areas, many members sought the halting of their development in protest to what they saw as mindless progress instead of protecting nature.
342 Communes and commune life during this time might be most easily understood through the works of Gary Snyder. Gary Snyder, A Place in Space (Berkeley: Counterpoint, 1995); contains several of his works from 1950- 1990s on environmental issues. 95
Many Americans who had concerns over the
consequences of progress joined the ranks of the Sierra
Club in order to agitate against development. The
growth of the club came on the heels of the loss of a
battle at Glen Canyon Dam, which regulated the flow of
water through the Grand Canyon. The Sierra Club had
chosen not to fight the dam, despite its earlier success at
blocking the Colorado River Echo Dam project in 1955.
Many environmental conservationists were
disenchanted with the Bureau of Reclamation, and
although they had no ties to the local community that Figure 4-A Sierra Club Campaign Advertisement would be impacted by damming projects, began to
speak out against such developments. For the Sierra Club and its supporters, these spaces were
best left to their own devices, and devoid of development. The Bureau ignored the outcry and
continued to back its policy of “the greatest good for the greatest number for the longest time”
that had been developed in the Progressive Era. This unbending policy was not tolerated by the
Sierra Club.
By the mid-1960s two dams had been proposed for the Grand Canyon as part of a larger
Central Arizona Project. This project would severely alter the canyon, what the Sierra Club saw
as a sacred space. The Sierra Club launched a propaganda campaign in all the major domestic
newspapers that spoke out against such desecration. “Should we also flood the Sistine Chapel so
that tourists can get nearer the ceiling?” asked the headline (see figure 4-A). The Bureau had
little to say on the matter, believing the majority of the public to be indifferent.
96
Many Americans spoke up and out about the Central Arizona Project, and other damming developments though. The Sierra Club, led by David Brower, claimed that, “Progress need not deny to the people their inalienable right to be informed and to choose.”343 This claim resonated with the American public who felt that information had been withheld from them, and they raced to save the canyon and spoke out about the presidential administration that had allowed such a crisis in the first place. The Johnson administration, which had signed the Wilderness Act in
1964 which had simultaneously defined wilderness and protected 9 million acres, stoped the damming project in the wake of emotional cries from the public. But this approach to conservation varied greatly from the efforts of previous generations that sought to develop national park areas and those of the 1960s who tried to work within the political administrations.
Finally, other groups making up the new environmentalism movement focused on reducing pollution. Americans who embraced this environmental concern sought to improve quality of life through the protection of clean air, water, and soil. Many of the worries from this area of new environmentalism were brought about with the creation and use of new chemicals and technology. Some of the worries from this group were made public with the publishing of
Silent Spring.
Silent Spring
Silent Spring, published in 1962, described the effects of DDT on the avian population of a suburb. Used heavily in the Pacific during World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam
343 Eliot Porter, and David Ross Brower, The Place No One Knew: Glen Canyon on the Colorado (San Francisco: Sierra Club, 1963), ii. 97
War, DDT was a pesticide used to control outbreaks of malaria and typhus.344 Long term studies on the effects of prolonged exposure to DDT were simply not done. The author of Silent Spring, biologist Rachel Carson, questioned use of chemicals with so little study on its impact, and linked DDT use to the death of birds in her friend’s neighborhood.345 “In nature nothing exists alone,” Carson wrote, echoing the words of ecologists.346 Carson argued for larger and more comprehensive studies on these chemical agents that people were using in order to find out the effects of such chemicals in a wider area.347 She theorized that prolonged exposure to, and use of, these products could not only kill the birds, but could also lead to long lasting illnesses, and even death, in the human population.348
“These sprays, dusts, and aerosols are now applied almost universally to farms, gardens, forests, and homes-nonselective chemicals that have the power to kill every insect, the "good" and the "bad," to still the song of birds and the leaping of fish in the streams, to coat the leaves with a deadly film, and to linger on in soil- all this though the intended target may be only a few weeds or insects. Can anyone believe it is possible to lay down such a barrage of poisons on the surface of the earth without making it unfit for all life?” Carson questioned. 349
Carson was blasted by the chemical companies and despite her degree in biology, was called a hysterical woman.350 Despite these criticisms, her book captured the attention of
President John F. Kennedy’s, and he directed his Science Advisory Committee to investigate the claims of Carson.351 The findings of the committee eventually led to the banning of use of DDT in the United States in 1972, and internationally in 1979.352
344 Persistent Bioaccumulative and Toxic (PBT) Chemical Program, “DDT,” EPA, http://www.epa.gov/pbt/pubs/ddt.htm (accessed April 1, 2012). 345 Carson, Silent Spring. 346 Ibid, 8. 347 Ibid. 348 Ibid. 349 Ibid, 7-8. 350 Peter Matthiessen, “Environmentalist Rachel Carson” Time, (March 29, 1999). 351 “The Story of Silent Spring,” NRDC http://www.nrdc.org/health/pesticides/hcarson.asp (accessed April 1, 2012). 352 World Health Organization, Environmental Health Criteria 9, DDT and its Derivatives (Geneva: World Health Organization, 1979). 98
While Silent Spring and the subsequent banning of DDT use are debated to this day, the book served its purpose to bring attention to the unstudied use of potentially dangerous chemicals.353Carson’s findings were embraced by the American public, because they echoed the unspoken concerns of many over the invisible consequences of progress and the use of technology. Her claims would incite a generation of new environmentalists who would argue for the federal protection of nature in order to protect their own lifestyle. Smog, water pollution, and other new environmental issues were raised across the nation.
Beautification and Environmentalism
In 1959 William Whyte encouraged Life readers to go take a look at the countryside while they still could, and then go back towards the city, “Here, in what was pleasant countryside only a year ago, is a sight of what is to come. No more sweep of green—across the hills are splattered scores of random subdivisions…”354 With the increase in suburban sprawl and the expansion of highways, beautification programs, which had begun during the Progressive Era, became popular again. Lady Bird Johnson saw beautification as part of the traditional first lady sphere of social and moral uplift, and led the beautification program very seriously.355 In May
1965 President Johnson, at the urging of his wife, called together a White House Conference on
Natural Beauty claiming that “The beauty of our land is a natural resource. Its preservation is
353 Opponents of Silent Spring claim that Carson’s study killed many through the spread of Malaria and other diseases that could have been prevented with the use of DDT. Carson never calls for not using DDT, but instead only pushes for more in-depth study and research on the affects that use will have. For more information on arguments against Silent Spring, see, Erik M. Conway, " Denial Rides Again: The Revisionist Attach on Rachel Carson" in Merchants of Doubt, Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway (New York: Bloomsbury, 2010), 216–239. 354 William Whyte Jr., “A Plan to Save Vanishing U.S. Countryside,” Life 47, (August 17, 1959): 88-89. 355 Rothman, Greening, 96-67. 99 linked to the inner prosperity of the human spirit.”356 This conference, aimed at building parks, planting trees and flowers along highways, preserving and rehabilitating historic structures, and cleaning up unsightly signs of sprawl was the beginning for environmental acts such as the
Highway Beautification Bill of 1965. Programs that emerged from this conference were aimed at disadvantaged neighborhoods, abandoned spaces, and highways and the influence of the first lady helped to attract attention to the environmental movement.357 The Beautification programs might seem superficial, but they provided funding for the greening of many urban areas and brought together environmental consciousness with historic preservation.
The Changing Use of Creek Farm, Orton Plantation, and Poplar Grove
As debates raged on nationally about environmental concerns, the need for green spaces, and the desire to preserve historic landscapes, the fate of Creek Farm, Orton Plantation and
Poplar Grove laid in the hands of their new owners. All three sites saw a change in ownership during the New Deal Era, although this did not necessarily mean a sale of the property. All of the properties were nearing historic status, and entering into new phases of their existence. These places had outlived their original purpose, and were beginning to enter into roles for which they had not originally been intended.
As the Carey family slowly moved away from the Boston and Portsmouth area, Creek
Farm sat uninhabited. In 1957 the family finally decided to sell Creek Farm and accepted an offer by Chester and Billie Noel to buy the house and acreage. The Noel family seemed to have held similar interests with the Carey family and began work on renovating the seventy year old
356 Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1965, Volume I (Washington, D. C.: Government Printing Office, 1966), 155-165. Special Message to the Congress on Conservation and Restoration of Natural Beauty, February 8, 1965. 357 Rothman, Greening, 98. 100 home. The Noels drew up plans to subdivide the property in 1958, but chose instead to divide the house into ten apartments.358 Chester Noel worked as a contractor and perhaps because of this, the subdivision of the house was done with intense care and attention to detail.359 Thus Creek
Farm went from a summer cottage on little harbor to an apartment complex.
This complex drew several tenants, who began to form a new community around the old cottage. The grounds, gardens, and buildings that had seen foreign diplomats, at least one president, and a wide variety of artists of all sorts were once again a place where people were living. This new community at Creek Farm continued to keep up the land and house, and kept both free from any major changes. These new tenants were a wide variety of individuals, but included several younger people who had moved to the area to further their careers. The surrounding private homes, likewise, continued to remain undeveloped. Neighbors remembered it as, “…a tremendous piece of property,” recalling the attention that the Noels lavished on the house and land.360 Former tenants suggested that “…the seed of the protection of that property goes back a great deal of years.”361 That the Noels had put aside the development plans for good.
After the Second World War, Orton Plantation continued to be lived on by James
Lawrence Sprunt and his second wife Annie. The gardens continued to be a tourist destination, drawing visitors and interest throughout most of the year, but drawing special attention from the locals during the spring months when the azaleas were in bloom.
358 “Boston University Full Report on Creek Farm” (Presented to the SPNHF, Boston University, 2002). 359 “Boston University Full Report on Creek Farm” (Presented to the SPNHF, Boston University, 2002). 360 Rick Simpson, (Portsmouth Advocates Forum on Creek Farm, May 22 2001), Transcript SPNHF Archives. Simpson had been a neighbor to Creek Farm since his birth in 1957. 361 Jamison French, (Portsmouth Advocates Forum on Creek Farm, May 22 2001), Transcript SPNHF Archives. French’s first apartment when he moved to Portsmouth (circa 1975) was at Creek Farm. 101
In 1947 Dr. W. Houston Moore, an active Rotary Club member in Wilmington, called a meeting of the local civic clubs and the Chamber of Commerce. The purpose of this meeting was to “discuss the feasibility of holding an azalea festival to celebrate the beauty of the gardens at
Greenfield, Orton, Airlie, and other gardens around town.”362 The festival was arranged for the spring of 1948 and opened with wonderful weather and gardens at the peak of their beauty.363
The festival became a yearly event, drawing thousands of people into the city, and across the river to Orton.
James Sprunt had always loved the rich history of Orton and in 1973 he submitted a nomination and the house was listed on the National Register.364 James died later that same year and Annie continued to live in the house until her death in 1978. The plantation that had become a home, had now become an important local attraction that drew locals and tourists alike. The brothers that inherited the Orton continued to visit regularly throughout this time.
Poplar Grove Plantation continued to be owned by the Foy family, although it is unclear if the owners lived in the plantation house until they sold it in 1975 to a cousin, Jan Long. She worked to have the house placed on the National Register in 1979 and in 1980 officially opened the house as a historic house museum.365 The owner would continue to expand the outbuildings on the property in order to house different work areas that visitors could interact with, including a smithy, weaving room, and reconstructed tenant farmer housing.
362 Letter from Hugh Morgan, First Azelea Festival President, to Gayle Ward, undated. Available at, “History,” North Carolina Azealea Festival, http://www.ncazaleafestival.org/page.asp?q=aboutus-history (accessed April 12, 2012). 363 Ibid. 364 National Register of Historic Places, Orton Plantation, Southport, Brunswick Co., North Carolina, 73001294. 365 National Register of Historic Places, Poplar Grove, Scotts Hill, Pender Co., North Carolina, 79003346. 102
Although these sites were involved very little in the changes that the Cold War era brought to the United States, they all underwent change during this time and survived. For Creek
Farm, the subdivision of the house brought in the needed monies to support the land that surrounded it. The conservation of the land then took precedence over the complete preservation of the structure. At Orton Plantation, the land was changed as the gardens were expanded and opened to visitors. The forests, gardens, and house worked as a whole to provide a unique southern experience for tourists. At Poplar Grove, the house and immediate acreage was sold to a party interested in the restoration and preservation of the house. While some of the owners saw these changes as a choice between conservation and preservation, other saw it as an opportunity for both.
Conclusion
During the Cold War era, many changes to both the historic preservation and environmental conservation movements occurred. While both movements became closer through legislative action and gained more of a widespread national following, these positives came at a high cost. Technology and suburban development took its toll on the environment, and historic buildings. The increasing reliance on automobiles as the main source of transportation, the increase in suburbs and suburban housing, and the development of the interstate highways caused the removal of several historic places and natural spaces. As these suburban areas grew, urban decay spread, leading to more destruction through urban renewal programs.
While many of these negative events were halted with the passage of legislation during the Johnson administration, the nation still was divided on these important cultural resource issues. There was a large amount of information and knowledge that constantly bombarded the
103 public. This mass of information created misunderstandings as different types of environmentalists or preservationists sought to gain political ground for their own niche market.
While both movements grew together in legislation, they grew apart at grassroots levels. Many
Americans failed to realize that the environmental conservation and historic preservation movements did not have to be mutually exclusive.
104
5. —A New Paradigm: The Past 30 years
“More and more, we are striving to preserve what has survived from the past, not to idolize that past, but to inform the present and to ensure the quality of the future” —W. Brown Morton III, 1991366
In the aftermath of the Watergate scandal, the resignation of President Richard Nixon and the US withdrawal from the unpopular Vietnam War, the historic preservation and environmental conservation movements matured and shifted their focus. This chapter will explore the quickly shifting foci of the historic preservation and environmental conservation movements in the past thirty years, and ask, have these movements begun to work together? If so, what change has made them do so? What are the challenges and pay-offs of such endeavors?
What has the government done to facilitate or block such collaborations? What can the case studies show about the growth of local environmental conservation and historic preservation movements?
Preservation had become professionalized in the Progressive Era, gained legitimacy with the New Deal and had profited by funding and legislative support with the Great Society during the Cold War years. This chapter will look at the impact of the Main Street America program and the increase of national register neighborhood listings during the end of the twentieth century.
1991 was the 25th anniversary of the founding of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, and the 75thanniversary of the founding of the NPS; during this year, preservationists from many different professional areas gathered together at a national conference to discuss the past and future of the preservation movement. It was at this conference that goals for collaboration with environmental conservationists were first set.367
366 W. Brown Morton III, “Forging New Values in Uncommon Times,” in, Lee, 39-41, 40. 367 The goals of this conference can be found in, Brink and Dehart, “Findings,” in Lee, 15-23. 105
The conservation movement grew from an elite escape from urban life to a nationally funded management of nature for the greatest good during the Progressive Era, and gained widespread support with the advent of the automobile. While the movement as a whole had fragmented after World War II, the rise of new environmentalism had not completely erased the presence of conservationists. Until this time, conservationists had focused mostly on large national parks instead of local areas, this chapter will explore how private groups began to emerge and take roles in local and state areas which helped to solidify the movement.
Urban Flight and Historic Preservation
Preservationists had moved away from focusing only on the landowning elite estates and began including worker housing, downtown storefronts, and middle class neighborhoods during the post-war Era. As has been shown, at a time when many urban centers were being abandoned, preservationists stepped in to restore and revive the commercial core of cities and towns across the nation.368Beginning in 1980 and led by the National Trust, the Main Street program worked to revive historic downtowns in small-town America.369 Focusing on providing smaller matching grants for owners to make much needed repairs and smaller fixes, this program was a combination of beautification, preservation, and urban renewal.
To save these historic structures in perpetuity the buildings would have to bring in enough money to offset the cost of maintenance. Preservationists, when faced with this problem, realized that the historic structures could be adapted from its previous function to serve a wide
368 Michael Tomlin, “Preservation Practice Comes of Age,” 74, in, Lee, 73-79. 369 “About Main Street,” National Trust for Historic Preservation, http://www.preservationnation.org/main- street/about-main-street/ (accessed March 11, 2012). 106 variety of purposes.370 These buildings were saved from destruction, and their use and purpose was adapted to the new needs that they would fill. Historic houses changed into businesses, old department stores morphed into libraries, and old churches became bars.371 These changes were also good for the economy, keeping the materials and work local, increasing the amount of jobs available for both restoration work and in the new businesses that were being created from historic structures.372
The expansion of these Main Street Programs to include historic housing districts also improved property values in some areas. For instance, in New Bern, North Carolina, property values of fifty seven homes that had been restored between 1970 and 1986 were compared to their 1970 price, the appreciation of these properties was almost eight hundred percent.373 The downtown property values in the downtown areas of New Bern also saw an increase, property values in 1978 were 8.7 million, and in 1994 were 42.3 million.374 The restoration work increased jobs in the area, the increase in property values benefitted the owners of the buildings, and the increase in tax revenue because of the increase in property values benefitted the entire community. These combined preservation efforts helped to revitalize the New Bern area.
Adaptive reuse of historic structures became another tool for preservationists to use as they worked to duplicate the success of New Bern.
The 1980s also heralded the advent of what proved to be the short-lived era of façadism.
At first, this method of preservation was seen as an acceptable compromise; a ‘best alternative’
370 Donovan D Rypkema, Profiting From The Past (Raleigh: Preservation North Carolina, 1997); explores the various methods and payoffs of downtown preservation. 371 These are only some of the many examples of adaptive reuse of buildings. Some of these are Wilmington specific, such as the New Hanover Public Library, which was once a Belk Department store, and several of the historic houses on Market Street which are now offices for Lawyers, architects, and other businesses. 372 Rypkema, Profiting, 7-12. 373 Colin W Barnett, The Impact of Historic Preservation on New Bern, North Carolina: From Tryon Palace to the Coor-Cook House (Winston-Salem, N.C.: Bandit Books, 1993). 374 Swiss Bear Newsletter, New Bern, North Carolina, 1995. 107 to losing the building completely, the façade of the structure is saved, while a modern building is constructed behind.375 Some argued that the architecture and feeling of the building would be preserved, and modern needs would be met. However, others took a different view. As one architectural critic put it, “To save only the facade of a building is not to save its essence; it is to turn the building into a stage set, into a cute toy intended to make a skyscraper more palatable.
And the street becomes a kind of Disneyland of false fronts.”376 It took a few years for many preservationists to realize that, the destruction of all but the front of an edifice is only paying lip- service to preservation, and to compromise a building in such a way would destroy its integrity.
Today these façades can be seen in many cities, Wilmington, North Carolina for example, has kept the façade of the Theater on Front Street. Façadism though, taught preservationists about the dangers of compromises and encouraged them to seek out cooperation for improved long term situations of such buildings.
With this increase in locally based preservation efforts, the preservation organizations as a whole increased their business management operations and knowledge. Local preservation organizations were now working with individual home and business owners, large corporations who owned land and buildings, and government institutions in order to preserve the historic fabric of their communities. They had to master the laws, codes, and tax write-offs that were available in order to make restoration understandable and attractive to owners of buildings with the potential to be preserved. State Historic Preservation Offices (SHPOs) sprung up across the nation with the passing of the National Historic Preservation Act that created the National Trust, once its role was solidified with the 1980 amendment to the act, were responsible for navigating
375 Michael Tomlin, “Preservation Practice Comes of Age,” 75-76, in, Lee, 73-79. 376 Paul Goldberger, “’Facadism’ on the rise: Preservation or Illusion?” New York Times, July 15, 1985. 108 the process of nominating a site for the National Register of Historic Places.377 The developments that had begun with the creation of the NPS came full circle in the end of the twentieth century as funding and write-offs became available for a wide variety of historic structures.
Conservation & Environmentalism in the Late Twentieth Century
By 1980, political malaise had only heightened the fears of some segments of the public over environmental concerns. Many suburbanites focused on new environmentalism and health risks due to pollution of air, water, and land, which had led to the Clean Air and Clean Water
Acts in the 1960s and 1970s, and several amendments in the ‘70s and ‘90s.378 However, there were still public concerns regarding the conservation and management of the National Parks,
Forests, and other natural public spaces. While there had been a renewal of preservation minded leadership in the NPS during the 1950s and 1960s, a change in leadership prompted a return to the pre-World War II policies of development and tourism in the national parks.
James Watt, an attorney from the West, was appointed under the Reagan administration in 1981 as the new Secretary of the Interior, and began to deregulate natural resources. 379 Watt wanted to change how the Department of the Interior managed its resources, and to do so he rewrote regulations for the management of the department. He sought an increase in what he called ‘public use’ of the parks which meant escalating the development of parks to make them more accessible to a wider variety of vehicles.380 He also stopped the procurement of additional land for national parks and opened up some areas of park lands to economic interests, such as
377 “National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA),” Title 16, U.S.Code, pts. 470. 378 “Clean Air Act of 1963,” Title 42, U.S.Code, Pts. 7401. 1990ed. ;was amended in 1967, 1970, 1977, and 1990. “Clean Water Act of 1972,” Title 33, U.S. Code, Pts. 1251. 1987 ed.;was amended in 1977 and 1987. 379 Rothman, Greening, 169-174. 380 Staff, “What Watt Wrought,” High Country News 15, no. 20, Oct 31, 1983. 109 off-shore oil drilling in central California and large scale leasing of coal, oil and gas tracts.381
Mainstream environmental groups such as the Wilderness Society, Sierra Club, and Audubon
Society grew quickly as a reaction to this giant step back for conservation. The Wilderness
Society grew from 48,000 members in 1979 to 100,000 in 1983; during the same years the
Audubon Society grew from 300,000 to 498,000.382 The number of environmental organizations that Americans could join also increased as groups became more specialized within the broad sphere of environmental issues. Americans could now join global groups such as the Wild
Foundation, and the Earth Liberation Front, national groups such as the Citizens Campaign for the Environment, state groups like Environment California, or local groups such as the
Chesapeake Bay Foundation.
Spurred on by the changes Watt made within the Department of the Interior, and by state organizations agitating for the return of management of natural sites to their respective states, these grassroots members became a significant political force. These new members were willing to donate money, sign petitions, write letters, and become a highly visible public power that most legislators could not disregard.383The burgeoning environmental movement was made up of both professional environmentalists from the well-established and mainstream organizations like the
Sierra Club, and newer, direct action, grassroots groups such as Earth First!.384 To the movement as a whole, this blend of different types of organizations would prove a boon because mainstream and more radical organizations balanced each other in achieving what the other often could not. While Watt was removed from his position in 1983 after several politically
381 Staff, “What Watt Wrought,” High Country News 15, no. 20, Oct 31, 1983. 382 Rothman, Greening, 180. 383 Ibid, 181. 384 Earth First was founded in 1980 by David Foreman, Howie Wolke, Ron Kezar, Bart Kohler and Mike Roselle. A direct action group, that saw value in non-violent civil disobedience such as monkeywrenching, to sabotage and end environmental destruction, but did not openly endorse or plan such events. More information about the organization can be found at, http://www.earthfirstjournal.org (accessed April 15, 2012.) 110 embarrassing public blunders, the environmental movement benefitted, in some ways, from his stint in office.385 Watt had threatened the political bipartisanship of the environmental movement, and the environmentally minded public had put aside their individual interests to rise up to challenge his changes as a cohesive unit.386 As the Reagan years ended, these environmentalist groups began to widen the scope of their interests, and to recognize environmentalism as a global problem, as well as a national issue.
Development of Dual-Movement Sites: Creek Farm, Orton Plantation, and Poplar Grove
The case studies of Creek Farm, Orton Plantation, and Poplar Grove throughout the earlier chapters have shown the progression of the sites throughout the development of the larger historic preservation and environmental conservation movements. While these places did not reflect the larger national issues in the past, they have recently been sites of partnerships for preservation and conservation movements on a local and state level. These coalitions, revolving around local sites where both movements have an interest have been tentative at best. These partnerships have few guidelines, being among the first of their kind, and as such are full of misunderstandings, contradictions, and flaws. Despite these mishaps, these budding partnerships hold the promise for an improved system of preserving, developing, and using America’s cultural resources. Not as shrines, or as untouchable preserves, but as places where Americans can come in contact with, use, and learn about their nation’s history. These natural areas that are preserved in conjunction with historic buildings are part of the past and part of the future.
385 Watt was eventually removed for announcing on September 21, 1983, in a speech to the US Department of Commerce, that a Department of the Interior advisory board consisted of “a black…a woman, two Jews and a cripple. And we have talent.” 386 Public outcry blocked several of his large plans that he wished to implement as covered in, “Watt’s Ignorance of Coal Proved Fatal,” High Country News 15, no. 20, Oct 31, 1983. 111
To keep these areas untouched by development, but open to the public to enjoy, is a difficult ideal to accomplish. “Americans put more trust in history museums and historic sites than in any other sources for exploring the past.” claim historians Roy Rosenzweig and David
Thelen.387 By keeping these areas around historic buildings free from development, it lends historical credibility to the sites and offers unique areas for Americans to experience their shared heritage without interference.388 But this argument alone is often not enough to inspire organizations to work together in this day and age. “If we are to make the public case for historic preservation, we must base it not on patriotism or aesthetics, but rather on economics.” writes preservationist Tersh Boasberg.389 The economic argument is what made the Main Street
Program so well received, and the same argument holds true for environmental conservation.
The full economic effect of dual resource sites have yet to be fully studied, especially when considering how these sites influence the property values of the surrounding community; the case study of Creek Farm affords at least one viewpoint on the economic benefits on-site of having a dual-resource property.
Creek Farm
In 1997, after the death of her husband Chester, Billie Noel placed nearly 30 acres of the farm, which did not include the cottage, under easement through the State of New Hampshire,
Division of Forests and Lands.390 In 2000 Billie Noel sold the house to the Society for the
Preservation of New Hampshire Forests with the stipulation that the house be torn down or
387 Roy Rozenzweig and David Thelen, The Presence of the Past: Popular Uses of History in American Life, (New York: Columbia University, 1998), 105,184. 388 Ibid, 105-108. Is especially helpful in understanding how people relate to historic sites and museums. 389 Tersh Boasberg, “A New Paradigm for Preservation,” in Lee, 145-151,150. 390 “Boston University Full Report on Creek Farm” (Presented to the SPNHF, Boston University, 2002). 112 moved at her death.391 This stipulation is a common one for conservation organizations who have little knowledge about preserving historic structures. Noel indicated in conversations with neighbors and tenants that a choice had to be made between the house and the land.392 Former tenants of Creek Farm indicated that, while Noel would have liked to keep both had she known it was an option.393 Noel was quoted as saying, she "did not want the house to be left in a dilapidated condition as was the Wentworth hotel for all these years. It would break my heart."394
Fearing that the house would fall into disrepair and would be compared negatively to other local historic sites while the land would exist forever, choosing to conserve the land seemed the better choice.
The New Hampshire Division of Historical Resources (NHDHR) had been working on determining if Creek Farm was eligible to be placed on the National Register before the sale.395
The age and architecture of the building would be enough to qualify the site, but its illustrious owners, architect, and its use during the 1905 Treaty of Portsmouth to house the Russian and
Japanese diplomats pushed the house over the edge as a truly remarkable historic place. The summer cottage at Creek Farm is eligible for the National Register but the nomination forms have yet to be completed.396 Regardless of its National Register status, the house and grounds were thrust into local and widespread dispute in 2000 as the SPNHF announced the contract
391 “Boston University Full Report on Creek Farm” (Presented to the SPNHF, Boston University, 2002). 392 Barbara Tsairis, (Transcript, Portsmouth Advocates Forum on Creek Farm, May 22 2001), SPNHF Archives. Noel’s personal letters to the SFNHF were not available in its archives, and so the words of her former tenants, Barbara Tsairis, and Jamison French must suffice to speak for her. 393 Ibid. 394 Karen Dandurant, “Deed Changed to Save Creek Farm Cottage,” Seacoastonline.com, 14 April 2002 http://www.seacoastonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20020414/NEWS/304149992 (accessed 15 April 2012) 395Interview with Will Abbott, May 11, 2011. 396 Ibid. Abbott indicated that he was unsure about the process, and that the SPNHF was, to his knowledge, not involved in the nomination process. 113 details to demolish all traces of cultural resources on the property in order to develop the site as a local park, upon Noel’s death.397
The SPNHF had no prior history of preserving historic buildings, and with no earned income from the site, saw little profit in pouring money into an old house.398 Nonetheless, the
SPNHF recognized the importance of the site in the local and global history and began working with the local preservation community in the form of an advisory council in order to develop management plans for the site.399 A class of students at Boston University took part in the development of a management plan and began developing adaptive reuse plans for the building as an artist’s community, which were later found financially unstable by the SPNHF.400 The opening discussion about the preservation of the building occured May 22, 2001 with a local preservation group, Portsmouth Advocates, facilitating the forum at Creek Farm. The forum, entitled, "Estranged Bedfellows: A Forum on the War of Attrition Between Conservationists and
Preservationists and the Debate Over the Future of Creek Farm,” brought together the community of Portsmouth, the SPNHF, and the students of Boston University.401 Jay Smith, a board member of Portsmouth Advocates acknowledged that the problems at Creek Farm were dividing the community and was quoted as saying, "Conservationists and preservationists generally feed from the same trough. This is also a national issue as land and historic
397 James Buchanan, “Sagamore Creek Treasure May See Wrecking Ball,” Seacoastonline.com, 24 Dec, 2000. (http://www.seacoastonline.com/articles/20001224-NEWS-312249993) (accessed April 15, 2012); for Deed, New Hampshire, Rockingham Co. Register of Deeds, Book 3506, p1370 25 September 2000. 398 Interview with Will Abbott, 11 May 2011. According to Abbott, they have other sites with buildings on them, but the buildings are left to themselves, and these sites are not open to the public, thus buildings in varying states of disrepair do not pose a threat. 399 Ibid. See also, James Buchanan, “Hope for Creek Farm revived,” Seacoastonline.com, 11 May 2001, http://www.seacoastonline.com/articles/20010511-NEWS-305119981 (accessed April 15, 2012). 400 Correspondence with Dr. Richard Candee, 2011. 401 James Buchanan, “Future of Farm to be Debated,” Seacoastonline.com, 21 April, 2001, http://www.seacoastonline.com/articles/20010421-NEWS-304219996 (accessed April 15, 2012). 114 preservation goals come into conflict around the country.”402 This forum opened the door for a change in the terms of the agreement between the SPNHF and Noel.
The forum was facilitated by a neutral party and as the president of the Portsmouth
Advocates, John Grossman claimed that the group was not taking a decisive stand on the issue.
Grossman was quoted as saying that “…we [Portsmouth Advocates] prefer to provide a forum where both sides can listen to each other. We want to be a facilitator to continued dialogue.”
Keeping the opportunity for dialogue open through a neutral party gave Creek Farm the chance it needed. The SPNHF was persuaded to approach Noel about a change in the terms of the property in 2002 to be able to explore other options for the building.403 Noel, who had expressed regret at the imminent loss of the building after the sale, was happy to oblige, and drew up a new contract with six conditions for the continuance of the building on the property.404 The conditions were,
SPNHF cannot under any circumstances bear financial or operational responsibility for the house A financially and operationally strong partner must bear the responsibilities of the upkeep of the building The house must be maintained and operated to conditions satisfactory to Mrs. Noel's lawyer and SPNHF Use of the house must be compatible with, and preferably complementary to, the other public uses of the reservation Use of the house must be acceptable to the City of Portsmouth Finally, a solution must be found within two years of Mrs. Noel's death.405 These conditions did not guarantee the preservation of the building.406 Will Abbott of the
SPNHF believed that the economic feasibility of renting the house to pay for the maintenance of
402 James Buchanan, “Future of Farm to be Debated,” Seacoastonline.com, 21 April, 2001, http://www.seacoastonline.com/articles/20010421-NEWS-304219996 (accessed April 15, 2012). 403 Karen Dandurant, “Deed Changed to Save Creek Farm Cottage,” Seacoastonline.com, 14 April 2002 http://www.seacoastonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20020414/NEWS/304149992 (accessed 15 April 2012). 404 New Hampshire, Rockingham Co. Register of Deeds, 20 Book 4363 p 2756, September 2004. 405 Ibid. These same six conditions were also covered during my interview with Will Abbott in 2011. 406 Karen Dandurant, “Deed Changed to Save Creek Farm Cottage,” Seacoastonline.com, 14 April 2002 http://www.seacoastonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20020414/NEWS/304149992 (accessed 15 April 2012). 115 the land was a prominent reason that the SPNHF sought out the change in contract.407 Noel died in May 2004, beginning the two-year countdown to find a suitable caretaker for the cottage.408
The two years were nearly up when in May 2006 The SPNHF was able to find a suitable renter for the property with the Shoals Marine Laboratory of Cornell University.409
The laboratory has a 50 year lease on the buildings, and is responsible for the upkeep and maintenance of the buildings under the terms of the contract.410 While the laboratory has few regulations about the changes that it may make to the buildings, it must not alter the exterior of the house or certain shared spaces of the house.411 Since the house is to be used as student housing for the laboratory staff, the apartments will remain, although changes are currently being planned to update the water and electric of the house to bring it up to code.412 While the SPNHF believed that the preservation of the house would be financially infeasible, it found that by leasing the house and leaving the maintenance of the structure to the university, both the house and land could be taken care of without further financial assistance by the society.413 In this way, the society earns money for the upkeep of the trails and grounds at Creek Farm through the preservation of the historic house on the property.
While Creek Farm is still very much an ‘in-progress’ site (Cornell has not yet reached its funding goal to renovate the utilities of the cottage) the ability of the SPNHF to work with the local preservation community to navigate a solution is laudable.414 Many land-focused
407 Interview with Will Abbott, 11 May 2011. 408 Emily Aronson, “Stately Turn-of-the-Century ‘Cottage’ Needs a Caretaker,” Seacoastonline.com, 07 Nov 2004 http://www.seacoastonline.com/articles/20041107-NEWS-311079973 (accessed 15 April, 2012). 409 “A Natural Classroom at Creek Farm: Shoals Marine Lab an Ideal Partner,” Forest Notes (SPNHF), Summer 2006, 27-28. 410 Ibid. 411 Interview with Will Abbott, 11 May 2011. 412 Ibid. 413 Ibid. 414 Interview with Will Abbott, 11 May 2011. 116 organizations stick to a demolition policy when faced with structures. Their lack of knowledge about the undertaking or benefits of preservation has created a default response to historic structures, despite the common ideas behind these sister movements, or as the Portsmouth
Advocates put them, estranged bedfellows. While a successful outcome at Creek Farm is still tentative, it is a story that has the power to influence other large conservation organization policies towards historic structures.
The success of Creek Farm is due to several reasons. First and foremost, there was an interest to prevent the commercialization of the property by the owners, Chester and Lillie Noel.
Second, there was an organization, the SPNHF, willing to buy the site from the owners and put it under easement to protect the land from developers permanently. Third, there was an interested party of community members who were willing to be vocal about the complete preservation of the property, the forum attendees, who called out the SPNHF for not educating itself about the property that they acquired. Fourth, there was a neutral party which facilitated the dialogue between the SPNHF and the preservation community. Finally, there was a partner willing to take on the expense of the restoration and upkeep of the house, Shoals Marine Lab, whose yearly rent to the SPNHF pays for the maintenance of the grounds. Without any one of these conditions, the building, and land, could have been sold to developers, left neglected, or even bulldozed.
Orton Plantation
At Orton Plantation, these points have not been fulfilled in the same way as Creek Farm, but it too has been successfully preserved and conserved. The Sprunt family continued its ownership of Orton Plantation during the late twentieth century. During this time, the family privately maintained the house and gardens, maintaining the later for the public. The gardens
117 were a major tourist destination, and presumably the fee for touring and renting out the facilities to weddings and parties went towards offsetting the cost of garden staff. In 2000, the family sought out the North Carolina Coastal Land Trust to put the nearly three-thousand acre site under easement.415 Under this easement the grounds, including the rather sizeable Orton pond and surrounding pine forest, a sizeable part of which was part of a state program of longleaf pine restoration would kept undeveloped.416 The garden areas and historic rice fields were also protected from future speculative development but were open for the public’s enjoyment.417
While the house was nominated for and placed on the National Register of Historic Places in
1973, with the backing of the Sprunt family, no formal preservation easement has been placed upon the house and surrounding outbuildings.418
The Historic Wilmington Foundation has distinguished the Sprunt family in recent years with special preservation awards and has enjoyed a close relationship with the family.419 Orton
Plantation has been the site for several benefits and functions for HWF, and the Sprunts have kept the house and outbuildings in remarkable shape for their considerable age. The preservation of the historic house, the oldest part of which dates back to the 1700s, was assured with the ownership of the Sprunts, but in 2010 the family sold the house to distant relatives of the original
Moore family which had owned the property in the colonial era.420 Louis Moore Bacon bought
415 Correspondence with Cassandra Gavin, NCCLT, September 27- October 8, 2010. 416 Orton Plantation Easement, NCCLT archives. 417 Ibid. The forest areas could be harvested for timber and other goods under the easement, and the land used for farming purposes. 418 National Register of Historic Places, Orton Plantation, Southport, Brunswick Co., North Carolina, 73001294. 419 Orton Plantation was the site for a Gala event in 2010, before the Sprunts sold the property to Moore. 420 Andrew Dunn, “Orton Plantation Purchase Completed for $45 Million,” Star News, Dec 1, 2010. http://www.starnewsonline.com/article/20101201/ARTICLES/101209981 (accessed April 15, 2012). 118 the house from the Sprunt family for around forty-five million dollars, ending the nearly 130 year ownership of the property by that family.421
Bacon has been depicted as a billionaire conservationist by local news outlets, and the
Sprunt family saw his background as a conservationist as a plus when considering the sale.422
Since the house had no preservation easements on it and has no organization backing it, it has little protection from its owners. The nearly three thousand acres of land originally put under easement by the Sprunts will retain its easements, but it is unclear if the surrounding acres that
Bacon bought around the same time will also be put under easement with the NCCLT.423 Bacon closed the gardens and grounds to tourists in June of 2010 in order to undertake his restoration plans.424
From the beginning of the sale of Orton, Bacon made it clear that he wanted to restore the old rice plantation to its former glory.425 Orton had been one of the first rice plantations on the
Cape Fear, and while successful, had never enjoyed the connection that Charleston and other southern areas enjoyed with rice cultivation. Rice became an important local grain, and became a staple crop alongside the pine trees which provided a variety of naval stores. Bacon wanted to restore the old rice fields and create a living historic farm, although this space will not be open to the public.426 Pursuing this dream though has landed him in trouble a few times, most memorably with the Army Corps of Engineers who found his restoration of the historic rice
421 Ibid. 422 Ibid. 423 Ken Little, “Orton's new owner files for restoration permits,” Star News, October 13, 2011 424 Ibid. 425 Dunn, “Purchase Completed,” Dec 1, 2010, 426 “Statement to WWAY, April 27, 2011,” http://www.wwaytv3.com/2011/04/27/only-3-orton-owner-told-to-stop- work-wetlands (accessed April 15, 2012). 119 fields to be disrupting the surrounding wetlands.427 However, it appears that the local communities have been slightly less vocal than the Army Corps when it came down to the preservation of the house.
Bacon seems to have little interest in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries history of the historic house. Although he has expressed interest in the house, due to his relation building the original one-story structure, he inventoried the house and decided to auction off the unneeded household items that were left by the Sprunt family in July, 2011.428 Many of these pieces dated back to the nineteenth century, when the Sprunt family had first taken possession of the house.429
While many local community members scrambled to buy up the bits of history, there were few who spoke out about the auction. Since the home was owned by a private individual and not an organization though, there was no mandate for a public discussion. Despite his run in with the
Army Corps, Bacon continued to remain relatively quiet about the restoration work that he was planning at Orton.430 Some community members feared that he would tear down parts of the historic house in order to revert it to its original style and form. Others lamented the loss of the former gardens, and berated the new owner for disrupting the wedding plans of future brides.
Despite this negative publicity, Bacon and the property manager for Orton, Dillon Epp, have pushed on in carrying out their plans.
427 “Public Notice, October 5, 2011” Army Corps of Engineers, http://www.saw.usace.army.mil/wetlands/notices/2011/SAW2011-00624PN.pdf (accessed April 16, 2012). 428 Andrew Dunn, “Hundreds of Items From Orton Plantation House Auctioned,” Star News, July 5, 2011. 429 Ibid. 430 Moore was originally rather vague in his plans, and beyond citing Longleaf and rice field restoration projects did not invite media to the site until a year into the restoration work. The preservation of the house is still a topic that has not been covered in local media outlets, but Moore has decided not to open the grounds back up to tourists unless they are with an environmental, historical, or educational group. 120
In January 2012, they conducted a day-long tour to reveal the beginning of the changes at
Orton, focusing on the environmental issues at the site.431 Inviting local landowners and organizing with the help of local conservation groups, including the NCCLT, Orton was the focus of a longleaf pine forest renewal project.432 While the house and rice plantation have yet to be seen, Bacon and his employees have been making great strides to work towards a property with more indigenous species of plants, which they hope will encourage the renewal of the rare wildlife in the area. As Orton has been an important wildlife and nature preserve in the past, it is encouraging to see the new owner embracing these ideologies.
Most recently, Epp, the site manager, has been interviewed by local media about the restoration of the rice fields. In this interview Epp noted that Orton Plantation Holdings has applied for designation as a National Historic Landmark, which would raise it in status from its current National Historic Register status.433 Moore has also requested that the rice plantations be placed on the National Register.434 Spokesman Mark Hubbard also stated with this latest news release, that the property would not be reopened as a commercial tourist attraction, but that the house and grounds would be opened to educational activities that were prearranged through a conservation group or a historical/cultural society.435
Orton Plantation is still a site in-process, and the changes made in the next few years by
Moore and his expansive team of conservationists will be the making of the site. This site is very different from Creek Farm. While the property is large and has a rather long history of conservation and preservation, the site is not protected as much as it could be. There is no neutral
431 Jonathan Spiers, “Orton Plantation in Transition,” State Port Pilot, Jan 6, 2012 432 Jonathan Spiers, “Orton Plantation in Transition,” State Port Pilot, Jan 6, 2012 433 Cassie Foss, “Orton’s Old is New,” Wilmington Star News, 23 March 2012. 434 Ibid. 435 Ibid. 121 party to bring together the public wishes and the owner, so if a change to the plantation house is made, there are few courses for preservationists and conservationists in the community to pursue.
The land is mostly protected through its easements with the NCCLT, but Moore’s team has proved itself unfamiliar with basic codes before, so there is no guarantee that they will follow the easement guidelines. Perhaps the largest difference between Creek Farm and Orton is that there is not a vocal community to fight for the public interests on private land. Without a public voice, the house may have no one to protect it. Historic Wilmington Foundation may lead the effort to save the structure, if such an effort is indeed needed, but would be relying on the importance of
Orton as a keystone of the community to offset those who hold private ownership over public interest. The weaknesses in preservation at Orton are a contrast to the strength of the preservation at Poplar Grove.
Poplar Grove
Poplar Grove embodies the most basic of partnerships between the historic preservation and environmental conservation movements, but has been successful. While the house originally had 628 acres of land attached to it, the house and surrounding 16 acres of land were sold to a cousin of the Foy family in 1975.436 Jan Long, the owner of the house and surrounding land, Jan
Long, nominated the plantation house for the National Register in 1979 and helped to create The
Poplar Grove Foundation, which manages the long term preservation of the house.437 In 2009 she approached the North Carolina Coastal Land Trust about putting easements on the property
436 “Owner Didn’t Want To Keep Poplar Grove To Herself,” Wilmington Star News, August 26, 1989. 437 National Register of Historic Places, Poplar Grove, Scotts Hill, Pender Co., North Carolina, 79003346. The date of the foundation’s founding is arguable, though most likely dates to the 1980s. 122 surrounding the house in order to protect it from future developments, as suburban housing was steadily encroaching.438 The NCCLT was happy to facilitate the easement for several reasons.
For the NCCLT, putting Poplar Grove under easement was unusual, but came with many benefits. A few years previous, in 2007, the NCCLT had opened up the Abbey Foy-Moore
Nature Preserve next door to Poplar Grove.439 The land owned by the Foy family, was put under easement through the NCCLT and opened up a nature walk and preserve.440 Poplar Grove offered up parking facilities to the nature preserve, which was adjacent to it, when the lands held by Jan Long came under easement. Under the terms of the easement, Long and any future owners of the property have the right to maintain the buildings in any way that they see fit, which includes dismantling the buildings if the owner so desires.441 The easement does dictate that the land be left undivided and undeveloped outside of the area of the house and surrounding outbuildings.442 In addition, the land falls in an important watershed location that the NCCLT seeks to protect.
The NCCLT is primarily an environmental institution and as such has no expertise to enforce historic construction or design standards. Without this expertise they cannot require that the house or outbuildings maintained a certain way, or even kept at all.443 While the grounds surrounding the house are guaranteed in perpetuity to remain unaltered, the Poplar Grove
Foundation is the organization that is responsible for the preservation of the historic house.
Although in this case the private owner, Long, was the instigator for the joining of the two different organizations to work together, the result is the conservation of the undeveloped areas
438 Correspondence with Cassandra Gavin, NCCLT, September 27- October 8, 2010. 439 “Welcome to Abbey Foy-Moore Nature Preserve,” Cape Fear’s Going Green, Fall 2008. 440 Ibid. 441 Correspondence with Cassandra Gavin, NCCLT, September 27- October 8, 2010. 442 Ibid. 443 Ibid. 123 by the NCCLT and the preservation of the historic house through a local foundation dedicated to a singular site.
In the case of Poplar Grove, Long acted as the neutral party to bring together the preservation and environmental conservation groups at Poplar Grove. She did so only after she had worked to preserve and restore the house, and was assured that the buildings on the property could remain under the terms of the conservation easement.444 While the land is used mostly by the visiting public, the house and its facilities also serve the neighboring nature preserve, and as such performs a dual duty. The preserve, with its historic mill pond, includes several areas of historical interest to the plantation house and serves as a visual buffer, blocking out the encroaching suburban housing developments.445 Poplar Grove had few problems to contend with, with the preservation and conservation being funded by Long, in contrast to the nearby
Orton Plantation which faced different circumstances.
Conclusion
While the past thirty years have matured the preservation and environmental conservation movements, there is still a divide between the movements on a local, state, and national level.
Recent events have begun to show that local and state organizations can work together for the benefit of all, but these episodes have been sporadic and typically unplanned. While private property owners sometimes smooth the transition between the two movements, organizational ownership of properties is becoming more common and has led to problems because of a lack of communication between preservationists and environmental conservationists. If these two types of movements are to work together, they must begin to think about the opposing viewpoints,
444 Ibid. Most of the outbuildings on the property were built in the 1980s, as far as I can tell, many of them are undocumented in local news, and the original National Register nomination form has no mention of them at all. 445 Rachel Dickerson and Jim Pfeiffer, “Trusted Land,” Wrightsville Beach Magazine, September 2008. 124 language, and problems. At Creek Farm, people of preservation and conservation mindsets worked together to improve the site as a whole, using the earnings from the rental of the house to fund the upkeep of the trails and forest. Within Orton Plantation, changes are currently ongoing, but new ownership has sought to work with easements to restore the historic rice fields to better reflect what life was like at the original plantation house. At Poplar Grove, the historic house museum that runs the site has placed the acreage under easement in order to provide a buffer and parking areas for an adjoining nature preserve.
Each of these cases started with an owner interested in the preservation and/or conservation of the property. These private owners approached a group, in all three cases these groups have been conservation groups, regarding the preservation of the property, and entered into easements to guarantee the conservation of the property in perpetuity. This is where these case studies bifurcate. In the case of Creek Farm, the conservation group bought the property and due to public outcry began to work on a plan to preserve the cottage on the site. At Orton
Plantation and Poplar Grove, the grounds and houses retained their private ownership, and the owners saw to the preservation of the building. For Creek Farm and Poplar Grove, the house had to change its function in order to be preserved, while at Orton Plantation, the house is, presumably, to act as it always has been, as a home for its owner. These three case studies show the range of pathways for the future of the preservation and environmental conservation movements in the United States. Large sites have other options for their preservation, and do not need to devolve into sites like Colonial Williamsburg, or require the money and interest of a single individual.
125
6. Conclusion— Where Do We Go From Here?: The Twenty-First Century & Beyond
“A historian can no more presume to read the future than anyone else“ — David McCullough, 1991
In 1991, the annual conference for the National Trust for Historic Preservation set forth goals for the next twenty-five years. Many of these goals have not yet been met on a widespread scale, and others have yet to be attempted. While it is difficult for any historian, historic preservationist, or environmental conservationist to anticipate the needs of the future, there are several policies and ideas that can be drawn from the case studies presented here that local, state, and national organizations can begin to incorporate into their larger goals and focus. While a wider study should be made nationally of dual resource properties, these small changes, drawn from Creek Farm, Orton Plantation, and Poplar Grove, can make a big difference.
First, local historic preservation and environmental conservation organizations can improve their understanding of the combined history of these movements and use the tools and programs that have been developed on both sides to improve their common areas. Many misunderstandings based on a difference in jargon, language, and history keep organizations apart. This is not a surprise since there are no books that present even a basic combined history of these movements, and the books that are available only mention the other movements in passing. To improve cooperation, organizations can seek each other out and learn more about each other. They can begin asking each other how their own programs might fit in with the other’s programs.
This can be seen particularly well in the case of Creek Farm. Had the SPNHF had a better understanding of the preservation efforts in the Portsmouth area and had worked with area preservationists from the beginning, they would not have come under public scrutiny to the
126 extent that they did. Their unfamiliarity with preservation practices and interests caused them to incite the public against their programs. When they opened up the lines of communication with the Portsmouth Advocates group, and through them the public, they were able to achieve a mutually beneficial outcome.
Perhaps the most basic advice for both organizations would be to keep an open mind and not be afraid to ask questions. The goals of these movements are very similar. The methods to achieve those goals also have several overlapping areas. With enough dialogue, and understanding on both sides, a plan for the custodianship of common spaces can be produced and followed. The benefit of such an outcome is worth the time it takes to improve the understanding of the organizations and individuals in those organizations.
A neutral party may be useful to facilitate these partnerships. The success at Creek Farm was due in large part to the forum opened by the neutral Portsmouth Advocates group. Prominent community leaders as well as organizations with interests in both the historical and environmental, or even the local government could take on this role as facilitator. As long that the facilitator is calling together the organizations active in the community in a semi-annual, or even annual, forum to discuss opportunities for cross-organizational support, there will be a chance for these organizations to get to know each other and work together.
This advice can also be applied to the private owners of properties. It takes time and resources for an organization to cultivate a relationship with owners of buildings and land. Many private owners are unfamiliar with the regulations, goals, methods, and interests of the historic preservation and environmental conservation movements. Such a lack of familiarity led to
Bacon’s confusion about the environmental impact of dredging, which resulted in a halting of the
127 rice bed revitalization at Orton Planation by the Army Corps of engineers when he failed to take out the proper permits. While owners may be knowledgeable about the local historic preservation organization or the local land trust group, their understanding must be cultivated about the other.
Workshops held cooperatively by the local organizations can help improve the understanding of the public at large, and of private owners. These cooperative educational events can also impact local laws, funding, and political support. Education begins in the historic preservation and environmental conservation organizations and spreads from there; it is important that the members of both organizations are knowledgeable about the benefits and reasons for these dual resource properties so that they can teach others.
Second, national programs on both sides can facilitate the cooperation of these two movements by providing them forums at their annual conferences. For instance, the National
Trust for Historic Preservation, which is the premier historic preservation conference in the
United States, could have at least one panel session dedicated to these dual resource properties each year. A meet and greet after the session, as well as workshops and networking opportunities would also be useful to larger organizations. Preservationists and conservationists should have a forum to discuss long term goals and methods. When the national goals coincide, then they will be in a position to lobby for more federal support through funding and legislature, with the backing of two powerful movements.
Federal interest and disinterest has consistently shaped both the historic preservation and environmental conservation movements, and there is no reason why it should not continue to do so. If the movements can gain grassroots support for their partnerships, then the government will prioritize its support of these national organizations. However, if the public does not keep its politicians interested in these movements, a reversal of power akin to the Watt years during the
128
Reagan administration is likely to occur. For the long term stability and protection of the United
States historic, natural, and cultural resources, the public must remain knowledgeable and interested in the development of the historic preservation and environmental conservation movements. This knowledge and interest should be cultivated by local and state programs that can work with the public.
Third, local organizations could begin to inform the public about the benefits of these dual resource properties, and present a united front when presenting options for easements on properties. To do this, historical preservation and environmental conservation organizations should work together, prioritize education among their goals, and involve the community in the preservation and conservation of properties. When the community becomes invested in the success and continuation of local places, it will also be more likely to support these movements on a national level.
There is no one correct method to follow for these properties to thrive, but if both types of organizations can work together with the property owners, the true potential of the property can be brought out and maintained for generations to come. If the organizations can become more knowledgeable about each other’s history, goals, and methods, they will be better informed to answer the questions that will undoubtedly arise about the future of these dual resource sites.
While there are undoubtedly problems that will arise that will have no clear or correct answer, these two movements can accomplish more together than they can apart. There is no need for local environmental groups to demolish historic buildings on easement sites because they are untrained to care for structures. There are historic preservationists who can help them save, maintain, and repurpose these buildings. Similarly, historic preservationists should not
129 have to worry about acquiring funds to buy up land surrounding historic sites, thus saving them from being overwhelmed by suburban sprawl. There are environmental organizations that specialize in protecting natural areas by putting them under easement and allowing the land to be used for farming or other non-developmental ways.
The custodians of Creek Farm have proven the usefulness of dual resource properties to its custodians and to the movements as a whole. Orton Plantation has yet to unveil its new plan, but its custodians have shown themselves to be active in both movements, and this inter- movement involvement will hopefully continue through the restorations of the site. Poplar Grove demonstrates the awkward beginnings of camaraderie between these two movements. These budding partnerships between the historic preservationists and environmental conservationists are only the beginning of what promises to be a very important chapter in the future of both movements. Preservationists and conservationists need to begin seeing themselves as co- custodians of these common grounds. These places should not only be managed, developed, or even preserved, but also brought back to life and watched over until they are handed into the custodianship of next generation.
130
7. Bibliography Primary Sources Newspapers and Magazines “A Natural Classroom at Creek Farm: Shoals Marine Lab an Ideal Partner.” Forest Notes (SPNHF). Summer 2006. "An Immense Tree." Gleason's Pictorial Drawing Room Companion. October 1, 1853. “Obituary: Robert Lee Foy Jr.” Star News, May 27, 2011. “Obituary: William Sumner Appleton.” The Boston Herald, November 25, 1947 “Owner Didn’t Want To Keep Poplar Grove To Herself.” Wilmington Star News, August 26, 1989. “Plantation Opens Thursday.” Wilmington Star News, April 5, 1980.
“Topics of the Times: No More Abandoned Farms in New Hampshire.” The American Agriculturist 53 (June 1842): 358. “Watt’s Ignorance of Coal Proved Fatal.” High Country News 15, no. 20, Oct 31, 1983. “Welcome to Abbey Foy-Moore Nature Preserve.” Cape Fear’s Going Green, Fall 2008. American Architect & Building News. April 27, 1895; 39-40. Appleton, W. Sumner. “Ask Aid to Patriotism.” Boston Post Memorial, 16 June 1905. Aronson, Emily. “Stately Turn-of-the-Century ‘Cottage’ Needs a Caretaker.” Seacoastonline.com, 07 Nov 2004. http://www.seacoastonline.com/articles/20041107- NEWS-311079973 (accessed 15 April, 2012). Block, Susan Taylor. “The Majestic Plantation.” Wrightsville Beach Magazine, July 2007. Broome, Harvey. “Origins of the Wilderness Society.” The Living Wilderness 5, 5 (July 1940): 13-15. Buchanan, James. “Future of Farm to be Debated.” Seacoastonline.com, 21 April, 2001. http://www.seacoastonline.com/articles/20010421-NEWS-304219996 (accessed April 15, 2012). Buchanan, James. “Hope for Creek Farm revived.” Seacoastonline.com, 11 May 2001. http://www.seacoastonline.com/articles/20010511-NEWS-305119981 (accessed April 15, 2012). Buchanan, James. “Sagamore Creek Treasure May See Wrecking Ball.” Seacoastonline.com, 24 Dec, 2000. (http://www.seacoastonline.com/articles/20001224-NEWS-312249993) (accessed April 15, 2012) Cunningham, Ann Pamela. “Letter to the Southern Matrons.” Charleston Mercury, Dec. 2, 1853. 131
Cunningham,Ann Pamela. “To the Daughters of Washington.” March 27, 1855, MVLA archives. Dandurant, Karen. “Deed Changed to Save Creek Farm Cottage.” Seacoastonline.com, 14 April 2002. http://www.seacoastonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20020414/NEWS/304149992 (accessed 15 April 2012). Dickerson, Rachel and Jim Pfeiffer. “Trusted Land.” Wrightsville Beach Magazine, September 2008. Dunn, Andrew. “Hundreds of Items From Orton Plantation House Auctioned.” Star News, July 5, 2011. Dunn, Andrew. “Orton Plantation Purchase Completed for $45 Million.” Star News, Dec 1, 2010. http://www.starnewsonline.com/article/20101201/ARTICLES/101209981 (accessed April 15, 2012). Eaton, Allen H.. “Handicrafts of New England.” Handicraft (1949); 281-294. Foss, Cassie. “Orton’s Old is New.” Wilmington Star News, 23 March 2012. Goldberger, Paul. “’Facadism’ on the rise: Preservation or Illusion?” New York Times, July 15, 1985. Little, Ken. “Orton's new owner files for restoration permits.” Star News, October 13, 2011. Lowell, James Russell. "Humanity to Trees." The Crayon, March 1857: 96. Marshall, Robert. “The Problem of the Wilderness.” Scientific Monthly 30, 2 (February 1930): 148. Robinson, J. Dennis. “How the Coolidge Family of Boston Saved Wentworth Mansion.” Seacoast NH, 2009. http://www.seacoastnh.com/History/History_Matters/How_the_Coolidge_Family_of_Boston _Saved_Wentworth_Mansion/(accessed April 10, 2012). Sears Catalogue. Spring 1896. Spiers, Jonathan. “Orton Plantation in Transition.” State Port Pilot, Jan 6, 2012. Staff. “What Watt Wrought.” High Country News 15, no. 20, Oct 31, 1983. Swiss Bear Newsletter. New Bern, North Carolina, 1995. The Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities. Bulletin 1, no.1. Boston: May 1910. Whyte Jr., William. “A Plan to Save Vanishing U.S. Countryside.” Life 47, (August 17, 1959): 88-89. Government Resources
132
“American Antiquities Act of 1906.” Title 16 U.S. Code, pts. 431-433. 1906 ed. “Clean Air Act of 1963.” Title 42, U.S.Code, Pts. 7401. 1990ed. “Clean Water Act of 1972.” Title 33, U.S. Code, Pts. 1251. 1987 ed. “Demonstration Cities and Metropolitan Development Act.” Title 42, U.S. Code, Pts. 4231. 1966 ed. “Department of Transportation Act of 1966.” Title 49, U.S.Code, Pts. 103. 1966 ed. "Directors of the National Park Service." National Park Service. http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/hisnps/NPSHistory/directors.htm (accessed Feb, 15, 1012). “Historic Sites Act of 1935.” Title 16 U.S. Code, pts. 461-467. 1935ed. “National Historic Preservation Act of 1966.” Title 16, U.S. Code, Pts. 470.1966 ed. “National Trust for Historic Preservation Act.” Title 16 U.S.Code 468. 1949 ed. “President Roosevelt’s Opening Address.” Proceedings of a Conference of Governors. Washington: GPO, 1909. “Public Notice, October 5, 2011.” Army Corps of Engineers. http://www.saw.usace.army.mil/wetlands/notices/2011/SAW2011-00624PN.pdf (accessed April 16, 2012). Executive Order no. 6166. Issued on June 10, 1933. Fay, Clement K.. Massachusetts General Court, Hearings… Concerning the Bulfinch Front, 3:17. Ickes, Harold. “Secretary of the Interior Address.” Address, National Park Superintendents Conference, November 20, 1934. Massachusetts General Court. Hearings… Concerning the Bulfinch Front, 1:21; 2:36.
National Park Service. American Antiquities Act of 1906. http://www.cr.nps.gov/local- law/anti1906.htm (accessed January 6, 2012).
National Park Service. National Historic Preservation Act. http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/fhpl/nhpa.pdf (accessed January 6, 2012). National Register of Historic Places. Orton Plantation, Southport, Brunswick Co., North Carolina, 73001294. National Register of Historic Places. Poplar Grove, Scotts Hill, Pender Co., North Carolina, 79003346. New Hampshire, Rockingham Co. Register of Deeds. Book 0502, Page 0453, 0455. Sept 13, 1887.
133
New Hampshire, Rockingham Co. Register of Deeds. Book 0532, Page 175, July 25, 1892. New Hampshire, Rockingham Co. Register of Deeds. Book 0795, Page 0407, Jun 26, 1925. New Hampshire, Rockingham Co. Register of Deeds. Book 0894, Page 0240, Feb 06, 1934. New Hampshire, Rockingham Co. Register of Deeds. Book 3506, p1370 25 September 2000. Proceedings of a Conference of Governors. Washington: GPO, 1909. Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson. Washington, D. C.: Government Printing Office, 1966. Records of the Selective Service System, 1926-1975, North Carolina World War II Draft Registration Cards. Record group 137, Box Number:122. Roosevelt, Franklin D. and Edgar B. Nixon. Franklin D. Roosevelt & Conservation, 1911-1945. Hyde Park, N.Y.: General Services Administration, National Archives and Records Service, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, 1957. U.S. Census of Population and Housing, 1910: Summary Population and Housing Characteristics: Topsail, Pender, North Carolina. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1911. U.S. Census of Population and Housing, 1920: Topsail,Pender,North Carolina. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1920. U.S. Census of Population and Housing, 1930: Philadelphia. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1991. U.S. Census of Population and Housing, 1900: Topsail,Pender,North Carolina. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1900. United States and Gifford Pinchot. A Short Account of the Big Trees of California. Washington: G.P.O., 1970. United States Conference of Mayors. With Heritage so Rich; A Report. New York: Random House, 1966.
United States. A Short Account of the Big Trees of California. Gifford Pinchot. Washington: G.P.O., 1970. Wilson, Woodrow and Albert Bushnell Hart. Selected Addresses and Public Papers of Woodrow Wilson. New York: Boni and Liveright, Inc, 1918. Memoirs Bad , William Frederic ed.. The Life and Letters of John Muir. Boston and: Houghton Mifflin Co, 1924. Greenly, Horace. An Overland Journey. Unknown, 1860.
134
King, Thomas Starr. A Vacation among the Sierras: Yosemite in 1860. Book Club of California, 1962. Muir, John. My First Summer in the Sierra. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1911. Muir, John. The Yosemite. New York: Century, 1912. Perkins, Mary Coolidge. Once I was Very Young. Portsmouth: Peter E. Randall, 1960. Sprunt, James ed.. In memoriam, Mrs. James Sprunt. Wilmington, James Sprunt, 1916. Sprunt, James Lawrence. The Story Of Orton Plantation. Wilmington, Unknown, 1958. Thoreau, Henry David. Walden. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1854.
Other
“Audubon Mission Statement.” National Audubon Society. http://www.audubon.org/about-us (accessed Jan 10, 2012). “Boston University Full Report on Creek Farm.” (Presented to the SPNHF, Boston University, 2002). “By-Laws of the Paul Revere Memorial Association.” Article II, Revere house file. “Certificate of Incorporation of the Boone and Crockett Club.” May 23, 1923. Washington, D.C “Edward Everett papers.” Massachusetts Historical Society, Reel 41, Vol. 194. “Historical and Architectural Significance: Life in the Arts Community around Creek Farm.” (Presented to the SPNHF, Boston University, 2002). “Negotiations: Carey Creek Farm Reception.” Portsmouth Peace Treaty. http://portsmouthpeacetreaty.org/process/negotiations (accessed April 10, 2012). “Statement to WWAY, April 27, 2011.” http://www.wwaytv3.com/2011/04/27/only-3-orton- owner-told-to-stop-work-wetlands (accessed April 15, 2012). Abbott, Will. Interview by author. SPNHF offices, Concord, New Hampshire, May 11, 2011. Baden-Powell, Robert Stephenson Smyth. Scouting for Boys: A Handbook for Instruction in Good Citizenship. London: Horace Cox, 1908. Barnett, Colin W. The Impact of Historic Preservation on New Bern, North Carolina: From Tryon Palace to the Coor-Cook House. Winston-Salem, N.C.: Bandit Books, 1993. Bentham, Jeremy. An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. London: T Payne& Sons, 1789. Boston Committee on Americanism. A Little Book for Immigrants in Boston. Boston: City Printing Department 1921.
135
Bradlee, Francis Boardman Crowninshield. The First Steamer to Cross the Atlantic: The Record of the Steamship "curacao" of the Royal Netherlands Navy. Salem, Mass.: Salem Institute, 1925. Caldwell, Richard. A True History of the Acquisition of Washington’s Headquarters at Newburgh by the state of New York. New York: Stivers, Slauson and Boyd, 1887.
Campbell, Mrs. George W and Mrs. S. E. Johnson Hudson. September, 1897. ER IV, p. 1 (MVLA Archives). Candee, Richard. Correspondence. Boston University, 2011.
Cannan, Tim. “Welcome.” PreservationDirectory.com. http://www.preservationdirectory.com/HistoricalPreservation/Home.aspx (accessed Jan 5, 2012). Carey, Arthur Astor. The Scout Law in Practice. Boston: Little, Brown, 1915.
Certificate of Incorporation of the Boone and Crockett Club, May 23, 1923, Washington, D.C., as presented by Theodore Roosevelt, Charles Sheldon, Kermit Roosevelt, George Bird Grinnell, et al. Connor, R. D. W. ed.. A Manual of North Carolina Issued by the North Carolina Historical Commission for the Use of Members of the General Assembly Session 1913. Raleigh: E. M. Uzzell & Co. State Printers, 1913. Dorris, Mary C.. Preservation of the Hermitage, 1889-1915. Nashville: Ladies’ Hermitage Association, 1915. Emerson, Ralph Waldo. The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1903-1904. French, Jamison. Portsmouth Advocates Forum on Creek Farm, May 22 2001. Transcript SPNHF Archives. Gavin, Cassandra. Correspondence. NCCLT, September 27- October 8, 2010. Grinnell, George Bird ed.. American Big Game in Its Haunts: The Book of the Boone and Crockett Club. 1904. Gulick, Alida Carey. Unknown interviewer, transcript, SPNHF Archives. Harvard College. Secretary's Second Report. Norwood, Mass: Plimpton Press, 1917. Harvard College. Secretary's Third Report. Cambridge, Mass: University Press, 1921. Harvard University. The Harvard Freshman Red Book; The Year Book of the Class of 1914. Cambridge, Mass: Caustic-Claflin Co, 1914.
House Tour. Poplar Grove Plantation. July 20, 2010.
136
Jessup, Elon. The Motor Camping Book. New York and London: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1921. King, Grace. Mount Vernon on the Potomac: History of the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association of the Union. New York: Macmillan, 1929. Marsh, George P.. Man and Nature, or, Physical Geography As Modified by Human Action. New York: C. Scribner, 1864. Mill, John Stuart. Utilitarianism. London: Parker, Son, and Bourn, 1863. Moore, John. History of North Carolina. Raleigh: Alfred Williams &co, 1880. Morgan, Hugh to Gayle Ward. Letter, undated. Muir, John to Howard Palmer, Secretary American Alpine Club. 1912 Dec 12, John Muir Correspondence, University of the Pacific Library Holt-Atherton Special Collections. North Carolina Society of the Colonial Dames of America, Jean Dalziel Wood, and Luola Murchison Sprunt. Register of the North Carolina Society of the Colonial Dames of America. Raleigh, N.C.: The Society, 1912. Orton Plantation File. NCCLT, Wilmington, NC. Persistent Bioaccumulative and Toxic (PBT) Chemical Program. “DDT.” EPA. http://www.epa.gov/pbt/pubs/ddt.htm (accessed April 1, 2012). Pinchot, Gifford. Breaking New Ground. Washington DC: Island, 1947. Poplar Grove Plantation File. NCCLT, Wilmington, NC. Simpson, Rick. Portsmouth Advocates Forum on Creek Farm, May 22 2001. Transcript, SPNHF Archives. Sprunt, James. Chronicles of the Cape Fear River: Being Some Account of Historic Events on the Cape Fear River. Raleigh: Edwards & Broughton printing company, 1914. Sprunt, Laurence Grey. The Past-- A Stairway to the Future. Wilmington, NC: L.G. Sprunt, 2007. Tsairis, Barbara. (Transcript, Portsmouth Advocates Forum on Creek Farm, May 22 2001.) SPNHF Archives. Turner, Frederick Jackson. The Frontier in American History. New York: Henry Holt and Co, 1921.
Washington, Bushrod. Printed notice, signed and dated July 4, 1822. (Archives of the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association of the Union, Mount Vernon, Virginia; hereafter referred to as M.V.L.A. Archives). Wilmington, N.C. directory v.8 (1911/1912). Richmond, VA: Hill Directory Co., 1911Washington, Bushrod. a printed notice, signed and dated July 4, 1822. Archives of the
137
Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association of the Union, Mount Vernon, Virginia (hereafter cited as MVLA Archives). World Health Organization. Environmental Health Criteria 9, DDT and its Derivatives. Geneva: World Health Organization, 1979.
Secondary Sources Allaback, Sarah. The First America Women Architects. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2008. Barringer, Mark Daniel. Selling Yellowstone: Capitalism and the Construction of Nature. Lawrence, Kan: University Press of Kansas, 2002. Belasco, James. Americans on the Road: From Autocamp to Motel, 1910-1945. Cambridge: MIT Press,1979. Caldwell, Richard. A True History of the Acquisition of Washington's Headquarters at Newburgh, by the State of New York. Middletown, N.Y.: Stivers, Slauson & Boyd, 1887. Carson, Rachel. Silent Spring. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1962. Cashman, Diane Cobb. A History of the Cape Fear Country Club, 1896-1984. Wilmington, N.C.: Cape Fear Country Club, 1987. Casper, Scott. “Sarah Johnson’s Mount Vernon: African American Life at an American Shrine, From Slavery to Jim Crow.” Presentation, Virginia Foundation of the Humaniteies Fellow’s Seminar, Oct.31, 2006. Chambers, John W.. The Tyranny of Change: America in the Progressive Era, 1890-1920. New York: St. Martin's, 1992. Cronon, William. “Telling Tales on Canvas.” in Discovered Lands, Invented Pasts, by Jules David Prown et al. (New Haven : Yale University Press, 1992). Davis, Karen. "Arthur Astor Carey, A Man of Wealth in Colonial Revival New England." Unpublished Seminar Paper, Boston University, 1995. SPNHF Archives. England Robert E and David R. Morgan. Managing Urban America. North Scituate, Mass: Duxbury Press, 1979. Fisher, Colin. “Nature in the City: Urban Environmental History and Central Park.” OAH Magazine of History 25, no. 4, (2012): 27-31. Frieden, Bernard J. and Lynne B. Sagalyn. Downtown, Inc.: How America Rebuilds Cities. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1989. Handler, Richard and Eric Gable. The New History in an Old Museum: Creating the Past at Colonial Williamsburg. Durham: Duke University Press, 1997.
138
Hays, Samuel P.. Health, and Permanence: Environmental Politics in the United States, 1955- 1985. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987. Henry Ford Museum Staff. Greenfield Village and the Henry Ford Museum. New York: Henry Ford Museum, 1972. Holleran, Michael. Boston’s Changeful Times. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, 1998. Horton, James Oliver and Lois E Horton ed.. Slavery and Public History. New York: New Press, 2009. Hosmer, Charles Bridgham. Presence of the Past; A History of the Preservation Movement in the United States Before Williamsburg. New York: Putnam, 1965. Howat, John K.. American Paradise The World of the Hudson River School. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1987. Hume, Ivor Noël. “Public Archaeology Address.” address, Society for Historical Archaeology Conference, Williamsburg, Virginia, January 13, 2007. Jackson, John Brinckerhoff. A Sense of Place, a Sense of Time. New York: Yale, 1996. Jackson, John Brinckerhoff. Discovering the Vernacular Landscape. New York: Yale, 1986. Jackson, Kenneth T.. "The Baby Boom and the Age of the Subdivision." http://us.history.wisc.edu/hist102/readings/Jackson_BabyBoom.pdf (Accessed March 1, 2012). Jackson, Kenneth T.. Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985. King, Grace Elizabeth. Mount Vernon on the Potomac: History of the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association of the Union. New York: Macmillan Co, 1929. Lankevich, George ed.. Boston: A Chronological & Documentary History, 1602-1970. Dobbs Ferry, NY: Oceana Publications, 1974. Lee, Antoinette J. Past Meets Future: Saving America's Historic Environments. [Papers Presented at National Trust for Historic Preservation Annual Conference in October 1991]. Washington: Preservation Pr, 1992. Lindgren, James Michael. Preserving Historic New England: Preservation, Progressivism, and the Remaking of Memory. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. Lindgren, James. Preserving the Old Dominion Historic Preservation And Virginia Traditionalism. Charlottesville: UVA Press, 1993. Little-Stokes, Ruth. "The North Carolina Porch: A Climatic and Cultural Buffer." in Carolina Dwelling. Edited by, Doug Swaim. Raleigh: North Carolina State University, 1978.
139
Marsh, George P. Man and Nature, or, Physical Geography As Modified by Human Action. New York: C. Scribner, 1864. Matarrese, Lynne. The History Of Levittown, New York. Levittown, N.Y. : Levittown Historical Society, 1997. Matthiessen, Peter. “Environmentalist Rachel Carson.” Time, (March 29, 1999). Melosi, Martin and Philip Scarpino, ed.. Public History and the Environment. Malabar, Florida: Krieger Publishing, 2004. Melosi, Martin V. ed.. Pollution and Reform in American Cities, 1870-1930. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1980. Melosi, Martin V., and Philip V. Scarpino. Public History and the Environment. Malabar, Fla: Krieger Pub. Co, 2004. Melosi, Martin V.. Effluent America: Cities, Industry, Energy, and the Environment. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2001. Merchant, Carolyn. American Environmental History: An Introduction. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007. Muir, John. My First Summer in the Sierra. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co, 1911. Murtagh, William. Keeping Time: The History and Theory of Preservation in America. New York: Sterling, 1988. Nash, Roderick. Wilderness and the American Mind. New Haven: Yale Nota Bene, 2001. Neuzil, Mark, and Bill Kovarik. Mass Media & Environmental Conflict: America's Green Crusades. Thousand Oaks, Calif: Sage Publications, 1996. New-York Historical Society, and Linda S. Ferber. The Hudson River School: Nature and the American Vision. New York: Skira Rizzoli, 2009. NPS. “The History of the Construction of the Road System in Yellowstone National Park, 1872- 1966.” Yellowstone Historic Resource Study. http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/yell_roads/hrs1-9.htm (accessed Feb 20, 2012). Oreskes, Naomi and Erik Conway. Merchants of Doubt. New York: Bloomsbury, 2010. Page, Max, and Randall Mason. Giving Preservation a History: Histories of Historic Preservation in the United States. New York: Routledge, 2004. Porter, Eliot and David Ross Brower. The Place No One Knew: Glen Canyon on the Colorado. San Francisco: Sierra Club, 1963. Rothman, Hal. The Greening of a Nation?: Environmentalism in the United States Since 1945. New York: Wadsworth, 1997.
140
Rozenzweig, Roy and David Thelen. The Presence of the Past: Popular Uses of History in American Life. New York: Columbia University, 1998. Ruskin, John. “The Lamp of Memory,” in The Seven Lamps of Architecture (London: Hazell, Watson, and Viney, 1891), 353, 339. Rypkema, Donovan D. Profiting From The Past. Raleigh: Preservation North Carolina, 1997. Slaton, Deborah and Rebecca A. Schiffer ed.. Preserving the Recent Past. Washington, DC: Historic Preservation Education Foundation, 1995. Smith, Timothy B. The Golden Age of Battlefield Preservation: The Decade of the 1890s and the Establishment of America's First Five Military Parks. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2008. Snyder, Gary. A Place in Space. Berkeley: Counterpoint, 1995. Spengler, Oswald, Helmut Werner, Arthur Helps, and Charles Francis Atkinson. The Decline of the West. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. Sperling, Daniel and Deborah Gordon. Two billion cars: driving toward sustainability. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. Stipe, Robert E. A Richer Heritage: Historic Preservation in the Twenty-First Century. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2003. Stubbendeck, Megan. “A Woman’s Touch.” in, Entering the Fray: Gender, Politics, and Culture in the New South. Edited by Johnathan Daniel Wells and Sheila R. Phipps. Columbia: University of Missouri 2010; 118-135. Teaford, Jon. The Metropolitan Revolution: The Rise of Post-Urban America. New York: Columbia University Press, 2006. Tharp, Louise. The Appletons of Beacon Hill. Boston: Little, Brown, 1973. Thoreau, Henry David. Walden, Or Life in the Woods. Raleigh, N.C.: Alex Catalogue, 1990. Turner, Frederick Jackson. The Frontier in American History. New York: Henry Holt and Co, 1921.
141
Watkins, T. H.. Righteous Pilgrim: The Life and Times of Harold L. Ickes, 1874-1952. New York: H. Holt, 1990. West, Patricia. Domesticating History: The Political Origins of America’s House Museums. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press,1999. Wilkes, Marion Raleigh. Rosemont and Its Famous Daughter: The Story of Rosemont Plantation, Laurens County, South Carolina, and Ann Pamela Cunningham, Who Saved Mount Vernon for a National Shrine. Washington, D.C.: Rosemont Preservation Society, 1947. Williams, Norman, Edmund Halsey Kellogg, and Frank B. Gilbert. Readings in Historic Preservation: Why? What? How? New Brunswick, N.J.: Center for Urban Policy Research, Rutgers University, 1983. Wilson, Chris and Paul Groth, ed.. Everyday America: Landscape Studies since J B Jackson. Los Angeles: University of Berkeley Press, 2003.
142