1813 - Philadelphia State House (Independence Hall) saved from demolition.

1853 - Mount Vernon Ladies' Association formed to save Mount Vernon.

1872 - Yellowstone National Park made a federally protected area, leading to interest in protecting southwestern adobe dwellings.

1889 - First national funding for historic preservation, as Congress appropriated $2,000 to preserve Casa Grande ruin in Arizona.

1906 - Antiquities Act passed, the country's first national preservation legislation, designating national monuments on federal land and establishing penalties for destroying federally owned sites.

1916 - National Park Service established to deal with areas too large to be preserved privately, (e.g., Colonial National Historical Park in Virginia, including Jamestown and Yorktown).

1926 - John D. Rockefeller, Jr. begins funding the restoration of Williamsburg, Virginia.

1929 - Henry Ford establishes Greenfield Village.

1931 - Charleston, South Carolina establishes its "Old and Historic District," the country's first designated historic district.

1933 - Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) authorized by President Roosevelt.

1934 - American Institute of Architects agrees to conduct historic structure documentation, adminstered by the U.S. Park Service.

1935 - Historic Sites Act passed by Congress to establish historic preservation policy; it "established 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."

1949 - National Trust for Historic Preservation established.

1966 - National Historic Preservation Act passed; major provisions established preservation roles for federal, state and local levels of government. It also established the National Register of Historic Places, the concept of historic districts, and the Advisory Board on Historic Preservation.

1976 - Tax Reform Act removed incentive for demolition of older buildings.

1978 - Revenue Act established investment tax credits for rehabilitation of historic buildings.

In 1813 one of the first acts of preservation was the successful effort to save from demolition Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (then known as the Old State House). This building had tremendous historical significance, as every student of American history recognizes. Nevertheless, the site had been offered for subdivision into smaller parcels. Fortunately, a number of historical associations made strong appeals, and the city of Philadelphia purchased it for preservation.

The first preservation group organized in the U.S. is generally considered to have been the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association of the Union, which was founded in 1853 to save Mount Vernon, George Washington's deteriorating homestead. A petition was presented to the U.S. Congress for "The Proposed Purchase of Mount Vernon by the Citizens of the United States, in Order that They May at All Times Have a Legal and Indisputable Right to Visit the Grounds, Mansion, and Tomb of Washington." When the petition failed, and the federal government showed no interest in taking care of the property, Ann Pamela Cunningham, founded the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association. Through this private organization she was able to raise money to acquire Mount Vernon. She found other women of means who had both the time and the inclination to help. Located in each state of the Union, the Association's members spearheaded a bold and very successful campaign to raise funding which saved and allowed for restoration of the structure.

The Association served as a model for other historic associations, many of which became involved in saving landmark structures threatened by growth or by time. This significant effort to save Mount Vernon also helped focus the early emphasis of the preservation movement in the U.S. toward three important trends:

1. Preservation activities were largely supported by private individuals;
2. Women had a prominent role; and
3. The goal of most efforts was to save individual landmark buildings.

With this emphasis on saving landmarks, there was little interest in preservation for preservation's sake, as described by one historian:

"...few preservationists in the late nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth century exhibited any interest in the quality of either the natural or the man-made environment. Patriotic societies, family associations, occasionally government agencies, focused on single buildings, pursuing aims more patriotic than aesthetic, They-and their successors who still constitute a strong force in the preservation movement-were ruled by what might be termed the George-Washington-Slept-Here syndrome. The buildings in which they were interested were those in which great men had lived or great events, preferably of the Revolutionary period, had transpired. These were to be preserved, and perhaps restored, so that the visitor to such sacred precincts might be infused, by some mysterious process of osmosis, with the patriotic virtues of former inhabitants." (Source unknown)

In the 19th century, the federal government took virtually no active role in preservation, and showed no inclination to recognize or protect any buildings that might have had historical significance during that early period. The federal government's interest was in protecting natural features. In 1872 it established as a federally protected area Yellowstone National Park, which included land in three states. It also began a program of acquiring Civil War battlefield sites, to protect them from development.

In the southwest, the federal government showed an interest in preserving adobe dwellings, some of which dated back to the 14th century. As settlers exploring this new territory discovered these adobe dwellings, they often looted and destroyed them to get artifacts for sale. In 1889 Congress appropriated $2000 to protect the Casa Grande ruin in Arizona, the first funding ever allocated for preservation.

Later, there was special concern over the Mesa Verde site in Colorado, which was being destroyed wholesale. The Antiquities Act of 1906 established stiff penalties for destroying this and other federally owned sites. Giving the President authority to designate "historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest" situated on federal lands, the Act became the first general historic preservation legislation. It also changed the authority for administering preservation activities at the federal level from Congress to the Executive branch of government, allowing such activities to be more efficiently managed. It also established the basis for the current situation, where preservation efforts are administered through the office of the Secretary of the Interior.

In 1916, the National Park Service was established within the U.S. Department of the Interior as the administrative agency for sites designated as national park areas. The goal was to establish an apparatus to deal with sites that were too large to be protected or preserved privately, such as the Jamestown and Yorktown sites in Virginia, which were combined to become the Colonial National Historical Park. As a result of its early involvement with the protection of natural sites, the National Park Service since its inception has played an integral role in preservation at the federal level, and even today is the sponsoring agency for most federal-level preservation programs.

Current Responsibilities of the National Park Service:

Division
......Responsibility
Archeological Assistance
......archeological excavations
History
......National Historic Landmark program
HABS/HAER
......historic structure documentation
Interagency Resources
......National Register of Historic Places
Preservation Assistance
......tax incentives program
Park Historic Architecture
......care of historic buildings at national parks
Anthropology
......professional advice about Native American cultures
Curatorial Services
......establishes standards and policies for museums

In this context, it is surprising that the restoration of Williamsburg, Virginia was initiated and supported by a private individual, for Williamsburg was a restoration project of a much larger scope than had been seen before. In 1926, the rector of the local Parish Church in Williamsburg convinced John D. Rockefeller, Jr. that the town, which had served as the original capital of the colony of Virginia and was recognized as the "birthplace of liberty," should be saved and restored in its entirety. Rockefeller, one of the richest men in America, gave generously to the effort. Williamsburg's restoration was the first attempt to restore an entire community.

The project presented many problems of preservation not previously encountered elsewhere. The primary problem was that much of the original town had been lost over the centuries and had to be rebuilt. Yet such a loss of historic buildings cannot be fully replaced through reconstruction or replication. John Ruskin argued that the true beauty of a building can only come out with time; it cannot be replicated through later reconstruction efforts.

The first efforts to reconstruct Williamsburg are now perceived as misguided in some respects, but the importance of the early and significant restoration effort should not be minimized. Although preservationists today see much of the early work as inappropriate, more recent work has been done with sensitivity to the historic significance of the original structures. Curators have recognized that sometimes a secondary building that is original can be more significant than an important structure that has been reconstructed from new materials. A reconstruction is never able to fully replace the original, no matter how well done.

It has also been recognized that structures age over time, and the Williamsburg staff no longer keeps every structure in perfect condition; they let time do its part. Thus, on some structures the paint has been allowed to weather, and lawns which had been carefully cut now are home to grazing sheep, as would have been common in the 17th century.

Despite some on its shortcomings, Williamsburg remains one of the country's most significant and visited historic districts, for it represents more than its buildings. As Rockefeller recognized, it is valuable for "the lesson it teaches of the patriotism, high purpose, and unselfish devotion of our forefathers to the common good."

The other great 20th century preservation project sponsored by a single wealthy individual was Greenfield Village Museum, established in 1929 with funding from Henry Ford. Although recognized as a significant historical museum, Greenfield Village has been consistently criticized for having been too much a product of Ford's personal tastes. Indeed, the Village is a mixture of structures that Ford brought together, many of them relating to his great love of inventions and inventors. Restoration of the structures was often done according to Ford's tastes, even when those tastes were not historically accurate. All the structures were transplanted from their original sites, losing their contextual significance, and had been collected in an almost random manner.

Greenfield Village should be evaluated in other terms, however. Ford intended that Greenfield Village be an "animated textbook," and as such serve as an accessible teaching laboratory for students. Seen in this light, it has served its purpose well.

The first city to establish a historic district with regulatory control was Charleston, South Carolina. To counter a threat from outsiders, who were dismantling many of the beautiful Charleston houses, local citizens and planners developed a historic zoning ordinance. In 1931 this new district was established, even though there was no legal precedent for it and no enabling legislation permitting it.

The Old and Historic Charleston District established a Board of Architectural Review, which had authority to review exterior changes to buildings within the district and issue certificates of appropriateness if such changes were deemed compatible. With no legal basis for this review authority, the regulatory district remained viable largely because it had general community support.

Charleston became a prototype for many other early historic districts, including the Vieux Carre section of New Orleans, Louisiana, authorized through a constitutional amendment by the state of Louisiana in 1936. This was followed by San Antonio in 1939; Alexandria, Virginia in 1946; Williamsburg, Virginia in 1947; Winston-Salem, North Carolina in 1948; and the Georgetown section of Washington, D.C. in 1950.

The Act established a National Historic Landmarks program. It also incorporated the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) and the Historic American Engineering Record (HAER)programs, which encouraged documentation of historic structures. HABS focused originally on 17th and 18th-century endangered buildings of note, while HAER emphasized industrial structures and other industrial projects, such as canals, railroads and bridges.

During the depression years the American Institute of Architects agreed to conduct the program of documentation as a way to put unemployed architects to work. The U.S. Park Service administered the program, and established documentation standards. The data compiled during the 1930s remains some of the best historical records available of what early structures, many now demolished, looked like. It is an invaluable archive, and its collection is now recorded on microfilm and microfiche and is carried at more than a hundred libraries across the country.

As the country pulled out of the depression and became distracted by World War II the documentation programs languished, and were largely inactive from 1941 to 1957. What little work that was done was completed by students on summer internships and funded through private donations.

The HABS and HAER programs are now under the auspices of the Heritage Conservation and Recreation Service, Department of the Interior. Over 20,000 structures have now been recorded and are archived at the Library of Congress. The process of documentation continues, with the fundamental philosophy that the work should be undertaken on a shared-cost basis, with contributions from municipalities, industries, historical societies and preservation organizations. The need for this important resource is attested to by the fact that "over one half of the buildings listed in the Historic American Building Survey, begun by the Federal Government in 1933, have been destroyed." (excerpted from the famous Penn Central case, 1978)

After World War II a new organization, the National Council for Historic Sites and Buildings, was formed. This organization soon led to the establishment of the National Trust for Historic Preservation in 1949. The National Trust, based closely on its English namesake, was structured to form a link between preservation efforts of the National Park Service and activities of the private sector. Serving as a private non-profit organization chartered by Congress, its primary purpose has been to encourage preservation in a number of ways. It publishes both a newspaper devoted to current issues in preservation and a magazine, Historic Preservation, which offers more in-depth articles. The Trust sponsors an annual conference, which brings together prominent preservationists from all over the country. The organization also serves as a lobbying agency to Congress; for example, it was very instrumental in retaining the rehabilitation tax credit program when it was threatened in the 1980s.

As laid out at a conference in Williamsburg in the late 1970s, the official objectives of the National Trust are to:

1. Identify and act on important national preservation issues;

2. Support, broaden, and strengthen organized preservation efforts;

3. Target communications to those who affect the future of historic resources;

4. Expand private and public financial resources for preservation activities. (Murtagh, William J. Keeping Time: The History and Theory of Preservation In America. Sterling Publishing Co., Inc.: New York, 1990. p. 47.)

Financial support for the National Trust is provided through membership dues, endowments, contributions and matching grants from federal agencies, including the Department of the Interior and the National Park Service.

One of the roles initially given to the Trust was to take over the ownership of historic properties that were problematic for the federal government to own. Over the years it has accepted ownership of relatively few such properties, usually only those of exceptional significance. In fact, the first property the Trust accepted, the Woodlawn Plantation in Virginia, led to an internal debate over whether such properties should be centrally administered and supported or each should be independently administered and financially self-sufficient. Over the years the Trust has accepted a total of eighteen properties, including Lyndhurst, the Rockefeller family's Kykuit Mansion, Frank Lloyd Wright's Home and Studio, and the Woodrow Wilson House. Donated properties typically have come with endowments, but inflation has made most of them insufficient to cover costs. Because of the administrative and funding difficulties, the Trust has discouraged further donations, finding such ownership a burden for an organization that has had to rely more and more on private donations for support.

The National Trust has developed other programs that complement its primary mission. These have included the Main Street Program, which encourages the revitalization of older downtown areas (now administered through the National Main Street Center), and the now defunct Rural Conservation and Neighborhood Conservation programs.

One of the most important provisions of the 1966 Act was the creation of the National Register of Historic Places. This Register of historically significant structures currently contains almost 50,000 listings representing more than 750,000 properties. The National Register has become the standard listing of the nation's inventory of recognized historic structures. It should not be confused with the Historic American Buildings Survey, which was begun in 1933 as a method of documenting historic buildings through drawings and photographs.

Properties must be nominated and approved for inclusion on the National Register, and the necessary documentation for approval provides a more inclusive description of a property, including narrative statements of its history, context, and significance.

The 1966 Act also established the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, whose purpose was to determine whether federally-supported projects had a significant negative impact on recognized historic properties. In essence, the Council provided a check against further unwarranted demolition and destruction of historic resources.

The Advisory Council is an independent federal agency within the Executive Branch. It currently has nineteen members, including the Secretaries of the Interior, Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Agriculture. Most of the Council's budget and personnel resources are used each year to fulfill its primary mandate, a process known as Section 106 review. This process involves reviewing and commenting on federal projects, or federally-supported projects, that affect historic properties (properties either on the National Register or eligible for the National Register). In any given year this will involve the review of thousands of projects.

The Section 106 process works in the following way:

1. The Federal agency involved with the project identifies any historic properties that may be impacted. Consulting with the State Historic Preservation Officer (SHPO), it is determined which properties are listed on the National Register or eligible for the National Register.

2. The agency then determines whether the proposed project will have (a) no effect, (b) no adverse effect, or (c) adverse effect on each of these properties.

3. If an adverse effect is determined, the agency consults with the SHPO and others to determine how to minimize the negative impact. This results in a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA), which outlines the measures to be taken to mitigate the impact.

4. If a Memorandum of Agreement is executed, the agency can proceed with the project under the terms of the MOA.

In some instances such an agreement cannot be reached between the various parties interested in the project. In such a case the Council may develop an alternative agreement.