"Protecting the Irreplaceable" is the motto of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, a multifaceted organization that advocates on behalf of historic properties and districts, serves as a resource for professionals in the field, and educates the public, policy-makers, and legislators about issues related to historic preservation. The wide ranging and eclectic nature of its work becomes apparent from the array of properties the trust has accumulated since its founding in 1949—from President Woodrow Wilson's home in Washington, D.C., to the studio and home of Frank Lloyd Wright in Chicago, Illinois, to the Cooper-Molera adobe compound built by a New England sea captain in what was once Mexican California. Trust programs, including a National Main Street Center focused on revitalizing historic business districts, a community partners' program that identifies historic residential neighborhoods, and a rural heritage program that seeks to preserve historic structures, landscapes, and sites in small towns and rural communities, are no less diverse. With a staff of 300, an annual budget of more than $40 million, and 250,000 members, the National Trust for Historic Preservation is a formidable presence in contemporary American society.
When Congress passed legislation more than fifty years ago to create the National Trust for Historic Preservation, its intention was to provide a means by which historic properties could be acquired and properly cared for. The trust now owns twenty such properties, has eight field offices throughout the nation, and a preservation services fund that can support specific projects at the local level. A range of publications figure prominently in the work of the trust, with Preservation magazine—aimed at educating the public—beginning in 1952. Forum News, a bimonthly newsletter, Forum Journal, a quarterly journal, and Forum Online are designed for the preservation professional, providing venues for airing key issues, identifying resources, and offering models for solving problems. An annual Preservation Leadership Training Institute also provides experience and training for practitioners in the field. In addition to an annual meeting the trust also offers more specialized conferences such as the recent series on "Preserving the Historic Road in America," as well as other educational and organizational resources for local communities through its website at www.nationaltrust.org.
Though it received federal funds from 1966 to 1998, the trust is a nonprofit organization funded mainly through membership dues, sales, and grants. It lobbies for specific legislation and policies at the federal, state, and local level and has undertaken litigation to ensure preservation laws are enforced. "Save America's Treasures," an outgrowth of the 1998 White House Millennium initiative to protect the nation's cultural heritage, has continued as a partnership of the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the National Park Foundation and has led to the designation of several hundred preservation projects throughout the nation.
Since 1988, the trust has issued an annual list of "America's Most Endangered Historic Places," a leadership effort that, while it has had mixed success in assuring the preservation of particular buildings and sites, has created a growing public consciousness. In the late 1980s, the trust was able, for example, to convince the state of Maryland to acquire preservation easements that stopped the encroachments of developers at the site of Antietam National Battlefield Park. Similar threats to the integrity of Little Big Horn Battlefield Monument in Montana have been publicized, but the outcome remains in doubt. At Ellis Island National Monument, the trust has worked with the New York Landmarks Conservancy, the U.S. Congress, and the presidential Save America's Treasures effort to save many historic buildings from deterioration. With trust publicity the town of Bennington, Vermont, was able to persuade a Wal-Mart store to depart from its typical "big box" retail center outside of downtown, and instead use an older building in the downtown area. In Downey, California, the trust helped convince the McDonald's Corporation not to demolish its oldest surviving restaurant. Similarly the city of Dallas, Texas, has provided tax incentives for developers to rehabilitate, rather than demolish, historic properties. Central High School, once a center of desegregation efforts in Little Rock, Arkansas, was badly in need of rehabilitation when the trust placed it on the endangered list in 1996, but its prospects have brightened as President Clinton signed legislation making it a National Historic Site two years later. These and dozens of other trust-led efforts have inspired thousands of citizens to take seriously the historic places in their communities and to fight to save them.
Bibliography
Finley, David E. History of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, 1947–1963. Washington D.C.: National Trust for Historic Preservation, 1965.
Hosmer, Charles B., Jr. Preservation Comes of Age: From Williamsburg to the National Trust, 1926–1949. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1981.
Mulloy, Elizabeth. The History of the National Trust for Historic Preservation 1963–1973. Washington, D.C.: Preservation Press, 1976.
