1st Edition

Place, Race, and Story Essays on the Past and Future of Historic Preservation

By Ned Kaufman Copyright 2009
    436 Pages 25 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    452 Pages 25 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    In Place, Race, and Story, author Ned Kaufman has collected his own essays dedicated to the proposition of giving the next generation of preservationists not only a foundational knowledge of the field of study, but more ideas on where they can take it. Through both big-picture essays considering preservation across time, and descriptions of work on specific sites, the essays in this collection trace the themes of place, race, and story in ways that raise questions, stimulate discussion, and offer a different perspective on these common ideas.

    Including unpublished essays as well as established works by the author, Place, Race, and Story provides a new outline for a progressive preservation movement – the revitalized movement for social progress.

    List of Figures  Acknowledgements  Prologue: How Place, Race and Story are Changing Preservation Today  Part I: Place, Race and Story: Basic Issues  Introduction: Needs and Opportunities  1. Placing Preservation  2. Protecting Storyscape  3. Eliminating the Diversity Deficit  Part II: Architecture in and out of Place: Historical Perspectives  Introduction: Visiting, Collecting, and Preserving Architecture  4. History, Design, and the Rise of Architectural Travel  5. Collecting Architecture, from Napoleon Through Ford  Part III: Winning and Losing in New York City  Introduction: “Cultural Landmarks” and the Challenges of Place, Race, and Story in New York City  6. A Plan to Save New York’s Places of History and Tradition  7. Heritage and the Cultural Politics of Preservation: The African Burial Ground and the Audubon Ballroom  8. Historical Memory, Social Equity, and the Disappearance of New York’s Working-Class Neighborhoods  Part IV. Choosing a Different Future Introduction: Yesterday’s and Tomorrow’s Futures  9. Sustaining the Living Heritage of Places: Some Suggestions for Using and Owning Land  10. Sugar Songs: A Modest Proposal Delivered to the Earl of Harewood  11.  Moving Forward: Futures for a Preservation Movement  Index

    Biography

    Ned Kaufman is a founder of Place Matters and of Pratt Institute's graduate program in Historic Preservation. He is the author of studies ranging from Victorian Gothic to the management of public lands and historic sites.

    "Ned Kaufman has been at the vanguard of historic preservation thought and activism for two decades. He has challenged preservationists to go beyond a traditional focus on beautiful buildings and become a part of a larger movement for social justice. Place, Race, and Story shows us the way by offering frameworks and case studies that both critique and provide inspiring examples of what a progressive preservation movement looks like."Max Page, University of Massachusetts, and author of The City's End: Two Centuries of Fantasies, Fears, and Premonitions of New York's Destruction 

    "Preservationists usually focus on the how; Ned Kaufman reminds us to ask why we are preserving. Then he thoughtfully answers, showing us how preservation can better connect us and our places through the shared stories in people's lives."Michael Holleran, University of Texas at Austin, and author of Boston's "Changeful Times": Origins of Preservation and Planning in America 

    "Caught up in the day-to-day struggle to keep America’s heritage intact and alive, preservationists don’t often think about our movement’s origins, milestones and philosophical underpinnings. That’s a mistake. Ned Kaufman’s thoughtful and enormously useful book reminds us of the importance of knowing how we got here – and how the journey changed us."Richard Moe, President, National Trust for Historic Preservation

    "Place, Race, and Story is truly absorbing, well-written and consistently thought-provoking….This is an important work of great relevance to serious interpreters of heritage."Michael Hamish Glen, Association for Heritage Interpretation

    "In this provocative volume, Ned Kaufman calls for a reconsideration of historic preservation guidelines in order to accommodate the needs of communities to describe their own significance.  This book provide[s] valuable discussion material for graduate students and practitioners in the field of historic preservation….The author successfully argues that in order to fashion a more inclusive practice of historic preservation, a more expansive view is needed."Doris Devine Fanelli, Independence National Historical Park, CRM: The Journal of Heritage Stewardship

    "Ned Kaufman points the way towards a more relevant, expansive, and vital historic preservation movement; a movement committed to social equity, steeped in ethnography and politics, and guided less by the imperatives of architectural history practice and more by sensitivity to the human values manifested in everyday attachments to place."Daniel Bluestone, University of Virginia, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians

    "As a preservation activist and practitioner, Kaufman possesses significant on-the-ground experience from which readers will benefit... [T]his is a valuable contribution to the fields of urban studies, cultural heritage studies, to the growing body of literature on race and space, and, of course, to the literature on historic preservation." - Dianne Harris, University of Illinois, Journal of American History

    "Participates in a long, evolving tradition of caring for the built environment. That quality makes this book a welcome illustration of both how far preservation has come in recent years and how much there is left to do." - Jeffrey E. Klee, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Buildings & Landscapes: Journal of the Vernacular Architecture Forum