Celebrate Historic Preservation Week! April 25, 2008
Posted by history in : Events, History of Preservation , add a commentIn 1973, the National Trust for Historic Preservation inaugurated Historic Preservation Week. Communities throughout the nation were encouraged to promote and celebrate their unique community history. The program met with great success, hundreds of communities throughout the nation planned preservation week activities. A short, five years after preservation week was established, the program received the endorsement of the President. On May 10, 1978, President Jimmy Carter, officially proclaimed the week of May 7, National Historic Preservation week. The proclamation states:
“America’s ability to meet the challenges of its third century with confidence and strength will depend upon an appreciation and understanding by the American people of their past.
Among our most important links with the past are the historic sites, structures, and landmarks of earlier times. Together, they form a vast legacy of cultural resources. This legacy, however, is not merely one of monuments, battlefields, and historic buildings. It includes the houses, streets, stores and factories that make up our communities—those familiar places and structures that remind us of the accomplishments, character, and dreams of our forebears.For our own sake, and for that of future generations of Americans, we must do all that lies within our power to preserve this cultural heritage.
Now, THEREFORE, I, JIMMY CARTER, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim the week beginning May 7, 1978, as National Historic Preservation Week. I call upon Government agencies at all levels, interested private individuals and organizations, and Americans everywhere, to mark this observance with appropriate ceremonies and activities in their communities and neighborhoods.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this tenth day of May, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred seventy-eight, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and second.
JIMMY CARTER
A year later, SCAD was established, making its historic preservation program one of the earliest to be established. Much has changed since Carter issued his proclamation. The National Trust changed Preservation Week was changed to Preservation Month in 2004 and now thousands of communities throughout the nation plan preservation week festivities. There is much to celebrate:
- There are over 80,000 listings on the National Register of Historic Places, representing well over 200,00o properties.
- There are over 2400 local historic preservation commissions
- Since the Historic Preservation Tax Credit was created in 1976 it has spurred the rehab of thousands of structures and generated billions of dollars in investment.
In 2004 the Trust changed Preservation Week to Preservation Month. Each year, the Trust assigns a theme to Preservation Month. This year’s theme is Place Matters. In an era marked by the great homogenization of the American landscape, the theme is more relevant than ever. It is at the heart of the historic preservation movement.
SPA the Student Preservation Association of SCAD has a great lineup planned. Click here for a link to the program.