SPEECH: With Heritage So Rich
Introduction by Richard Moe
Posted August 5, 2009 | Contact pr@nthp.org or 202-588-6141
By Richard Moe | 2002
Introduction by Richard Moe, President, National Trust for Historic Preservation, in the 2002 edition of With Heritage So Rich.
When With Heritage So Rich was first published 33 years ago, Historic Preservation editor Helen Duprey Bullock noted that its title came from the "Prayer for the Nation" in the Book of Common Prayer. That kind of religious connection might not be considered politically correct today, but in the case of this particular book it has an undeniable appropriateness: If any secular publication can rightly claim to be the Bible of the contemporary American preservation movement, it is this one.
That compelling fact underscores our decision to reissue With Heritage So Rich as part of our commemoration of the National Trust for Historic Preservation's 50th anniversary in 1999. This landmark volume -- a particularly fitting description in this case -- has been out of print for many years. I am proud that the National Trust for Historic Preservation, with the generous assistance of Martha Ann Healy (whose late husband, Patrick Healy, was a consultant to the Special Committee that produced the original report), can now make it possible for a new generation of preservationists to learn from it and be inspired by it.
In composing their report and recommendations for a strengthened national commitment to the preservation of America's cultural heritage, the members of the Special Committee on Historic Preservation of the U.S. Conference of Mayors produced a document that is lucid, concise and visionary. It is also beautifully written. A reader doesn't expect to find thoughtfully crafted, compelling prose -- not to mention poetry -- in a committee report, but both are here. The opening paragraph in Sidney Hyman's essay entitled "Empire for Liberty" says just about all there is to say about the importance of preservation as a means of keeping a people's shared memory intact. An array of luminous black-and-white photographs conveys a clear sense of the marvelous diversity of our legacy from the past and the tragedy of its loss. Accompanying and illuminating the photos is a masterful prose-poem, "Images of Tradition," in which George Zabriskie captures in just 18 syllables the spreading urban desolation that helped spur the Special Committee's work:
In parking lots,
cold-flecked with chrome,
the empty badlands
of the cities grow.
Despite the richness of its words and images, the true significance of With Heritage So Rich derives less from what it says than from what it accomplished. The report was published in January of 1966. Just a few months later, when Congress passed the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA), nearly every major recommendation in the report was translated into law. The primary components of the structure of today's preservation movement -- the creation of the National Register of Historic Places and the President's Advisory Council on Historic Preservation; the development of a nationwide network of state historic preservation offices and the provision of federal appropriations to support their work; the implementation of federal tax credits for rehabilitation of historic buildings (recommended by the Special Committee, but not enacted until 1976) -- all of these grew out of the 1966 legislation. Perhaps most important, the NHPA represented an unprecedented codification of the government's commitment -- expressed in law and eventually backed up with procedures and regulations -- to historic preservation as a matter of federal policy.
In every sense, 1966 was a transcendental year for historic preservation, and the foundation for all that followed was laid with the publication of With Heritage So Rich. That's why the report is much more than a dusty historic relic of interest only to archivists. This is not a dead document. Like the legislation and the movement it spawned, it is very much alive.
If the authors of this report were given the opportunity to evaluate today's preservation movement in light of the recommendations made by the Special Committee more than three decades ago, would they be pleased by what they would find? For the most part, I think they would. They could hardly help but be gratified by the extent to which the legislative and policy structure they envisioned has been realized, of course. But I think they'd be equally impressed to find that the preservation movement itself has matured into something very like what they hoped it would become.
It's worth remembering that With Heritage So Rich was produced in an atmosphere of crisis. The mid-1960s marked the heyday of interstate highway construction and Urban Renewal, when landmark buildings -- even entire neighborhoods -- were being ruthlessly swept away in a misguided pursuit of "progress." Against a dispiriting backdrop of wrecking-balls and rubble, members of the Special Committee called on Americans to broaden their vision of what preservation really is, or could be. In the section of the report headed "Findings and Recommendations" appears this thoughtful passage:
If the preservation movement is to be successful, it must go beyond saving bricks and mortar. It must go beyond saving occasional historic houses and opening museums. It must be more than a cult of antiquarians. It must do more than revere a few precious national shrines. It must attempt to give a sense of orientation to our society using structures and objects of the past to establish values of time and place.
To a gratifying extent, the Special Committee's wish-list for preservation's future has become reality over the past three decades. The men and women who make up today's preservation movement are definitely not "a cult of antiquarians." Today's preservationist is someone who wants to improve the quality of life in his or her own community; someone who is concerned about the rootlessness and erosion of community that threaten the very foundations of our society; someone who wants to maintain a connection with the past, who feels the need for a tangible link with something real and lasting and meaningful.
It comes down to this: Preservation today is more than just buildings. It's about creating and enhancing environments that support, educate and enrich the lives of all Americans. Just as has been the case ever since Ann Pamela Cunningham rallied American women to save Mount Vernon in the 1850s, preservation today is rooted firmly in an appreciation of the value of history and tradition, but it is no longer concerned primarily with the past. It is essential to the quality of our life here and now, just as the authors of With Heritage So Rich hoped it would be.
But if this book is a visionary blueprint for the future, it is also a sobering record of the mistakes and follies of the past. In the January/February 1966 issue of Historic Preservation, Helen Duprey Bullock noted the overriding message of the Special Committee's report: "From chapter to chapter the fact emerges...that as a nation we have been profligate with our inheritance from the past, and immoral in our responsibilities to the future."
Sadly, that grim assessment is no less true today. Rapacious mega-scale programs such as Urban Renewal and interstate highway construction may have faded, but other threats, with equally disastrous consequences for America's historic resources, have grown up in their place. Perhaps the biggest of these is sprawl, which devours open space, drains people and economic life out of traditional neighborhoods and business districts, and forces communities into a wasteful and fiscally irresponsible duplication of services and infrastructure in outlying areas while older neighborhoods are allowed to deteriorate. Even more alarming, a growing body of grim evidence suggests that sprawl is eroding the very sense of community that helps bind us together as a people and as a nation.
In 1966 no one could have foreseen that sprawl would replace Urban Renewal as the chief threat to the continued livability of American communities, just as we cannot know what new issue will become the crucible in which a future generation's preservation theories and practices are tested. One thing we can be sure of: whatever changes may come, the preservation movement must and will adapt itself to them -- and the message of With Heritage So Rich will retain its timeliness.
Building on the foundation laid by the authors of this book more than three decades ago, American preservationists helped rewrite government policy, helped modify longstanding patterns of behavior, helped change the way people thought about our heritage and its value in our lives. Today, as we continue our efforts to put the brakes on sprawl and encourage policies that promote smart growth and enhance the quality of life for everyone, our ranks are swelled by thousands of people who never thought the label "preservationist" applied to them -- people who merely want communities that work, that are safe, attractive and truly livable.
Working together, we can meet the challenge posed so eloquently in With Heritage So Rich: We can inculcate the value of historic preservation as an ethic. We can change the face of America for the better.
Richard Moe is president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation is a non-profit membership organization bringing people together to protect, enhance and enjoy the places that matter to them. By saving the places where great moments from history – and the important moments of everyday life – took place, the National Trust for Historic Preservation helps revitalize neighborhoods and communities, spark economic development and promote environmental sustainability. With headquarters in Washington, DC, nine regional and field offices, 29 historic sites, and partner organizations in all 50 states, the National Trust for Historic Preservation provides leadership, education, advocacy and resources to a national network of people, organizations and local communities committed to saving places, connecting us to our history and collectively shaping the future of America’s stories. For more information visit www.PreservationNation.org.
