PreserveCast: Recent Episodes
Preservation Maryland
PreserveCast is where the past and present meet to discuss how history impacts today – and tomorrow. Hosted by Nicholas Redding of Preservation Maryland.
Today's episode is a re-release of an episode that originally aired in 2020 with guest Tom Moriarity, a legendary preservationist who passed away in late September. Tom was a pioneer in historic preservation, co-founding the Main Street program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which has since revitalized over 2,000 towns and generated $115B in reinvestment.
In this revisited conversation we discuss why do we do what we do and why don’t others understand why it’s so important?
Those are the driving questions that prompted Tom Moriarity to dive into a discourse on what preservation needs in the years ahead. It’s a big task – but one that we need to constantly revisit if we hope to save places that truly matter.
Today we're joined by Kevin Miller, an architect who also serves as the President of the Board of Baltimore Architecture Foundation. Kevin and his team have been preparing for Doors Open Baltimore, an annual city-wide festival honoring Baltimore’s diverse cultural tapestry by highlighting its vibrant neighborhoods, captivating architecture, and distinctive spaces that contribute to the city’s exceptional charm.
Kevin obtained a BS in Architecture and a Master of Architecture from Ball State University in May 2017 and has been working professionally as an architectural designer for the last five years. He is a digital artist, author, parametric designer, and thought leader with a strong interest in computational design, architectural interiors, design details at all scales, and visual representation. Kevin is always excited to learn new skills and connect with other people who share a passion for design
Today we're joined by Marden Fitzpatrick Nichols, who selected, translated, and introduced a collection of ancient Roman writings about home design and decoration in How to Make a Home: An Ancient Guide to Style and Comfort (Princeton, 2025).
Nicholas is particularly interested in how debates about the significance of art and architecture shaped ancient Roman cultural and intellectual history. She has also written about the reception of classical art in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Typically we're in studio 1:1 with our guests, but today's episode comes to you in different format. Join us on-site at the Maryland Association of Counties' annual conference where we pulled up a chair (and a mic) with policymakers, heritage area colleagues, Main Street advocates, county reps, elected officials, and fellow history lovers to swap stories about historic preservation, Maryland’s past, funding, and what's in store for the future.
As preservationists from across the country gather for the PastForward 2025 conference, we’re reminded that our work—protecting and activating historic places and the stories they hold—is more important than ever.
On this special release episode of PreserveCast, we welcome Carol Quillen, President & CEO of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, for a timely and thoughtful conversation about the challenges and opportunities facing our field.
We discuss the importance of preservation not just as a way of protecting the past, but as an essential investment in our future. At a moment when federal programs, grant opportunities, and staffing that support preservation are at risk, we cover what we should expect from our leadership in this space and the work being done to save history.
Kate Livie is a Chesapeake educator, writer and social historian whose work explores the Chesapeake’s culture, history, traditions and environment.
Formerly the director of education and associate curator at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum, Livie serves as adjunct faculty in Chesapeake Studies at Washington College and as chairman of the maritime committee at the Maryland Center for History and Culture.
Her 2015 book, Chesapeake Oysters: The Bay’s Foundation and Future, won the Maryland Historical Society’s Marion Brewington prize for Maritime History. Livie contributes regularly to regional publications like Chesapeake Bay Magazine, Baltimore Magazine, and Edible Delmarva, and has hosted programs on Bay culture and history for MPT, NPR and the History Channel. Livie regularly lectures on topics exploring the intersection of Chesapeake environment and tradition at cultural institutions, colleges and non-profits throughout the region.
Dr. Melissa Reid is the executive director of the Taylor House Museum, located in historic downtown Berlin, Maryland. Dr. Reid's doctoral research focused on community and artifactual literacies. Her work documented how historical stories of the local Black community were shared in the larger Berlin community. This research helps supports the mission of the Taylor House which is Telling the Stories of Berlin. Her family has roots in the Berlin area, going back several hundred years. She comes from a long line of storytellers.
Historic foodways is a fan-favorite topic here on the podcast (pretzels, pizza, and many others) so we're thrilled to have comedian, Emmy Award-nominated TV writer, podcaster, and author of Raw Dog, the Naked Truth About Hot Dogs, Jamie Loftus join us today! Jamie's book is a blend of travelogue, culinary history, and critique of capitalism, revealing how the hot dog, a food often associated with low culture and affordability, has become deeply intertwined with American identity and commercialism. To purchase: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250847751/rawdog/
On this special-release episode of PreserveCast, we're sitting down with Jack Gary from Colonial Williamsburg’s Department of Archaeology to discuss the opening of a "new" site at Colonial Williamsburg.
Today, on Juneteenth, Colonial Williamsburg is opening a powerful chapter of American history, the Williamsburg Bray School, the nation’s oldest-known schoolhouse used to educate enslaved and free Black children. The site dramatically expands the narrative of Colonial Williamsburg, deepening how the museum tells the story of our country’s origins through the lens of race, education, faith, and community. The project also centers descendant voices, who are helping to shape how these stories are shared with the public.
About Our Guest
Jack leads all aspects of archaeological research within Colonial Williamsburg’s Department of Archaeology. He oversees a department of 30 professional archaeologists engaged in historical research, field excavation, laboratory analyses, and documentation of Colonial Williamsburg’s archaeological resources. He is an expert in the field of environmental and garden archaeology, community engaged approaches to archaeology, and material culture studies. The Foundation’s archaeological collection of over 60 million artifacts falls under Jack’s responsibility.
More on the William Bray School: https://www.preservecast.org/2023/05/15/the-williamsburg-bray-school-with-dr-maureen-elgersman-lee/
We're still feeling the love here at PreserveCast! Today we're talking with Trisha Tanner, Executive Director of the Alum Association at Mount Holyoke, about Esther Howland (Mount Holyoke class of 1847), known as the “mother of the American valentine.” At a time when most women didn't have the opportunity to be employed, let alone lead, Howland founded her card-making business and pioneered an entire industry.
Today we're chatting with Joe Redd, safety director at Durable Slate and Durable Restoration. We talk about preservation from many angles here on PreserveCast, but we've yet to cover safety! We're excited to have this important conversation with Joe on today's episode.
Danielle Keperling has worked in the restoration industry since 2001, but her education in the traditional trades, construction industry, and historical preservation was built from an early age through her father's work in the traditional trades and her mother's love of historic architecture. Danielle works to help historic building owners restore and preserve their piece of our built history.
Welcome to another episode of PreserveCast! Today we're talking with a previous guest, Erica Avrami PhD, to discuss her new book Second- Order Preservation Social Justice and Climate Action through Heritage Policy.
Erica is the James Marston Fitch Associate Professor of Historic Preservation at Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation.
Today we're talking with Harrison Goodall Fellow Molly Baker. Molly also serves as HOPE Crew Manager in the Preservation Services and Outreach department at the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Her focus is growing interest in the building preservation trades by engaging a younger, more diverse audience in hands-on preservation opportunities. Molly’s fellowship capstone project was to collect, analyze, and publish replicable models for preservation trades training. Nationwide there are examples of successful trades training programs at various levels: high school technical education courses, conservation corps training, apprenticeships, volunteer opportunities, and accredited community colleges. However, often a barrier to entering these programs is their location. Molly’s project produced a roadmap for smaller regions to create their own preservation trades training opportunities.
Join us for a conversation with Kate Wood, founder and principal at Worth Preserving where she works with owners, architects, trades and others to rescue, rehabilitate and reimagine residential properties. With expertise on character-defining features we explore what’s “worth preserving.”
10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1...HAPPY NEW YEAR!
On the eve of New Year's Eve we're talking with Dr. Alexis McCrossen, a author and Professor of History at Southern Methodist University, who is now working on book about the history of New Year’s observances in the United States, tentatively titled, Time’s Touchstone: New Year’s in American Life. She is also the author of Holy Day, Holiday: The American Sunday (Cornell University Press, 2000) and Marking Modern Times: Clocks, Watches and Other Timekeepers in American Life (University of Chicago Press, 2013).
Today we're thrilled to be joined by A.O. Scott, who, by day, serves as a critic at large for The New York Times Book Review. He's with us today to discuss his contributions to Beyond Architecture: The New New York, which commemorates the sixtieth anniversary of the passage of the New York City Landmarks Law. The 1965 law established the Landmarks Preservation Commission and initiated the era of historic preservation in New York City, the largest city in the United States.
The book can be purchased here: https://www.nyrb.com/products/beyond-architecture-the-new-new-york
Today we're talking with Naomi Peach, project officer at Kiplin Hall and Gardens in North Yorkshire, the historic home of George Calvert 1st Baron Baltimore. Naomi is working on the Interpreting Kiplin for 400 Project, celebrating 400 years since the building of Kiplin Hall. The project seeks to engage with local community groups and previously under-represented audiences to create engaging and relevant interpretation for the museum and grounds.
Today we're talking with Stephanie Compton, a passionate zero-waste advocate, founder of Leave No Waste, and an advisor to policy makers. We'll discuss how her work relates to historic preservation, policy, and the deconstruction movement.
We're again connecting with New England-based hand poke tattoo artist Owen McGrarry, who will be at Sailabration: Sailing Traditions in Ink - a festival celebrating the lives of sailors and the art of tattooing - on October 26th in Baltimore. Before the electric tattoo machine was invented in 1891 by a former sailor, tattoo artists used a simple poke and stick technique. Aboard ship, sailors often used the materials they had on hand, such as large needles for sewing sails, India ink, laundry bluing, and even gunpowder. Owen Payette McGarry is a traditional hand poke tattoo artist based in Boston, Massachusetts. He came to tattooing in 2014 through his interest in maritime folk art, while working as a boat builder.
Owen's previous episode: https://www.preservecast.org/2023/02/20/stick-poke-tattooing-with-owen-mcgarry/
Today we're sitting down with Renée Hamidi, executive director of Valleys Planning Council, a nonprofit that works to protect land and resources, preserve historic character, and maintain the rural feel of 130 square miles of northwestern Baltimore County, Maryland. We'll cover a bit about the work of Valleys Planning Council, and a current issue, the Maryland Piedmont Reliability Project, that would put irreplaceable heritage sites and thousands of acres of public-and-private conserved lands at risk.
Historical archaeologist Dr. Eleanor Breen currently directs the renowned public archaeology program and museum that preserves and interprets the buried history of the City of Alexandria, Virginia. She joins us along with return guest Scott Vierick, who serves on the Alexandria Archaeological Commission. Together they'll discuss the work of connecting Alexandrians with the Port City’s past.
Gene Kansas, an award-winning cultural developer, preservationist, and social entrepreneur, joins us to discuss his upcoming book Civil Sights (UGA Press, 2025), about the Sweet Auburn Historic District in Atlanta and the movement to preserve it.
Today we're talking with Vedet Coleman-Robinson, Ph.D., who serves as the president and CEO of the Association of African American Museums (AAAM), an organization bringing stories of civil rights and social injustice to the forefront, chronicling the strides that have been made, and emphasizing inequalities that still exist today.
AAAM is hosting its 46th Annual Conference in Baltimore August 13-16.
Learn more:
AAAM Website: Association of African American Museums – The official web site of Association of African American Museums. (blackmuseums.org)
Conference registration: AAAM 2024 Conference Registration – Association of African American Museums (blackmuseums.org)
Continuing with the Smart Growth theme from last episode, today we're chatting with Maria Tova Enriquez Dougherty from HDAdvisors about urban planning, policy, affordable housing, and the Virginia Zoning Atlas. As always, we'll cover the connection to history and preservation and the real world impact of this work.
Maria is involved on a variety of projects, including providing policy research and programmatic development for HousingForward Virginia and the Virginia Statewide Community Land Trust (VSCLT) and affordable housing real estate development.
As referenced in this episode:
www.HousingForwardVA.org
https://www.zoningatlas.org
https://www.hdadvisors.net/
Today we're talking with Preservation Maryland's Revitalization Policy Analyst Briana Paxton about the intersection of historic preservation and smart growth, zoning, barriers to infill, and what preservationists can do to incentivize smart development.
Today we're talking with Rachel Robinson Vice President, Preservation at Historic Annapolis, a non-profit organization in the historic capital of Maryland. Rachel takes us through her journey to a career in preservation and the organization's current projects.
We're excited to (finally!) sit down with C&O Canal Trust's President & CEO Lauren Riviello to talk about the C&O Canal, unique ways to activate historic resources, and the innovative Canal Quarters program.
The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park preserves and interprets the historical, natural, and recreational resources of the C&O Canal and has more than 5 million visitors annually.
Lauren joined the C&O Canal Trust in February 2021, serving as Director of Development prior to becoming President & CEO in April 2023. During her tenure leading the Trust’s development team, the organization steadily enhanced its fundraising efforts, growing critical support for conservation, education, and preservation efforts in the C&O Canal National Historical Park. A native of Shepherdstown, WV, she grew up exploring the C&O Canal at Lock 38.
On this week’s PreserveCast, join us as we talk with Daniela Holt Voith, a founding principal of Voith & Mactavish Architects. Daniela will take us through her history as an architect, how she was introduced to preservation, and one of her latest projects in the Town of Oxford, Md., where she and her team had to walk the line between modern sustainable practices and preservation.
On today's PreserveCast we're sitting down with Angela Crenshaw, Director of the Maryland Park Service. We'll hear about Angela's background, the State Park system, famous Marylanders, and the important work she's doing leading the department that safeguards Maryland's cultural and natural resources.
Join us this week as we talk with Winslow Hastie, President & CEO of the Historic Charleston Foundation (HCF). On this week’s episode, we chat with Winslow about the 77-year old organization - it’s past and future - and the Nathaniel Russell House, a 19th century historic house museum in Charleston, South Carolina, owned and operated by the Historic Charleston Foundation.
In December 2023, HCF announced they would be divesting the house and a month later, after public outcry, that decision was reversed. Sit in on our conversation with Winslow as we discuss what this story says about the current and future state of preservation.
On this week’s PreserveCast, join us as we talk with Andrew Rowand, a shoemaker who focuses on recreating shoes from the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. Andrew will take us through his process for making the shoes, where his inspiration comes from, and what started his decade-long journey.
On this week’s PreserveCast, join us as we talk with Jennifer Dewees, President at Maryland Center for Construction Education and Innovation, Inc. (MCCEI). Jennifer will discuss apprenticeships and how important they are to the construction industry, and the workforce as a whole. Jennifer is a co-founder and Construction Lead at the Maryland Apprenticeship Center where they are championing apprenticeships as essential pathways across all industries.
On this week’s PreserveCast, join us as we talk with Annie Polland, President of the Tenement Museum, about their new exhibit A Union of Hope. Annie will take us through how they discovered the story of Joseph and Rachel Moore, Black New Yorkers who lived in the tenement in the 1860s – 1870s, and how they recreated their apartment in the Tenement Museum while navigating historic preservation and interpretation.
Today we're joined by two of Preservation Maryland's own (the organization that powers PreserveCast!), Christiana Limniatis and Maggie Pelta-Pauls, to discuss the process of researching a historic property - why people conduct the research, the hidden histories that can be uncovered, and how researching a historic property has real-world impact today.
Check out Christiana and Maggie's work here: https://www.preservationmaryland.org/researching-the-history-of-the-berlin-house/
and Preservation Maryland’s Property Research Guide here: https://www.preservationmaryland.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/PresMD-Property-Research-Guide.pdf
On this week's episode we're talking with Natalie Henshaw, Director of The Campaign for Historic Trades. You may recognize Natalie's name (and voice!) as she hosts PreserveCast's Trades Takeover episodes, some of our most downloaded conversations here on PreserveCast.
Listen in to learn about the value of historic trades, apprenticeship programs, the impact they're having, and how you can get involved to make sure trades training happens in your community.
*March 3-9th is also Women in Construction Week - a perfect time for the head of a national historic trades program to share her knowledge about the industry and discuss equitable opportunities in the trades.
Join us as we talk with Daniel Gagnon about his book A Salem Witch: The Trial, Execution, and Exoneration of Rebecca Nurse. Dan will take us on a deep dive into the world of the Salem Witch Trials and how one story stuck out and just had to be told. We cover everything from the accusations to the legacy, and how witchcraft themed tourism impacts modern storytelling.
Dan is the author of A Salem Witch: The Trial, Execution, and Exoneration of Rebecca Nurse. He is a high school history teacher on the North Shore of Massachusetts, serves on the board of directors of the Rebecca Nurse Homestead Museum, and serves as Chairman of the Town of Danvers’ Salem Village Historic District Commission. He has shared his research through many in-person and online programs, including C-SPAN’s television program American History TV, and has served as a subject-matter expert for local media.
Learn more: https://danielgagnonhistory.com/
On this week’s PreserveCast we are talking with Paul Coussan, the Director of Government Relations at the American Battlefield Trust about Boots on the Ground: A Manual for Battlefield Friends Groups. Paul walks us through how the manual aims to provide resources for friends groups, new and established, who serve as the first line of defence against potential threats to American heritage.
Join us on this week’s PreserveCast as we talk with Lara Miller, the Director of Member Engagement for the Early American Industries Association. Lara will take us through EAIA’s history of being the go-to community to learn about American tools, trades, and industries for 90 years. She will also dive into their resources, network, and how listeners can get involved.
Lara Miller Rowand is the Director of Member Engagement for the Early American Industries Association. Growing up in the Central Appalachian regions of eastern Kentucky & southern West Virginia, she garnered an appreciation for and dedication to historic trades and crafts. When not engaging with trades for her day job, she can often be found throwing pottery, carving print blocks, finding something to sew, or growing vegetables. She holds an undergraduate degree in History & a graduate degree in Nonfiction Writing, and has formerly worked for institutions such as Old Sturbridge Village and the Valentine Museum in Richmond, Virginia. She now lives in rural Connecticut with her shoemaker husband, two dogs, and overly sassy cat.
Learn More: https://www.eaia.us/
The Battle of Antietam is the single bloodiest day in American history, chronicled in D. Scott Hartwig's new book I Dread the Thought of the Place: The Battle of Antietam and the End of the Maryland Campaign. Join us on this week’s PreserveCast as we talk with Scott about the vital turning point that was the Battle of Antietam. He will give us a sneak peek into his book, the research it took to write it, and how the Battle of Antietam shaped the American Civil War.
**Join Preservation Maryland September 13th for a special book release party at McClintock Distilling to celebrate Dread the Thought of the Place: The Battle of Antietam and the End of the Maryland Campaign.
Purchase tickets https://www.eventbrite.com/e/an-antietam-evening-a-book-release-party-for-d-scott-hartwig-tickets-673181924257?aff=oddtdtcreator
On this week’s PreserveCast, take a step back in time as we talk with Timothy Ware about his book Maryland in the French & Indian War. Tim will talk to us about where his interest in American history started, why he decided to write his book, and the importance of the French & Indian War to Maryland.
Tim Ware grew up outside of Martinsburg, West Virginia, in a region filled with history spanning from the colonial period to the American Civil War and beyond. His passion for history pushed him to pursue an undergraduate degree in history from Shepherd University and a graduate degree in American history from American Public University. In the first book, Tim dives into Maryland’s participation in a war that began as a skirmish on the frontiers of Pennsylvania and grew up into a global war for empire. Tim resides in Hagerstown, Maryland, with his wife, Heather; son Clyde; and two dogs, Nell and Kash.
Learn More: https://www.amazon.com/Maryland-French-Indian-War-Military/dp/1467150347
Today we're joined by our own Preservation Program & Outreach Manager Christiana Limniatis where we're talking about preservation in pop culture, specifically preservation on the silver screen. Listen in to hear Christiana and Nick's chat about their favorite preservation-related films.
Join us in the garden on this week’s PreserveCast as we talk with John Forti about his book, The Heirloom Gardener: Traditional Plants & Skills for the Modern World. John will take us through how he started gardening, why he decided to put pen to paper, and the importance of heirloom and indigenous plants in our gardens.
John Forti is an award-winning heirloom specialist, garden historian, ethnobotanist, garden writer, and local foods advocate. He is Executive Director of Bedrock Gardens, an artist-inspired public sculpture garden and landscape in Lee, New Hampshire, and the recipient of a 2020 Award of Excellence from National Garden Clubs. He is also a regional governor and biodiversity specialist for Slow Food USA, a national chapter of Slow Food, a global organization and international grassroots movement that connects food producers and consumers to champion local agriculture, farmers markets, and traditional, regional cuisine. John gardens and lives along the banks of the Piscataqua River in Maine.
Learn More: http://jforti.com/
Join us on this week’s PreserveCast as we talk with Dr. Jocelyn Imani, the National Director for the Black History and Culture program at Trust for Public Land. Dr. Imani will discuss the importance in creating shared spaces that are more relevant and accessible to all populations. All that and more!
Dr. Jocelyn Imani is a storyteller, educator, and community builder with over a decade of experience as a public historian; she joined us as national director of our Black History and Culture program in 2022. In her work, she is focused on reimagining how Black history and culture sites are activated and aims to make shared spaces more relevant and accessible to all populations. Prior to joining TPL, Dr. Imani spent time as an interpretive ranger with the National Park Service, served as historian at Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site, and worked in the Office of Curatorial Affairs at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.
She has taught U.S. history at Fisk and Howard Universities, as well as Washington Adventist University, Coppin State University, and others. She is also particularly dedicated to the development of strong children, a passion reflected in her founding of the Big Brown Get Down, an annual community event that connects upwardly mobile professionals with middle and high school students from underserved communities.
Dr. Imani holds a PhD in African diaspora and public history from Howard University and a BA in history from Fisk University. She is a member of the Nashville Metropolitan Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc and the Junior League of Nashville. She also serves on the Board of Directors for Progress, Inc, an organization that promotes health, happiness, and safety for people with disabilities and senior adults needing care.
An avid fan of arts, music, and culture, Dr. Imani comes from a long line of musicians and sang before she spoke. A proud daughter of the South, she is a native of Nashville, Tennessee.
Learn more: https://www.tpl.org/black-history-and-culture
On this week’s PreserveCast, join us as we talk with Carole Boston Weatherford and her son, Jeffrey Boston Weatherford, about their book Kin: Rooted in Hope. Carole and Jeffrey will share their journey creating this book, set in Talbot County, Maryland, which reimagines Wye House plantation and the nearby all-Black, Reconstruction-era hamlets of Copperville and Unionville, and the research into their ancestors that shaped the narrative.
Carole Boston Weatherford has written many award-winning books for children, including You Can Fly illustrated by her son Jeffery; Box, which won a Newbery Honor; Unspeakable, which won the Coretta Scott King award, a Caldecott honor, and was a finalist for the National Book Award finalist; Respect: Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul, winner of the Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award; and Caldecott Honor winners Freedom in Congo Square; Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer, Spirit of the Civil Rights Movement; and Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom. Carole lives in North Carolina.
Jeffery Boston Weatherford is an award-winning children’s book illustrator and a performance poet. He has lectured, performed, and led art and writing workshops in the US, the Middle East, and West Africa. Jeffery was a Romare Bearden Scholar at Howard University, where he earned an MFA in painting and studied under members of the Black Arts Movement collective AfriCobra. A North Carolina native and resident, Jeffery has exhibited his art in North Carolina, Georgia, Maryland, and Washington, DC.
Learn more: https://cbweatherford.com/
Join us on this week’s PreserveCast as we talk with Noami Doddington from Consigli Construction. Naomi takes us through her choice to change careers from a high school teacher to historic preservationist. We'll also discuss one of her projects, the Glass House at Menokin, where part of the structure will be preserved in glass.
BIO: Naomi Doddington is a Project Manager and Historic Preservationist with Consigli Construction. She holds an MSHP degree from Clemson University. In the years that she has been working for Consigli, Naomi has had the privilege to work on some of our Capital City’s most renowned buildings, including the US Capitol Building’s Olmsted Terrace, the Netherlands Carillon near Arlington National Cemetery, and Meridian Hill Park in the heart of the Columbia Heights/Shaw neighborhoods. She has been working on the Menokin Plantation project for several years and is excited to continue to work on “the most engaging preservation project in America.” Naomi lives in Alexandria with her partner, Jeff, and their dog, Lulu.
Learn More: https://www.consigli.com/
Join us on this week’s PreserveCast as we head back to frontier Indiana where we’ll talk with Michelle Evans, the Domestic Trades Manager at Conner Prairie, one of the largest open air history museums in the nation. Michelle will take us through the background of Conner Prairie and her experience over the past four decades on site as well as Conner’s Prairie’s use of heirloom plants within their 1000 acres and 14 areas of interaction.
On this week’s PreserveCast join us as we talk with Dr. Roeland Paardekooper about EXARC, a global network of professionals active in archaeological open-air museums and experimental archaeology, ancient technology, and interpretation. Dr. Paardekooper will talk us through this unique field of study and how you can learn traditional skills by engaging with EXARC. Dr. Roeland Paardekooper serves as the Director & EXARC Journal Executive Editor, and has expertise in Archaeological Open-Air Museums and Experimental Archaeology. Dr Paardekooper graduated from Universiteit Leiden (NL) with his BA & MA, and from the University of Exeter (UK) with a PhD. He was awarded the Museum Horizon Award in 2015 and the Knight in the Order of Orange-Nassau in 2012. Learn More: https://exarc.net/ Guedelon: https://www.guedelon.fr Colonial Williamsburg: https://www.colonialwilliamsburg. org/ Lejre Land of Legends: https://sagnlandet. dk
Emergency Episode French Quarter with Danielle Del Sol
In this special edition of PreserveCast, we are sitting down with a friend of our organization, Danielle Del Sol, the Executive Director at Preservation Resource Center of New Orleans. She talks with us about the proposed changes to the French Quarter governance and the impact it could have to one of the oldest historic districts in the United States.
Trades Takeover is back! In this episode, Director of Historic Trades Natalie Henshaw speaks with Melanie Weston, one of our panelists for the inaugural American Historic Trades Summit. Held from June 12 – 14, in Providence, Rhode Island, the Summit will develop a network for historic trades training programs, creating a central source of knowledge and resources on how to start, maintain, and propel a training program. As General Manager of Heritage Restoration Inc., Melanie is responsible for the oversight, development, and outreach of the business. Melanie will participate in Session 7: Employer Perspectives, alongside Julie Butler of Durable Restoration Company and Naomi Doddington of Consigli. These different employers will discuss how training programs can meet industry needs and ensure graduates get quality jobs.
Melanie is a graduate of Clemson University’s Master in Historic Preservation, and has a Bachelor’s Degree in History from Mills College. She spent her early career restoring windows, although quickly rose to become responsible for overseeing preservation, maintenance, and capital improvements of structures and landscapes for Historic New England at the Eustis Estate in Milton, Massachusetts as well as nine other properties in Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. Concurrent with her role as General Manager, Melanie helps administer and teach for Providence Preservation Society’s Window & Workforce Training Program and is Chairperson for the Window Preservation Standards Collaborative. The WPSC’s Fifth Summit will be held at Pine Mountain Settlement School in Kentucky October 8 – 13, 2023.
Join us on this week’s PreserveCast as we talk with Dr. Maureen Elgersman Lee about her work at the Bray School Lab at William & Mary. Dr. Lee shares some background on the Williamsburg Bray school that was hidden in plain sight for over 200 years on the William & Mary campus in Virginia, and some of its history as the oldest extant building dedicated to the education of Black children in the United States.
BIO: Dr. Maureen Elgersman Lee is the Mellon Engagement Coordinator for African American Heritage and Director of the Bray School Lab at William & Mary. A history professor for more than two decades, she has held academic and/or administrative positions at universities in Georgia, Maine, and Virginia—and spent five years as executive director of Richmond’s Black History Museum. An award-winning scholar and professor, Maureen has produced numerous books and articles on various aspects of Black history in the United States, Canada, and the British Caribbean. Her current book project is a new collection on the Williamsburg Bray School (1760-1774) to be co-edited with Nicole Brown and published by The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation in 2026.
Learn More: https://www.wm.edu/sites/brayschool/people/elgersman-lee-m.php
On this special edition of PreserveCast we're flipping the script! Normally, our host Nicholas Redding asks the questions and our guests tell us the story. On today's episode Nick will be our storyteller, chronicling one of his first preservation advocacy battles and the hard-won lessons learned that can listeners can heed and use to speak out on behalf of places that matter to their communities.
Video links, referenced in Nick's "second lesson" to have fun and use creative strategies.
https://youtu.be/G4n93XD9Bt4
https://youtu.be/338ptCG1SbQ
On this week’s PreserveCast we’re diving deep into the technology of preservation with Greg Galer and Taryn Williams about their roles at The Association for Preservation Technology International (APT). We’re talking about how preservationists keep up with changing technology and how those trends, tools and the science of buildings is helping keep our historic structures standing. And, we’ll discuss how you can get involved and learn more about the science behind preservation.
ABOUT
Greg Galer, Ph.D., Hon. AIA, HREDFP is the Executive Director of APT. He began this role in early 2022, having previously served as Executive Director of the Boston Preservation Alliance where he impacted over $5 billion of real estate development. His 30-year career spans the breadth of public history including historic preservation, collection management, museum exhibits, documentation of historic sites, and adaptive use projects.
Greg holds a bachelor’s degree from Brown University and a Ph.D. in the History and Social Study of Science and Technology from MIT. His past research includes the evolution of iron truss bridges and American ironworking history.
Taryn Williams is the President of the Association for Preservation Technology International (APT). She has served on the APT Board of Directors since 2016, and co-chaired APT’s Partnerships & Outreach committee from 2017-2021. She is a Senior Project Manager at Simpson Gumpertz & Heger in Washington, DC where her work focuses on investigating and repairing existing and historic buildings. Taryn holds bachelor and master of engineering degrees in civil engineering from Cornell University in Ithaca, NY. She is a licensed structural engineer in California and Hawaii; a licensed civil engineer in California, Maryland, Nevada, Virginia, and Washington, DC; and an APT Recognized Professional.
Learn more:
Greg Galer's Previous Episode (Ep. 50)
What is smart growth and why should preservationists care about it? On this week’s PreserveCast we’re talking with David Adler, an asset manager from David S. Brown Enterprises about transit-oriented development, incentives for smart growth, and how historic preservationists can incentivize better growth in their own communities. All that and more, as we push the boundaries of preservation, on this week’s PreserveCast
On this week’s PreserveCast, we’re heading back 250 years to the mid-18th century to talk to Ed Schultz, master farmer of Colonial Williamsburg. We’ve covering a lot of ground in this episode – rich fertile ground – and will take a closer look at what it takes to learn this style of farming and what lessons it holds for the future of sustainable agriculture. We’ll also talk with Ed about his work with ALFHAM – an association for living historians and what that organization does for the field of heritage preservation. All that and more on this week’s PreserveCast.
The experiences of hundreds of free and enslaved people of color who witnessed and took part in the Battle of Antietam, one of America’s bloodiest battles, have never been shared in depth until now. Join us on this week’s PreserveCast as we talk with author Dr. Emilie Amt about her book Black Antietam: African Americans and the Civil War. Emilie will give us a glimpse into her book and the African American perspectives in Sharpsburg before, during, and after the Battle of Antietam and the Civil War.
Dr. Emilie Amt is an award-winning writer on the African American history of western Maryland. A Maryland native, Emilie is an emeritus professor of history at Hood College in Frederick. She spent much of her career as a medieval historian, but since 2010, her research has focused on slavery in Washington County, where she lives. Her most recent book, published by The History Press, is Black Antietam: African Americans and the Civil War in Sharpsburg (available for purchase here). She is on the board of the Friends of Tolson’s Chapel, a National Historic Landmark in Sharpsburg, and is a founding director of the Friends of Halfway African American Cemetery, in Hagerstown.
Learn more: https://emilieamt.com/
Purchase Book: https://www.arcadiapublishing.com/Products/9781467150729
Once one of the top 10 cities in the United States, Buffalo’s historic Elmwood district could once again be a model for America’s cities. On this week’s PreserveCast, join us as we talk with Clinton Brown, a heritage and project architect, about his book Olmsted’s Elmwood: The Rise, Decline and Renewal of Buffalo’s Parkway Neighborhood, A Model for America’s Cities. Brown takes us through this Buffalo, NY neighborhood's rich history, devastating decline, and ongoing renewal.
Historic preservation architect Clinton Brown, FAIA, is a graduate of Franklin & Marshall College, the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies, and the University of Virginia School of Architecture. He has taught at the Willowbank School of Restoration Arts and is a frequent speaker about historic preservation and Main Street revitalization. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects.
He founded Clinton Brown Company Architecture, pc, a leading full service historic preservation, architecture, and grant services firm, which is driven to renew historic buildings and heritage place to be better for everyone. CBCA nominated the Elmwood Historic District for listing in the National Register of Historic Places, one of the country’s largest historic districts. This is the genesis of his book, Olmsted’s Elmwood: The Rise, Decline and Renewal of Buffalo’s Parkway Neighborhood, A Model for America’s Cities, published by City of Light Publishing in 2022.
The New York Governor appointed him to the Board that is overseeing the rehabilitation of the National Historic Landmark Richardson Olmsted Campus, the former Buffalo State Asylum for the Insane. Successive Secretaries of the Interior have appointed him a Commissioner of the state-wide Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor Commission, an affiliate of the National Park Service. He is a Board Member of the Willowbank School of Restoration Arts in Queenston, Ontario, of which HRH Prince Charles has been Patron.
Purchase the Book: https://cityoflightpublishing.com/product/olmsteds-elmwood-the-rise-decline-and-renewal-of-buffalos-parkway-neighborhood-a-model-for-americas-cities/
Join us on this week’s PreserveCast as we talk with Katherine Porter, a design director at Waterhouse Wallhangings. Waterhouse’s collections contain new and old wallpaper designs, including some authentic reproductions, first used in the early days of the US. Join us as we explore how wallpaper has changed since it was first brought to the US, peeking into Waterhouse’s archives, and the differences between historic and modern wallpaper.
Originally from Amityville, New York, Katherine Porter attended Syracuse University and graduated with a BFA in surface pattern design. Fresh out of college she landed a job in New York City working for a lively and very productive textile design studio. Surrounded by talented and interesting people, young and old, from all over the world, she really learned the ropes. Now located in rural northeast Ohio she continues to work in the fabric and wallpaper field from her home studio. Katherine’s fabric designs appear in the following collections: Isaac Mizrahi for S. Harris, Jaclyn Smith Home, Charlotte Moss for S. Harris, Mount Vernon Home for Fabricut, Vervain, Valdese Weavers, and Longaberger Company.
Since 2017 Katherine has been partnered with Lance Houpt in the Thomas Strahan Collection of wallpapers. Thomas Strahan, a sister company to Waterhouse Wallhangings, is one of the oldest wallpaper companies in the United States. Currently located in New York, the designs are drawn from an extensive archive (over 12,000 patterns) and printed on the premises. Waterhouse and Thomas Strahan offer a high-end showroom line of wallpapers and fabric as well as specializing in reproductions for historic house museums.
Both Katherine and Lance share a love for the beauty and history of these timeless designs. We are proud to carry on this unique legacy of pattern design.
Learn more: https://www.waterhousewallhangings.com/
Want to know how sailors used to get their tattoos centuries ago? On this week’s PreserveCast, we will be talking with Owen McGarry a New England tattoo artist who specializes in hand poked tattoos. The stick and poke tattoo method has been performed for thousands of years from sailors to indigenous Americans and Europeans. Owen will walk us through this slow tattooing process and where he gets his inspiration from.
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Owen Payette McGarry is a traditional hand poke tattoo artist based in Boston, Massachusetts. He came to tattooing in 2014 through his interest in maritime folk art, while working as a boat builder. His work attempts to recreate what tattooing in New England may have looked like in centuries past. Owen’s tattoos are entirely hand poked, the same technique practiced for thousands of years by both Indigenous Americans and Europeans. Though the process is slower than the tattoo machine, hand poking better recreates the experience and the style of historic tattooing. As tattooing leaves little physical evidence after the wearer is deceased, Owen references other surviving examples of maritime folk art from around the North Atlantic; scrimshaw, graffiti, woodblock prints, needlework, painted ship’s chests &c. to create contemporary work informed by our past.
Learn More: http://themassachusite.com/index.html
Some people take their recipes to the grave, others put them on their gravestones. On this week’s PreserveCast, join us as we talk with Rosie Grant about her journey recreating gravestone recipes. Rosie documented her journey of making recipes of Spritz, Fudge, and everything in between on TikTok. Listen in as we hear how all of this started.
Rosie Grant is a part time digital librarian at the American Jewish University in Los Angeles and full time Outreach and Communications Manager at UCLA. Follow her on TikTok @ghostlyarchive or message on Instagram @ghostly.archive. Fellow taphophiles and cemetery lovers are welcome to connect and share any favorite graves or cemetery recommendations.
Learn more: https://www.tiktok.com/@ghostlyarchive?lang=en
One a day keeps the doctor away. Join us on this week’s PreserveCast, as we talk with Tom Brown who is on the search for “Lost” heritage apple varieties. Listen in as Tom shares his decades-long journey to rediscover heritage apples and what it takes to preserve these “Lost” breeds.
One of preservation’s biggest challenges is climate change. On this week’s PreserveCast, we are talking with Benjamin Curran, a 2021 recipient of the Harrison Goodall Fellowship. Curran’s project intended to explore the viability of constructing low-cost open-source sensors for the purpose of increasing the breadth of communities engaged in self-monitoring their susceptibility to sea level rise. Join us in talking with Curran on how his project unfolded and what lessons it holds for preservationists across the nation.
Benjamin works as the Historic Trades Curriculum Developer at Preservation Maryland, where he designs and develops multimedia educational content available online. Curran is the former Department Head of STC’s Historic Preservation and Restoration Program and the Director of STC’s Center for Traditional Craft. He was the lead faculty instructor for Historic Preservation at Edgecombe Community College in Taraboro, NC. While working in the remote sensing lab at the University of New Hampshire Earth System Research Center in Durham, N.H., he was a co-investigator for research funded by a National Geographic Society/Waitt Foundation grant investigating the impacts of sea level rise on saltwater intrusion for coastal heritage sites. Benjamin received his bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry from the University of New Hampshire and his graduate degree from Plymouth State University where he studied Historic Preservation and Education.
Learn More:
Interview with Harrison Goodall: https://www.preservecast.org/2020/05/11/building-a-legacy-in-the-preservation-trades-with-dr-harrison-goodall/
2021 Fellows Selected: https://www.preservationmaryland.org/2021-harrison-goodall-fellows-selected/
2022 Fellows Selected: https://www.preservationmaryland.org/2022-harrison-goodall-preservation-fellow-selected/
On this week’s PreserveCast, we’ll head back to the 19th century to explore the landscapes and sites associated with Frederick Douglass and talk with Jeffrey McGuiness about his photographic journey to document these sites for his new book published by The St. Michael’s Museum, Bear Me Into Freedom: The Talbot County of Frederick Douglass.
Jeff McGuiness is a photographer and writer fascinated by history, politics, art, and photography. He lives in St. Michaels on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. For the past five years, he has worked on a photographic essay of the place where Frederick Douglass was born and lived for eleven years enslaved—Talbot County, Maryland. His photobook, published in November of 2022 by the St. Michaels Museum Press, is entitled Bear Me Into Freedom: The Talbot County of Frederick Douglass.
McGuiness was born in California and grew up in suburban Washington, D.C. After graduating from college with an art degree in 1969, he spent the next four years in the U.S. Air Force as a photographer during the Vietnam conflict. He then worked for a commercial photographer in St. Louis for a time before deciding to pursue a law degree. McGuiness was a practicing attorney in Washington, DC, for more than four decades, concentrating on public policy and managing non-profit organizations.
These days, McGuiness does what he enjoys most. An avid boater, he explores his beloved Chesapeake Bay in his powerboat while using his varied experiences to pursue photography and writing projects through his company, Bay Photographic Works.
Learn more: https://www.bearmeintofreedom.com/
Book: https://www.bearmeintofreedom.com/
On this week’s PreserveCast we are talking with Charles Henry the President of the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR), a non-profit organization that works with libraries, cultural institutions, and higher learning communities to improve research, teaching, and learning environments through the digitization and preservation of cultural heritage. Charles will be sharing the threat that climate change poses on cultural heritage.
Charles is the president of the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR), a non-profit organization that works with libraries, cultural institutions, and higher learning communities to improve research, teaching, and learning environments through the digitization and preservation of cultural heritage.
He believes preserving cultural heritage connects us with humanity’s collective experience and knowledge, and gives us a sense of identity. However, cultural memory loss can easily occur through destruction (e.g. the early Library of Alexandria), neglect, lack of awareness, war and displacement - even climate change poses a significant threat.
To address this, CLIR has been working for decades on the preservation and access to cultural heritage. Projects include the Digital Library of the Middle East, one of the world’s largest online archives of Middle Eastern and North African artifacts; the HBCU Library Alliance Partnership, which fosters awareness of and access to collections held by Historically Black Colleges and Universities; and Digitizing Hidden Collections, a $4 million annual grant program that aims to bring highly significant cultural content to light.
Roll your oak barrels over – we’re making whiskey! On this week’s PreserveCast, join us in talking with Aaron Hollis, the Co-Executive Director of West Overton Village Museum in Scottdale, PA. Aaron will be sharing about re-establishing the whiskey distillery on the property after almost 100 years. The distillery is operational and is used to educate visitors about how whiskey was made over 100 years ago.
Aaron Hollis Jr. was born and raised in Scottdale, PA just a few miles from West Overton. He has a B.A. in Archaeology from the University of Pittsburgh and an M.A. in Public History from West Virginia University. He started volunteering at West Overton 10 years ago and today is Co-Executive Director. Outside of the museum, he enjoys hiking with his wife, playing with his two dogs, and tinkering with his 1956 pickup truck.
Learn more: https://www.westovertonvillage.org/
Reuse for Our Future! And join us on this week’s PreserveCast as we talk with Stephanie Phillips a recipient of the 2021 Goodall Fellowship. Stephanie will be sharing about the Circular Heritage Project, of which the fellowship supported the launch. The Circular Heritage Project, which seeks to strengthen the alignment between the heritage conservation field and the growing circular economy movement in North America.
Stephanie Phillips, AICP, is a San Antonio-based senior public policy & planning professional working at the intersection of heritage conservation and the circular economy. She leads the City of San Antonio's Deconstruction and Circular Economy Program, which aims to maximize material salvage and reuse opportunities from older structures while advancing the City’s climate action, affordable housing, and workforce development goals - all through a heritage conservation lens.
You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen . . . but what about the jolly old elf holding the reins? St. Nicholas, Old St. Nick, Sinterklaas, or simply Santa Claus. He’s gone by many names – but where does this rich and seemingly timeless tradition come from? On this special edition of PreserveCast, we’re headed down a winding reindeer path to uncover the rich history of Santa Claus and how he came to define the modern celebration of Christmas.
On this week’s PreserveCast, we are talking with Christopher Oakley from UNC Asheville about his research behind solving the number 1 question guests at the Gettysburg National Cemetery ask. “Where did Lincoln stand [during the Gettysburg Address]?” Join us while Oakley takes us through the intense analysis of 19thcentury photographs with today’s technology & 3D modelling software.
Christopher Oakley is an associate professor of New Media and teaches courses in animation and the history of animation at the University of North Carolina in Asheville.
Christopher is also an animator and director with over 25 years of experience in the film, television, commercial and game industries. After several years working as a stop motion animator and director on commercials and CBS' Pee-wee's Playhouse, Christopher was recruited by Walt Disney Feature Animation to work on their pioneering computer-generated film Dinosaur and other projects. After moving to Asheville, NC, Christopher animated "Into the Groove" for Madonna's Sticky and Sweet world tour.
Christopher has a life-long passion for history and has spent much of that time researching Abraham Lincoln. In 2013, Christopher launched an undergraduate research endeavor titled "The Virtual Lincoln Project." Together with his students, Christopher created a photo-real, digital Abraham Lincoln and brought him to life delivering the Gettysburg Address. The discovery was featured in Smithsonian Magazine ("Will the Real Abraham Lincoln Please Stand Up") and went viral worldwide. In addition, Christopher's blending of 19th Century analog materials with 21st Century digital technology has helped him pinpoint the size, shape, and location of the speaker's stand from which Lincoln delivered his Gettysburg Address. Christopher's reveal of that location at a recent gathering of The Lincoln Forum in Gettysburg was featured on the front-page of the New York Times.
Christopher received his BFA in Theatre from Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin and his MFA in Film from Columbia University in New York City.
Learn more: www.christopheroakley.com
We're excited to bring you today's PreserveCast live from the field! We're in Annapolis, Maryland on the grounds of the historic State House, where we're sitting down with Drew Brown of the Christman Company to discuss the organization's work on the overhaul of the State House's c. 1788 dome. Then we'll shift the conversation to talk with three of the project's tradespeople, skilled in window restoration, painting, and slate and shingle work.
After all - without the trained hands to do the work, preservation is just good intentions. Come along with us as we discuss this unique project and explore careers in the historic trades.
PreserveCast is brought to you by Preservation Maryland, which also runs the national workforce development program The Campaign for Historic Trades in partnership with NPS' Historic Preservation Training Center. To learn more about The Campaign's work to expand and strengthen careers in the field of historic trades, visit www.historictrades.org
The first comprehensive research study on the status of heritage trades in the US has now been published! On this week’s PreserveCast, we are talking with Donovan Rypkema from PlaceEconomics about the Historic Trades Labor Study published by The Campaign for Historic Trades (Powered by Preservation Maryland). Rypkema will take us through the research and how he and his team conducted the study, some surprising key findings about Historic Trades in the United States, and about the industry’s expected growth in the next decade.
To access the full study and other assets, visit www.historictrades.org/laborstudy
Donovan D. Rypkema is principal of PlaceEconomics, a Washington, D.C.-based real estate and economic development-consulting firm. The work of the firm is at the nexus of historic preservation and economics. He has undertaken assignments for public and non-profit sector clients in 49 US states. He also teaches a course on the economics of historic preservation at the University of Pennsylvania where he received the 2008 G. Holmes Perkins Award for Distinguished Teaching.
Rypkema was educated at Columbia University receiving a Master of Science degree in Historic Preservation. He is author of several publications including Community Initiated Development, The Economics of Rehabilitation, and the Feasibility Assessment Manual for Reusing Historic Buildings. Rypkema’s book, The Economics of Historic Preservation: A Community Leader’s Guide is widely used by preservationists nationwide and has been translated into Russian, Georgian, and Korean.
Rypkema has worked with such groups as the Urban Land Institute, the Mayors’ Institute on City Design, the American Planning Association, Smart Growth America, the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the International Downtown Association. Federal Government clients have included the U.S. Army, the Department of State, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Department of Interior, and the Advisory Council for Historic Preservation for whom he prepared a report entitled Measuring Economic Impacts of Historic Preservation.
Join us in exploring a new narrative of the American Revolutionary War from the eyes of hired German Soldiers, known as Hessians. On this week’s PreserveCast, we are talking with Friederike Baer about her book Hessians: German Soldiers in the American Revolutionary War. We’ll explore the untold stories of the Hessians and the profound impact they had in the American Revolution.
Friederike Baer is Associate Professor of History and Division Head for Arts and Humanities at Pennsylvania State University, Abington College. Originally from Germany, Baer holds a Ph.D. in early American history from Brown University. Her research, which has been supported by organizations such as the American Philosophical Society, University of Michigan Clements Library, German Historical Institute in Washington, D.C., and German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), focuses primarily on the experiences of German-speaking people in North America in the periods of the War for American Independence and Early Republic. Among her publications are the books The Trial of Frederick Eberle: Language, Patriotism and Citizenship in Philadelphia’s German Community, 1790-1830 (New York UP, 2008) and Hessians: German Soldiers in the American Revolutionary War (Oxford UP, 2022).
Learn more: https://friederikebaer.com/
Book: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/hessians-9780190249632?lang=en&cc=us
Hold onto your steering wheel as we’re about to hit the road on this week’s PreserveCast as we talk with Evans Paull about Baltimore’s Stop the Road movement, the historic waterfront communities saved, and the Highway to Nowhere. Detailed in his recently released book, Stop the Road: Stories from The Trenches of Baltimore’s Road Wars, Paull will give us a glimpse into the up-close-and-personal account of Baltimore’s 40-year battle over highway plans.
E. Evans Paull spent 45 years as a city planner working in Baltimore and nationally on urban redevelopment issues. He began his career in the Baltimore City Department of Planning as a generalist planner before specializing in the redevelopment of brownfields.
After starting and managing Baltimore’s Brownfields Initiative, he tackled these same issues at a national level, working first for Northeast-Midwest Institute before becoming director of the National Brownfields Coalition and finally running his consulting business, Redevelopment Economics. Although now retired, many of his published articles and papers still appear on the Redevelopment Economics website.
Paull has won several awards, including: Brownfields Leadership Award, Phoenix Award (for brownfields redevelopment), Governor’s Smart Growth Award and Professional Achievement in Economic Development Award from the Maryland Chapter American Planning Association.
It’s time for The Great Maryland Recipe Hunt! Join us on this week’s PreserveCast as we talk with Joyce White from A Taste of History to discuss the upcoming anniversary of one of Maryland’s most iconic cookbooks, Maryland’s Way, The Hammond-Harwood House Cook Book. This cookbook included recipes found in historic handwritten journals as well as many that were donated from Marylanders across the state. The Hammond-Harwood House and the Maryland State Archives are teaming up to continue the search for recipes that fully represent Maryland’s evolving cuisine to honor this 60th anniversary.
Joyce White is a foodways historian operating A Taste of History with Joyce White, offering interactive food history presentations with tastings on a variety of topics. Joyce is also the foodways consultant to the c. 1801 Riversdale House Museum in Riverdale Park, Maryland, was the consultant for the restoration of the 18th century kitchen at Annapolis’ William Paca House, and was the guest curator for the Maryland State Exhibit for the Southern Food & Beverage Museum in New Orleans.
In a world where rational, scientific explanations are more available than ever, belief in the unprovable and irrational--in fringe--is on the rise: from Atlantis to aliens, from Flat Earth to the Loch Ness monster, the list goes on. Enter Colin Dickey, Cultural Historian and Tour Guide of the Weird. With the same curiosity and insight that made Ghostland a hit with readers and critics, Colin looks at what all fringe beliefs have in common, explaining that today's Illuminati is yesterday's Flat Earth: the attempt to find meaning in a world stripped of wonder. On this week’s PreserveCast things are about to get weird as we enter spooky season with The Unidentified: Mythical Monsters, Alien Encounters, and Our Obsession with the Unexplained.
On this week’s PreserveCast, we are talking we are talking with Carissa Demore from Historic New England about the Historic New England Summit (2022) happing this Thursday, October 13th through Friday, October 14th. This 2-day event will be full of conversations exploring how 21st-century challenges and opportunities are transforming the fields of historic preservation, architecture, urban planning, conservation, arts & culture, museum studies, collections management, public history, and education. If you are interested, you can still participate! Join the Summit virtually via livestream for both daytime sessions. Grab your tickets now!
Carissa Demore joined Historic New England in 2013 and became the Team Leader of Preservation Services in 2017. In her current role, she is responsible for the overall planning and implementation of a variety of preservation programs and initiatives, including management of the Preservation Easement Program, direction of public programs to raise visibility and awareness of historic preservation issues, administration of Historic New England’s two grant programs, and leadership and support of partner agencies and organizations advocating for historic resources and sound preservation policies across the region. Carissa has a Bachelor’s degree in Landscape Architecture from Colorado State University and a Master’s degree in Historic Preservation from the University of Maryland. Prior to joining Historic New England, Carissa was the Program Coordinator for the City of Annapolis Main Street Program.
Learn more: https://www.historicnewengland.org/
Historic New England Summit: https://summit.historicnewengland.org/register/
Hop off the bus with us on this week’s PreserveCast as we talk with Diego Bleifuss Prados, artist from @busstoppaintings, who paints a reflection of original communities within Chicago’s historic neighborhoods from their bus stops. Bleifuss Prados will share how he started painting bus stops and his rush to preserve images of these historic areas before rapid gentrification.
Diego Bleifuss Prados is a painter based in Chicago, Illinois. Born and raised in Chicago, Diego first began painting watercolors while living in Denver, Colorado and then in Marfa, Texas. His paintings try to capture and celebrate the vernacular architecture and design of older commercial buildings, such as corner stores plastered with years of beer advertisements, chipped and faded hand-painted signs, and closed shops fallen into disrepair. Many of his paintings' subjects are holdouts in rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods, and still reflect the original community that built and patronized these spots. Diego's paintings can be found on his Instagram @busstoppaintings.
Learn more: https://www.busstoppaintings.com/
On this week’s PreserveCast, take a look back at one of the bloodiest days in American history and the battle’s horrendous toll on the area’s civilians. We are talking with Steve Cowie, author of When Hell Came to Sharpsburg: The Battle of Antietam and Its Impact on the Civilians Who Called It Home about the Battle of Antietam and how it impacted civilians. Cowie will share the process of writing his book, researching the lives of Sharpsburg civilians, and how they dealt with the emotional, physical, and financial havoc.
Steven Cowie earned a degree from California State University, Long Beach. As part of the Los Angeles film industry, he penned spec screenplays and sold his award-winning short film to the Sundance Channel. A lifelong student of the Civil War, Cowie dedicated fifteen years to exclusively researching the Battle of Antietam. When Hell Came to Sharpsburg is his first book.
Learn more: https://www.stevencowie.com/when-hell-came-to-sharpsburg
Purchase When Hell came to Sharpsburg: https://www.amazon.com/When-Hell-Came-Sharpsburg-Civilians/dp/1611215900/ref=zg_bsnr_465224_30?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=97YC6K1GH6E8F31VA8B4
Today we’re joined by Seth Clark, Executive Director of The Ocmulgee National Park and Preserve Initiative (ONPPI). ONPPI is a community based group of Middle Georgia and Muscogee (Creek) citizens working together to expand the current site of the Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park into Georgia’s first National Park and Preserve. With growing national attention focused upon the necessity of preservation of our public lands, ONPPI is committed to being the driving force behind local conservation efforts. Seth, born and raised in rural Georgia, is leading the effort to create Georgia’s first national park “on the land that raised me.”
Lace up your skates and join us in the rink for this this week’s PreserveCast as we talk with Margot Atwell, author of Derby Life: A Crash Course in the Incredible Sport of Roller Derby about the history of the sport and her experience competing. Atwell will share how she got started in Roller Derby and what prompted her to write her book Derby Life.
Join us as we explore the history of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and a living historian’s experience passing on his knowledge to parkgoers. On this week’s PreserveCast, we are talking with Erik Ledbetter from Maryland Park Service about his time at Seneca Creek State Park working as a Park Ranger, Assistant Manager of the Park about his experience as a steward of Maryland’s Cultural History.
Erik Ledbetter is a Park Ranger at Seneca Creek State Park for the Maryland Park Service. He also works as the CCC Historian and Living History Interpreter. He has served as a Maryland Park Ranger and Assistant Manager of Seneca Creek State Park. Ledbetter earned a Master of Philosophy in History from Yale (1992) and a B.A. and M.A. in History from Johns Hopkins University (1988).
On this week’s PreserveCast, we are talking with Jim Heid, author of Building Small: A Toolkit for Real Estate Entrepreneurs, Civic Leaders and Great Communities. We will be looking at how Building Small is a tool for developers to integrate socially responsible, economically resilient, and authentic placemaking. And how this style of development and thinking can be used for historic rehabilitations.
Jim Heid is an infill developer and sustainable development advisor based in Sonoma County, California. Known for his aspirational but practical approach, he works with a range of tools and best practices to communicate the value of inspired design and sustainability within the realities of local market norms. With over forty years experience as an urban designer, land planner, sustainability strategist and now infill developer, he brings a broad range of perspectives and skills to the discussion about how communities grow. Trained as a landscape architect, he received a Masters in Real Estate Development from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as way to more effectively integrate economics, development and design thinking.
There’s many ways to experience and enjoy history – and this week’s episode is taking a deep dive with Dave Bussiere Jr., the owner and founder of TR Historical about his experience running a history-based retail shop. From an online shop to vendor stalls David will walk us through his experience and provide some insight into how to make history fun, engaging, and marketable to many.
Learn more at: https://trhistorical.com/
Step right up – because on this week’s PreserveCast, we’re talking about the history of the Circus with historian LaVahn Hoh. From special effects to teaching at Clown College, LaVahn will take us through his own history and the history of the circus as well as a conversation about the future of this 2,000-year-old institution.
LaVahn Hoh is a nationally known circus historian and teaches the only accredited course in America on the history of the American circus. He earned his M.F.A. from the University of Wisconsin and his M.A. for the University of Illinois. He taught at the University of Virginia’s Department of Drama before retiring in 2015.
Lavahn’s book: https://www.amazon.com/Step-Right-Up-Adventure-America/dp/1558701397/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1656700950&sr=1-8
We hope you brought your appetite, because on this week’s PreserveCast, we are talking with Dr. Ashley Rose Young from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History about American food, history, and culture. Dr. Young will share how she got started researching the intersection of race, ethnicity, and gender in American food culture and economy and where that work is taking her in this post-COVID world.
Dr. Ashley Rose Young is a cultural and social historian working at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. Her research explores the intersection of race, ethnicity, and gender in American food culture and economy. Young earned a Ph.D. in History from Duke University (2017), an M.A. in History from Duke University (2013), a B.A. in History from Yale College (2010), and was a visiting scholar at Oxford University (2009).
Learn more: https://americanhistory.si.edu/profile/1342
Cooking Up History: https://americanhistory.si.edu/topics/food/pages/cooking-history
[Ep. 238] On this seventh edition of PreserveCast Conversations: The Professor and the Practitioner, an ongoing feature of PreserveCast, co-hosts Nicholas Redding and Dr. Whitney Martinko explore the trends, topics and issues that are making headlines in the world of preservation this month.
They’re covering a lot of ground in today’s conversation on preservation and the issues that matter. For regular listeners, also, be sure to send any questions you have about this episode or questions you’d like answered in next month’s conversation to info@presmd.org.
Dr. Whitney Martinko is an associate professor of History at Villanova University, where she teaches classes about the early United States, environmental history and sustainability, and material culture. She also directs the graduate program in public history. She earned her AB in History from Harvard College and her MA and PhD in History from the University of Virginia. She lives in West Philadelphia. Learn more about Martinko and her work at https://www.whitneymartinko.com/
Once upon a time, in 1955 to be exact, the Enchanted Forest, a nursey rhyme-themed amusement park, opened in Ellicott City, Maryland. On this week’s PreserveCast, we are looking at how Howard Adler and his team at Adler Display helped to bring the vision of Enchanted Forest to life. We're talking with Ron Adler, Howard’s son, about his father’s legacy and the history of Adler Display.
Queen Elizabeth II has reigned over the United Kingdom for 70 years – an unparalleled record – and one that is being celebrated across the kingdom. On this week’s PreserveCast, we’re looking at how our friends at Kiplin Hall are celebrating this monumental moment with Imogen Hayden, an intern who took a new look at the Jubilee and how it connects to a place like Kiplin.
Talented tradespeople make preservation physically possible. Today’s guest is Amy McAuley, the preservation joiner at George Washington’s Mount Vernon, where she uses her hands and hand powered tools to repair, restore, and preserve one of America’s most historic homes.
Today’s episode of PreserveCast returns to the United Kingdom to open a conversation with Colin and Dan Richards of CJR Heritage, a company that has spanned continents and worked with princes to save priceless heritage. From Transylvania to the Great Wall of China, we’re talking with two of England’s most accomplished tradespeople about the future of historic trades.
In 2021 - 158 years after the first Juneteenth - the celebration became a federal holiday, changing the understanding of awareness of the holiday for millions of Americans. On this week’s PreserveCast, we’re talking with Dr. Dennis Doster, who runs the Black History Program for the Prince George’s County Department of Parks and Recreation about what the designation means and how Juneteenth fits into the broader American story.
Dennis A. Doster, Ph.D. is the director of the M-NCPPC Black History Program. Dr. Doster has close to 15 years of experience in the field of Public History. He has worked for the National Archives, the Johns Hopkins University, and the Alexandria Black History Museum. Additionally, he is an adjunct professor in African American Studies, History, and Women’s Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park and the University of Maryland, University College.
Learn more at: https://www.pgparks.com/1378/Black-History
On this week’s PreserveCast, we’re setting a course for the Chesapeake Bay with first-generation Maryland crabber Luke McFadden. Luke’s story is anything but typical – from beginning crabbing at age 12 to developing a social media following to help build a brand – but his atypical approach to crabbing might just be what the industry needs at this challenging moment. We’re talking with Luke about the beautiful swimmers, maintaining crab boats, and how his can-do approach may just help sustain Maryland’s iconic watermen heritage.
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY: The D-Day landings were the biggest invasion by sea in history. The landings took place on June 6, 1944 after five years of war with Germany. On this episode of PreserveCast, we spoke with a Normandy-based preservation organization opposed to the creation of a D-Day land.
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With every year that passes, the D-Day landings move further and further from memory to history – and how we protect, remember and honor those bloody beaches becomes a conflict between tourism and respect. Today’s guests are part of a Normandy-based preservation organization opposed to the creation of a D-Day land – a cross between heritage and entertainment that has riled up the normally quiet bocage country.
[HOLIDAY RE-RELEASE] The American Civil War was the first war to be truly photo-documented. The haunting images stare back at us and make the brutal conflict real and humanize the tragedy. Yet, for all of the photos, many of the identities of the individuals captured are now unknown. Today, Civil War Photo Sleuth is using modern-day technology to rediscover the lost identities in American Civil War-era photographs. This new endeavor holds tremendous potential not only to uncover the lost history of the Civil War–but of countless other anonymous photographs. On this week’s PreserveCast, we’re talking artificial intelligence, Civil War history and the future of historical investigations.
Support for this episode of PresesrveCast was provided by the Maryland Humanities’ Voices and Votes Electoral Engagement Program and the “Why it Matters: Civic and Electoral Participation” initiative, administered by the Federation of State Humanities Councils and funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Support for this episode of PresesrveCast was provided by the Maryland Humanities’ Voices and Votes Electoral Engagement Program and the “Why it Matters: Civic and Electoral Participation” initiative, administered by the Federation of State Humanities Councils and funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Support for this episode of PresesrveCast was provided by the Maryland Humanities’ Voices and Votes Electoral Engagement Program and the “Why it Matters: Civic and Electoral Participation” initiative, administered by the Federation of State Humanities Councils and funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
The history of entertainment is a unique and compelling thread in America’s story – one that today’s guest has dedicated his life to studying, collecting, and interpreting. Ryan Lintelman is the Entertainment Curator at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History and is putting the finishing touches on a massive new exhibit exploring this aspect of American history. Click your Ruby slippers three times, because we’re not in Kansas anymore on this week’s episode of PreserveCast.
Ryan Lintelman specializes in the history of entertainment as a curator in the division of culture and the arts at the National Museum of American History. He studies and cares for the museum’s collections of historical objects related to theater, television and film, including the ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz, Phyllis Diller’s joke file, and Jim Henson’s Muppets.
Learn more: https://americanhistory.si.edu/profile/1176
Entertainment Nation: https://americanhistory.si.edu/exhibitions/entertainment-nation
On this week’s PreserveCast, we’re sitting down with fellow podcaster Liz Clappin, host of Tomb with a View, to talk about the world of cemetery history and preservation to explore this unique and ever-present resource on America’s landscape.
Liz is an architectural historian based in Atlanta, GA. She has a BA in Anthropology from the University of Rhode Island and an MFA from the Savannah College of Art and Design in Architectural History. A board member for the Association for Gravestone Studies, since 2019 she has hosted Tomb with a View Podcast focusing on the history and preservation of American cemeteries.
Learn more: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tomb-with-a-view-a-cemetery-podcast/id1479982844
Historic places are evocative, authentic, and powerful backdrops for events – and today’s guest has breathed new life into historic places across Maryland – and gained a massive following on social media as a result. We’re talking about celebrating in historic spaces and how to make history pay with Kate Dear of Fêtewell™.
Kate Dear has always had a passion for epic celebrations and historic spaces and wanted to create an authentic venue with easygoing policies when she launched Main Street Ballroom in 2016. As Kate’s business has expanded, her down to earth approach to events has not. Approachable luxury is her mantra and a core value of how Kate and her team operate Fêtewell™’s portfolio of venues.
When a building’s fate is settled, what can be done to save its memories? How can a community be engaged and given an opportunity to tell their story about that place? For Cumberland, Maryland-based photographer, Michael Hunter Thompson, the answer is through detailed photography. On this week’s PreserveCast we’re talking about how this photography project engaged thousands and underscored the power of place that preservationists around the nation should think about as they work to rally communities of their own.
Michael Hunter Thompson is a photographer living in Cumberland, Maryland. He has a BA from Frostburg State University in Graphic Design. Thompson began experimenting with photography in 2011 using layering, texturing, and other manipulation techniques. His style has evolved, now mainly shooting at dusk/nightfall using a more cinematic approach. Thompson’s work has achieved acclaim at the local, state, and national level. He is currently working on a historical preservation photography project of his old high school, which is set to be razed 2022. The project is titled Fade To Blue.
Learn more at: http://www.michaelhunterthompson.com/fadetoblue
In life the servants and staff of Kiplin Hall moved through the house silently undertaking their duties. We see traces of them in the historical record through things like accounts ledgers and diary entries. Then and today, they are shadows, without whom Kiplin Hall could not have existed and thrived. On this week’s episode of PreserveCast, we’re talking with Alice Rose, Programming Curator and Project Officer of Kiplin Hall & Gardens to discuss their latest exhibit which explores the world of servants and how embracing a more inclusive story is building interest in this well-preserved historic home.
Alice Rose is the Programming Curator and Project Officer for Kiplin Hall and Gardens in North Yorkshire, UK. Inspired by a childhood filled with family trips to historic sites, she studied archaeology at university. Through her studies, she realised that she was more interested in objects and their stories rather than digging in the ground. This led her to pursue a career in heritage and museums. Over the last 10 years, Alice has worked in a variety of organisations and roles, from ‘behind-the-scenes’ to front of house, sharing her enthusiasm and passion for the past.
Learn more at: https://kiplinhall.co.uk/
Previous Kiplin PreserveCast Episodes:
https://www.preservecast.org/2020/12/07/the-uks-kiplin-hall-exploring-the-ancestral-home-of-marylands-most-prominent-colonists-with-director-james-etherington/
https://www.preservecast.org/2021/11/29/british-christmas-james-etherington/
Tucked away in Thirsk, England is the home of one of the 20th centuries most popular authors James Alfred ‘Alf’ Wight who wrote under the now famous pseudonym James Herriot. On today’s PreserveCast, we’re heading back across the pond to talk with Ian Ashton, the Managing Director of the World of James Herriot to talk about interpreting and preserving the life and legacy of this famed 20th century author.
Ian Ashton, Managing Director of the multi- award-winning World of James Herriot visitor attraction, set up a private company in 2012 to operate the business previously owned by the District Council .The World of James Herriot is now one of the UK’s major attractions and has been voted by Trip Advisor in the Top 10% of best attractions worldwide and has won many accolades in the UK including “Best Small Visitor Attraction in England “ by Visit England.
On this sixth edition of PreserveCast Conversations: The Professor and the Practitioner, an ongoing feature of PreserveCast, co-hosts Nicholas Redding and Dr. Whitney Martinko explore the trends, topics and issues that are making headlines in the world of preservation this month. They’re covering a lot of ground in today’s conversation on preservation and the issues that matter. For regular listeners, also, be sure to send any questions you have about this episode or questions you’d like answered in next month’s conversation to info@presmd.org.
Dr. Whitney Martinko is an associate professor of History at Villanova University, where she teaches classes about the early United States, environmental history and sustainability, and material culture. She also directs the graduate program in public history. She earned her AB in History from Harvard College and her MA and PhD in History from the University of Virginia. She lives in West Philadelphia. Learn more about Martinko and her work at https://www.whitneymartinko.com/
There is something profoundly satisfying about seeing art produced in front of you – and something mesmerizing about seeing a silhouette cut in mere seconds that captures the look and feel of an individual. Today’s guest is preserving a historic artform passed down through the generations and is helping to tell important and diverse stories with her hands, paper and delicate scissors. On this week’s PreserveCast we’re talking about the history and future of hand cut silhouettes with master artist Lauren Muney.
Lauren has been a professional artist, entertainer, special-event producer, and consultant for over 35 years. Alongside her graphic illustration degree from a leading arts college, her experience with live events of all types ranges across the United States, Canada, Australia, and in Asia and Europe.
History is a big field made up of a variety of disciplines. Finding the right people to do the job can be tough – but one of the nation’s foremost history firms is working to address that challenge with the launch of bestjobsinhistory.com. We’re talking for-profit history and recruiting the best and brightest with Beth Maser and Addison Williams of History Associates Incorporated.
Beth Maser is a recognized senior executive and subject matter expert in knowledge management and brings decades of leadership and digital media expertise from her work in commercial and government markets. As CEO of History Associates, Beth leads the company's growth strategy focused on major industry segments including government, legal, commercial, and associations and nonprofits. Beth and her team are delivering distinct service offerings to clients with expanded capabilities in digitization, culture heritage, litigation research, and advanced uses of technology. Together with her HAI team and strategic partners, Beth helps clients leverage opportunities from historical information and analysis to find creative ways to engage audiences of all types and add value to top and bottom lines.
Addison Williams is an Atlanta-based marketing strategist and writer. He works with HAI leadership and external partners to expand the reach of HAI’s brand and messaging across all channels. He’s passionate about the power of digital media to communicate new messages to broader audiences and enjoys creating strategies that bring together a unified experience for web, email, social, and more.
One of the best ways of learning is by doing – which is exactly what ALHFAM – the Association for Living History, Farm and Agricultural Museums is dedicated to supporting. In a digital era, working with your hands is becoming an outlet for expression and sustainable action – topics we dive into with Kathy Dickson, the President of ALHFAM, on this week’s PreserveCast.
Kathy Dickson is the Director of the Museums and Historic Sites Division with the Oklahoma Historical Society (OHS) where she oversees operations at 25 museums and historical properties across the state. She has served as the president of the Oklahoma Museums Association and the Mountain-Plains Museums Association, and as a board member for ALHFAM. Kathy served as Co-Chair for the 2018 Annual Meeting. Though born in Idaho, Kathy has been in Oklahoma since age 5 which pretty much makes her a native Oklahoman. Kathy started work at the OHS as a seasonal worker right after graduating from college, and they still haven’t been able to get rid of her.
At its core, historic preservation should be about instrumentalizing heritage, broadly defined, to sustain communities and promote resilience.” That’s the argument Dr. Erica Avrami makes in one of her most recent publications on the legacy of preservation policy and the future of the field – a compelling and timely topic of conversation on this week’s PreserveCast where we’ll dive deep into what the future of preservation may hold.
Erica Avrami, PhD, is the James Marston Fitch Assistant Professor of Historic Preservation at Columbia GSAPP. A preservationist and planner, Avrami also directs the Urban Heritage, Sustainability, and Social Inclusion initiative, and co-directs the Adapting the Existing Built Environment Earth Network. Avrami challenges students to approach preservation as a process of co-learning and co-creating knowledge, engaging multiple publics and disciplines to investigate complex social-spatial histories and navigate the stories and values ascribed to places. Her research and teaching extend the heritage enterprise beyond a practice focused on sites and building, exploring preservation as a form of public policy that functions across geographic scales and diverse demographics. She interrogates the intentions, processes, and outcomes of preservation in relation to social justice and the climate crisis, and seeks to transition heritage tools and preservation policies toward equity, resilience, and decarbonization.
Historic preservationists know that our work isn’t just about physically preserving historic buildings, structures, and sites. It’s also about preserving and celebrating the intangible heritage and culture of people and their communities. I would be remiss, and so would this podcast, if we didn't lead by acknowledging the heart-breaking conflict in Ukraine and the value and importance of those intangible pieces of the Ukrainian identity, too. On this special edition of PreserveCast, we’re sitting down with Rachel Rettaliata to discuss what’s at risk as this illegal and unjust invasion drags on.
Join us today for another Trades Takeover! Director of The Campaign for Historic Trades (powered by Preservation Maryland) Natalie Henshaw is joined by Abbey Vander Sluis, former member of NPS' Traditional Trades Advancement Program.
Hailing from Knoxville, Tennessee, Abbey Vander Sluis moved to Chattanooga, Tennessee to attend the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, and graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Anthropology. Abbey originally went to school to become an archaeologist but applied for a myriad of jobs that allowed her to work outdoors, a top priority for her. After finding the Traditional Trades Advancement Program and getting the opportunity to work in a National Park, Abbey became determined to further her career in the National Park Service, finding that preservation was closely tied to archaeology. Abbey currently interns with Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park.
Related: The National Park Service and private industry need tradespeople with specialized skills to preserve and maintain our country’s valuable historic structures, and The Campaign for Historic Trades is working to meet that need. 2022 positions are open for the Traditional Trades Advancement Program (TTAP) and the Historic Stewards Program. The Traditional Trades Advancement Program started in 2018. TTAP members serve in parks across the country. The Historic Stewards Program is a new initiative from the Historic Preservation Training Center (HPTC). For this inaugural year, positions are available at the HPTC in Frederick, Maryland, to applicants with prior experience.
For more information, visit:
https://historictrades.org/2022/03/02/now-hiring-historic-trades-internships-with-the-national-park-service/
Common wheat is one of most important field crops around the world and has been for millennia. In an effort to bring together different museum sites, living history farms, the “Year on the Field” Project seeks to exchange knowledge about common wheat cultivation through the centuries and in different parts of the world. Sites and farms participating in the project will create a valuable database on different regional cultivation traditions, regional seed varieties and traction methods and enable deep networking on an international level, raising awareness and public interest in agriculture, its historical implications for the present and the future of food production.
How cities will survive and thrive post-COVID is a question on a lot of people’s minds. Today’s guest has been thinking about the future of cities since before the pandemic and has continued that work as the world grapples with this latest shock to the system. Mac McComas is the senior program manager of the Johns Hopkins University 21st century cities initiative – an effort aimed at providing cities with up-to-date economic information and analysis to help build a more sustainable future.
COVID-19 has changed all of our lives. It is a defining moment for this generation – and for American history – which means that the Smithsonian has made it a priority for collecting and interpreting for future generations. How we will remember this moment is something as a historian I’ve often thought about – and a reason I wanted to sit down with an expert at the Smithsonian who is focused on that very question. On this week’s PreserveCast, we’re sitting down with Dr. Alexandra Lord, the Chair of the Chair Division of Medicine and Science at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History to discuss how that institution is working to capture this moment in history. Dr. Alexandra Lord is an accomplished historian of medicine and health and is a leader in the effort to document COVID – a perfect guest as we approach the two-year anniversary of the onset of the pandemic.
More About Our Guest Alexandra Lord is chair of the Division of Medicine and Science at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. In this role, she oversees a division with over 100,000 objects, ranging from a Revolutionary War surgical kit to Bill Nye’s lab coat, and seeks to promote a better understanding of the history of medicine and science. As a historian, Lord’s research interests include public health history, how diseases related to women and children have been understood, and the intersections between cultural taboos and medicine. Previously, she was branch chief of the National Park Service, supervising the national preservation program, and a historian in the US Public Health Service.
Learn more at: https://americanhistory.si.edu/profile/1185
Learn more about the Smithsonian’s COVID collection at: https://www.si.edu/object/collecting-covid-19-pandemic-perspectives%3Ayt_RSv2RMrofMY
Pretzels. Few words are as synonymous with snacking – and they are ubiquitous on tables across the nation, no matter the region. Today’s guest, Tim Snyder, leads one of America’s oldest pretzel brands – where the history of the twisted treat is almost equally as important as the taste. Connecting food and history is a theme this year on PreserveCast, and this is a great place to start with an icon in the food industry.
As a part of our historic foods series – where we’re diving into preserving some of the most iconic foods and brands, we sat down with Tim Snyder, President of the Julius Sturgis Pretzel company, America’s oldest pretzel bakery, based in historic Lititz, Pennsylvania to talk about preserving the history and charting the future of one of America’s favorite snacks.
More About Our Guest Since 2006, Tim Snynder has been the President and majority owner of the Julius Sturgis Pretzel Bakery, based in historic Lititz, Pennsylvania. A former educator, Tim has worked in the food industry for the past four decades representing and selling iconic brands across the region. Tim has also served Lititz on the Town Council from 1998 to 2005 and as Mayor since 2012.
Learn more at: https://juliussturgis.com/
As a part of our historic foods series – where we’re diving into preserving some of the most iconic foods and brands, we sat down with pizza historian Alexander Hughes to discuss his work chronicling the history of pizza in the United States and Canada and what is being done to preserve this slice of our history. Pizza, history and preservation are three of my favorite things – and it’s rare that they come together under one PreserveCast episode – but that’s what we’ve got in store this week; a topic and conversation made even sweeter by the fact that it is set in my hometown of Buffalo, New York where pizza historian Alexander Hughes conducted much of his research.
Get ready for a big bite of food history on this week’s PreserveCast.
More About Our Guest Alexander Hughes is a sixth year PhD Candidate in the Department of History at York University. His soon to be defended dissertation, “Lake Effect Pizza: Pizza Culture and Consumption in Toronto, Ontario and Buffalo, New York 1945-1990” explores the commodification of pizza in two regional cities. He served as the Curator of the History of Pizza Exhibit at the Canadian Pizza Museum. He has a Masters from Wilfrid Laurier University, where his thesis examined representations of US History in Disneyland Park. His research interests include postwar Canada and the United States, urban, food, business, and cultural history.
Learn more at: https://mralexhughes.com/
On this episode of PreserveCast, Natalie Henshaw of the Campaign for Historic Trades is talking with Mae Bowley of Re:Purpose Savannah in our first ever trades takeover! Join us as Natalie and Mae discuss all things historic trades.
More About Our Guest Mae Bowley moved to Savannah in 2015. Out of a desire to learn more about the charming and mysterious city, she started taking classes in Historic Preservation and Restoration at Savannah Technical College. When she encountered Emergent Structures (parent organization of Re:Purpose Savannah) in 2018, she fell in love. She was an avid volunteer for six months, and was then hired on as Assistant Executive Director. In 2019 Mae took over as Executive Director after her predecessor, Scott Crotzer.
Established in 1969, the Maryland Commission on African American History and Culture is the nation’s first-ever ethnic commission and has a 50-year track record of exploring, researching, commemorating and preserving important places associated with the African American history of the Old Line State. On this week’s PreserveCast, we’re talking with Chanel Compton, the Executive Director of the Commission, about their work and the exciting future of African American preservation in Maryland and beyond.
The Commission is the oldest ethnic commission in the nation and doesn’t just talk about preserving history – it directly invests millions of dollars in brick-and-mortar projects across the state. It’s a Maryland story with national implications and one we had to bring to PreserveCast.
MORE ABOUT OUR GUEST Chanel Compton is inspired and passionate about her role as Executive Director for the Banneker-Douglass Museum (BDM) and Maryland Commission on African American History and Culture (MCAAHC). She also currently serves as Board Chair of the Prince George’s African American Museum and Cultural Center and board member to Afro Charities, Maryland Humanities and Future History Now. Compton has been a life-long supporter of museums; stating, “A museum can be such a powerful place. As a young person, it was my initial visit to museums and galleries that opened my eyes and mind to new perspectives, cultures, and history. African American museums are instrumental in inspiring a new generation of leaders and innovators because it is a place of empowerment, of learning, and a place of individual and collective transformation.” As Executive Director of BDM and MCAAHC, Compton is dedicated to serving arts communities and artists in Maryland. She has a home and art studio in Baltimore, Maryland.
The American Civil War was the first war to be truly photo-documented. The haunting images stare back at us and make the brutal conflict real and humanize the tragedy. Yet, for all of the photos, many of the identities of the individuals captured are now unknown. Today, Civil War Photo Sleuth is using modern-day technology to rediscover the lost identities in American Civil War-era photographs. This new endeavor holds tremendous potential not only to uncover the lost history of the Civil War–but of countless other anonymous photographs. On this week’s PreserveCast, we’re talking artificial intelligence, Civil War history and the future of historical investigations.
Food is powerful. It has the ability to transcend artificial divisions and to unite – and it can speak to our history and heritage if we’re willing to listen, or think with our tastebuds. For this episode's guest, using food to tell a story is all a part of his daily work. Brent Rosen is the President and CEO of NatFAB, the Southern Food and Beverage Museum and the Museum of the American Cocktail in New Orleans, Louisiana. So, pack your bag, but don’t bring any food – we’ve got that covered on this episode of PreserveCast.
More About Our Guest Brent Rosen, President & CEO, oversees the programming of NatFAB, the Southern Food and Beverage Museum and the Museum of the American Cocktail in New Orleans. He also works with affiliate museums such as the Pacific Food and Beverage Museum in Los Angeles. Brent’s job descriptions have varied, but his work as an attorney and consultant has involved coalition building, business development, marketing, fundraising, and developing and executing strategic plans. His experience in those areas, combined with his passion for food and culture, have led him to create a number of successful culinary experiences, publications, restaurants, festivals, and promotional activations before beginning at NatFAB. Brent and his wife Caroline Nabors Rosen live in a restored Creole Cottage in New Orleans.
You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen, but do you recall Rankin/Bass – the company behind some of America’s most beloved stop-action holiday films? Our guest, Rick Goldschmidt, does. He’s a historian of Rankin/Bass Productions – the creative team that created Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, The Year without a Christmas, and dozens upon dozens more.
Preserving the legacy of those films and the actual props has been a lifelong passion for Rick and on this episode of PreserveCast, we’ll head back to the 1960s to talk TV preservation and memory with an authority on the subject.
There is perhaps no author or person who has made more of an impact on the modern notion of Christmas than Charles Dickens. The famed author is now almost synonymous with Christmas – and his legendary work, A Christmas Carol, has sold millions of copies and has been turned into no fewer than 135 different movies. With this legendary success, how best to tell his story? That’s the subject of today’s PreserveCast – a deep dive into the legacy and story of Dickens with Dr. Cindy Sughrue, the Director of the Charles Dickens Museum.
Living in the past, present and future is the work of preservation – and today’s guest is working to keep the legacy of Charles Dickens, arguably the father of our modern Christmas, alive at his home in London, England.
At this festive time of the year, we’re talking with Dr. Cindy Sughrue, the Director of the Charles Dickens Museum.
“I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me.” – Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
On this fifth edition of PreserveCast Conversations: The Professor and the Practitioner, a new monthly feature of PreserveCast, co-hosts Nicholas Redding and Dr. Whitney Martinko explore the trends, topics and issues that are making headlines in the world of preservation this month. They’re covering a lot of ground in today’s conversation on preservation and the issues that matter. For regular listeners, also, be sure to send any questions you have about this episode or questions you’d like answered in next month’s conversation to info@presmd.org.
Dr. Whitney Martinko is an associate professor of History at Villanova University, where she teaches classes about the early United States, environmental history and sustainability, and material culture. She also directs the graduate program in public history. She earned her AB in History from Harvard College and her MA and PhD in History from the University of Virginia. She lives in West Philadelphia. Learn more about Martinko and her work at https://www.whitneymartinko.com/
Today we're speaking with Roland Ennos, author of The Age of Wood: Our Most Useful Material and the Construction of Civilization.
As the dominant species on Earth, humans have made astonishing progress since our ancestors came down from the trees. But how did the descendants of small primates manage to walk upright, become top predators, and populate the world? How were humans able to develop civilizations and produce a globalized economy? Now, in The Age of Wood, Roland Ennos shows for the first time that the key to our success has been our relationship with wood.
Roland Ennos is a visiting professor of biological sciences at the University of Hull. He is the author of successful textbooks on plants, biomechanics, and statistics, and his popular book Trees, published by the Natural History Museum, is now in its second edition. He lives in England.
Christmas at a historic home normally conjures up images of a roaring Victorian fireplace or perhaps even an early 20th century Christmas with tin toys and pleasant smells coming from the kitchen. But, what about the kitschy charm of the 1970s? On this week’s PreserveCast we’re revisiting with James Etherington, the Director of Kiplin Hall – a historic site in England which interprets the ancestral home of the Calverts, one of Maryland’s earliest and most prominent colonial families – to hear about their very 1970s Christmas and what we can learn from the way we celebrated exactly 50 years ago.
James previously joined us on PreserveCast to talk about how Kiplin Hall, a historic site in the UK, addresses the story of the Calverts, one of the earliest European families in Maryland. When Kiplin Hall reached out about their unique 1970s Christmas celebration – it seemed the perfect fit as we here in the states’ begin to grapple with preserving the vestiges of that decade as it becomes eligible for preservation 50 years later.
There are many ways to be a historian – and on this week’s PreserveCast we’re exploring the world of historians for hire – contract historians who do work to help organizations, corporations, agencies and law firms dig deep into history when the stakes are high.
During his time at History Associates Incorporated, Scott Vierick has traveled from the Colorado mountains to the Florida Everglades, and from the National Archives to frozen Civil War Battlefields. As a historian and project manager with the company, he works with clients and stakeholders to produce engaging historical content for museum exhibits, smartphone apps, and websites.
On this week’s PreserveCast, we’re heading to the brackish waters of the Chesapeake Bay to talk with Imani Black, founder of Minorities in Aquaculture, a dynamic new organization that is using heritage and history and a host of other innovative tools to develop opportunities for minorities to engage in this growing and sustainable industry.
Like many guests, I read about Imani in an article and knew we had to get her on PreserveCast – especially because of her background, heritage and focus on using history to get minorities interested and engaged in careers in aquaculture. We’re talking sustainability, environmentalism, history and the bay on this week’s PreserveCast.
Saving communities and historic places from an increasingly unstable climate takes real action – and thoughtful, well-crafted policy. Maryland State Senator Sarah Elfreth is a national leader on this issue and has helped to craft a new funding source to help communities battle climate change and save historic places.
I first met Senator Elfreth outside of a Budget and Taxation hearing to discuss an opportunity to save one of Annapolis’ last standing waterman’s cottages that was imminently threatened by rising sea levels. Since then, we’ve collaborated on a variety of efforts and her work has been recognized nationally for climate resiliency. Saving places often means getting involved in crafting policy which is why I knew we had to bring Senator Sarah to PreserveCast.
Blight doesn’t happen by accident. It’s the result of countless decisions, bad policies and disinvestment over decades. Nneka N’namdi is the founder of Fight Blight Baltimore, an economic, environmental, and social justice initiative that is working to address these systemic barriers and challenges to communities in some of the state’s most historic neighborhoods.
N’namdi was recently profiled in Baltimore Magazine, where I learned about the innovative and dynamic initiative she’s leading – which holds tremendous promise for legacy communities around the country confronting decades of disinvestment and is a story that deserves national attention on this week’s PreserveCast.
Some holidays are so ingrained into our lives, it’s hard to imagine the time before they existed – but Halloween wasn’t always the holiday we know today. On this year’s PreserveCast Spooktacular we’re talking with Lisa Morton. Morton recently published Trick or Treat: A History of Halloween, a comprehensive history of one of America’s favorite holidays.
On this fourth edition of PreserveCast Conversations: The Professor and the Practitioner, a new monthly feature of PreserveCast, co-hosts Nicholas Redding and Dr. Whitney Martinko explore the trends, topics and issues that are making headlines in the world of preservation this month. They’re covering a lot of ground in today’s conversation on preservation and the issues that matter. For regular listeners, also, be sure to send any questions you have about this episode or questions you’d like answered in next month’s conversation to info@presmd.org.
Dr. Whitney Martinko is an associate professor of History at Villanova University, where she teaches classes about the early United States, environmental history and sustainability, and material culture. She also directs the graduate program in public history. She earned her AB in History from Harvard College and her MA and PhD in History from the University of Virginia. She lives in West Philadelphia. Learn more about Martinko and her work at https://www.whitneymartinko.com/
Saving places requires a variety of tools and skillsets – including an understanding of Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act. It sounds dull – but it’s a tool everyone who cares about historic places should know about and get involved in – because it can save places and use the loss of historic resources to fuel preservation elsewhere. On this week’s PreserveCast, Jacqueline Drayer, a 106-specialist is leading us down the road to 106 awareness.
Connecting people to places is the work of preservationists everywhere – and on this week’s episode we’re talking with the creative minds behind Maryland Road Trips, a new site dedicated to encouraging place-based tourism. It’s a story rooted in Maryland, but one with lessons for preservationists and historians across the globe.
PreserveCast is a nationwide podcast – exploring topics in history, preservation and place from all around the world – but our heart will always be in Maryland where we’re based and produced. So, this week, we’re talking with Laura Rennie, the editorial manager of Maryland Road Trips to see how one new site is working to connect people to place – with lessons learned along the way for anyone listening who cares to do the same.
More About Our Guest Laura Rennie’s curiosity and inquisitive nature leads her toward finding the story unseen. With a background in print journalism, she explores the unknown both with ease and genuine interest. At Maryland Road Trips, a Postern Publishing publication, Laura approaches her work like any seasoned adventurer would; by dusting off the path less traveled and looking where others might not think to look. After all, everyone has a story to tell and Laura has what it takes to tell it.
Visit Maryland Road Trips at: www.marylandroadtrips.com
Preservation without funding is just good intentions. That’s why people like Merrill Hoopengardner and her team at the National Trust Community Investment Corporation are so integral to the future of this work. Right now, they’re working on big changes to federal funding for preservation – a timely and critical issue we knew had to be on PreserveCast.
Merrill Hoopengardner may not be a household name in preservation – but she should be. Merrill is the President and CEO of the National Trust Community Investment Corporation and is part of an effort to vastly improve the nation’s historic tax credit – the federal government’s largest investment in preservation. As President of NTCIC, Merrill directs fundraising and acquisition opportunities, develops and implements overall strategy and new lines of business for the company, and coordinates governing board/staff relations.
On this week’s PreserveCast, listeners have an opportunity to take action and make a difference and Merrill is leading the charge.
On this week's episode of PreserveCast, we are excited to be talking with Kara Harris, a blogger, historian and Maryland food lover. Kara Harris is the blogger and historian behind "Old Line Plate," a fantastic Maryland based food history website that I personally love, and something that I knew we had to bring to this week's episode of PreserveCast. The blog "Old Line Plate," a play on Maryland's historic state nickname "Old Line State," seeks to tell the story of Maryland's historic foodways and cooking traditions.
Let's sink our teeth into today's episode of PreserveCast!
Yep, you guessed it, I connected with Christina on Twitter – where she learned about a historic rehabilitation project Preservation Maryland was undertaking. Since then, I’ve become a huge fan of her work and the way in which she expertly weaves history and food together – two of my biggest passions. For anyone with an appetite, this is the interview for you.
Christina Tkacik has spent her career telling important stories – and has a talent for weaving history and food together as the dining reporter for the Baltimore Sun. From crabcakes to sno-balls to log cabins, Christina is doing her part to preserve our past in the pages of the Baltimore Sun and is serving up a tasty helping on this week’s PreserveCast.
Foxfire is the bioluminescence created by some species of fungi present in decaying wood. It is a wonderfully evocative word selected by a teacher and student over 50 years ago to be the title for their new project to document life in the southern Appalachians.
What started initially as a student project has live on for decades and is today an open-air museum and outdoor village with over 20 historic log buildings and the Foxfire Archive, which consists of over 50 years of oral history interviews, images, and video.
With the light of the foxfire marking our path, on this week’s PreserveCast we’re talking with Kami Ahrens, the Assistant Curator for the Foxfire Museum about the special work they’re doing to preserve the past.
On this week’s re-release of PreserveCast, we’re heading back to the brackish marshes of Maryland’s Eastern Shore to talk Tubman, slavery, and freedom.
Few names have become as synonymous with grit, determination, and liberty as Harriet Tubman. A Moses for her people, Tubman has become an almost mythical character who represents the best of the American spirit in the face of incredible suffering and inhumanity. Yet, for many years, she lacked a rigorous and scholarly biography. Today’s guest, Dr. Kate Clifford Larson, addressed that historical inequity and helped bring Harriet’s real story to a new generation.
Sara Bronin has spent her career exploring, researching, and publishing on the intersection of law, policy, and preservation. Today, as the preservation community grapples with the challenges of equity, climate and inclusionary zoning – Sara’s research and expertise is filling an important role. Bronin was recently nominated by the Biden administration to chair the U.S. Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP) and will have an opportunity to shape preservation policy at a seminal moment – a perfect guest for this week’s PreserveCast.
Sara and I connected via Twitter following her appointment by President Biden to chair the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation – and with her long list of credentials, publications and keen awareness of equitable land use planning, I felt she’d make an ideal guest as our field grapples with these heavy but important issues when it comes to saving historic places.
A two-time Pulitzer Prize winning artist, Bill Mauldin’s cartoons embodied the spirit of the infantryman during World War II before turning his critical pen to those in the political sphere. On this week’s PreserveCast, we’re talking with James Brundage, the curator of the Pritzker Military Museum & Library to explore the preservation of this unique art and how Mauldin’s message still resonates.
I’ve personally always loved the art of Bill Mauldin – it’s honest, real and sometimes even a little cheeky. In many ways, the art has come to define the GI of World War II and colors our memory of that conflict. That’s why when the Pritzker Military Museum & Library, long-time friends of the podcast, approached us about their new exhibit, I felt it was a story perfect for PreserveCast.
Listen: https://www.preservecast.org/
We all need role models – and we need to see ourselves represented – whether in film, print . . . or in Mattel’s iconic Barbie.
Today’s guest, Despina Stratigakos, Vice Provost for Inclusive Excellence at the University at Buffalo, is a writer, historian, and professor. She is the author of three books that explore the intersections of power and architecture. Her most recent book, Where Are the Women Architects? confronts the challenges women face in the architectural profession.
Despina also participated in a fascinating effort to get the Mattel Corporation to give Barbie a career in architecture. It was a study in representation and the future of the field – a story that we’ll detail in miniature and more on this week’s PreserveCast.
How do serve your mission, your visitors and keep the lights on? That’s a question that nonprofit leaders in the cultural and museum fields ask themselves every day and is all in a day’s work for Colleen Dilenschneider, today’s guest on PreserveCast. Colleen provides data and analysis to inform the evolution of visitor-serving organizations so that they may optimize mission execution and financial sustainability. I’ve been following Colleen’s blog for many years – and have always found her analysis to be some of the very best out there for visitor serving organizations – a voice I knew I wanted to bring to our growing PreserveCast audience.
On this third edition of PreserveCast Conversations: The Professor and the Practitioner, a new monthly feature of PreserveCast, co-hosts Nicholas Redding and Dr. Whitney Martinko explore the trends, topics and issues that are making headlines in the world of preservation this month. They’re covering a lot of ground in today’s conversation on preservation and the issues that matter.
Preservation requires a solid and significant understanding of our past – and on this week’s PreserveCast we’re talking with Jason Church, a National Park Service preservationist who is leading an effort to expertly document the powerfully important physical vestiges of slavery and tenant farming. As these humble and simple structures fade away, work like this takes on a new level of importance and significance.
All across America, the physical evidence of slavery is being lost to the ravages of time and indifference. Without expert documentation – there’s a real chance we could lose all memory and understanding of these important buildings. That’s why Preservation Maryland is partnering with the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training to laser scan structures on Maryland’s eastern shore as a part of a broader national effort – a topic we knew we had to bring to our listeners.
This week’s guest is unique; we’re bringing back Bonnie McDonald to talk about the work of her organization, Landmarks Illinois, as they celebrate their 50th anniversary and look forward to the next 50 years of saving places and making preservation relevant in a rapidly changing world.
On this second edition of PreserveCast Conversations: The Professor and the Practitioner, a new monthly feature of PreserveCast, co-hosts Nicholas Redding and Dr. Whitney Martinko explore the trends, topics and issues that are making headlines in the world of preservation this month. From philanthropy to Mohawk ironworkers, they're covering a lot of ground in today's conversation on preservation and the issues that matter. For regular listeners, also, be sure to send any questions you have about this episode or questions you’d like answered in next month’s conversation to info@presmd.org.
On this week’s PreserveCast, we’ll explore the intersection between heritage, education and entertainment with Nigel Hetherington, the founder of Past Preservers. With a global reach, Past Preservers serves as a creative hub between the media and heritage worlds. The heart of the operation lies in their expert database which currently contains over 1,400 professionals from over twenty countries and includes archaeologists, historians, Egyptologists, classicists, conservationists, forensic biologists, anthropologists, authors, and heritage consultants.
In Burgundy, France, around forty workers are taking up an extraordinary challenge: to build a fortified castle using the techniques and materials used in the Middle Ages. It’s almost a surreal project and today we’re talking with Sarah Preston, a bilingual tour guide at Guédelon, a site that is literally resurrecting age old trades in the name of preservation, history and understanding.
I was introduced to Guédelon by a previous PreserveCast guest, Peter Ginn – who participated in “Secrets of the Castle,” a BBC series which explored the challenges of building a castle using only medieval techniques. Peter connected us to Sarah Preston, today’s guest, and the rest is history.
With every year that passes, the D-Day landings move further and further from memory to history – and how we protect, remember and honor those bloody beaches becomes a conflict between tourism and respect. Today’s guests are part of a Normandy based preservation organization opposed to the creation of a D-Day land – a cross between heritage and entertainment that has riled up the normally quiet bocage country.
On this first edition of PreserveCast Conversations: The Professor and the Practitioner, a new monthly feature of PreserveCast, co-hosts Nicholas Redding and Dr. Whitney Martinko explore the trends, topics and issues that are making headlines in the world of preservation this month. From murals to infrastructure and traditional trades, they’re covering a lot of ground in this conversational take on preservation and the issues that matter. For regular listeners, also, be sure to send any questions you have about this episode or questions you’d like answered in next month’s conversation to info@presmd.org
Learn more about Dr. Martinko at whitneymartinko.com
To regular listeners of PreserveCast, you know that I’m a huge fan of the BBC “farm” series – which have explored Tudor, Victorian, Edwardian and other eras of British history. Alex Langlands rounds out our interviews with each of the presenters from the series – and Alex also recently published a new book, Craeft: An Inquiry into the Origins and True Meaning of Traditional Crafts, which is a perfect topic of conversation at a moment when the world is almost entirely virtual.
Connecting place to story to digital resources is a challenge confronting communities across the globe. That’s why when I learned about nashvillesites.org, I knew we had a winner for PreserveCast. Not only is Nashville an amazing town – but this story holds many lessons for countless other places looking to bring their history to life.
There are over 150 metro markers, over 50 more state and nationally designated and recognized historic markers, sites, buildings, and districts in Metro Nashville. NashvilleSites.org augments Nashville’s unique history with multimedia information and dynamic online resources.
It’s been roughly a year since the world was plunged into a COVID lockdown – and many of those quarantining turned to baking and cooking as a way to pass the time. For Seamus Blackley, particle physicist, inventor of the Xbox and fermentation expert, he was able to resurrect and recreate Egyptian bread using traditional tools, techniques and yeast dating back 4,000 years. This week, we’re talking about preserving the craft of historic bread baking with a renaissance figure in this unique and fascinating field of yeasty experimentation.
Candacy Taylor is an award-winning author, photographer and cultural documentarian working on a multidisciplinary project based on the Green Book. In Overground Railroad: The Green Book and the Roots of Black Travel in America, Taylor has masterfully pulled together this story of resilience and segregation in a way that elevates and memorializes this history – a history still rooted in countless towns and cities across America.
In this week’s PreserveCast, we’re spilling the tea on the history of this favorite drink and how one company is resurrecting historic blends for modern palates.
We can experience history in many ways – oftentimes that experience happens at a site or by reading an account – but all too often we overlook the powerful experience of tasting history. For today’s guest, serving up a taste of the past is all in a day’s work as the owner of Oliver Pluff and Company, which is dedicated to producing early American tea, coffee, and spice blends for historical and gourmet markets.
If these walls could talk is an old refrain used by lovers of historic places and buildings, and thanks to the in-depth research and loving care of today’s guest, a historic log cabin in West Virginia’s historic panhandle is talking again.
Joe Goss is a somewhat unlikely preservationist – an engineer with decades of experience in large-scale infrastructure projects – but the purchase of a historic, circa 1780 log home in Shepherdstown, West Virginia tested his skills and critical thinking to the utmost. On this week’s PreserveCast we’re talking preservation, research and logs with a passionate advocate for one home’s story.
Talented tradespeople make preservation physically possible. Today’s guest is Amy McAuley, the preservation joiner at George Washington’s Mount Vernon, where she uses hand powered tools to repair, restore and preserve one of America’s most historic homes. As we celebrate Women’s History Month, we’re talking with a talented female tradesperson who is doing her part to keep the traditional trades alive.
The Jingle Dress project originated from a dream to unite the beauty of the land and the healing power of the jingle dance during these uncertain times due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The origin of the jingle dance to the Ojibwe people happened during the influenza pandemic of 1918-19. It came as a dream to a father whose daughter was sick with the virus. His dream revealed the new dress and dance that had the power to heal. When the dresses were made, they were given to four women to perform the dance. When the little girl heard the sound of the jingles, she became stronger. By the end of the night she was dancing too.
Today’s guest, Eugene Tapahe, also has a dream to take this healing power to the land, to travel and capture a series of images that will document spiritual places where ancestors once walked. The goal is to unite and give hope to the world through art, dance and culture to help us all to heal together. Learn more about the project and support it at: https://tapahe.com/jingle-dress-project.html
I have been a big fan of Peter Ginn ever since I watched the first episode of Victorian Farm, where he portrayed a Victorian-era farmer in England alongside Ruth Goodman and Alex Langlands. Peter has deftly combined his knowledge of the past with entertainment and is a proud ambassador for preserving historic trades and crafts. In short, he’s the ideal PreserveCast guest.
Without trained hands able to restore buildings – we can’t “do” preservation. It’s just that simple. Today’s guest is a true trailblazer in the preservation trades; an accomplished historic architect, accomplished tradesperson and notably, the first woman to complete the National Park Service preservation trades training program. On this week’s PreserveCast, we’re talking with Lisa Sasser about women in the trades and the future of trades training in America.
Collecting, cataloguing, conserving. The heart of a museum is its collection, but how do Museums make decisions and who gets to answer the question, “Why Keep That?” The innovative staff at the National World War I Museum and Memorial have taken that question and built an entire exhibit around it. On this week’s PreserveCast, we’re talking with Stacie Peterson, Collections Registrar, National World War I Museum and Memorial, about the challenge of collecting, interpreting and exhibiting.
Established in 1969, the Maryland Commission on African American History and Culture is the nation’s first-ever ethnic commission and has a 50 year track record of exploring, researching, commemorating and preserving important places associated with the African American history of the Old Line State. On this week’s PreserveCast, we’re talking with Chanel Compton, the Executive Director of the Commission, about their work and the exciting future of African American preservation in Maryland and beyond.
Historian, businesswoman, investor, developer, and philanthropist. Colonel Jennifer Pritzker has led an amazing life. A retired Lieutenant Colonel of the U.S. Army, for nearly three decades Col. Pritzker served in the U.S. Army, U.S. Army Reserve, and the Illinois Army National Guard. Today, her legacy of service continues in her philanthropic investments across the nation in heritage, veterans’ issues and beyond. On Today’s PreserveCast we’re talking with a legend of preservation philanthropy. Learn more at: tawanifoundation.org
What do you get when you cross information from George Washington’s own handwritten letters, records from the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association, and the latest tech in data systems and digital modeling?
Tom Reinhart is here to explain how George Washington’s Mount Vernon is using and expanding Building Information Modeling (BIM) technology to piece together one of the most detailed architectural models ever.
Happy President's Day from PreserveCast!
What if individuals could band together to make change that they couldn’t possibly accomplish alone? That’s the concept behind Small Change, a real estate crowdfunding investment platform founded by today’s guest, Eve Picker. We’ll dive into the new world of crowdfunded real estate investments and how that could shape the future of preservation on this week’s PreserveCast.
For lovers of early American architecture, folkways, crafts and tools, there are few who compare to Eric Sloane. Sloane was a prolific chronicler of the American past – and had a reverence for the way we were that was at moments charming, beautiful and absurd all at once. Today, the legacy of this collector and accomplished artist is being cared for and reinterpreted by the State of Connecticut.
Originally from West Virginia, where he received his B.A. in Social Studies Education from Shepherd University, Andrew comes to the Eric Sloane Museum with experience working at public history sites like Harper’s Ferry National Historical Park, South Mountain State Battlefield for the Maryland Park Service, and Henricus Historical Park managing their 17th century Virginia tobacco farm. In his spare time, Andrew is an avid agriculturalist and supporter of historical trades and may be found climbing the lines, working aboard tall ships. He and his wife are thrilled to be living in New England in a small timber-framed farmhouse with their two pups and cat. Andrew is honored to be a steward of one of Connecticut’s valuable cultural resources.
As nearly anyone who has seriously studied American history can attest – there is no American story without the story of slavery. It is central to our origin and must be included in order to get a full and complete picture of our history. Unfortunately, the records of slavery are spread far and wide and are often siloed and incomplete. In this two part series, we’re talking to two of the minds behind Enslaved: Peoples of the Historic Slave Trade – a digital preservation effort aimed at connected the dots and knocking down the silos of slave history. Learn more at www.enslaved.org.
As nearly anyone who has seriously studied American history can attest – there is no American story without the story of slavery. It is central to our origin and must be included in order to get a full and complete picture of our history.
Unfortunately, the records of slavery are spread far and wide and are often siloed and incomplete.
In this two-part series, we’re talking to two of the minds behind Enslaved: Peoples of the Historic Slave Trade – a digital preservation effort aimed at connected the dots and knocking down the silos of slave history.
Learn more at www.enslaved.org.
Daryle Williams (PhD, History, Stanford University, 1995), Associate Professor of History and Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs in the College of Arts and Humanities at the University of Maryland, is Co-Principal Investigator on AADHum and Enslaved, two collaborative projects in black studies and digital humanities sponsored by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Williams was lead editor on The Rio de Janeiro Reader: Politics, History, Culture (Duke University Press, 2015) and serves as Area Editor (Brazil pre-1888) on the Dictionary of Caribbean and Afro-Latin American Biography(Oxford University Press). Single-author publications include Culture Wars in Brazil: The First Vargas Regime, 1930-1945 (Duke, 2001), winner of the American Historical Association's John Edwin Fagg prize, and several articles and book chapters on nineteenth- and twentieth-century Brazilian cultural and social history. His current book project is "The Broken Paths of Freedom: Liberated Africans in Nineteenth-Century Brazilian Slave Society."
Williams has held grants and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Fulbright Scholar Program, the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Humanities Fellowship Program, and the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities.
Prior to serving as an associate dean, Williams was graduate studies director in the UMD history department and associate director of the David C. Driskell Center for the Study of the African Diaspora.
What we preserve tells as much about us as it does about the history itself. Preservation is a movement with a history unto itself – but all too often that story is overlooked in favor of the history of the sites that are preserved. Whitney Martinko, an associate professor of History at Villanova University, is tackling that story and recently published Historic Real Estate: Market Morality and the Politics of Preservation in the Early United States, an in-depth look at why and what we preserve and how interconnected our preservation landscape is to our market driven economy. On this week’s PreserveCast we’re talking about the impulse to preserve and what it says about us, the preservers.
The American Civil War was the first war to be truly photo-documented. The haunting images stare back at us and make the brutal conflict real and humanize the tragedy. Yet, for all of the photos, many of the identities of the individuals captured are now unknown. Today, Civil War Photo Sleuth is using modern-day technology to rediscover the lost identities in American Civil War-era photographs. This new endeavor holds tremendous potential not only to uncover the lost history of the Civil War–but of countless other anonymous photographs. On this week’s PreserveCast, we’re talking artificial intelligence, Civil War history and the future of historical investigations.
Food is powerful. It has the ability to transcend artificial divisions and to unite – and it can speak to our history and heritage if we’re willing to listen, or think with our tastebuds.
For today’s guest, using food to tell a story is all a part of his daily work. Brent Rosen is the President and CEO of NatFAB, the Southern Food and Beverage Museum, and the Museum of the American Cocktail in New Orleans, Louisiana.
So, pack your back, but don’t bring any food – we’ve got that covered on this week’s PreserveCast.
You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen, but do you recall Rankin/Bass – the company behind some of America’s most beloved stop-action holiday films? Today’s guest, Rick Goldschmidt does. He’s a historian of Rankin/Bass Productions – the creative team that created Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, The Year without a Christmas, and dozens upon dozens more. Preserving the legacy of those films and the actual props has been a lifelong passion for Rick and on this week’s PreserveCast we’ll head back to the 1960s to talk TV preservation and memory with an authority on the subject.
John Brown.
Few names in American history inspire as much controversy, admiration, and consternation. He was a controversial figure in his own time and remains so today. No matter your opinion, Brown’s legacy is critically important and must be explored and remembered.
Today’s guest, Martha Swan, is the founder and Executive Director of John Brown Lives!, an organization dedicated to preserving Brown’s farm in upstate New York and using his legacy to inspire future generations.
On this week’s PreserveCast, we’re talking about John Brown, memory and how to use the past to engage the present.
When most Marylanders – or most Americans for that matter – think about the first European settlers they generally begin that story on the shores of North America.
However, in reality, these early colonists had long lives in their native countries before they ever set foot in America. Today’s guest, James Etherington, is the Director of Kiplin Hall – a historic site in England that interprets the ancestral home of the Calverts, one of Maryland’s earliest and most prominent colonial families.
On this week’s PreserveCast, we’re heading across the pond to tell the rest of the story of American colonization.
Change can be difficult. Building momentum, engaging diverse audiences, and bringing history to life is the tough stuff of preservation and community engagement.
Today’s guest, Dana Saylor, has made it her mission to help fellow preservationists, artists, community leaders, and interested citizens in developing strategies that turn ideas into action. Dana is a creative community connector and mentor to fellow changemakers. Her work is about building emotional connection to place. She is based in Buffalo, New York, and is an Advisor to the National Trust for Historic Preservation. On this week’s PreserveCast, we’re talking the nuts and bolts of making change happen with a leading voice for this critical and timely work.
Hey, Nick here, and before we get started – just a quick reminder to please consider making a donation – even $5 would go a long way – and you can do it at preservecast.org; also would you be willing to give us a five-star rating and maybe a quick review. We haven’t had a new review in way too long and I need your help! And, finally, today’s episode is made possible thanks to the support of The 1772 Foundation. Now, let’s make some change happen!
For most of us – Thanksgiving is a time of reflection, communion and appreciation – shared around a table groaning under the weight of rich foods with family and friends. Central to the holiday is a story dating back to the 1620s – when our European forbearers gathered with native peoples and peacefully celebrated a harvest. Or, at least, that’s what legend, myth and selective memory would lead us to believe.
Today’s guest, Dr. David J. Silverman, has authored a powerful new history of Thanksgiving which explores the story from all angles – and makes the case that the way we remember and consider Thanksgiving requires thoughtful reconsideration as we endeavor to tell the full story of American history.
On this week’s PreserveCast, we’re exploring the untold story of Thanksgiving with an authority on the subject.
Hey, Nick here – and as we approach Thanksgiving – I want to say thank you to all of our listeners – you have made this podcast a huge success and have grown us to become one of the most listened to history and preservation podcasts in the nation – no small feat for a podcast produced on a shoestring. Speaking of that shoestring, and thanks, would you consider making a quick donation today to help us bring more content like this to you in the year ahead? Every bit helps and we greatly appreciate whatever you can provide! Now, let’s head back to the 1620s to get the full story of Thanksgiving.
Today’s guest is a part of a powerful movement to share the authentic, painful and real history of slavery at some of America’s most visited plantation sites.
Olivia Williams is a cultural history interpreter at McLeod Plantation Historic Site in Charleston, South Carolina. She’s been featured in the BBC, CBS News and the New York Times for her work and for shining a light on the awkward and uncomfortable questions posed by many visitors which underscore the lack of understanding of America’s slaveholding past.
This week on PreserveCast, we’ll discuss this critical work with a master of the trade.
In some cases, the legacy of history is buried deep – requiring research, archaeology, or exploration to find it. In other cases, the legacy of history literally clouds our streams. On today’s PreserveCast, we’re blending modern environmentalism with a discussion of the legacy of mining in rural Ohio – and how old damage is creating new vibrancy with Michelle Shively, the Director of Project Development for True Pigments – a project aimed at using pollution to give the world a fresh coat of paint. Make sure you have your painting smock on because we’re about to let the pigments fly on this week’s PreserveCast.
Our nation is confronting challenges on almost every front – so why invest money in historic sites when the challenges are so great?
Places like Historic Sotterley, located in Southern Maryland, can make the case for why we should invest. Sotterley has worked to become an exceptional cultural and educational resource for its region and state, and through ongoing work strives to help build a better community with local and regional partners.
On today’s episode of PreserveCast, we’re talking with Nancy Easterling, the Executive Director of Historic Sotterley about tackling the complex history of a plantation and how that conversation can improve communities.
On this week’s PreserveCast, we’re taking a departure from our normal programming to bring you a tale of old about the story of Michael Zittle – the Wizard of South Mountain.
Much of what we know of Michael Zittle and the lore of South Mountain comes from Madeline Vinton Dahlgren, a 19th-century author, tavern keeper, anti-suffragist, and owner of the still-operational South Mountain Inn. New research, writing, and dramatic reading by your host, Nicholas Redding.
As the chill of autumn arrives and we approach All Hallows Eve, we'll indulge in this haunted history and talk of wizards, spells, and sorcery...
There are some topics that are easy to introduce to our PreserveCast listeners. Today’s episode is not one of those – but it is a topic we feel compelled to cover and explore.
Among his many responsibilities and positions, today’s guest, Dr. David Fakunle, is also currently serving as the as Chair of the Maryland Lynching Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the first state body in the United States dedicated to chronicling and bringing justice to racial terror lynchings.
It is a dark and painful chapter in our history – but a history which we’ll confront and discuss on this week’s PreserveCast with a leader dealing with the legacy of lynchings and the effort to bring justice to those who were denied it.
As a child growing up in Western New York, with Mohawk cousins, the history and world of native American culture always fascinated me. The story of the native peoples of America speak through many voices – music, art, culture – but all too often are missing from the landscape of museums and historic sites.
Today’s guest, G. Peter Jemison, is a renaissance figure in native culture, art, and heritage and also serves as the Historic Site Manager of Ganondagan State Historic Site, the location of a 17th-century Seneca town in Victor, NY.
On today’s PreserveCast, we will explore the rich history of the Iroquois and learn how their heritage continues in the present.
Today on PreserveCast, we’re talking with Richard Carlin and Ken Bloom, the co-authors of Eubie Blake: Rags, Rhythm and Race, a new biography of one of the key composers of 20th century American popular song and jazz.
A gifted musician, Blake rose from performing in dance halls and bordellos of his native Baltimore to the heights of Broadway. As successful as his career and music were, racism and bad luck hampered Blake's career. Remarkably, the third act of Blake's life found him heralded in his 90s at major jazz festivals, in Broadway shows, and on television and recordings.
Now, let’s get jazzy on this week’s PreserveCast!
Wyoming is a mysterious and magical place. The very word conjures up visions of roughhewn buildings, horses, and wide open spaces. Preservation seems a natural fit in that majestic setting – and today’s guest is plying the craft and trade of preservation in Jackson Hole as the Director of the National Park Service’s Western Center for Historic Preservation. So, tighten your girth and slacken your rein, we’re headed to Wyoming to talk preservation, western style, on this week’s PreserveCast.
Foxfire is the bioluminescence created by some species of fungi present in decaying wood. It is a wonderfully evocative word selected by a teacher and student over 50 years ago to be the title for their new project to document life in the southern Appalachians.
What started initially as a student project has live on for decades and is today an open-air museum and outdoor village with over 20 historic log buildings and the Foxfire Archive, which consists of over 50 years of oral history interviews, images, and video.
With the light of the foxfire marking our path, on this week’s PreserveCast we’re talking with Kami Ahrens, the Assistant Curator for the Foxfire Museum about the special work they’re doing to preserve the past.
Do you ever wonder how authors and historians can keep writing new books about the same 'ole history?
Shouldn’t it never change because it’s all in the past?
The truth is anything but.
No one can explain that better than our guest, Dennis Frye – having been involved in everything from giving tours to leading nationally important preservation and battlefield protection organizations, few people know the complexities of Civil War history like Dennis.
In his recent book, Antietam Shadows: Mystery, Myth & Machination, Dennis makes the case that history should never lie dormant, it always needs to be re-examined, stating, “Historians should always be challenging themselves. They should always be a detective. They should always be mining for new information, and if it completely reverses something that’s conventional, good, good. Throw it out there and let people see it in a different way, in a different manner, in a different light.”
Listen in to this episode of PreserveCast to hear from Dennis about his investigative and inclusive approach to historical research on this special re-broadcast in commemoration of the Anniversary of the Battle of Antietam.
In a world where rational, scientific explanations are more available than ever, belief in the unprovable and irrational – in fringe – is on the rise: from Atlantis to aliens, from Flat Earth to the Loch Ness monster, the list goes on.
Enter Colin Dickey, Cultural Historian and Tour Guide of the Weird.
With the same curiosity and insight that made Ghostland a hit with readers and critics, Colin looks at what all fringe beliefs have in common, explaining that today's Illuminati is yesterday's Flat Earth: the attempt to find meaning in a world stripped of wonder.
On this week’s PreserveCast things are about to get weird as we enter The Unidentified: Mythical Monsters, Alien Encounters, and Our Obsession with the Unexplained.
It has been historically all too easy for the places associated with underrepresented communities to fall through the cracks of the historic record.
To a degree, that has been the case with the overly-simplified history presented of the Women’s Suffrage Movement. But with the recent spotlight on the 100th Anniversary of the 19th Amendment, new research and a more inclusive and accurate telling of the complex history has started to fill in those cracks.
In this rereleased episode, your host Nick Redding was joined by historian Kacy Rohn, the author of Maryland's historic context report focused on uncovering the stories of the remarkable women of Maryland's suffrage movement.
Join us for a discussion on the fight for women’s right to vote in the United States, and the power of place to help us remember that fight.
This is PreserveCast.
Gettysburg is a special place and has been since the ground was made hallowed by soldiers nearly 160 years ago. Today, as America grapples with its history – especially its Civil War history – places like Gettysburg are critical to the understanding of who we are and where we are headed.
Today’s guest is responsible for leading the effort to interpret that history. Christopher Gwinn is the Supervisory Park Ranger for the division of Interpretation and Education and is working hard to reach all Americans with the story of Gettysburg.
Grab your knapsack and toss on your forage cap, we’re headed to the crossroads town of Gettysburg on this week’s PreserveCast.
When most people think of a historic site or landscape, they don’t think about the future...
Today’s guest is not most people.
Siân Phillips is a renewable energy specialist with the National Trust of England, Wales and Northern Ireland – a legendary preservation organization which is charting a new course for historic places – they’re using our past to literally power the future.
This isn’t your grandaddy’s preservation – and we’re thrilled to bring it to you on this week’s PreserveCast.
Few names have become as synonymous with grit, determination, and liberty as Harriet Tubman. A Moses for her people, Tubman has become an almost mythical character who represents the best of the American spirit in the face of incredible suffering and inhumanity. Yet, for many years, she lacked a rigorous and scholarly biography.
Today’s guest, Dr. Kate Clifford Larson, addressed that historical inequity and helped bring Harriet’s real story to a new generation. On this week’s PreserveCast, we're heading back to the brackish marshes of Maryland’s Eastern Shore to talk Tubman, slavery, and freedom.
PreserveCast is powered by Preservation Maryland, a non-profit organization.
Nestled among the verdant fields and winding streams of the Genesee River Valley in upstate New York is one of America’s largest living history museums. Founded in 1966, the Genesee Country Village & Museum features 68 historic structures from the 19th century, moved from locations throughout Western New York, a gallery of sporting art, and a nature center and attracts more than 90,000 visitors each year. On this week’s PreserveCast, we’re headed back to the 19th century to talk with Genesee Country Village & Museum CEO Becky Wehle and Curator of Collections Peter Wisbey about the future of open-air museums and the historic trades.
We all need role models – and we need to see ourselves represented – whether in film, print . . . or in Mattel’s iconic Barbie. Today’s guest, Despina Stratigakos, Vice Provost for Inclusive Excellence at the University at Buffalo, is a writer, historian, and professor. She is the author of three books that explore the intersections of power and architecture. Her most recent book, Where Are the Women Architects? confronts the challenges women face in the architectural profession. Despina also participated in a fascinating effort to get the Mattel Corporation to give Barbie a career in architecture. It was a study in representation and the future of the field – a story that we’ll detail in miniature and more on this week’s PreserveCast.
The story of where we live is uniquely personal. Many historic homes have been preserved and opened to the public – places that tell a story about the way we once lived.
However, American public housing – places built and maintained by governments – has been long been overlooked, forgotten, and worse yet, maligned.
Today’s guest, Dr. Lisa Lee, is working to solve that gap in memory and understanding as the Executive Director of the National Public Housing Museum, the only cultural institution devoted to telling the story of public housing in the United States.
Find the best spot to sit and relax in the place you call home as we talk about the history of housing on this week’s PreserveCast.
As America confronts, commemorates, and questions its history – preservationists like Catherine Fleming Bruce are helping to frame those conversations and providing powerful examples of how historic places can help us in these challenging times.
Bruce is the author of an award-winning book on sustaining the sacred spaces of civil rights, human rights, and social movements and how this work can support the march towards greater social justice. With her book, "The Sustainers: Being, Building and Doing Good through Activism in the Sacred Spaces of Civil Rights, Human Rights and Social Movements," she became the first African American winner of the annual Historic Preservation Book Prize, presented by the University of Mary Washington Center for Historic Preservation.
It’s a weighty topic – but one we must explore – and with someone who knows it well on this week’s PreserveCast.
In challenging times, nature brings us peace. From time immemorial, humans have taken to nature to soothe their anxious and tired souls. In today’s busy and built world, opportunities to experience and commune with nature are limited – but today’s guest is doing something about that.
Alden Stoner is the CEO of Nature Sacred, an organization dedicated to bringing natural sanctuaries to urban communities to reduce stress, improve health and strengthen communities. It is work that was important before and is becoming increasingly more important every day the nation confronts its current challenges.
Take a deep breath and find your favorite tree – we’re talking nature in urban spaces on this week’s PreserveCast.
Americans have long admired the resistance, tenacity and spirit of those brave souls who were travelers and conductors on the Underground Railroad. On this week’s PreserveCast, we’re heading back to those days to dredge up another chapter – and one far less proud – that of the reverse Underground Railroad which brought captured formerly free blacks back to slavery. It’s a difficult history – but one we must confront and we’ll explore it with Dr. Richard Bell, a distinguished scholar who recently authored a book on this overlooked story from American history.
Dr. Richard Bell is Associate Professor of History at the University of Maryland. He holds a PhD from Harvard University and is author of the new book Stolen: Five Free Boys Kidnapped into Slavery and their Astonishing Odyssey Home. He has won more than a dozen teaching awards, including the University System of Maryland Board of Regents Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching, the highest honor for teaching faculty in the Maryland state system. He has held major research fellowships at Yale, Cambridge, and the Library of Congress and is the recipient of the National Endowment of the Humanities Public Scholar award. He serves as a Trustee of the Maryland Historical Society, as an elected member of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, and as a fellow of the Royal Historical Society.
As the nation confronts a crippling pandemic – we find ourselves drawn to history for parallels. History provides context for the confusion.
Today’s guest has dedicated her career to exploring those connections. Dr. Marian Moser Jones is a social historian and ethicist of public health who studies the way in which Americans care for other Americans – and how that shapes our response in emergencies like the current pandemic.
Stay calm – we’ll get through this – and we’ll learn how on this week’s PreserveCast.
For Civil War readers and historians, Maryland has always been confounding. Its location along the Mason-Dixon Line meant it was the seat of war for many pitched battles – and divided the loyalties of its citizens. But, for all the impact, bloodshed and division – its contribution to the Union Army is often overlooked. Confederate memory clouds the history – but today, the clouds are lifting thanks to the work of professor and historian Timothy Orr. Dr. Orr has begun to chronicle Marylanders who served in the ranks of the Union Army of the Potomac – a story long overdue that we’ll begin to explore on this episode of PreserveCast.
MORE ABOUT OUR GUEST
Timothy J. Orr is Associate Professor of History at Old Dominion University. He earned his Ph.D. at the Richards Civil War Era Center at Penn State University and he worked for eight years as a seasonal Park Ranger at Gettysburg National Military Park. His publications include Last to Leave the Field: The Life and Letters of First Sergeant Ambrose Henry Hayward (University of Tennessee Press, 2011), Never Call Me a Hero: A Legendary American Dive-Bomber Pilot Remembers the Battle of Midway, a volume co-authored with N. Jack “Dusty” Kleiss and Laura Lawfer Orr (William Morrow, 2017), as well as several scholarly essays about the Army of the Potomac.
When you think of pirates – you may think of far-off warm islands and tropical beaches or perhaps your mind goes to modern-day piracy off the dangerous horn of Africa – but you probably don’t think of the brackish waters of the Chesapeake Bay off the coast of Maryland and Virginia.
But, today’s guest, Dr. Jamie Goodall, has spent years studying that very story – and has recently published a compelling account of piracy on these now quiet waters.
Let’s set sail for Chesapeake Bay – but keep a clear eye because these waters be dangerous!
Few guests to PreserveCast have commanded as large an audience as today’s guest, Ruth Goodman.
Ruth is an award-winning social and domestic historian of British history who has been involved in several highly-rated BBC television series and has used her knowledge and charm on the screen to make history approachable and interesting.
On this week’s PreserveCast we’re crossing the pond to learn from a master of public history in a time when history matters more than ever before.
Born in an 1850s Greek Revival home that was lovingly restored by her parents (and having attended more country auctions than she can count), Elizabeth Finkelstein’s love for crown molding and decorative ironwork runs in her gene pool. After high school, she left the quiet of the countryside for the bright lights of the big city to entrench herself in New York’s great history and architecture. While there, she earned a Masters in Historic Preservation and spent years working in the field of professional preservation advocacy (and started a few geeky architecture blogs to boot!).
A licensed tour guide, professor and architectural historian, Elizabeth is also Country Living Magazine‘s official real estate columnist. Through @circahouses and @cheapoldhouses, Elizabeth is proud to maintain two of the most popular Instagram feeds devoted specifically to historical homes for sale. The wildly popular, viral feed @cheapoldhouses has been featured in New York Magazine, The Financial Times, Money Magazine, Buzzfeed, and numerous other influential publications.
Elizabeth and her husband Ethan fantasize simultaneously about owning a Brooklyn brownstone and buying a big, old farmhouse somewhere far, far away. In the meantime, CIRCA keeps them dreaming...
Few names are as synonymous with Civil War battlefields as “The Bloody Cornfield.” It conjures up visions of harrowing bloodshed and the tragedy of fratricidal combat.
Yet, for over 150 years, the story of this struggle has been difficult to track – the sway of battle back and forth over David R. Miller’s cornfield was a confusing melee of destruction. To help interpret this pivotal story, historian and author David A. Welker has produced a detailed study of this pivotal moment in American history which captures the reader and makes the compelling case for the national significance of these 20+ acres of Maryland soil.
On this week’s PreserveCast, we’re taking a trip back to Sharpsburg, Maryland, on the morning of September 17, 1862, and descending into the Bloody Cornfield.
Dr. Harrison Goodall has over forty-eight years of experience with historic structures and facilities management and nearly sixty years of experience in training and education throughout the country. As a contractor, volunteer, and purveyor of preservation materials, Harrison has been involved in preserving hundreds if not thousands of historic structures around the nation. A 2016 award from the National Park Service documented that Goodall completed over 135 volunteer historic preservation projects in 55 national parks and over 40 of those projects took place in Grand Teton National Park, where he has volunteered consistently since 1976. On This week’s PreserveCast, we’re sitting down to talk with a preservation trades legend about the future of craft and the lessons learned restoring America’s most iconic places.
Today’s guest is a first for PreserveCast.
Aimee Jorjani was appointed by the President of the United States to be the first full-time chairman of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation – the federal agency tasked with coordinating preservation policy across the government.
From the halls of Congress to the pueblos of the southwest – Chariman Jorjani is doing her bit to promote preservation and we’ll learn what she’s planning next on this week’s PreserveCast.
ABOUT OUR GUEST Aimee Jorjani earned Senate confirmation in June 2019 as the first full-time chairman of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP).
Ms. Jorjani has nearly 20 years of experience in the fields of government and cultural resources from a variety of perspectives including both executive and legislative branches, as well as the non-profit sector. Her career began on Capitol Hill in 1999 working as a legislative aide to Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI). In 2002, she moved to the US Department of the Interior (DOI) and held several positions, including serving as the Deputy Secretary’s Special Assistant for Historic Preservation.
A native of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Ms. Jorjani graduated from Northern Michigan University with a major in political science and minor in public relations and later earned a Masters in Historic Preservation from Goucher College.
Walt Whitman once wrote that, “Future years will never know the seething hell and the black infernal background of countless minor scenes and interiors . . . of the Secession war; and it is best they should not—the real war will never get in the books.”
Although the painful, real stories of the Civil War and its grisly impacts may not have been accurately captured by authors – today’s guest, Jake Wynn, the Director of Interpretation at the National Museum of Civil War Medicine, is dedicated to telling those stories – and highlighting the grave sacrifices and incredible compassion displayed during that era.
As we confront a medical crisis in our own time, we sat down with Jake to learn about epidemics, disease, and health during the Civil War – and what lessons there might be for our own time.
ABOUT TODAY'S GUEST
Jake Wynn is the Director of Interpretation at the National Museum of Civil War Medicine and the Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office Museum. He is a 2015 graduate of Hood College in Frederick, MD. He writes independently about Pennsylvania history at Wynning History and the Pennsylvania in the Civil War blog.
On this special extra edition of PreserveCast, you'll hear from one of Preservation Maryland and PreserveCast's best friends, Mary Anthony, Executive Director of The 1772 foundation as she interviews her friends with the National Trust of Scotland about a very special fiddle. Just to see this 270-year-old violin in a glass case, you'd have to travel to the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum in Alloway, Scotland – but today you'll hear it and all about it...on this special recording of PreserveCast.
Why do we do what we do and why don’t others understand why it’s so important?
Those are the driving questions that prompted long-time preservationist and real estate expert Tom Moriarity to dive into a discourse on what preservation needs in the years ahead. It’s a big task – but one that we need to constantly revisit if we hope to save places that truly matter.
So, prepare yourself for some real talk from one of America’s most trusted voices in preservation on this week’s PreserveCast!
In this final episode of PreserveCast's special Healthy, Hip & Historic series, Greg Werkheiser of Cultural Heritage Partners and ARtGlass presents the awesome opportunities that preservationists have to shape the telling of history well into the future – if, we tap into trends afoot in augmented reality, drone imaging and 3D printing, and artificial intelligence.
Greg Werkheiser is a lawyer and entrepreneur who builds ventures that connect the lessons of our past to the leadership of our future. Greg believes that solving critical societal challenges requires leaders who draw on wisdom and strategy from across time, culture, sector, industry, and ideology. To preserve and leverage history, Greg’s ventures advance law, public policy, business strategy, and technology in the cultural heritage field globally. To forge leaders for our age, Greg’s ventures re-imagine leadership development for emerging entrepreneurs of public, private, and social enterprises. To enable all to serve and lead, Greg advocates for civil rights of oppressed communities.
Greg is the co-founder of Cultural Heritage Partners, the premier law, government affairs, and business strategy firm serving exclusively heritage-mission clients, including governments, professional associations, museums, tribes, preservation organizations, private businesses, families, and individuals. He also founded the aligned leadership consulting firm, the Heritas Group. He is also the founding CEO of ARtGlass, wearable augmented reality company helping cultural sites and museums create mind-bending experiences for visitors.
In the penultimate episode of PreserveCast's special series during the COVID-19 pandemic, we will hear from Jim Lindberg, Senior Policy Director for the National Trust for Historic Preservation who will discuss the ways the goals of preservation are interconnected with those of advocates for issues like the environment, community health, and equitable development.
Collaboration and partnership are a key part of any successful preservation effort and this presentation by Jim Lindberg will explore the importance of this broad coalition to build systems that encourage building reuse. Research across these various fields demonstrates the need to build new rules and unwind entrenched thinking on building communities. The aim to create places that are greener, healthier, and more equitable applies to urban and rural communities alike.
James Lindberg has more than 25 years of experience in historic preservation, planning, and sustainable development. Through his leadership of the National Trust’s Research & Policy Lab and the ReUrbanism initiative for cities, he seeks innovative ways to encourage building reuse and create more inclusive, healthy, and resilient communities.
In this third episode of PreserveCast's special series during the international coronavirus pandemic, we will hear from Dr. Debarati Majumdar "Mimi" Narayan of the Health Impact Project about the impact of historic preservation on the health of our communities and ourselves. As preservation addresses the physical material of our built environment – and those materials’ potential positive or negative health impacts – so too, does preservation address an emotional connection to a time and place in history.
Dr. Narayan's unique research specialty will help us place our preservation work in a broader context, identify challenges, and illuminate solutions for linking historic preservation and healthy communities.
Dr. Mimi Narayan is a Principal Associate at the Health Impact Project, a collaboration of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and The Pew Charitable Trusts. The goal of the national Health Impact Project is to reduce health inequities and improve the health of all people by ensuring that health is a valued consideration in public policy. Dr. Narayan is directing the Project’s strategic initiative that assesses the relationship of climate change and health, and specifically tribal health. The relevant nature of her work and its potential impact on communities has attracted national and international interest and recognition.
As COVID-19 has changed the everyday ways that we interact with each other and our communities, it’s clear that our environment has important physical and psychological effects on us all.
This podcast is part 2 of a five-part special series presented by PreserveCast and powered by Preservation Maryland and includes the audio recording of Dr. Jeremy C. Wells' presentation of this subject at a Preservation Maryland conference in 2016.
Dr. Jeremy C. Wells is an Assistant Professor at the University of Maryland's School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, with a research focus on the ways that people interact with their environment and the ways historic places – their decay and patina – influence their psychological and social health.
Dr. Wells’ research utilizes applied social science methods and presents new approaches for heritage rules, laws, and regulations. In this context of health and behavior, there is additional importance placed on the work of community planning, historic preservation, and evaluating what it is to live a healthy life in a healthy place.
As this current international pandemic has changed the everyday ways that we interact with each other and our communities, it’s clear that our environment has important physical and psychological effects on us all. Preservation addresses the physical material of our built environment – and those materials’ potential positive or negative health impacts – so too, does preservation address an emotional connection to a time and place in history.
This five-part special podcast series, Healthy, Hip & Historic on PreserveCast will feature five preservation visionaries that will place our preservation work in a broader context, identify challenges, and illuminate solutions for linking historic preservation and healthy communities.
Preservation Maryland brought Storm Cunningham, an author whose work is leading the way for partnerships between preservationists and environmentalists, to our annual statewide conference held in 2016 in Frederick, Maryland. Storm Cunningham is the publisher of Revitalization News online, and the author of "The Restoration Economy," "reWealth," and the forthcoming "Planetary Renewal: A Strategy To Reverse Our Decline."
As a regional partnership planner, he has facilitated comprehensive revitalization processes, not just a vision, project or plan which help places enhance their economy, boost the quality of life and increase climate resilience by repurposing, renewing and reconnecting their natural built and socioeconomic assets.
Storm joined our group of preservationists, planners and heritage tourism and museum professionals to show the group how they can think differently about who they partner with and what benefit comes from those partnerships. If we want to make the world a better and more sustainable place, we need to breakdown the silos each discipline has wedge themselves.
One example Storm will share was a potential relationship between “water people” and “solar people.” Instead of saying “we have nothing in common,” think about your goals and how they overlap. “Solar People” want solar panels to make clean energy and “water people” want to get safe and clean water long distances. Water evaporates unless it is covered, so why not cover the water channels with solar panels? This is a win-win. More energy and less water loss.
PreserveCast Log. Star date 97757.16.
Today we’re speaking with Michelle Hanlon, Co-Founder and President of For All Moonkind, Inc., a non-profit focused on protecting human cultural heritage in outer space. We’ll push the limits of the National Register and boldly go where no preservationist has gone before.
We’ve got 20 minutes, so let’s put this podcast on Warp 8 and proceed on this week’s PreserveCast.
Michelle Hanlon is Co-Director of the Air and Space Law Program at the University of Mississippi School of Law and its Center for Air and Space Law. She is also a Co-Founder and President of For All Moonkind, Inc., a nonprofit corporation that is the only organization in the world focused on protecting human cultural heritage in outer space. For All Moonkind has been recognized by the United Nations as a Permanent Observer to the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. Michelle Chairs the International Committee of the National Space Society. She received her B.A. in Political Science from Yale College and her J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center. Michelle earned her LLM in Air and Space Law from McGill University where the focus of her research was commercial space and the intersection of commerce and public law.
With 4.4 million visitors in 2018, the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal is one of America’s most visited national park sites – a linear treasure of 184.5 miles of history, heritage and nature balanced precariously on the edge of the Potomac River as it curves from Georgetown in the District of Columbia to the foothills of the Alleghenies in Cumberland, Maryland.
Today’s guest, Heidi Glatfelter Schlag, is a preservation and heritage communications professional who works with the award-winning Friends group organized to help support, advocate, and fundraise on behalf of this national treasure. The C&O Canal Trust’s innovative and entrepreneurial approach to its work is changing the way visitors interact with the canal and its history.
So, keep your head down as we pass below the low bridges and keep a clear eye for the next lock – we’re headed to the C&O canal!
Start your engines – because on this week’s PreserveCast we’re talking historic cars and the history of the American Automobile with Diane Parker, Vice President of the Historic Vehicle Association. Buckle up and hit the clutch, because you’re listening to a revved-up edition of PreserveCast.
Diane Parker is Vice President of the Historic Vehicle Association (HVA). Surrounded by gear heads from a young age, Diane developed a love and appreciation for vehicles. Since joining the Historic Vehicle Association in 2013, she has combined her love of vehicles with her expertise in operations management. Focusing on the organization’s overall vision, values, beliefs, and strategic goals, Diane is extremely passionate about the organization’s mission to share the cultural past associated with America’s automotive heritage; and to ensure it is never lost nor forgotten.
Two major components of that include Cars at the Capital, their annual exhibition on the National Mall in Washington, DC and, the continued growth of their program that documents historically significant vehicles. That program is the National Historic Vehicle Register. Similar to the Register of Historic Places, and in partnership with the U.S. Department of Interior, the Register program ensures that culturally and historically significant automobiles are fully documented and reside within the Library of Congress in perpetuity.
Nestled in the verdant fields and forests of the Hudson Valley, Saratoga Springs is a historic jewel of New York State – a place where the past is evocative and ever-present. The unique and charming character of Saratoga Springs didn’t happen by accident – like many places it’s the result of dedicated preservationists, like today’s guest, Samantha Bosshart who leads the Saratoga Springs Preservation Foundation. On today’s episode, we’ll talk about preservation work in a small town with the nation’s oldest sports venue. Giddy up; we’re talking horses, houses and history on this week’s PreserveCast.
Samantha Bosshart joined the Saratoga Springs Preservation Foundation in 2008 and under her leadership, the Foundation completed a $750,000 restoration of the Spirit of Life and Spencer Trask Memorial; undertook a comprehensive cultural resource inventory of the Saratoga Race Course, and successfully advocated for the Foundation to review capital improvement projects to ensure the preservation of the historic character of the oldest sports venue in the country.
Prior to leading the Saratoga Springs Preservation Foundation, she held positions at the Historic Albany Foundation and Galveston Historical Foundation. Samantha is a graduate of both Indiana University and Cornell University where she received her Masters of Arts in Historic Preservation Planning.
Few names are as synonymous with the Civil War as Gettysburg. For many Americans, Gettysburg is the Civil War – a touchstone of American history that has captured the imagination and interest of the nation since the battle was fought over 150 years ago. Today’s guest, Barbara Sanders, has worked for the National Park Service at the iconic battlefield for nearly twenty years where she’s helped thousands of young visitors learn about the meaning, value, and importance of this now peaceful field. On this week’s PreserveCast we’re taking a trip back to 1863 to talk about youth education and Civil War history.
Barbara Sanders has been Gettysburg National Military Park's Education Specialist since 1999, where she oversees thousands of students visiting the park each year – whether in-person or on virtual field trips. In addition, the park annually offers professional development opportunities for teachers, classroom loan materials and more. Barbara was the educator on the project team for the planning and construction of the visitor center and museum, which included the concept and design for exhibits, films, and computer interactive elements. Barbara began her career within the museums of Philadelphia, and she then moved to Washington, D.C. to earn a Master of Arts in Teaching degree from The George Washington University’s Museum Education program. She was recently awarded the National Park Service Northeast Region’s Freeman Tilden award which recognizes creativity, advancement, and ingenuity in the field.
As preservationists, we here at PreserveCast are usually concerned with the physical history: what we can know from the cold hard facts in front of us.
But seeing as how it’s October and Halloween is around the corner, we thought we’d talk a little about haunted history.
Author Colin Dickey joined host Nick Redding to talk about the history of ghost stories and share what we can learn from the places that scare us.
If you've ever wondered why American horror stories typically feature an old Victorian mansion or forgotten roadside motel...this episode is for you!
Do you ever wonder how people can write new books about history?
Shouldn’t it never change because it’s all in the past?
The truth is anything but.
No one can explain that better than our guest, Dennis Frye, as we approach the 157th Anniversary of the Battle of Antietam.
Having been involved in everything from giving tours to leading nationally important preservation and battlefield protection organizations, few people know Civil War history like Dennis.
In his recent book, Antietam Shadows: Mystery, Myth & Machination, Dennis makes the case that history should never lie dormant, it always needs to be re-examined, stating, "Historians should always be challenging themselves. They should always be a detective. They should always be mining for new information, and if it completely reverses something that’s conventional, good, good. Throw it out there and let people see it in a different way, in a different manner, in a different light."
Listen in to this episode of PreserveCast to hear from Dennis about his investigative and inclusive approach to historical research on this special re-broadcast in commemoration of the 157th Anniversary of the Battle of Antietam.
Why is it that some communities succeed and others flounder? What draws people into some shops and not others? What makes a great community? Is there a science to revitalizing downtowns and communities? Today’s guest, Heather Arnold, has made a career helping to answer these questions and many more. Grab you calculators and open up a new spreadsheet, because on this week’s PreserveCast we’re taking a deep dive into the science of revitalization and community redevelopment.
Heather Arnold is the principal of research and analysis and managing director of public sector work at Streetsense, a strategy and design collective based in Bethesda, MD. In this role, Heather specializes in retail market analysis, incentive planning, and merchandising for downtown environments. With over 20 years of experience, she has made incredible strides toward shaping urban commercial landscapes and increasing access to opportunities in underserved neighborhoods. In this pursuit, she has been a catalyst for meaningful change — from repositioning malls toward active uses to creating community where surface parking once dominated.
With an expert eye toward the development and implementation of retail solutions, Heather brings data-driven strategy to communities in need.
Saving the historic fabric of America's national parks is a massive job, and it requires a wide range of skills. Teaching those skills, and passing down the historic trades within the National Park Service is the responsibility of the National Historic Preservation Training Center. Established in 1977, and headquartered in Frederick, Maryland, the center is the Parks Service's premier preservation training center.
Today's guest, Moss Rudely, is the superintendent of the center and a historic mason by training. And in 2018, Preservation Maryland signed an agreement with the center to launch a new initiative, The Campaign for Historic Trades, which is designed to expand the Center's apprenticeship program. So grab your safety goggles and hammer because, on this week's PreserveCast, we're talking about the role of this unique Center and their efforts to train America's next generation of historic tradespeople.
Moss Rudley is a native of Greenbrier County, West Virginia, where he was raised on a working cattle farm filled with historic vernacular structures. He was first exposed to the trades and the field of historic preservation through the care of hand-hewn log structures of the Scots-Irish and German. A graduate of Shepherd University in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, he has been with the National Park Service’s Historic Preservation Training Center since 2000. A historic mason by training, after over 17 years with the Center he was promoted to Superintendent in 2017.
Few names over the past twenty plus years have been as synonymous with the National Trust for Historic Preservation as David J. Brown. David served as the Chief Preservation Officer for the Trust and has worked with several CEOs to implement a complex, difficult and costly mission to save America’s historic places. As David has recently departed the Trust and begins writing his next chapter, we had a chance to sit down with this influential preservationist to talk about where he’s been and where he’s headed on this week’s PreserveCast.
David J. Brown led National Trust’s comprehensive preservation efforts, with four decades of experience in working to save historic places and build thriving, livable communities. He played a key oversight role in the implementation of the National Trust’s Preservation10X strategic vision, including the National Treasure campaigns that helps protect some of America’s most significant and threatened historic places. He guided the Trust’s advocacy work on behalf of the country’s most important preservation laws and incentives. And he supported local preservation leadership by providing the preservation community with effective, high-impact training offerings.
Prior to his work with the National Trust, David served as the founding executive director of the Preservation Alliance of Virginia, where he produced one of the nation’s first studies on the economic impact of preservation, and as director of the Historic Staunton Foundation in Virginia. He was among the first graduates of the Historic Preservation Program at Middle Tennessee State University and has a Masters in Planning from the Georgia Institute of Technology.
When you think of industrial furnaces you may think of the late 19th or early 20th centuries and places like Baltimore, Buffalo, and Pittsburgh. But, the history of American industry goes back much further – and one of the earliest industrial sites in Maryland is located in the foothills of Frederick County at the Catoctin Furnace.
Today’s guest, Elizabeth Comer, a professional archaeologist, is a member of the Board of the Catoctin Furnace Historical Society – an organization dedicated to preserving and interpreting this unique story. Elizabeth is instrumental in coordinating the Historical Society's Historic Building Trades Program in partnership with Silver Oak Academy, a residential boarding school for at-risk teens overseen by the State of Maryland Department of Juvenile Services. Participating students learn valuable construction skills while working alongside preservation experts gaining marketable real-world job skills that attract potential employers in preservation, conservation, museums, and the trades – or may even inspire students to start their own company. The partnership between the Catoctin Furnace Historical Society and Silver Oak Academy embodies the mythology of the phoenix rising from the ashes as the symbol of renewed life for both the historic buildings and the young people who take part in their preservation.
Make sure you have your blast shields down...we’re headed into the furnace on this week’s PreserveCast.
This week’s guest has used social media and Marylanders love for our quirky state flag to build an apparel brand from the ground up. Ali von Paris took a dorm room project and turned it into a career – and has used state pride as the backbone for that endeavor. We’ll explore that story and its fascinating intersection with history and the lessons it may hold for preservationists around the nation on this week’s PreserveCast.
Chicago's Glessner House is a National Historic Landmark that was designed by noted American architect Henry Hobson Richardson and completed in 1887 for John Glessner and Frances Glessner. The structure served as an inspiration to architects such as Louis Sullivan, Mies van Der Rohe, and the young Frank Lloyd Wright and helped redefine domestic architecture.
On this week’s PreserveCast, we’re talking to Glessner House’s Executive Director and Curator Bill Tyre about the unique design and residents of this house including, Frances Glessner Lee, daughter of John and Frances Glessner. Lee was the first female police captain in the United States, likely the inspiration for Jessica Fletcher in Murder, She Wrote, and is known as “the mother of forensic science.” Her series of extremely detailed dioramas, “Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death,” influenced investigative training for many years. The dioramas were recently featured in an exhibition at the Smithsonian’s Renwick Gallery in 2018. The Glessner House will host a Birthday Gala in honor of Lee later this month at which her meticulously detailed miniature model of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra will be on display for the first time in six years.
Bill Tyre is the Executive Director and Curator at Glessner House Museum. He’s one of just three full-time staff members who manage and maintain one of Chicago’s most famous homes. Glessner House was saved thanks to preservation efforts that resulted in the formation of both the house museum and Chicago Architecture Center in 1966.
For many PreserveCast listeners, Illinois may only mean Chicago and the hustle and bustle of the second city – but Illinois is a massive state with a rich and stunning diversity of heritage. It’s a big job to advocate for and preserve that heritage and Landmarks Illinois, founded in 1971, is in a race against time to help the people of Illinois save places that matter. Landmarks Illinois’ President and CEO Bonnie McDonald is today’s guest – a leader in the field who is blending economic and real estate development with historic preservation in new and intriguing ways. It’s time to talk preservation prairie style on this episode of PreserveCast.
This is also our 101st episode – and we’re changing the format slightly today to offer a brief retrospective on what we’ve learned about ourselves and preservation over the past 100 episodes – and to talk about where we’re headed moving forward...
If you’ve enjoyed these past 100 episodes, we hope you’ll consider making a year-end gift to offset our significant expenses in bringing you this content. Think of us as your Preservation Netflix – even a one-time $20 gift would go a long way! You can make a simple online donation to Preservation Maryland at presmd.org and hit the DONATE button in the upper right corner.
It takes a village to make a preservation project a reality – and in today’s complex financial environment it also takes an expert in tax credit law to take a project from idea to completion. Today’s guest, Bill MacRostie is one of the nation’s leading experts in that complex but critical field. Sharpen your pencil and grab you calculator, because we’re talking the dollars and cents of preservation on this week’s PreserveCast.
In private practice for more than 30 years, Bill MacRostie has advised clients nationwide on projects ranging in size and type from the multi-phased $175 million mixed-use project in Detroit, Michigan to a $1.5 million hotel rehabilitation in Santa Rosa, California. For the 14 years that NPS certification project review was conducted in regional offices, Bill worked extensively in every regional office and most major states around the country.
Bill MacRostie is now a senior partner at MacRostie Historic Advisors where he advises clients on historic rehabilitation tax credit design and regulatory issues. In addition, he also serves on the board of directors of the National Housing & Rehabilitation Association and previously served on the board of Preservation Action.
Historic places and resources come in all shapes and sizes. On Maryland’s eastern shore, the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum preserves and restores a wide variety of historic resources – including historic boats and ships. Today’s guest, Pete Lesher, the chief curator of the museum is assisting in the latest restoration project of the 1882 Chesapeake Bay nine-log bugeye Edna E. Lockwood. You don’t know what a bugeye is? Well batten down the hatches and check your port and starboard as we set sail for this week’s PreserveCast.
Pete Lesher is chief curator at Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum, where he has served on staff since 1991 and now oversees museum collections, exhibitions, and programs. He graduated Lafayette College, holds an MA in history from Columbia University, and studied maritime history at Mystic Seaport’s summer Munson Institute for American Maritime Studies.
Active in his community, Pete is a member of the Talbot County Council, chairs the St. Michaels Historic District Commission, and serves on the boards of the Maryland Humanities Council, Council of American Maritime Museums, and Maryland Heritage Areas Authority. In his spare time he sails, taking particular pleasure in his role as jib tender on the 1882 Chesapeake Bay sailing log canoe Island Bird.
Do you enjoy international travel, historic buildings, and helping to restore important places? This week’s guest works to connect those interests through her work as Executive Director of Restoration Works International, an organization whose mission is to restore buildings of cultural significance and provide cultural exchange and understanding. Make sure you have your passport ready and lock that tray table in the upright position – we’re headed overseas this week to talk international preservation on PreserveCast!
Melanie Lytle is the Executive Director of Restoration Works International, an organization which uses national and international volunteer tourism as the catalyst for its mission to help communities around the world protect their cultural heritage sites and prosper through preservation and renewal of their history. A trained architectural historian, prior to her current position, she served as the Executive Director of the non-profit Maryland Association of Historic District Commissions. Melanie is a graduate of Goucher College's MA in Historic Preservation program.
Old Sturbridge Village in Massachusetts, like Colonial Williamsburg to the south, is now historic in its own right. Founded in 1946, the 72-year old museum has told the story of the early federal period for nearly five decades – and like any institution of its size and scope – it is working hard to adapt to a new reality. Fortunately, CEO James Donohue is focused on making the site relevant for a new generation. Sit back as we head back to 1830 to learn how this old site is coming up with new ideas on this week’s PreserveCast.
Food is a powerful tool for building relationships, warming the soul, and providing comfort. Food can also tell us a lot about a culture – and can tell us a lot about our history. For foodways historian Joyce White, historic food is not only her passion, it’s also her career.
Warm up something tasty as we talk historic food on this week’s PreserveCast.
Joyce White is a foodways historian operating A Taste of History with Joyce White, offering food history PowerPoint presentations with tastings on a variety of topics. Joyce is also the foodways consultant to the ca. 1801 Riversdale House Museum in Riverdale Park, Maryland, was the consultant for the restoration of the 18th century kitchen at Annapolis’s William Paca House, and was the guest curator for the Maryland State Exhibit for the Southern Food & Beverage Museum in New Orleans.
Historic Preservation and Smart Growth are cut from the same cloth – and a interconnected in a variety of important ways. When we grow smart, we revitalize historic communities and keep from sprawling outward.
It’s a message that Preservation Maryland has been making for years – but in the past several months the organization has become much more serious about this issue following its merger with 1000 Friends of Maryland, the statewide smart growth organization.
Kimberly Golden Brandt, the former Executive Director of 1000 Friends now heads up Smart Growth Maryland, a campaign of Preservation Maryland.
On this week’s PreserveCast we’ll learn why the organizations merged and what it could mean for the future of Maryland.
Towny Anderson has over 40 years of experience with historic preservation. He has restored historic properties first as craftsman, then contractor, and later developer and owner. He was an independent scholar, cum laude graduate of Middlebury College and attended the Preservation Leadership Training program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Anderson served as Vermont’s first appointed State Historic Preservation Officer, as a Director of the National Conference of State Historic Preservation Officers and as Chair of the Vermont Historic Preservation Advisory Council. He is a Senior Fellow of the American Leadership Forum. Anderson co-wrote groundbreaking statewide legislation encouraging reinvestment in Vermont’s historic downtowns. He was a founding board member of MainStreet Steamboat Springs. Two of his certified historic rehabilitation projects received National Trust Preservation Honor awards. Appointed Executive Director of HistoriCorps in August 2012, Towny Anderson is bringing together everything he loves about historic preservation – buildings, people, beautiful places, and education.
If you work in historic preservation long enough, inevitably the question comes up, "Do you believe in ghosts?" For today’s guest, Mindie Burgoyne, she’s made a career of telling those stories as a travel writer, blogger, author, and most famously, a tour operator.
Her focus is traveling within the context of a story to the mystical places that stir the mind and spirit. Her tour company has three subsidiaries: Chesapeake Ghost Walks, a cluster of ten regional ghost walks on the Eastern Shore of Maryland; Thin Places Mystical Tours, which hosts annual tours and travel services to sacred, off-the-beaten path destinations in Ireland; and Travel Hag Adventures, "a travel club for girlfriends."
In this episode, Nick and Mindie discuss how she began hosting ghost tours both domestically and abroad. You will learn: a creative approach to marketing history and preservation to non-preservationists; how to maintain historic integrity while sharing local lore and ghost stories, how to combat negative perceptions of the paranormal within the field of preservation, the difference between educating and conjuring, and if Mindie actually believes in ghosts herself.
So leave the light on or risked getting spooked on this year's PreserveCast Spooktacular.
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The Eastern Shore Land Conservancy is truly a renaissance organization. With a proud history of land conservation, the conservancy also operates the Center for Towns, a program focused on the health and sustainability of the Eastern Shore’s historic communities. Most recently, one of the organization's projects has been selected as one of Preservation Maryland's Six-to-Fix projects for 2019. In this episode, Nick speaks to Katie Parks White, the vice-president of conservation for the Conservancy to learn about this exciting adaptive reuse project at the historic Phillips Packing Plant project in Cambridge, Maryland.
In this episode you will learn: how to foster economic growth in a historically rural community without adding intrusive development; how to engage a community into revitalization efforts; how to conserve land and maintain cultural landscapes amid rising pressures to grow from surrounding metropolitan areas.
Grab a pail and dig into the agricultural and industrial history of Maryland's Eastern Shore on this episode of PreserveCast!
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Reflection of the term "cultural landscapes" conjures up sweeping images of natural wonders and vast landscapes. More specifically, it refers to the historic and contemporary interventions we have made upon those landscapes.
Today’s guest, Dr. John Sprinkle, is the Bureau Historian for the National Park Service’s Park History Program. Recently, he has written Saving Spaces: Historic Land Conservation in the United States, which details efforts to preserve significant land and structures. The book explores how the places we preserve reflect our cultural, societal, and generational values.
Today Nick and Dr. Sprinkle discuss what spurred his exploration of historic land conservation. In this episode you will learn: a cross-examination of preservation cannon, conventions, and practices; why there is seemingly pervasive disconnect between preservationists and cemetery preservation; the history of open space conservation that operated during the era of Urban Renewal; and a surprising anniversary on this day in history. So get ready to dig deep into the history of American historic preservation on this week’s PreserveCast!
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While national and state preservation groups may grab the headlines, preservation is truly won and lost at the local level. It’s the grassroots advocates and volunteers working in communities across the nation who are accomplishing the challenging work of preserving historic places. Today’s guest, Carrie Albee, is leading the efforts of Frederick County Landmarks, a group charged with preservation in one of Maryland’s largest and most historic counties.
Today, Nick and Carrie discuss future plans for the Beatty-Cramer House, which dates back to 1732! It is a rare survivor of early colonial vernacular building tradition, displaying a merging of Dutch, English, and early American carpentry techniques.
Recently, Preservation Maryland's Six-to-Fix program has selected the organization's Beatty-Cramer House as one of the six focus projects for 2018.
In this episode you will learn:how grassroots advocacy actually garners real, triumphant results; the benefits of living in a historically rural community; the issues rural communities face from encroaching sprawl from greater metropolitan areas; the challenges associated with deciding a new use for an culturally-significant historic house; and how to build hype and community excitement around an emerging historic site. Get ready to preserve local on this week's PreserveCast!
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Virginia’s Piedmont is a magical place filled with rich, verdant farmland and the Shenandoah National Park. Protecting a place this large and special is no simple task. Fortunately, the Piedmont Environmental Council has been on the job since 1972 and has preserved hundreds of thousands of acres of land. Recently, they’ve launched a new historic preservation initiative to connect the influx of new residents to historic places throughout Virginia. Today’s guest, Kristie Kendall is leading that initiative.
Kristie is no stranger to landscape preservation. While growing up in Fairfax County, Virginia, she watched the obliteration of important farmland and historical sites near her home. It was then that she learned the importance of protecting land. While earning her Master's degree as a former employee of the American Battlefield Protection Program in Washington, D.C., Kristie has advocated for the preservation of significant battlefield landscapes across the country.
Today, she leads outreach initiatives to build connections between the growing number of new, international residents in Virginia to the state's historic places and parks.
This week, Nick and Kristie discuss the challenges associated with preserving historic landscapes in a rapidly changing world. You will learn: the importance of protecting natural and historical landscapes beyond the physical boundaries of a national park; how the PEC defeated a proposal for major land development and disruption from a mega media giant; and how to engage communities of residents that may not have historical ties to historical places
Gather round, we’re sharing the secrets to community building within historic spaces on this week’s PreserveCast!
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Reusing and restoring historic places requires many specialized skill sets. For historic theaters and music venues, a major component in that process is making the space sound right. It’s no easy task and for today’s guest, Professor Ian Hoffman, it’s a job that has taken him across the globe.
Ian is an architect and acoustic designer. His career is focused on understanding the interactions of sound and space in the built environment. For over 25 years, Ian has made significant contributions to the design, renovation, adaptation, and restoration of buildings for music, theater performance, and assembly.
Ian is also a faculty member in acoustics at the Johns Hopkins' Peabody Institute. The courses he teaches range from architectural acoustic design and analysis, acoustic measurement, acoustic modeling, noise control, and psychoacoustics.
Today Nick and Ian discuss the challenges of incorporating modern sound into historic spaces while still maintaining its visual charm.
In this episode you will learn: what an acoustician is and what they do; the intersections of music, engineering, and architecture in historic spaces; the challenges that come with incorporating contemporary sound while maintaining the nostalgic charm in historic theaters, former vaudeville houses, and music venues; and why we still attend live concerts, shows, and plays even though we have easy access to digital recordings
So listen closely, we’re talking historic acoustics on this week’s PreserveCast!
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The term "policy" is usually associated with facts, figures, and dry, boring statistics. Today’s guest, Renee Kuhlman, proves that association wrong.
In her 19 years at the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Renee has provided advocacy training, written articles, and briefs on policy issues, and has worked with preservationists around the country to effect real and meaningful change. As the current Director of Policy Outreach, Renee has been assisting legislators and advocates across the country with the adoption, expansion, and protection of state-level and federal-level historic rehabilitation tax credit programs.
Most recently, she has been involved in a multi-year campaign to protect historic tax credits, which are some of the most important tools available to the preservation community. Renee also works on a campaign to enact dedicated funding for the maintenance of historic resources in our national parks.
In this episode, Nick and Renee discuss: what a historic tax credit is and why you should care; the deconstruction of negative myths surrounding historic tax credits and how they benefit communities; how real estate developers and you can benefit from both federal and state-level historic tax credits; the role local grassroots organizations played in saving federal historic tax credits last year; resources you can access to advocate for; and how to improve or increase your state's historic tax credits; and how our national parks hold more than just beautiful outdoor scenery/
As you can see, it's not just all stats and figures on this week's episode of PreserveCast!
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Ellicott City, Maryland is a place that exudes authenticity. It has been flooded repeatedly, traipsed over by Civil War soldiers, and stained by locomotive smoke. Unfortunately, the most recent floods have resulted in local officials calling to demolish large portions of the historic district, a move that could set a terrible precedent here in Maryland and beyond.
Today’s guest, Mary Catherine Cochran is working to stop that plan and to find a way to balance life, history, and safety. As a Howard County native and lifelong preservationist, Mary Catherine co-founded Preservation Howard County and has served as the executive director of the Patapsco Heritage Greenway. In recognition of her work, she was inducted into the Howard County Women's Hall of Fame in 2017.
As a tireless defender of Ellicott City, Mary Catherine is working in partnership with a grassroots collective of supporters and larger organizations like Preservation Maryland to defeat a new proposal that would demolish large portions of this historic town.
In this episode, Nick and Mary discuss:
- the importance of making science-based decisions to mitigate flooding in an age of climate change
- ways to engage a community that has been traumatized with the physical and the financial losses of their businesses
- the challenges associated with public acquisition of private businesses located in historic buildings
- how to contact the Howard County Council to voice your opinion on saving this community
Grab your hard hats and get to work with Nick and Mary on this week's episode of PreserveCast!
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For today’s guest, heading back to the eighteenth century is a daily occurrence and a requirement. Karen Theimer Brown is the vice-president of preservation at Historic Annapolis, a non-profit organization tasked with protecting, preserving and interpreting the history of Maryland’s capital city. Founded in 1649, Annapolis remains one of the most authentic and intact colonial towns in all of America.
For Karen and her colleagues at Historic Annapolis, it’s a full-time job to protect that authenticity from rising tides and pressure to grow. Grab you Old Bay and get your crab mallet ready. We’re headed to Naptown to talk preservation’s past and future on this week's PreserveCast.
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Preservationists often wear many hats across a variety of fields. Today's guest is no exception. Steph McDougal is a preservation renaissance figure – working as a preservation consultant, authoring books about Texas architecture, and volunteering her time to serve her community and to save historic dance halls throughout the Lone Star State. Not only is Steph the founder of McDoux Preservation, a data and community-driven historic preservation consulting practice based in Houston, she is also the co-founder and current board president of Texas Dance Hall Preservation, Inc. She acts as a facilitator of community engagement, which connects Texas' historic social dance clubs to today's current community. Her mission is to stabilize, preserve, and reinvent new, sustainable uses for the most iconic vernacular architecture deep in the heart of Texas.
Get ready to boot scoot and two step across Texas' rich dance hall history with Steph and Nick on this week's PreserveCast!
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In Maryland the land across the Chesapeake Bay, the Eastern Shore, is a place rich in history. The landscape itself oozes history and speaks in many voices for those willing to listen. Dorchester County, founded in 1669, is one of the Shores’ most historic places most famous for its connection to Harriet Tubman.
This week’s guest Amanda Fenstermaker works tirelessly to market, advocate and protect her native county’s history – and the results are showing as the county is quickly becoming a major tourist destination for those interested in learning about our nation’s African-American history.
Join us this week for a journey to the Eastern Shore, a teaser for a real road trip you’ll certainly want to make on your own very soon.
Underwater archaeology holds a special place in historic preservation. Dramatic, risky, cold, and murky are all words that come to mind. But for the stalwart archaeologists of the United States Naval History and Heritage Command it’s not just about finding history. It’s also about protecting the 242 year legacy of the United States Navy. Dr. Robert Neyland, the head of the Navy’s Underwater Archaeology Branch, is leading that effort and has worked on some of the nation’s most famous underwater projects, including the iconic H.L. Hunley in Charleston, South Carolina. Get ready for a deep dive into the world of naval underwater archaeology on this week’s PreserveCast.
The World War I fighter ace Eddie Rickenbacker once wrote that, “Aviation is proof that given the will, we have the capacity to achieve the impossible.” Today’s guest, Andrea Cochrane Tracey, is leading the effort to preserve and interpret the College Park Aviation Museum, a place that tells that story of conquering the impossible just a few miles from our nation’s capital. The museum is a 27,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art facility located on the grounds of the world's oldest continuously operating airport in College Park, Maryland. It was founded in 1909 when Wilbur Wright arrived in Maryland to give flight instruction to the first military aviators.
Make sure you tray table is in the upright and locked position as we fly full speed into the past on this week's episode of PreserveCast.
Savannah, Georgia, often conjures up visions of elegant mansions shrouded by graceful Spanish moss clinging to the branches of towering live oaks. But that vision isn't always a given. It is a daily fight to protect the city’s historic character from the ravages of time and being loved to death by throngs of tourists every year. Fortunately, Daniel Carey is leading the effort at the Historic Savannah Foundation to maintain an authentic experience for tourists of the city as well as keeping it affordable and maintaining its charm for its native residents. Learn how Daniel is promoting slow rise revitalization efforts as well as developing a sustainable approach to tourism management in this week's episode of PreserveCast!
https://www.preservecast.org/2018/07/30/keeping-historic-savannah-authentic-with-daniel-carey/
Historic preservation without tradespeople is just theory. That's why today's guest, Matt Hankins, is so important.
Matt is a talented and experienced preservation carpenter and shop supervisor at Worcester Eisenbrandt, the leading historic property renovation and restoration firm in the Mid-Atlantic region. He has spent years learning how to restore historic places using traditional methods. In this episode, we discuss the trades, jobs, and the future of these critical skills in this week's hands-on version of PreserveCast!
Enjoy this re-release of episode 24 from our archives as PreserveCast takes a quick summer break. Explore roaside architecture along Maryland's historic Route One with our executive producer Aaron Marcavitch in "Diners, Dueling Grounds, and Dives." Sit back, listen up, and relax while we return with a new episode soon.
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2017/06/19/aaron-marcavitch-roadside-architecture-and-the-anacostia-trails-heritage-area/
Route One was once America’s thoroughfare, built over the older Quebec-Miami International Highway and the Atlantic Highway. A decent stretch of this old road falls under the purview of Aaron Marcavitch, the Executive Director of Maryland’s Anacostia Trails Heritage Area and this week’s guest. Aaron is an advocate for the preservation of roadside architecture, ranging from diners that predate the highway system to an old Woolworth’s. This is all in addition to his work preserving communities and buildings throughout his area, including an old dueling ground just north of Washington D.C. Roll down the window and put your feet on the dash, this is PreserveCast.
We've melted! Nope, we're just taking a quick summer vacation. We are re-releasing an earlier episode of PreserveCast with Dr. Susan Langley. She has one of the coolest jobs around as an underwater archaeologist, so dive in and we will back soon with a new episode of PreserveCast.
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2017/01/23/dr-susan-langley-maryland-state-underwater-archaeologist-mallows-bay/
Archaeology that's nautical? Highly illogical! In this episode Nick gets to know Dr. Susan Langley, THE Maryland State Underwater Archaeologist. Nick and Susan discuss her work at Mallows Bay, the Maryland bay that is home to the largest ship graveyard in the Western Hemisphere, as well as plenty more as PreserveCast takes a trip under the sea!
Just last week, the National Trust for Historic Preservation announced its annual list of the 11 Most Endangered Historic Places in America. Two of these eleven sites are located in Maryland! Since Preservation Maryland is the host of PreserveCast, this news hit close to home, quite literally.
The historic waterfront of Annapolis and George Washington’s historic view at Mount Vernon in Maryland have received proposals to undergo altered landscapes. Listen in as Nick and Meagan discuss the impact and opportunities of such listings and early efforts already underway to address these challenges head on.
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2018/07/02/americas-11-most-endangered-historic-places/
New Orleans. The Big Easy. The City that Care Forgot. It’s a place with few equals in history, architecture or culture. Protecting and preserving a place this significant is difficult and never-ending work. Fortunately, the Preservation Resource Center has been committed to doing just that for 44 years. Today’s guest, Daniel Del Sol, is the Executive Director of the Center and she came into leadership during a time of tremendous challenges and opportunities – all of which we’ll talk about on today’s episode. So, sit back, find a cool breeze, grab a Sazerac and get ready to talk preservation with a New Orleans twist on this week’s PreserveCast.
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2018/06/25/keeping-nola-hip-and-historic-with-danielle-del-sol/
Buffalo. The very word conjures up visions of snow drifts and shuttered factories –but the reality is much different. Today, Buffalo is a city on the rise and the rich history of this city by the lake is playing a starring role in its renaissance. Today’s guest, Jessie Fisher, is leading the city-wide preservation group charged with identifying, protecting and promoting that heritage. Fortunately, you won’t need your snow shovels for this interview -- its June and it’s a fine time to talk about all things Buffalo on this week’s PreserveCast.
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2018/06/18/preservation-buffalo-style/
Not all preservationists are environmentalists and not all environmentalists are preservationists – but today’s guest is, in fact, both. Kristen Harbeson is the Political Director of the Maryland League of Conservation Voters – the political voice of the environment. She’s a tireless advocate for healthy communities and has made a career in standing up for issues that matter – and while she’s currently fighting for a healthier earth, she’s also been a passionate voice for preservation. Kristen will explain how and why the environmental and preservation communities can play better together and how that might just save the world on this week’s PreserveCast.
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2018/06/11/kristen-harbeson-and-the-environmental-side-of-preservation/
Do you ever wonder how people can write new books about history? Shouldn’t it never change because it’s all in the past? The truth is anything but, and no one can explain that better than today’s guest, Dennis Frye. Having been involved in everything from giving tours to leading nationally important preservation and battlefield protection organizations, few people know Civil War History like Dennis. And in his new book, Antietam Shadows, he makes the case that history should never lie dormant, it always needs to be re-examined. Join as Nick and Dennis talk about Dennis’ new book, highlights from his career in preservation, and more on this week’s PreserveCast.
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2018/06/04/antietam-shadows-dennis-frye-history-we-think-we-know/
What do you think it takes for a historic location to be listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site? This week’s guest, Brittany LaVelle Tulla, thinks that her home and her passion, Charleston, South Carolina, has what it takes. Join Nick as he and Brittany talk all things historic preservation in one of the most famous historic towns in the country, including Brittany’s own business as an architectural historian, her work with the Charleston Young Preservationists, and the dynamic and unique challenges facing a town that many see as a total preservation success. This is PreserveCast!
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2018/05/28/brittany-lavelle-tulla-historic-charleston/
Living in a historic home can be an incredibly rewarding experience, but also, an incredibly trying one. It seems there is always some new challenge rising up out of the woodwork, especially when it comes to original wood windows. Some professionals will say the only way to improve the efficiency of your windows is to replace them, no matter if you want to preserve craftsmanship that’s lasted decades, if not centuries. Today’s guest, Sam Pardue of Indow Windows, was faced with just that problem, and he ended up creating a solution that is now being applied to windows across the country. As part of Preservation Month, we want to bring you up close and personal with a technological innovator and his invention. Step right up to the glass on this week’s PreserveCast!
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2018/05/21/keeping-original-windows-sam-pardue-indow/
The British Royal Wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle is just around the corner. It’s a historic moment, and the buzz around it has even crossed the pond and reach PreserveCast. The excitement has also provided us the perfect reason to talk to a true Baltimore Original, Philp Baty. Philip has spent years curating a private collection of items all related to Baltimore’s own member of the royal family, the Duchess of Windsor. We got to Philip just in time, as the one-of-a-kind collection is being put to auction in conjunction with the marriage of Harry and Meghan. Philip’s passion for the Duchess is also one-of-a-kind, on this special Royal Wedding edition of PreserveCast.
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2018/05/14/baltimore-royal-family-duchess-of-windsor-collection-adele-corner-house/
Talking about museums is one thing, but what about the folks on the ground who really make the history happen? Rod Cofield is our guest this week, and while currently the Director of Hisoric London Town and Gardens, he has been on the frontlines of history education his whole career. Rod and Nick spoke about his time as a costumed interpreter in Historic St. Mary’s City, and the many current projects at London Town including their plans to crowdfund reconstruction of the 18th century bar that once stood in the tavern building on site. This is no re-enactment, Rod was right here in studio with us, on PreserveCast.
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2018/05/07/rod-cofield-historic-london-town-maryland/
Preservationists come in all shapes and sizes, but have you ever heard of a preservationist cut-out doll? Today’s guest, Sarah Marsom, is a jack of all trades in terms of historic preservation. She’s a consultant, she’s a co-founder of the Rust Belt Coalition of Young Preservationists, and to top it all off she created the Tiny Activist Project, which raises funds through the sale of dolls that celebrate inspirational figures in preservation, like Jane Jacobs. Sarah and I cover all these programs and more. Stick around for a ~little~ while, on this week’s PreserveCast!
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2018/04/30/sarah-marsom-and-the-rust-belt-coalition-of-young-preservationists/
For some of the larger historic buildings out there, it can take a number of craftspeople and specialists to properly restore and preserve them. But few have the knowledge and ability to organize stone masons, window craftsmen, and countless other trade specialists who may otherwise be used to working independently. One of those few is with us today; Tyler Tate is the President of Lewis Contractors, a construction company that partially specializes in historic institutional buildings. Tyler spoke with Nick about details of some of the many unique projects his company has been involved in, like the Washington Monument in Baltimore, the Brice House in Annapolis, and more. We won’t try to ~build~ anticipation any longer, this is PreserveCast!
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2018/04/23/big-picture-preservation-tyler-tate-lewis-contractors/
As the winter comes to a close, you may find yourself dreaming of some relaxation time. Sure there’s the beach or camping, but have you ever considered a trip where you can help repair 500 year old stone towers in Eastern Europe? If your answer to that question is yes, this is the podcast for you. Judith Broeker, the co-founder of Adventures in Preservation, facilitates volunteer trips across the globe, connecting preservation craftspeople and experts with individuals who are ready and willing to lend a hand, and travel too! Judith and Nick discuss how these trips are funded, how projects are chosen, and the ways that these trips can assist historic communities, on this week's PreserveCast!
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2018/04/16/adventures-in-preservation/
As historic preservationists we often can feel a sense of despair whenever we see a building that's been abandoned for years or even decades. Our guest today, Matthew Christopher of Abandoned America, knows just that feeling. That's why he is dedicated to gaining access to abandoned buildings and spaces across the country, and photographing what he finds inside. Matthew's images have appeared in countless esteemed publications, and he has photographed abandoned sites ranging from old mental hospitals to public utility buildings to theme parks. Don't go away! Matthew and Nick discuss how he picks his sites, why he thinks these buildings end up so mistreated, and how photography and greater exposure can sometimes help turn things around.
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2018/04/09/abandoned-america-historic-photography-off-the-beaten-path-with-matthew-christopher/
It can happen to anybody; you’re walking along and notice a quarter on the ground, and when you pick it up you realize it’s historic! From the 1950’s or even earlier! It can make you wonder what history lies just beneath the surface. Well today’s guest, Lara Maiklem, does more than just wonder. Lara, also known as the London Mudlark, spends her time scouring the muddy banks of the foreshore of the River Thames, in England, constantly uncovering everyday discarded items that wash up from the river. That is, when she’s not busy moderating the largest online mudlarking community, and writing about the pieces she’s found. Join as Nick and Lara discuss the history of mudlarking, what it takes to try it out yourself, and more on this week’s PreserveCast!
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2018/04/02/the-london-mudlark-with-lara-maiklem/
Simply tracing the history of the LGBTQ community, as it is with other marginalized groups, can be challenging for a myriad of reasons. Let alone the challenges of identifying and interpreting historic places that were and are important to the LGBTQ community. Fortunately, Susan Ferentinos is leading the way, and has quite literally written the book on the subject, her book “Interpreting LGBT History at Museums and Historic Sites” won an award from the National Council on Public History in 2016. Susan and our guest-host Meagan Baco spoke about how she came to specialize in LGBTQ history, what unique challenges exist in studying this history, and much more on this week’s PreserveCast.
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2018/03/26/episode-64-preserving-lgbtq-history-susan-ferentinos/
If you’ve ever seen an image of the skyline of Baltimore City, one thing that might have stuck with you is the massive, glowing Domino Sugars sign. Earlier this month we at PreserveCast got to visit the sugar refinery underneath that sign, which to this day processes some 7 million pounds of sugar a day. We also visited the offices of Triangle Sign and Service, the company that has maintained the sign since they first installed it in 1951. Join the conservation between Nick, and guests Peter O’Malley, Vice-President of Corporate Relations for American Sugar Refining (the company that produces the Domino brand), and Joe Trabert and Dave Shapiro from Triangle Signs, about how and why this local icon has lasted so long, and what it takes to maintain it. Honestly, it was pretty sweet.
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2018/03/19/the-domino-sugars-sign-live-from-triangle-signs/
If you’ve ever wanted to dive deeper into classic fairy tales, you may have enjoyed Maryland’s once famous attraction the Enchanted Forest. But what happens to all of the buildings and unique concrete structures of a 1950s amusement park when it closes? In this case, they found a second life as part of Clark’s Elioak Farm, thanks to the efforts of the petting farm’s owner, Martha Clark, as well as the many who volunteered. Stick around to learn about the history of this Maryland icon, the story of a roadside attraction being saved by the community around it, and what it takes to maintain a massive concrete shoe. This is better than a bag of magic beans, this is PreserveCast!
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2018/03/12/the-enchanted-forest-at-clarks-elioak-farm/
In Berea, Kentucky, the local government has taken stock of the town's historic artistry and crafting traditions, decided to invest, and the craziest part? It seems to be working. Mayor Steven Connelly joined Nick to share some of the unique history of his town, for instance how they pushed back against segregationist policies of the Jim Crow South, and he shared news of what will hopefully be a bright future driven by tourism based on the local folk art heritage.
Also, just so you know, this is episode is brought to you in partnership with the Rural Maryland Council, as we explore historic rural communities on this week's PreserveCast!
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2018/03/05/berea-kentucky-gateway-to-the-mountains-and-to-the-arts/
You’ve probably heard of Andrew Carnegie or the Rockefeller family, but have you heard of Julius Rosenwald? Today’s guest may be able to help with that. Aviva Kempner is a Peabody award winning documentary filmmaker, whose work focuses on unsung heroes from Jewish history. I spoke with Aviva about her most recent work which details the life of Julius Rosenwald, who during the turn of the century both revolutionized the business of Sears and Roebuck, and vastly influenced black education in the Jim Crow South with his philanthropy.
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2018/02/26/the-rosenwald-schools-with-aviva-kempner/
If you think about history in Washington, D.C. you'll probably think about all the massive monuments and national museums. While there's nothing wrong with that, D.C. has local history and culture just like any city, and few places capture that history like the Heurich House Museum. Kim Bender and Jennifer Ezell joined Nick from the unique, Germanic castle-house, that was built by a pre-prohibition beer dynasty. They talked about the history of the museum, as well as how they combine historical knowledge and the modern world of craft brewing in their programming. It's not all about beer, but please remember to podcast responsibly on this episode of PreserveCast.
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2018/02/19/kim-bender-jennifer-ezell-the-brewmasters-castle-the-heurich-house-museum/
At first glance, it might seem strange to think of an archaeologist working in a state’s highway administration office. But in reality the two can go hand in hand. Julie Schablitsky has conducted archaeological research and digs everywhere from Scotland to Maryland to California, she has utilized augmented reality to allow people to explore reconstructions of slave quarters, and she has done all this as the chief of the Cultural Resources Section at the Maryland State Highway Administration. Move out of the passing lane, you don’t want to miss this week’s PreserveCast.
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2018/02/12/julie-schablitsky-highway-to-history-archaeology-and-preservation-in-the-state-highway-administration/
Big picture questions in public history and historic preservation can sometimes be intimidating to think about. What should the public expect from their historic institutions? How do public history sites remain relevant in a world that seems to change more and more every year? Fortunately, there are people out there like today’s guest, Dr. Taylor Stoermer. Taylor is an academic who knows how to bring history to the people, whether that be as the chief historian at Colonial Williamsburg, a Professor at Harvard and Johns Hopkins, an advisor to Disney on their revamped Hall of Presidents, or on Twitter as the History Doctor. He may not be an M.D., but his home state is Maryland.
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2018/02/05/the-history-doctor-taylor-stoermer/
What does it mean to be a preservationist? How does the built environment that surrounds you impact your daily life? Why does it matter? It’s never too early or too late to think about these questions, especially according to today’s guests, Matthew Craig and Christian Hughes. Matthew and Christian discuss their work through the Young Preservationists Association of Pittsburgh to encourage young people to engage with ideas of historic preservation in their communities. Although PreserveCast may be the number one historic preservation podcast, these youngbloods have a few tricks up their sleeves with their own podcast.
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2018/01/29/young-preservation-association-of-pittsburgh-preservation-podcast/
Have you ever seen a building and had something about it rub you the wrong way, but you can't explain it? Well, today's guest may be able to help you find the right words. Kate Wagner runs the popular blog McMansion Hell, which takes a comedic approach to dissecting modern suburban architecture, as well as offering informative essays on urban planning and other architectural concepts, including historic preservation. We talked about the blog, how a building can earn the title "McMansion," and where these buildings fit in a larger historic context on this episode of PreserveCast.
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2018/01/22/kate-wagner-mcmansion-hell/
It's easy to be surprised by the history in your own backyard, even if you're a historic preservationist. Nathan Dennies, the chairperson and founder of the Greater Hampden Heritage Alliance, joined Nick to trace the history of Baltimore's iconic Hampden-Woodberry neighborhood, including the many recently repurposed historic mills, Baltimore's famous "Avenue," and the Jones Falls river. The area isn't just home to Baltimore's famous Hon-Fest, it's Preservation Maryland's home as well. After all, this is PreserveCast.
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2018/01/15/nathan-dennies-repurposing-historic-mills-the-jones-falls/
Often if we don't make a special effort to remember and tell the stories of individuals and groups within history, their contributions to our shared story can all too easily be forgotten. That is as true for Jewish-Americans as for any other group, and that is why Jerry Klinger founded the Jewish American Soceity for Historic Preservation. Jerry joined Nick to share some of the amazing stories he has learned of Jewish people throughout the country's history, as well as to share about projects coming in the future for his organization. This is PreserveCast.
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2018/01/08/jerry-klinger-the-jewish-american-society-for-historic-preservation/
Ever walk into a historic building or place and find yourself imagining new ways to use it? Like an art project or public event? Well, it’s one thing to have the idea, but a historic changemaker, like today’s guest Dana Saylor, is someone who actually follows through. Dana is a prominent voice in placemaking, public art, and preservation, and she spoke with Nick from her home in Buffalo, New York about creative ways that people can use historic places.
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2018/01/02/dana-saylor-and-the-art-of-historic-placemaking/
A few weeks ago we took PreserveCast on the road, albeit only a few blocks, to visit a truly unique historic place, the American Visionary Art Museum. Nick sat down with AVAM's founder, Rebecca Hoffberger, in one of the museums several repurposed, historic buildings to discuss the history of the institution that houses the world's largest collection of 'outsider' or 'visionary' art. Nick and Rebecca covered a lot of topics, including the decision-making process that led Rebecca to locate in a campus of historic buildings in Baltimore city. Things may seem a little unorthodox, but that's what visionary art is all about on this episode of PreserveCast.
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2017/12/27/rebecca-hoffberger-the-american-visionary-art-museum/
When is a building worth saving? This can be a controversial question, even among preservationists. Greg Galer, the Executive Director of the Boston Preservation Alliance, joined us on PreserveCast to share his perspective. Greg has worked to preserve many examples of mid-century modern ‘brutalist’ architecture, like Boston City Hall and the Boston Christian Science Center. Should exposed concrete structures be preserved the same as 19th century estates? A brutal question (and hard to answer too), but let’s talk about it on this week’s PreserveCast.
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2017/12/18/in-defense-of-brutalism-greg-galer-of-the-boston-preservation-alliance/
It may not come as a surprise that some historians and museum professionals are not always quick to adapt to change, but that’s only some of us. There are others out there, like today’s guest Frank Vagnone, who not only are capable of adapting, but thrive on inverting the status quo of museums and public history. Frank and I spoke about the book he co-authored, The Anarchist’s Guide to Historic House Museums, his position as the President and CEO of Old Salem, and examples of good ways for house museums to defy expectations. There's anarchy in the USA, the U.K., and beyond on this week's PreserveCast.
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2017/12/11/frank-vagnone-the-anarchists-podcast-on-historic-house-museums/
Editor's note: The music in the segment came from a 1994 recording of a Virginia Pow Wow, and included a traditional Eastern Woodlands and Iroqouis song/dance called Gadasjot.
How are battlefields preserved? Why are battlefields preserved? What should we do with a battlefield site once it is protected? These are all important questions, and we are fortunate to be joined by someone who can possibly provide the answers. Jim Lighthizer is the President of the Civil War Trust and an expert in battlefield preservation. Join Nick as Jim shares insight into how he maintains momentum at the head of the nations leading Civil War Battlefield Preservation Organization on this week's PreserveCast.
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2017/12/04/jim-lighthizer-and-the-civil-war-trust/
This episode is part of focus series on the history of the Antietam Battlefield.
Often with history and historic preservation it can be all too easy for the places associated with a particular piece of our history to fall through the cracks. To a degree, that has been the case the case with the history of Maryland's women's suffrage movement, but today we're joined by historian Kacy Rohn, a native Marylander and the author of a recent historic context report focused on the stories of these women and the places that were important to their stories. Join us for a discussion on the fight for women's right to vote in the United States, and the power of place to help us remember that fight. This is PreserveCast.
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2017/11/27/kacy-rohn-the-history-of-womens-suffrage-in-maryland-and-beyond/
It doesn't matter if it's your molar, your canine, or what, everybody has some kind of sweet tooth. Something that you may not be thinking about is how that sweet tooth has played a role in history. Susan Benjamin is the founder of True Treats Candy in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, and author of the book Sweet as Sin: The Unwrapped Story of How Candy Became America’s Favorite Pleasure. Susan has appeared on platforms from NPR to NBC, and she joined us on PreserveCast to share the rich history of candy in American culture, from pre-Colombian Native Americans to the working poor of the Industrial Revolution. Go ahead and spoil your dinner with this week’s PreserveCast.
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2017/11/20/susan-benjamin-true-treats-candy-and-the-age-old-sweet-tooth/
Editor's note: Many thanks to the Storm Boyz Lenne Lenape Drum, whose music was used in the today's segment of "Preservation Explanation."
Based in Newport, Rhode Island, the 1772 Foundation’s mission is to ensure the safe passage of historic buildings and farmland to future generations, in the Northeast and around the country. Under the direction of today’s guest, Mary Anthony, one of the key tools the Foundation uses to accomplish this mission is their nationwide historic property redevelopment, or revolving funds, program. Mary explained to us details of how her organization can help save buildings from Colorado to Florida to Maine, and also why it’s important to emphasize the human element of philanthropy, on this week’s PreserveCast.
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2017/11/13/mary-anthony-and-the-1772-foundation/
Producer's note: We apologize for any issues you might have had while accessing this episode. We've recently made some software changes and the original file did not upload correctly. It's been updated and you should now be able to stream and download as usual. Thanks for your patience, and keep on preserving!
As historic preservationists, we often can fall into only thinking about history through the framework of buildings and sites, or even get caught up on buildings from just one era. That is not the case for our guest today, Dr. Bill Schindler. Bill is one of the world’s leading experimental archaeologists and an expert on primitive technologies and historic foodways. Join us as Bill explains how food has driven technological development throughout human history, how we are uniquely positioned in that history, and why we may want to look at ancient foodways to inform how we eat in the future. Hopefully we won’t make you too hungry, on this episode of PreserveCast.
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2017/11/06/dr-bill-schindler-primitive-technology-and-the-food-of-the-future/
Understanding why preserving historic places makes good economic sense can sometimes seem complex and hard to explain. But fortunately our guest today is Donovan Rypkema, the principal of PlaceEconomics and the President of Heritage Strategies Internationa, and a man who has made a career out of explaining the interplay of economics, real estate, and preservation. Donovan is one of the world thought leaders on preservation economics, and he and Nick talked about the research that Donovan and others have done into the economic benefits of preservation, both short and long term, as well as the uncertain future of the Federal Historic Tax Credit program.
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2017/10/30/donovan-rypkema-placeeconomics-preservation-economics-federal-historic-tax-credit/
When does history end? For some, like today’s guest Clare Lise Kelly, it might be closer to the present than you think. Clare is an architectural historian here in Maryland whose focus is the preservation of mid-century modern architecture from the 1950s and 60s. She literally wrote the book Montgomery Modern, focused on the architecture of Montgomery County, northwest of Washington D.C. From the future of office parks to Frank Lloyd Wright, there’s a lot to cover before we have to say so long on this episode of PreserveCast.
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2017/10/23/clare-lise-kelly-montgomery-modern-whats-the-future-for-mid-century-modern-architecture/
Producer's note: At around the 24:00 minute mark, Clare mentions an example of a building with a successfully, fully-restored facade. She said the Seagram Building, but was actually intending to reference the Lever House.
From buildings to furniture to fine art, there are few historic objects or items that Dr. Susan Buck would be unable to analyze through the microscopic examination of paint samples. Join us for a conversation about Susan’s work on projects from Monticello in Charlottesville, Virginia to the Forbidden City in Beijing, China, and on items from 19th century Shaker furniture to Egyptian coffins from the 5th century B.C. What can we learn from a paint chip the size of a pin head? Find out on this week’s PreserveCast.
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2017/10/16/paint-chip-analysis-with-dr-susan-buck/
As preservationists, we here at PreserveCast are usually concerned with the physical history; what we can know from the cold hard facts. But seeing as how it’s October and Halloween is around the corner, we thought we’d talk a little about haunted history. Author Colin Dickey joined me to talk about the history of ghost stories and share what we can learn from the places that scare us. The conversation ranges all the way from Silicon Valley to Richmond Virginia on this, the first ever PreserveCast Spooktacular!
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2017/10/09/colin-dickey-ghostland-and-the-preservecast-spooktacular/
Few historic moments continue to reverberate through our nation quite like the Civil War and the abolition of slavery. But despite the way the history lives on, there are some parts that will always be challenging for us to face as a nation. Joe McGill, the founder of the Slave Dwelling Project, joined me to discuss the work he does to shed light on some of the most painful, yet powerful, places in America. Join us for a discussion on the value of remember all aspects of our past, from slave dwellings to Confederate monuments, on this week’s PreserveCast.
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2017/10/02/joe-mcgill-and-the-slave-dwelling-project/
Producer's note: This episode is part of our focus series on the history of the Antietam Battlefield.
Building Information Modeling (BIM) allows architects to measure elements of a building down to the centimeter, and Tom Reinhart is here to explain how George Washington's Mount Vernon is expanding on that technology even further to get the most benefit for historic preservationsits. What do you get when you cross information from George Washington's own handwritten letters and the latest tech in data systems and digital modeling? Find out on this week's PreserveCast!
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2017/09/25/tom-reinhart-building-information-modeling-at-george-washingtons-mount-vernon/
It's hard to talk about the history of the Civil War without touching on the Maryland Campaign, which came to an end with the Battle of Antietam. This battle was not only the single bloodiest day of the War, but also preicpated Abraham Lincoln's issuing of the Emancipation Proclamation. And as important as the battle was, it would be extremely challenging to pass the history of that day on to future generations without the preserved Antietam Battlefield in its proper context, which is the way it is today thanks to Dr. Tom Clemens and the other members of the Save Historic Antietam Foundation. Learn more on this week's PreserveCast.
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2017/09/18/dr-tom-clemens-save-historic-antietam-foundation-how-to-preserve-a-battlefield/
Producer's note: This episode is part of our focus series on the history of the Antietam Battlefield.
Community Forklift is part of a vital, growing industry, that of reuse and architectural salvage. Ruthie Mundell, the current Director of Outreach and Education and one of Community Forklift's first employees is here to share with us her own origin story, as well as share about the amazing work that the group is doing today. Stick around to learn how green thinking and the preservation of historic building materials can save the environment, and save you money on your next home improvement project.
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2017/09/11/ruthie-mundell-community-forklift-and-the-ethics-of-reuse/
Historic preservation is about maintaining a record of human history and those who have come before us, and that doesn't just mean buildings. Film, tape, and other analog media mediums are not going to last forever, and there are only a few people out there who understand the potential threat of losing countless hours of recorded information who have the technical skill, the energy, and the passion to do something about it. Fortunately for us, Siobahn Hagan is one of those people. She joined Nick to talk about the work she does with her non-profit, the Mid-Atlantic Regional Moving Images Archive (MARMIA), including digitizing the WJZ local news archive. So fire up the projector and turn down the lights on this episode of PreserveCast.
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2017/09/05/siobhan-hagan-the-archives-of-marmia-audio-and-visual-media-preservation/
Moving a historic home is already a challenge, but moving a historic college dorm? Stick around while Nick talks to Terence McCann, Jr., the Director of Facilities Management Services at Goucher College, where they are in the process of moving three out of four of the original buildings that make up Froelicher Hall. This move is historic in more ways than one, as it is also one of the biggest and fastest building move ever attempted.
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2017/08/28/terence-mccann-jr-saving-froelicher-hall-goucher-colleges-historic-building-move/
Historic Preservation is not always accomplished through the same methods, and it's certainly not the same everywhere you go. That's why Nick sat down with Lauren Oswalt McHale, President of the L'Enfant Trust in Washington, D.C., to compare notes on some of the trust's biggest programs. This includes their massive conservation easement program, as well as the trust's work using a revolving fund to redevelop historic properties in the Anacostia neighborhood in Southeast D.C., an area whose history has too often been ignored.
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2017/08/21/lauren-oswalt-mchale-revolving-funds-easements-and-dc-preservation-with-the-lenfant-trust/
On July 12th of this year, preservationists from across the state of Maryland convened at the U.S. Naval Academy to take part in the Old Line State Summit, Preservation Maryland's annual conference. Participants learned about all of the most current topics in the field, ranging from virtual and augmented reality, to the preservation of LGBTQ history, and podcasting! Join Nick and guests Diane Caslow, of the Preservation Maryland Board, Susan Giddings of the Friends of the Rising Sun Inn, and Catherine Rogers Arthur from the Maryland State Archives, along with the "studio audience" for a special recording of PreserveCast, Live from the Old Line State Summit!
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2017/08/14/live-from-the-old-line-state-summit-conference/
Every once in a while we in the preservation community can do with a pick me up; a preservation story where in spite of the challenges, people's better nature prevails. And honestly that is the case with our guests this week, Matt Prince of Taco Bell, and Katie Rispoli Keaotamai of We Are The Next. With the support of Taco Bell, the local Conservancy of Downey, CA, and countless taco-loving citizens, Katie and Matt spearheaded the movement to save the building that was home to the very first Taco Bell. Stick around to hear how a few individuals and a corporate citizen who is willing to listen made national news. This is PreserveCast.
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2017/08/07/matt-prince-katie-rispoldi-keaotamai-saving-the-first-taco-bell-in-california/
There's more to modern archaeology than the old shovel and trowell. With the use of Geographic Information Systems, archaeologists can create maps of land surface down to extraordinarily specific levels, and predict sites for teams to go in and dig. Nick sat down with Stacy Poulos from Maryland's own Anne Arundel County to discuss the many advances in technology in archaeology including GIS, laser scanning, and the potential future developments like holographic displays of lost buildings! This is PreserveCast.
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2017/07/31/stacy-poulous-gis-and-technological-advances-in-archaeology/
Although not always the first thing to come to mind as a cultural resource in need of preservation, neon signs are a unique form of art that exist at the crossroads of 20th century popular history and the preservation of what can make a community unique. And they look cool doing it. Join us as Paul Greenstein, an expert in creating and restoring neon signage from Los Angeles, CA, shares some of his knowledge of how exactly neon works, what it takes to restore an old sign, and the state of the neon sign community today. So shine on, you crazy noble gases, this is PreserveCast!
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2017/07/24/paul-greenstein-neon-sign-preservation-and-restoration/
Historic Preservation is meant to keep the best parts of the past alive so that future generations can partake in these shared cultural resources. But what is the point of that if future generations aren't interested, or simply don't know how to approach the world of preservation? Thankfully, Katie Rispoli Keaotamai, the founder and executive director of We Are The Next, is here to share about the work her nonprofit is doing to help youth in traditionally underserved and overlooked communities learn how to be active citizens, and understand the value of preserving their neighborhoods and communities. Katie's joining us from Southern California, but her message applies around the world because this is PreserveCast.
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2017/07/17/katie-rispoli-keaotamai-we-are-the-next-youth-engagement-in-the-21st-century/
The spread of clean energy technologies is the wave of the future, but where exactly should wind and solar plants go? Nick sat down with Elizabeth Watson and Janet Christensen-Lewis, of the Kent Conservation and Preservation Alliance in Kent County, Maryland, to discuss their experience working to find alternative locations for wind turbines away from Kent County's scenic and historic farmland. Janet and Elizabeth are tackling a difficult problem, but they believe that the necessary move to create sustainable energy does not have to mean erasing our past.
Listen up here: https://www.preservecast.org/2017/07/10/elizabeth-watson-janet-christensen-lewis-energy-sprawl-and-open-space-preservation-in-kent-county/
These days even folks who consider themselves luddites may very well have an e-mail address. That's why it's important to consider where online all the data and information we use on a daily basis is stored, who owns, and perhaps most important, who can access. Fortunately we are joined this week by Eli Pousson of Baltimore Heritage who is eager to share with us more about the open source movement and why he believes it may be invaluable for historic preservation. This is PreserveCast.
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2017/07/03/eli-pousson-open-source-preservation-with-baltimore-heritage/
The battle at Antietam Creek has gone down in history as the bloodiest day of the American Civil War. But as too often happens in significant military moments, people tend to overlook what this battle meant for the local civilian population. That's why this week's guest, the award-winning author Kathleen Ernst, decided to do exactly that. Join us as Kathleen discusses her non-fiction history of the Civil War and the Antietam campaign, as well as her fictional mystery series and books for American Girl, which have sold over 1.7 million copies combined. This is PreserveCast.
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2017/06/26/kathleen-ernst-too-afraid-to-cry-maryland-civilians-in-the-antietam-campaign/
Producer's note: This episode is part of our focus series on the history of the Antietam Battlefield.
Route One was once America's thoroughfare, built over the older Quebec-Miami International Highway and the Atlantic Highway. A decent stretch of this old road falls under the purview of Aaron Marcavitch, the Executive Director of Maryland's Anacostia Trails Heritage Area, and this week's guest. Aaron is an advocate for the preservation of roadside architecture, ranging from diners that predate the highway system to an old Woolworth's. This is all in addition to his work preserving communities and buildings throughout his area, including an old dueling ground just north of Washington D.C. Roll down the window and put your feet on the dash. This is PreserveCast.
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2017/06/19/aaron-marcavitch-roadside-architecture-and-the-anacostia-trails-heritage-area/
Thinking of taking a trip and the beach just isn't cutting it? You might stop to think about heritage tourism. Liz Shatto is here with us this week to share her knowledge of heritage tourism, and more specifically, about her own little slice of it at the Heart of the Civil War Heritage Area. From educational school trips, to family vacations, and even gps treasure-hunting, there's a lot going on at this heritage area. Both geographically and spiritually at the heart of Civil War history, Liz's Heritage Area includes the Antietam Battlefield, and many other historic places. This is PreserveCast.
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2017/06/12/liz-shatto-the-heart-of-the-civil-war-heritage-area/
Producer's note: This episode is part of our focus series on the history of the Antietam Battlefield.
Phew! Everybody loves the summertime, but not so much the beating hot sun! Nick spoke this week with Will Hamilton and Mariah Schwartz about the historic Aiken Rhett House in Charleston, South Carolina, and what preservationists can do to keep the temperature of a historic propoerty under control, especially in the heat of a Southern Summer. Get a fan going and try to cool off as we learn about the Historic Charleston Foundation, the preserve-as-found approach, and hottest new takes on heating and cooling. This is PreserveCast.
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2017/06/05/will-hamilton-mariah-schwartz-its-not-the-heat-its-the-humidity-preservation-in-the-southern-climate/
Flooding is a serious problem for any building, but for a historic building, it can be catastrophic. Fortunately for us there are experts out there like this week's guest Rod Scott who are able to help property owners take preventative measures. Rod not only shares with us how one can raise a building above the floodplain, but also some of the chanigng economics of flooding and flood insurance, as well as why he believes that we are living in historic era of flooding. This is PreserveCast.
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2017/05/29/rod-scott-historic-preservation-and-flood-mitigation/
When you think of archaeology, you may not think of new artifacts being found all the time here in Maryland. But according to our guest, Director of Archaeology for Anne Arundel County Stephanie Sperling, there may be things worth digging up in your backyard! Stick around as we learn about a day in the life of a Maryland archaeologist. We're covering everything from Stephanie's favorite finds like a 10,000 year old Native American site and a forgotten 20th century baseball field, to the technology used in the field today and why an archaeologist won't go anywhere without her trowel. Get the dirt out of your ears for this episode of PerserveCast!
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2017/05/22/stephanie-sperling-a-day-in-the-life-of-an-archaeologist/
Here at Preservation Maryland we know that historic preservation can be a part of a larger world of reuse and revitalization, and we know that these projects are occuring all over the world. That's why we brought in Storm Cunningham, a speaker, consultant, and thinker whose ideas have been put into practice all across the globe about his perspective on revitalization. Learn about the bigger picture of community revitalization and how we can make the most of our existing world in the 21st century on this episode of PreserveCast.
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2017/05/15/storm-cunningham-revitalization-and-the-restoration-economy/
From power lines to old wood floors, there are a lot of challenges to overcome if you want to move a historic building. Fortunately for us, Jeremy Bradham, of Capitol Area Preservation in Raleigh, North Carolina, is able to explain how to overcome those challenges. Jeremy talks us through a typical building move, as well as weighing in on how changing a building's location can change its historic context. It's not going be too bumpy of a ride, but you still might as well strap in for this episode of PreserveCast.
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2017/05/08/jeremy-bradham-capital-area-preservation-north-carolina-moving-historic-buildings/
Nick is joined by Scott Sidler of the thecraftsmanblog.com and Austin Home Restorations in Orlando, Florida, to discuss a range of topics, including Scott's tips on restoring historic windows in your own home, as well as the story of how a man who moved to Orlando Florida to "work for the mouse" came to run one of the most successful historic home restoration and preservation websites in the world. It's hot down in Orlando, so why cool not off for a while with a nice easy-listening episode of PreserveCast.
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2017/05/01/scott-sidler-austin-historical-tricks-of-the-trade-with-the-craftsman-blog/
What do you do with a drafty attic? A window? The whole house? Ed Minch and Thom Marston are here with us today to talk about one approach to making homes more energy efficient and their work at the nation's first energy audit company, Energy Services Group. Stick around and learn about Ed's "p.h.d." approach, what Thom thinks you should do about that old attic, and what retrofitting can mean in terms of historic preservation. This is PreserveCast.
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2017/04/24/energy-services-group-energy-retrofitting/
Ever visit a historic site and wish that you could see just a little bit more of what things were really like? Thanks to the work of Greg Werkheiser and his partners at ARtGlass, that will soon be possible. Listen as Nick and Greg discuss the future of augmented and virtual reality in historic preservation and heritage tourism, as well as Greg's pioneering work as a cultural heritage lawyer. You don't need VR goggles to get the full experience, just press play and listen to PreserveCast!
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2017/04/17/greg-werkheiser-artglass-augmented-reality-at-historic-sites/
Tolson's Chapel was once a school, a church, and the center of a community. Now, thanks to the work of folks like our guest Edie Wallace (as well as Preservation Maryland) it may hopefully serves as a way to glimpse into the often overlooked second act of the story of the Civil War and the emancipation of slavery. Nick sat down this week with the President of the non-profit Friends of Tolson's Chapel, to discuss the challenges associated with preserving this unique building, and why it and similar preservation projects are a key part of the full story of the Civil War. This is PreserveCast.
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2017/04/10/edie-wallace-tolsons-chapel-and-the-history-of-reconstruction/
Producer's note: This episode is part of our focus series on the history of the Antietam Battlefield.
Who do you look to when you need historic places, vehicles and more documented on a national level? Well, the National Parks are at your Service! This week Nick spoke to the head of the Historic American Building Survey, Catherine Lavoie, as well as a representative from the Historic American Engineering Record, Dana Lockett. Learn about how Catherine and Dana work to document everything from buildings to landscapes to a space shuttle on this episode of PreserveCast.
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2017/04/03/dana-lockett-catherine-lavoie-architectural-documentation-best-practices-with-habs-haer/
Jake Wynn joins Nick this week from the National Museum of Civil War Medicine. Learn how the study and practice of medicine from the Civil War period is relevant today, and about how Jake and his colleagues are opening the museum up to new audiences through the use of technology, social media, and a variety of innovative practices. We promise it won't hurt a bit. Check out this week's PreserveCast!
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2017/03/27/jake-wynn-civil-war-medicine-and-the-modern-day/
Producer's note: This episode is part of our focus series on the history of the Antietam Battlefield.
We're not too far from a future where self-driving cars are just another part of your daily commute. And according to our guest, Atul Sharma, that will change a lot more than just how you drive. Come and learn how Atul, a planning expert working for Montgomery Country, MD, sees self-driving cars affecting everything from parking and traffic to where we choose to live and how we choose to utilize our historic buildings and communities. Just hit play and sit back while the podcast plays itself.
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2017/03/28/atul-sharma-planning-for-self-driving-cars-in-historic-places/
Cemeteries need preserving too! This week, Eileen McGuckian is here to fill us in on the ins and outs of cemetery preservation in general, and in her home of Rockville, MD. Come explore some of our most tangible means of memory on this week's PreserveCast. Also, we welcome our new guest host, Meagan Baco.
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2017/03/13/cemetery-preservation-with-the-coalition-to-protect-maryland-burial-sites/
1000 Friends of Maryland is not an actual tally of the Old Line State's friends. It's an advocacy group dedicated to helping Maryland communities develop in ways that we can afford - socially, economically, and environmentally. Dru Schmidt-Perkins, the Presdient of 1000 Friends of Maryland, is on this week to talk to Nick about smart growth and sustainable technology in Maryland's agricultural communities and beyond. Come make a new friend, on PreserveCast.
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2017/03/06/dru-schmidt-perkins-1000-friends-of-maryland-smartgrowth/
This week Nick sits down with a bonafide preservation engineer, Mat Daw of Keast and Hood. Mat has done critical building preservation work on all different scales and all over the world, from an annual trip to the Thomas Point Shoal Lighthouse here in Maryland to particpating in disaster relief work saving buildings in Haiti. Lend us your ear as PreserveCast learns what a day in the life of a preservation engineer is like.
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2017/02/27/mat-daw-keast-and-hood-lend-your-ear-to-a-preservation-engineer/
Podcast me up, Joe! Our guest, Joe Nicoli, works with Direct Dimensions to create valuable 3-dimensional scans of historic sites and a wide variety of items. Listen and learn more about how lasers are used in the everyday work of historic preservation, and how laser scanning may be about to revolutionize how we document sites and artifacts.
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2017/02/21/preservation-through-lasers-with-joe-nicoli-of-direct-dimensions/
This week, Nick sits down with a Preservation Maryland staff member, Michelle Eshelman. Michelle is a frequent user of 3D modeling software and discuss how she has been able to use her skills for the benefit of preservationists. Of particular note is her work in Ellicott City, a historic town that was hit by a devastating flood in July of 2016. Grab your finest 3D modeling software while you listen to this week's PreserveCast.
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2017/02/13/the-art-of-3d-modeling-with-michelle-eshelman/
We're not talking about painting a roof green! Listen to Nick talk to preservationist and architect Nakita Reed about how sustainable technologies like rooftop solar panels are finding their way into the world of historic preservation. Plus Nakita talks you through some of the basic how-tos of making your historic property more sustainable, and we learn some of the challenges of straddling the two worlds of architecture and historic preservation.
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2017/02/06/its-easy-being-green-with-architect-nakita-reed/
Would George Washington enjoy surfing the web? Would he enjoy the idea of people touring his home? Would he prefer a virtual tour? This week, Nick sits down with Rob Shenk, the Senior Vice-President for Visitor Engagement at Mount Vernon. They discuss using new technologies to enhance the visitor experience and bring the story of George Washington to all. You'll also learn about how Mount Vernon is the root of all historic preservation in the country. This is PreserveCast.
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2017/01/30/rob-shenk-digital-marketing-strategies-at-mount-vernon/
Archaeology that's nautical? Highly illogical! In this episode Nick gets to know Dr. Susan Langley, THE Maryland State Underwater Archaeologist. Nick and Susan discuss her work at Mallows Bay, the Maryland bay that is home to the largest ship graveyard in the Western Hemisphere, as well as plenty more as PreserveCast takes a trip under the sea!
Listen here: https://www.preservecast.org/2017/01/23/dr-susan-langley-maryland-state-underwater-archaeologist-mallows-bay/
Historic windows may not sound that exciting, but when Nick sat down with Doug Claytor, a tried and true historic preservationist, he peeled back the curtain on a whole world of ways to look at historic buildings. Nick and Doug have a conversation that stretches from Maryland history legends like Barbara Fritchie (whose Civil War-era house Doug worked on preserving) to his work on buildings at Camp David. This is PreserveCast.
Ever wonder how drones and historic preservation intersect? Back in December Nick sat down with Belinda Kilby of Elevated Element to find out where this new technology fits in the world of historic preservation. Get ready to take flight as we enter the Drone Zone.
Hello new listener! Welcome to PreserveCast, the place where historic preservation and technology meet. In this, our very first episode, one of our producers sits down to interview the Executive Director of Preservation Maryland, Nick Redding, to get the low down on historic preservation and what exactly that term means to Preservation Maryland. Plus you can learn a little bit about where Nick's boundless love for history comes from.