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Historic New England, previously known as the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities (SPNEA), is a charitable, non-profit, historic preservation organization headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. It is focused on New England and is the oldest and largest regional preservation organization in the United States. Historic New England owns and operates historic site museums and study properties throughout all of the New England states except Vermont, and serves more than 198,000 visitors and program participants each year. Approximately 48,000 visitors participate in school and youth programs focused on New England heritage.
Historic New England is a museum of cultural history that collects and preserves buildings, landscapes, and objects dating from the seventeenth century to the present and uses them to keep history alive and to help people develop a deeper understanding and enjoyment of New England life and appreciation for its preservation.
William Sumner Appleton Jr. founded the Society for the Preservation of new England Antiquities in 1910 for "the purpose of preserving for posterity buildings, places and objects of historical and other interest." Fearing that "our New England antiquities are fast disappearing because no society has made their preservation its exclusive object," Sumner Appleton and a small group of like-minded individuals founded SPNEA in 1910. By 1920, Director of Museums Harry Vinton Long wrote in his report that the museum’s purpose is "to preserve and illustrate the life of New Englanders..." The history of New Englanders encompasses the stories of family life, immigration, school girls' routines, servants' duties, the enslaved Africans, and the products of masons, carpenters, and furniture makers. The first annual meeting was held at the 41 Brimmer Street Boston home of Mary Lee Ware, a noted philanthropist in the area as well at the patroness of Harvard University's famed Glass Flowers collection. [1]
Accession records for 1910 list 19 items. Appleton considered everything from the mundane to the singular worth preserving, and so Historic New England's collection today ranges from everyday cakes of soap to extraordinary specimens of fine furniture. As a comprehensive heritage organization, Historic New England today cares for historic properties and landscapes; holds preservation easements and undertakes preservation advocacy work to protect historic properties; develops, maintains and interprets artifact collections; operates a library and archive; researches and publishes books and Historic New England magazine; and provides educational programs for children and adults. The organization's mission statement outlines its goals: "We serve the public by preserving and presenting New England heritage." The organization focuses on New England domestic architecture, collections, and stories.
Founder William Sumner Appleton was succeeded as Director by Bertram K. Little, Abbott Lowell Cummings and Nancy R. Coolidge before the title of the chief executive officer was changed to President, with Jane C. Nylander being the first to serve under that title. Carl R. Nold was President following Nylander, and since 2020 Vin Cipolla has served as the President and CEO of Historic New England. [2]
The organization formerly included one of America's most prominent architectural conservation centers (the SPNEA Conservation Center), which pioneered a number of conservation techniques under research leader Morgan W. Phillips and his apprentices. Phillips is credited with coining the term architectural conservation.
Historic New England currently owns and operates 37 house museums and 1,284 acres of farmland and landscapes across five New England states, representing nearly 400 years of architecture. It also owns a wide-ranging collection of more than 100,000 objects of historical and aesthetic significance, the largest such assemblage of New England art and artifacts in the country. It also archives more than one million items documenting New England architectural and cultural history, including photographs, prints and engravings, more than 20,000 architectural drawings and specifications, books, manuscripts, and other ephemera. The Collections Access Project, which provides Internet-based access to catalog data about many of the collections, went online during the organization's centennial in 2010. A Collections and Conservation Center is located in Haverhill, Massachusetts, in a former shoe factory building. While not open to the public, this facility provides for the proper care of collections and access to collections and collections information for curators, students and scholars. Other museums also rent space for collections storage in this facility. Historic New England also owns the Plum Island Airport, a small public general aviation airport located in Newburyport, Massachusetts on a site used for aviation since 1910. The airport is located on the property of the historic Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm, donated to the organization in 1971 and operated as a museum since 1986. [3]
A traveling exhibition program presents collections and research to the general public, in cooperation with other museums throughout the region. Exhibitions have included America's Kitchens, which appeared at the New Hampshire Historical Society in 2009; Drawing Toward Home, an architectural drawing exhibition that opened at the Boston University Art Gallery in November 2009 and traveled to the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. during 2010; and a centennial exhibition entitled The Preservation Movement Then and Now, which appeared in all six New England states beginning in late 2009 and continued through 2013.
On line exhibitions include Jewelry at Historic New England, The Preservation Movement Then and Now, From Dairy to Doorstep: Milk Delivery in New England, 1860-1960 and New England Photographs of Verner Reed.
Through a conservation easement program established in the early 1980s, Historic New England holds easements on more than 120 (as of 2024 [update] ) privately owned New England properties. It works with the owners of these properties to ensure the preservation of their character-defining historic features. The program provides comprehensive protection of exterior, interior, and landscape features and is considered a national model for the protection of buildings that remain in active use and private ownership. Approximately one-third of the properties in the program were previously owned by Historic New England and were returned to private ownership with preservation restrictions that continue in perpetuity. The balance of the properties were enrolled by current or former owners, who donated the deed restrictions to the organization along with endowment fund contributions. Endowment funds provide for the monitoring and enforcement of the easements, carried out by a full-time staff dedicated to that purpose.
A Historic Homeowner program, available to all for an annual membership fee, provides information to those who own historic houses of any age, up to and including mid-20th-century homes. The annual membership includes two consultations with staff experts, one on historic paint colors, and a second on a topic chosen by the member, ranging from window repair to roofing materials, hardware source or historic wallpaper selections, or other topics needed for the care of historic homes. Other specialized membership programs focus on Gardens and Landscapes, and on young adults through the Young Friends program, and an upper-level membership society called the Appleton Circle provides benefactor support for organizational programs.
Historic New England is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt non-profit organization operating under the direction of a 15-member board of trustees.
The following properties are open to the public. Most are open only during the warmer months (typically June to mid-October), and many are open only for limited days on selected weekends. Particularly fragile properties are open only a few days each year. The grounds and facilities of some properties (notable ones being the Lyman Estate and the Langdon House) are available for private functions.
The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts, which houses significant examples of European, Asian, and American art. Its collection includes paintings, sculpture, tapestries, and decorative arts. It was founded by Isabella Stewart Gardner, whose will called for her art collection to be permanently exhibited "for the education and enjoyment of the public forever."
Historic preservation (US), built heritage preservation or built heritage conservation (UK) is an endeavor that seeks to preserve, conserve and protect buildings, objects, landscapes or other artifacts of historical significance. It is a philosophical concept that became popular in the twentieth century, which maintains that cities as products of centuries' development should be obligated to protect their patrimonial legacy. The term refers specifically to the preservation of the built environment, and not to preservation of, for example, primeval forests or wilderness.
Conservation and restoration of immovable cultural property describes the process through which the material, historical, and design integrity of any immovable cultural property are prolonged through carefully planned interventions. The individual engaged in this pursuit is known as an architectural conservator-restorer. Decisions of when and how to engage in an intervention are critical to the ultimate conservation-restoration of cultural heritage. Ultimately, the decision is value based: a combination of artistic, contextual, and informational values is normally considered. In some cases, a decision to not intervene may be the most appropriate choice.
The Longfellow House–Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site is a historic site located at 105 Brattle Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was the home of noted American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow for almost 50 years, and it had previously served as the headquarters of General George Washington (1775–76).
The Trustees of Reservations is a non-profit land conservation and historic preservation organization dedicated to preserving natural and historical places in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. It is the oldest land conservation nonprofit organization of its kind in the world and has 100,000 member households as of 2021. In addition to land stewardship, the organization is also active in conservation partnerships, community supported agriculture (CSA), environmental and conservation education, community preservation and development, and green building. The Trustees owns title to 120 properties on 27,000 acres (11,000 ha) in Massachusetts, all of which are open to the public. In addition, it holds 393 conservation restrictions to protect an additional 20,000 acres (8,100 ha). Properties include historic mansions, estates, and gardens; woodland preserves; waterfalls; mountain peaks; wetlands and riverways; coastal bluffs, beaches, and barrier islands; farmland and CSA projects; and archaeological sites.
Abbott Lowell Cummings was a noted architectural historian and genealogist, best known for his study of New England architecture.
Olana State Historic Site is a historic house museum and landscape in Greenport, New York, near the city of Hudson. The estate was home to Frederic Edwin Church (1826–1900), one of the major figures in the Hudson River School of landscape painting. The centerpiece of Olana is an eclectic villa which overlooks parkland and a working farm designed by the artist. The residence has a wide view of the Hudson River Valley, the Catskill Mountains and the Taconic Range. Church and his wife Isabel (1836–1899) named their estate after a fortress-treasure house in ancient Greater Persia, which also overlooked a river valley.
Cultural heritage is the heritage of tangible and intangible heritage assets of a group or society that is inherited from past generations. Not all heritages of past generations are "heritage"; rather, heritage is a product of selection by society.
The DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum is a sculpture park and contemporary art museum on the southern shore of Flint's Pond in Lincoln, Massachusetts, 20 miles northwest of Boston. It was established in 1950, and is the largest park of its kind in New England, encompassing 30 acres.
William Sumner Appleton Jr. was founder of the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities (SPNEA) in 1910. He was the chief force behind much of the preservation of historic homes in the New England area.
Beauport, also known as Sleeper–McCann House, Little Beauport, or Henry Davis Sleeper House, is a historic house in Gloucester, Massachusetts, USA.
The Richard Jackson House is a historic house in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Built in 1664 by Richard Jackson, it is the oldest wood-frame house in New Hampshire. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1968. It is now a historic house museum owned by Historic New England, and is open two Saturdays a month between June and October.
A conservator-restorer is a professional responsible for the preservation of artistic and cultural artifacts, also known as cultural heritage. Conservators possess the expertise to preserve cultural heritage in a way that retains the integrity of the object, building or site, including its historical significance, context and aesthetic or visual aspects. This kind of preservation is done by analyzing and assessing the condition of cultural property, understanding processes and evidence of deterioration, planning collections care or site management strategies that prevent damage, carrying out conservation treatments, and conducting research. A conservator's job is to ensure that the objects in a museum's collection are kept in the best possible condition, as well as to serve the museum's mission to bring art before the public.
The Preservation Foundation of Palm Beach is a private, nonprofit membership organization dedicated to the preservation of the historic, architectural, as well as cultural heritage of Palm Beach, Florida. Through advocacy initiatives, educational programs, architectural resources, and cultural events, the foundation’s goal is to encourage the community to learn about and save the historic buildings that make the town of Palm Beach special.
John Yeon was an American architect in Portland, Oregon, in the mid-twentieth century. He is regarded as one of the early practitioners of the Northwest Regional style of Modernism. Largely self-taught, Yeon’s wide ranging activities encompassed planning, conservation, historic preservation, art collecting, and urban activism. He was a connoisseur of objets d’art as well as landscapes, and one of Oregon’s most gifted architectural designers, even while his output was limited.
Farmland preservation is a joint effort by non-governmental organizations and local governments to set aside and protect examples of a region's farmland for the use, education, and enjoyment of future generations. They are operated mostly at state and local levels by government agencies or private entities such as land trusts and are designed to limit conversion of agricultural land to other uses that otherwise might have been more financially attractive to the land owner. Through different government programs and policy enactments farmers are able to preserve their land for growing crops and raising livestock. Every state provides tax relief through differential (preferential) assessment. Easements are a popular approach and allow the farms to remain operational. Less common approaches include establishing agricultural districts, using zoning to protect agricultural land, purchasing development rights, and transferable development rights. It is often a part of regional planning and national historic preservation. Farmland preservation efforts have been taking place across the United States, such as in Virginia, Minnesota, Maryland, Florida, and Connecticut.
Historic preservation in New York is activity undertaken to conserve forests, buildings, ships, sacred burial grounds, water purity and other objects of cultural importance in New York in ways that allow them to communicate meaningfully about past practices, events, and people.
The Harrison House, also known as Harrison–Linsley House and incorrectly as the Swain-Harrison House, is a historic house museum at 124 Main Street in Branford, Connecticut. Built in 1724 by a descendant of Branford's founders, it is a good example of a Connecticut saltbox structure. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975, and is a contributing property to the Canoe Brook Historic District. Since 2016 it has been operated as a house museum by the Branford Historical Society.
Joshua's Tract Conservation and Historic Trust, or Joshua's Trust, is a non-profit 501(c)(3) land trust operating in northeast Connecticut. Joshua's Trust was incorporated in 1966 to help conserve property of significant natural or historic interest. As of 2011, the Trust protects more than 5,000 acres, maintains 42 miles (68 km) of trails that are open to the public, holds educational outreach programs, and publishes the Joshua's Tract Walkbook.
Morgan W. Phillips (1943–1996) was an American founder of the field of architectural conservation. He is credited with coining the term "architectural conservation" in the early 1970s and was among the first to call himself an architectural conservator. Phillips worked for most of his career at the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities (SPNEA) in Boston, now Historic New England, and the organization's Conservation Center was largely built around his research and that of his apprentices.