The Whitehill Report on Professional and Public Education for Historic Preservation

The Whitehill Report on Professional and Public Education for Historic Preservation was submitted 15 April 1968 to the Trustees of the National Trust for Historic Preservation by the Committee on Professional and Public Education for Historic Preservation, Walter Muir Whitehill, Chairman. Note: This copy of the Report was scanned from a manuscript provided by John Fugelso of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission.  It is used with permission of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

The sub-committee on this subject--Messrs. van Ravenswaay (Chairman) and Lee – presents the following report. 

Technology has displaced the traditional building craftsmen as effectively as industry previously displaced the handcraftsmen who made the objects of domestic use and commerce. Not only has prefabricated and disposable construction destroyed the general need for such craftsmen, but artificial materials have replaced many of the natural materials used in earlier buildings whose properties are part of the craftsmen's lore.  These ancient crafts are a significant part of our national cultural resources. Their continuation as a living tradition is essential to insure the authentic conservation of our early buildings. 

The survival of these crafts will require the most thoughtful solutions to human as well as economic problems. No existing formula can be used. A new solution must be found, based on a national realization of the importance of these skills to our continuing culture. Public knowledge of the standards and objectives required in such craftwork should be developed through education at all levels. Practical means for providing careers in such work need to be found through the joint efforts of government and private initiative. These objectives cannot be accomplished on a limited basis no matter how dedicated such projects might be, for the need is so urgent and so general in scope that it must be recognized as a national responsibility, requiring national leadership, direction, standards, and continuity .

In order to keep preservation techniques from becoming sterile antiquarianism, those craftsmen should also be encouraged to produce contemporary work. These two objectives are not incompatible. An inquiring and creative mind, disciplined by expert knowledge, is needed by the conservation specialist. If the preservation of our historic buildings and our tradition crafts have continuing validity as part of an organic cultural tradition, they should stimulate the creation of contemporary works of beauty. 

The sociological and economic values to the nation through the conservation of our intangible as well as tangible cultural resources has been demonstrated a good many years ago and public response to this need is rapidly developing. Indeed the whole preservation movement is the expression of public effort toward strengthening a wide spectrum of our cultural resources. Various programs exist for conserving our natural landscape and wildlife. When technology revolutionized agriculture and plants once commonly grown became obsolete, the Federal Government established seedbanks to preserve species necessary for continuing plant research and hybridization. Thus on many fronts and in many different ways, the utility of survivals from the past is being recognized, not for nostalgic reasons but from an awareness that this thoughtless and hurried age cannot afford to be prodigal with an inheritance that has such continuing practical as well as sociological values.

Our immediate need for conserving the traditional building crafts is to insure the preservation of early buildings, but from such action may come dividends impossible to anticipate now. These crafts, like the seeds the Federal agencies are preserving, could produce countless benefits for future generations. 

Findings  

2. The Sub-Committee has knowledge of a small number of carpenters, masons, plasterers, wood carvers, and painters (particularly along the eastern seaboard) considered by competent preservationists to be skilled in early building crafts. Most of those known are employed by agencies with major preservation and restoration responsibilities or by small contractors who specialize in restoration work. In addition there is believed to be a diminishing number of competent individual craftsmen who are able to practice their skills in traditional building crafts only a small part of their time, and who devote most of their effort to modern construction in order to make a living. These men should be sought out and identified, and the opportunities to utilize their skills should be explored before undertaking major efforts in training new craftsmen. The small number of skilled craftsman who continue to arrive as immigrants from other countries is also a factor in the labor supply.

3. The economic base for even this small group of skilled craftsmen is uncertain. The Federal Government gives very little recognition to these skills in Civil Service classifications. The flow of work to support these craftsmen inside and outside the Government is uneven. Pay scales are often inadequate and some skilled craftsmen who would prefer to work on early buildings are forced, by economic circumstances, to seek more profitable employment on routine jobs or in maintenance. There are few organizations that guarantee skilled craftsmen permanent employment in the preservation and restoration of early buildings.

4. It is necessary to stabilize the employment, and insure the security, status, and professional future of the present supply of skilled craftsmen. It would be impractical and unwise to recruit and train craftsmen for an uncertain future, or to train new craftsmen, when available craftsmen are not able to practice their skills much of the time.

5. We do not know of any training centers for the traditional building crafts within the United States. Neither the vocational schools, nor the unions, nor the preservation agencies have developed any systematic training to preserve skills, and to maintain and replenish the supply of carpenters, masons, plasterers, wood carvers and painters increasingly needed in preservation and restoration work. The craftsmen who possess and use these skills have been trained as apprentices either here or abroad, are self-taught in part, or were guided to their special skills, by the architects and craftsmen of the large preservation agencies.

6. Craft training programs and the practice of the crafts will require the following resources, among others: 

7. Authentic preservation and restoration work requires the supervision of a trained historical architect. A craftsman, however skilled, needs guidance based on the knowledge of building design and practice achieved by the historical architect through measured drawings and photographs, comparative field studies of early buildings and study and research in documents.

8. The best method of training a craftsman is the oldest method – apprenticeship – for the hand must be trained as well as the mind. In specialized work this means beginning the apprenticeship as an already qualified journeyman carpenter, and training for the special skills required for preservation and restoration work. A craftsman should have training and experience in every phase of the cycle of restoring a building from its initial state to its completion. He should also have the benefit of experience of working, as a member of a restoration team, with other specialists. Such a team might include a preservation architect, an architectural historian, an historic sites archaeologist, and an historical horticulturist.

9. In addition to a program to conserve the early building crafts, there is need for more systematic study and training in providing authentic early settings for early buildings. A program for research and training in early horticulture (and agriculture) is needed for this purpose.

10. Various national organizations and interests are properly concerned with one or another aspect of the traditional building crafts. These include, in addition to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, such government agencies as the National Park Service, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development; the principal labor unions in the field of building crafts; major professional associations such as the American Institute of Architects; and leading preservation agencies such as Old Sturbridge Village, Old Salem, Inc., Winterthur, the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, Colonial Williamsburg, and other major museums. There is at present no focal point or program around which these interests may gather to formulate and agree on a national program. The support and participation of all these groups appears essential to accomplish our objective. 

11. It is evident that other countries concerned with historic preservation are far ahead of the United States in providing for the conservation of craft skills. Czechoslovakia, for example, has a national system of craft centers supported by the government for this purpose. Japan, by law officially recognizes certain skilled craftsmen or groups of practitioners of early skills as "intangible cultural monuments" important to the life of the whole nation. Thirty years ago the Congress authorized a Board of Indian Arts and Crafts in the United States, and there is now also a government financed school, the Institute of American Indian Arts, in Sante Fe, New Mexico. Documentation for these and other examples should be available to the Council proposed below.

12. The National Trust, as part of the general program for the training of restoration specialists, should consider the feasibility of regularly publishing a national roster of restoration specialists, including craftsmen, and suppliers of period-type materials and special services. If some appropriate accreditation system can be devised, this roster should also include craftsmen who have the requisite skills, but have not taken the training courses, as well as those who successfully complete their courses. 

13. A problem basic to the success of perpetuating the building crafts, and one for which this committee has not found a satisfactory solution, is the need to provide some central exchange through which the craftsmen and the client can be brought together. These craftsmen will always be relatively few in number and may often live at considerable distances from their potential clients. It is possible that a National Roster of Restoration Specialists would serve to meet much of this need; other possibilities should be studied.

14. Many restoration projects require the services of an entire restoration team rather than the services of one or two specialists. The problems and difficulties involved with a client forming his own team are obvious. Study should be made of the possibility of furnishing restoration teams from the staffs of the craft centers to clients restoring buildings included on the National Register of Landmarks.

15. We have been encouraged to learn from restoration contractors, individual craftsmen, and others, that there would be no difficulty in obtaining applications from able men for training courses. There are apparently many craftsmen who are dissatisfied with the impersonal and routine work they are required to do in modern construction, and who would be eager for careers in the traditional crafts if they had opportunities for training, and some assurance of steady employment. 

Recommendations

A.  Primary Recommendations

In order to provide a national focus for a permanent national program to perpetuate the traditional crafts and to give national leadership and guidance to this effort, it is recommended that:

1. The National Trust establish within its organization form a permanent Conservation Council for Traditional Building Crafts. (One of the primary needs of such a Council would be to define the time span involved in the program.)

2. The membership of this Council should represent the chief professional and craft agencies concerned with preservation (not traditional education). Representation might include the National Trust, the Advisory Council of Historic Preservation, the National Park Service, the Smithsonian Institution, various craft unions, the craft associations, the American Institute of Architects, the Historic American Buildings Survey, contractors' organizations, and private preservation societies.

3. The Council would meet perhaps twice a year, with an appropriate staff officer of the National Trust serving as executive officer and directly responsible for implementing the Council's program.

4. The Council's immediate responsibilities would be to review the preliminary findings and the recommendations embodied in this report and on the basis of the Council's wide experience and practical knowledge to (1) draft a statement of long-range objectives and (2) a five-year program designed to lay a solid foundation for perpetuating the early building crafts. Wherever possible this program should be coordinated with, and have a working parallel to, the concurrent programs for training restoration architects and architectural historians. (3) Move with all reasonable speed toward launching the recommended program, mindful that what is needed is to provide a practical opportunity for the perpetuation of the crafts and that this can be most effectively achieved with a minimum of red tape and a maximum of common sense and the informed dedication of those directing the work.

5. The National Trust should seek funds to finance the costs of organizing the Council, holding its meetings and launching the initial five-year program.

B. Secondary Recommendations

NOTE: The following secondary recommendations are submitted as one solution for the organization of a training program, and to facilitate study by the proposed Council. These recommendations will also suggest many areas which will require further study, as well as the possibilities for co-operation between various institutions and agencies.

The first five-year program of the Conservation Council for the Traditional Building Crafts might include the following elements:

1. Preparation and issuance of standards and guidelines for what might be called "Conservation Centers for Traditional Building Crafts". Although no centers, such as are envisioned in this report, now exist, a number of organizations already have many of the essential elements which such a center would require, including the regular employment of craftsmen in suitable surroundings. Among others, the National Park Service has the elements of such a center in Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia, the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities has one in Boston, as does Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia. A "Conservation Center for Traditional Building Crafts" should include the following elements:

2. The Council should make agreements with preservation agencies willing to assume responsibility for the development and operation of a "Conservation Center."

The objective should be to encourage the development of at least one such center in each of the principal geographic regions of the United States within the next five years. The first center might be in Philadelphia under National Park Service auspices, and the second in Boston under the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities. The National Trust might have to offer initial financial support on a matching basis to get some of the centers started. The purpose of agreements would be to channel sufficient support to a few strong centers, rather than to disperse efforts in scattered and uncoordinated locations.

As experience warrants, however, the National Council would encourage and support the establishment of additional centers. It is conceivable that the comprehensive statewide plans for historic preservation, required by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, might in some cases provide for creation of state conservation centers for traditional building crafts supported by state governments, with the encouragement of preservationists, labor and industry, and the State Councils on the Arts.

3. Encourage the establishment of "national archives on early building construction and early crafts" in the Office of Archaeology and Historic Preservation of the National Park Service. This would include historical, architectural, and archaeological reports, measured drawings, photographs and other cumulative records on traditional building construction. A substantial archive of this nature already exists in the National Park Service and that agency should be encouraged to enlarge and widen its usefulness.

4. Encourage establishment of "national collection on architecture and the early building crafts" in the Smithsonian Institution. As the Smithsonian Institution already has an important collection, it should be recognized as the logical national repository for objects in this field. Regional "Conservation Centers" could be asked to assist in gathering objects for the national collection. Regional study collection will also be needed and to some extent already exists.

5. Encourage the principal agencies to initiate active publication programs on early American building crafts, and assist them in avoiding duplications or omissions. The National Trust might have to participate financially to encourage publications. Publications series undertaken by the principal agencies could become the outlet for material submitted by smaller preservation agencies or individuals lacking a publication outlet for their own.

6. Training Program.

When the agencies establishing the Conservation Centers have given evidence of the permanence and systematic development of their programs, the Council should encourage them to develop craft training activities. 

7. Encourage the adoption of standards of training and experience for traditional building craftsmen by government, unions, and preservation agencies, together with proper pay scales, and formal recognition of the special status of these craftsmen.

I.  Professional Education for Preservation and Restoration

    A.  Architectural Curricula

    B.  Conservation of the Traditional Building Crafts

II.  Public Education for Historic Preservation and Restoration

III.  Publications