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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.
II. Public Education For Historic Preservation and Restoration
The National Trust is charged with the responsibility of preserving properties that are important to an understanding and appreciation of the American heritage. Although it was empowered to purchase and preserve such properties by a 1949 Act of Congress and has in several instances done so, its physical and financial resources make this approach a necessarily limited one. To accomplish its objectives, the National Trust must rely only in certain clear-cut instances on direct action. It must, more often, assume the role of catalyst, to which public education is essential.
As a catalyst, the National Trust approaches such problems as:
I. Educating federal, state and local governmental officials in the desirability of historic preservation, and stimulating the legislation necessary to ease the task of preservation. (Major progress has been made in this area. National legislation has been passed that will make possible federal assistance to preservation, as, for example, the National Historic Preservation Act, the Model Cities Act, and the Department of Transportation Act.)
2. Through education, stimulating the raising of private monies for historic preservation. It is not possible or desirable for government to assume the sole funding role for historic preservation.
3. Encouraging local groups to more productive work in the preservation field. The National Trust should ensure-- through public education--that the preservation work done by local groups meets proper standards of excellence.
Through public education, it is possible for the National Trust greatly to amplify its impact. Public education should be considered as a complement, rather than a substitute, for direct action. It is essential that the National Trust understand this and further realize that the future of historic preservation in the United States rests largely on the ability of historic preservationists to communicate with and educate the public in their cause. This can be done if it is approached with understanding, dedication and professional knowledge.
As has been observed earlier in this report, education for preservation and restoration should avoid over-emphasis on publicity, which can become meaningless; the situation instead needs professional concern. The present crisis calls, not for evangelical fervor to cause crowds to hit the sawdust trail, but for the reasoned dissemination through every channel that is available of sound knowledge on the principles and practice of preservation. In an editorial in the July 1963 issue of the magazine Antiques, Miss Alice Winchester, in reviewing the course of historic preservation over fifteen years, observed, "All too many important buildings have been lost, but also--may we not be misunderstood--all too many have been 'saved'. The honest, painstaking restorations have too often been imitated in superficial appearance instead of being emulated in purpose and method, so that the country is dotted with 'historic house museums_ that are neither historic nor museums. Local preservation projects are frequently taken up as a delightful opportunity for playing house, and committees in charge of restoration and furnishings vie with one another in merely pleasing the twentieth century eye, not in presenting a specific aspect of an earlier era truthfully to the twentieth century mind. The time has come to recognize past mistakes and set about correcting them."
Good architectural criticism, based on sound knowledge, is the best of weapons in the cause of preservation. The essays of Sir John Summerson, or the timely articles of Ada Louise Huxtable in the New York Times, are models to emulate in attempts at popular education. Similarly, good cartoons, such as those by Osbert Lancaster, have their usefulness, for they are hard to forget. Witty verses can also accomplish more than lengthy argument. Songs such as Francis W. Hatch's "Some Coward Closed the Old Howard" can influence the public ear as effectively as cartoons do the public eye. Preservationists should seize every opportunity to turn this kind of wit, when it can be found to public education in their cause. An essential first step in any local effort in public education is to attempt to secure the active support of those who control the relevant newspapers and radio and television stations, and to see that they are furnished with reliable information. Their help will be indispensable when there is need of mobilizing public opinion behind a specific preservation project, such as a bill proposing the establishment of a historic district, which may depend upon votes cast by men and women who have no real understanding of the proposal.
It is fanciful to hope that, with the present scanty resources of the National Trust and other preservation bodies, it will be possible to achieve much in wide public education through personal contact with large numbers of people. Conferences and meetings, however pleasant, generally attract those who are already converted. Summer courses, except when part of the organized curriculum of a college or university, often achieve only superficial results, as ephemeral as the high gloss produced by simonizing a motor car. More will be accomplished by seeking the cooperation of well-established magazines and journals that, in their normal distribution, reach a wide audience, and inspiring the publication by them of pieces that will serve the cause of public education. The Life editorial of 14 July 1967, "Hard-nosed Highwaymen Ride Again" brought the threat to the Vieux Carre to many thousand times the number of people who could have been affected by any series of meetings.
Over the years Mrs. Helen Duprey Bullock, Senior Editor of the National Trust, has made imaginative use of the modest funds available to her to spread sound doctrine by means of Historic Preservation and the Trust newsletter, which was expanded in 1967 into the new Preservation News. She has also skillfully assisted in the preparation of worthwhile articles for the periodicals of labor unions, the American Institute of Architects, and other organizations, which reach an audience well beyond the frontiers of the Trust. These have frequently been reprinted for Trust distribution at small cost. It is the view of the committee that the expansion and augmentation of such practices is better adapted to the realities of the present than any attempt by the National Trust to embark itself upon large-scale popular magazine publication. One does not embark upon popular journalism without greater resources than the Trust can command, particularly when so much can be accomplished by imaginative collaboration and cooperation with existing periodicals.
A Time to Begin, a joint production of the Virginia Outdoor Recreation Study Commission and Colonial Williamsburg, has recently had a great impact on behalf of historic preservation and conservation. Motion pictures are an important means of communicating ideas and techniques to a mass audience, for they can be released on television networks in connection with campaigns, and also be rented for local showing. They are, however, so expensive to produce that they lie beyond the realities of the National Trust's present situation. To the committee it seems preferable to devote any funds that can be obtained to the long-range project of professional education, which is a prerequisite of any effort in public education.
Many elements in the country are today essential to any serious advance in historic preservation. Public officials at all levels, whether elected or appointed, must be persuaded that the continued presence of certain important buildings may be a greater ornament to the communities in which they stand than could any run-of-the-mine replacement. It is equally necessary to convince banks, insurance companies, and other sources of funds, that money can be as safely and profitably invested in the preservation of a fine old building as in the construction of a dull new one. And, as has been indicated earlier, it is essential that newspapers and television and radio stations be induced to press these points home. Public education in historic preservation will accomplish more if it be concentrated in the personal and specific education of individuals who exercise power in these ways than if it be scattered too widely. Lacking sufficient ammunition for a saturating barrage, it is better to set rifle sights on a significant target.
A. Recommendations
1. That all public statements and publications of the National Trust, in however popular form it may seem wise to clothe them be consistent in content and aims with the standards that the Trust seeks to further in professional education.
2. That the Senior Editor and her staff be encouraged and enable to expand not only the present publications of the National Trust but also the present policy of suggesting and aiding the publication of sound articles on historic preservation in other magazines and journals.
3. That the Board of Advisors be enlisted to make contracts in their several states with editors, public officials, and others who, on an individual basis, should be specially apprised by the National Trust of significant policies and developments in historic preservation.
4. That in all questions of public education there be the closest cooperation and understanding between the proposed Office of Professional Education and Training Programs, the Senior Editor, the Board of Advisors, and the Committee of Professional Consultants, so that the National Trust may speak in a single authoritative voice.
Introduction
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
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