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DHR Register Program Updates
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*News on DHR's Board Meetings *NPS Civil Rights Grants *Saving Slave Houses
*History News from Around Virginia & Elsewhere *And More
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To keep everyone abreast of DHR’s Virginia Landmarks Register and National Register programs, as well as related news and history, here is our latest update from Lena McDonald, Historian, DHR Register Program.
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*Consultants, CLG staff, university faculty, students, and anyone interested in Virginia's landmark register programs and history. (Please share this newsletter with others!)
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Results of DHR September Joint Quarterly Board Meeting
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At their joint meeting on Thursday, September 19, 2019, the Virginia State Review Board and Board of Historic Resources approved the following nominations :
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- Ellington, Hanover County, DHR No. 042-0400, Criterion A
- Holly Springs Apartments Historic District, City of Richmond, DHR No. 127-7205, Criteria A and C
- New Kent Ordinary, New Kent County, DHR No. 063-0021, Criteria A and C
- Periwinkle Cottage, Albemarle County, DHR No. 002-5311, Criterion C
- Sligo, City of Fredericksburg, DHR No. 111-0097, Criterion C
- Willisville Historic District, Loudoun County, DHR No. 053-5116, Criteria A and C
- Hargrave Military Academy, Pittsylvania County, DHR No. 187-5004, Criteria A and C
- St. Albans Hospital, Pulaski County, DHR No. 077-0046, Criteria A and C
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Preliminary Information Forms (PIFs):
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On Thursday, September 19, 2019, the State Review Board approved the following Preliminary Information Forms (PIFs) (To see photos of the sites, visit this page of the DHR website and scroll down to the PIFs):
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- Carver Price School, Appomattox County, DHR No. 165-5003, Criterion A
- Coffey General Store and House, Bedford County, DHR No. 009-5092, Criteria A and C
- Danville Doctors Building, City of Danville, DHR No. 108-0056-0161, Criteria A and C
- Fleetwood School, Nelson County, DHR No. 062-5237, Criteria A and C
- Graham-Watson Farm, Wythe County, DHR No.098-5350, Criteria A and C
- Jackson Barn, Rockbridge County, DHR No. 081-7171, Criterion C
- Martinsville Historic District Boundary Increase, City of Martinsville, DHR No. 120-5098, Criteria A and C
- Southside High School, Pittsylvania County, DHR No. 071-5820, Criteria A and C
- Summers, William Preston, Law Office, Town of Abingdon, Washington County, DHR No. 140-0029, Criteria A and C
- Belleview Historic District, Town of Orange, Orange County, DHR No. 275-5005, Criteria A and C
- Knightsbridge Apartments, City of Alexandria, DHR No. 000-9731, Criteria A and C
- Richardson, Amon, House, Rappahannock County, DHR No. 078-5197, Criterion A
- Sperryville Historic District Update and Boundary Increase, Rappahannock County, DHR No. 078-5196, Criteria A and C
- C. Walker School, Bath County, DHR No. 008-5076, Criteria A and C
- Cape Charles Rosenwald School, Town of Cape Charles, Northampton County, DHR No. 182-0003, Criteria A and C
- Dupont “A” Village, City of Hopewell, DHR No. 116-5150, Criteria A and C
- Eyreville, Northampton County, DHR No. 065-5126, Criteria A, B, C, and D
- Kecoughtan Court Apartments, City of Hampton, DHR No. 114-5823, Criteria A and C
- Port Royal Historic District Update and Boundary Increase, Town of Port Royal, Caroline County, DHR No. 284-0007, Criteria A, C, and D
- John’s United Holy Church of America, City of Richmond, DHR No. 127-7209, Criterion A and Criteria Consideration A
- Woodbourne, Westmoreland County, DHR No. 096-5066, Criteria B and C
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December 2019 Joint Board Meeting:
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The Virginia Board of Historic Resources and State Review Board next convene on December 12, 2019, to consider new nominations to the Virginia Landmarks Register and National Register of Historic Places. The meeting will take place in Richmond at the Virginia Museum of History and Culture. The draft agenda for Register nominations is expected to include properties in Southampton, Albemarle, Hanover, and Pulaski counties. For each historic district being nominated, a public meeting will take place between November 4-12, 2019.
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2020 Board Meeting Schedule Approved
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At their joint meeting in September 2019, the Virginia Board of Historic Resources and State Review Board approved their 2020 meeting schedule as follows:
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- March 19, 2020 (third Thursday of the month)
- June 18, 2020 (third Thursday)
- September 17, 2020 (third Thursday)
- December 10, 2020 (second Thursday)
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Locations and start times for each Board meeting are yet to be determined, but will be announced a minimum of two months in advance of each meeting.
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Register-Listed Places in the News
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New Grants Awarded for National Park Service’s African American
Civil Rights Program
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In mid-September, the National Park Service announced $12.259 million in African American Civil Rights grants to fund 44 projects across 17 states that will preserve and highlight stories related to the African American Civil Rights Movement in the 20th century. Virginia received $1.162 million in grants for the following projects to rehabilitate:
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- the St. John Rosenwald School in Gordonsville;
- the T. C. Walker House in Gloucester County;
- Graham Hall and of the Mary Jane Cachelin Science and Library Building at Virginia University of Lynchburg;
- to continue rehabilitation work on the Third Street Bethel AME Church in Richmond (top left photo); and
- to restore the Belgian Building on the campus of Virginia Union University in Richmond (bottom left).
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Fort Monroe, ca. 2007. (Wikipedia / US Army photo)
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"The Future of America’s Past"
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A new PBS series about American history will be hosted by historian Ed Ayers, who is Tucker-Boatwright Professor of the Humanities and president emeritus at the University of Richmond. During the course of the series, Dr. Ayers will visit historic sites that highlight how National Park Service interpreters, museum educators, artists, and activists engage a diverse public with the fullness of our nation’s history. The first episode takes place at Virginia’s Fort Monroe, a National Historic Landmark in Hampton. Other episodes will feature historic sites in New York City and Texas, as well as locations of World War II-era Japanese internment camps in California and Idaho.
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Saving Slave Houses Project
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As a graduate student in historic preservation in 2012, architect Jobie Hill began visiting and documenting dwellings built for enslaved people. Through grants and consulting work for historic properties, including James Madison’s Montpelier and Jefferson's Monticello, Hill has traveled to 140 sites in six states, compiling her findings into a database. Her project’s website, Saving Slave Houses, includes educational, interpretive, and community outreach elements along with the database.
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A subset of Hill’s project is the Virginia Slave House Project, which includes information about 900 resources associated with slave housing in Virginia. Hill partnered with the University of Mary Washington’s Center for Historic Preservation to make her survey data publicly available alongside the University’s. Prior to this, in 2007, two University faculty, Douglas W. Sanford and Dennis J. Pogue published a report, “Measuring the Social, Spatial, and Temporal Dimensions of Virginia Slave Housing,” that continues to be an excellent research tool.
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Dec. 1937 photo of Aberdeen Gardens. (LOC)
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Aberdeen Gardens Historic District
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The Washington Post published a lengthy feature article about the Aberdeen Gardens Historic District last month. Established as a New Deal, planned community for the African American workers of the Newport News and Hampton areas, the project began in 1934 and finished by 1937.Built during the Jim Crow era of segregation, this 440-acre development was the only Resettlement Administration community for African Americans in Virginia.
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The neighborhood consisted of 158 single-family dwellings along with a school and a commercial center, all surrounded by a greenbelt for subsistence and truck farming. The project, initiated by Hampton Institute and funded by the U. S. Department of Interior’s Division of Subsistence Homesteads, was supervised by Howard University architect Hilyard R. Robinson. The project received national attention when visited by Eleanor Roosevelt in 1938. While expanded in the 1940s and 1950s, the neighborhood preserves its original orderly character and remains a symbol of African American pride. In addition to interviews with longtime residents, the Washington Post noted the neighborhood’s nomination to the Virginia Landmarks Register and National Register of Historic Places during the early 1990s.
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New Exhibit at Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park
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Through a collaborative project with the University of Mary Washington, the National Park Service has installed a new wayside exhibit outside the Fredericksburg Battlefield Visitor Center that focuses on the history of segregation at Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park. One of those restrooms is still in use and retains original tile and fixtures.
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The larger building is today the park’s gift shop and bookstore. The project originated with the goal of highlighting surviving historic resources, including buildings and landscape features, related to the local and national story of racial segregation at national parks. The University’s Dr. Erin Devlin is currently working with the NPS to develop a historic resource study that will examine the practice of racial segregation in Virginia’s national parks during the first half of the 20th century.
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History News from Around Virginia
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Virginia Newspaper Project Awarded NEH Grants for Digitization Efforts
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The National Endowment for the Humanities has awarded two grants to the Library of Virginia for its ongoing project to digitize historical newspapers as part of the National Digital Newspaper Program.
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The Library received a two-year grant to digitize Virginia imprint newspapers, primarily those published during the antebellum era. An additional focus, however, will be on newspapers published during the mid-20th century Civil Rights Movement and the era of Massive Resistance. The second grant funds the Library’s partnership with West Virginia University to digitize that state’s imprint newspapers as part of the program. The partnership makes sense given the close historical and geographical connections between the two states—not to mention the fact that titles published prior to 1863 are also Virginia imprints. Over 1 million pages of digitized newspapers are online at Virginia Chronicle. Research guides and indexes are available to assist users with their research projects.
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Civil War Graffiti Symposium
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On November 2, 2019, the Northern Virginia Civil War Graffiti Trail will hold its first public program to introduce the audience to local graffiti sites. The event takes place from 9:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m. at Historic Blenheim, 3610 Old Lee Highway, Fairfax, VA 22030. Participants will learn about the history of Civil War graffiti and discover the technical side of its conservation from two conservators who have uncovered and restored local Civil War graffiti. The event also will include tours of the Historic Blenheim site, gallery, and house. Writer and teacher Kim O'Connell will explore the historical importance of Civil War graffiti; Architectural Conservator Chris Mills will discuss the technical side of graffiti conservation; and Conservator and Paint Analyst Kirsten Travers Moffitt will relate her graffiti conservation work at Historic Blenheim. Advance registration is required as space is limited to 65. A registration fee of $15 must be paid, and lunch during the event will be available for an additional $10. Call 703-591-6728 for further information.
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Conference on Planning History
Taking Place in Northern Virginia
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The Society of American City and Regional Planning History (SACRPH) will host its biennial conference in Northern Virginia on October 31-November 3, 2019. Northern Virginia has a wealth of modern-era planning history that includes early historic preservation efforts (Alexandria), post-WWII planned communities (Reston, top photo), bruising desegregation battles (housing, schools), major military installations (Pentagon, Langley), booming edge cities (Tysons Corner), and immigrant-led transformations (Vietnamese, Salvadoran, South American). The recent announcement that Amazon will develop a headquarters in Crystal City already is expected to open new fronts in urban and community planning.
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Paper panels, roundtables, plenary sessions, and on-site tours will explore the following topics:
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- Historic preservation, evolution of the working waterfront, restoration, reuse, and urban renewal in George Washington’s hometown, Alexandria
- Architectural landscape of Crystal City in the 1960s place-making initiatives of the postwar period and revitalization in the 2000s, the arrival of Amazon, and rebranding the area as National Landing
- Historic Terminal A at National Airport
- Pentagon building history in the context of civil-military relations, bureaucratic politics, and regional planning design
- Post-war large-scale development in suburban areas through Tyson’s Corner, the “quintessential” edge city in the 21st-century “information age,” and the planned-community of Reston
- Planning in diverse and immigrant-rich Arlington and the role of immigrants in shaping communities which serve a transient population of foreign nationals, government workers, and military personnel
- Planning initiatives along the Metrorail corridor from Rosslyn to Ballston, and the diverse communities that coexist within high density, urban clusters
- Proposal to develop a SACRPH working group to bridge professional and academic spheres and deepen public engagement; such as understanding discriminatory legacies of planning and property in African American heritage communities
- The future of regional economic development and global corporation influence on local land use and planning, how technology companies shape 21st century metropolitan geography
- Transit alternatives; green space and urban forests; community gardens and vertical farms; public art and civic areas; and military installations and monument
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Traditional Building Conference
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The next Traditional Building Conference takes place October 29-30, 2019, at the Graylyn Estate in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Architects, preservationists, craftspeople, facility owners, renovators, and suppliers are invited to attend two days of educational seminars, networking events and architectural tours. Featuring both a modern conference facility and a carefully preserved historic residence, Graylyn will served as a “living laboratory” for education focusing on the restoration and maintenance of historic windows. Other topics will include restoration of stone tracery for stained glass windows, understanding building code requirements for historic windows, and architectural tours of Wake Forest University and the recently rehabilitated Union Station. Additional details, including online registration, is available at https://www.traditionalbuildingshow.com/page/schedule.
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Preserving Difficult Histories
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The National Trust for Historic Preservation has made its Spring 2017 issue of Forum Journal available online for free. This issue focuses on preserving difficult histories and features AASLH partners, the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience and the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Among the historic sites that are profiled is Richmond’s Shockoe Bottom. In the article, representatives of several advocacy groups discuss the process of defeating a proposal to build a baseball stadium on the site, as well as the community-generated proposal to build a memorial garden.
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Interactive Online Exhibit of the
History of Slavery in the U.S.
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USA Today has published a new interactive exhibit that uses maps, historic images, graphs and other graphics to illustrate the growth and spread of slavery throughout the United States across 250 years. Beginning with the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in Virginia in 1619, the exhibit continues through 1865. During this time span, it is estimated that as many as 10 million people were enslaved in the United States. When Union victory in the Civil War put an end to slavery in 1865, 4 million African Americans were freed.
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Touching History: Preservation in Practice
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A new program aims to bring African-American students pursuing architecture degrees into historic preservation and related career paths. Developed jointly by the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, the National Park Service, and the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Hands On Preservation Experience (HOPE) Crew, the project connects historic preservation and conservation through a joint project with Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). Program goals include Increasing the number of HBCUs that offer degrees in historic preservation and related fields, restoring and preserving historically significant buildings on HBCU campuses, and providing students with hands-on experience working with historic materials as well as classroom training on preservation theory.
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Early interstate construction in the 1950s led to widespread protests across the United States and gave birth to the modern historic preservation movement. An interesting new report, Freeway Revolts!, examines the origins of public protests against freeway construction by reviewing data on neighborhoods and travel behavior to show that diminished quality of life caused by freeways inspired the revolts, affected the allocation of freeways within cities, and changed city structure. Issued by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, this report also relates the historical context of these revolts to potential policies that may improve public perception of highways. Some of the report’s findings, such as that freeways caused slower growth in population, income, and land values in central areas but faster growth in outlying areas, are not new to preservationists; however, the findings are presented based on analytical perspectives using data sets and spatial analysis that were previously difficult to access.
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Maryland Lynching Truth and Reconciliation Commission
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The Maryland Lynching Memorial Project and University of Baltimore School of Law held a public launch for the Maryland Lynching Truth & Reconciliation Commission on Thursday, September 12, 2019. The commission, which is the first of its kind in the United States, is charged with researching “certain cases of racially motivated lynching,” for which the commission will submit an interim report in September 2020 and a final report in December 2021 to the Governor and the General Assembly. House Bill 307 authorized the commission and notes that at least 40 documented lynchings occurred in Maryland between 1854 and 1933, that no persons were ever tried, convicted, or otherwise brought to justice for participating in a lynching, and that various State, county, and local government entities colluded in lynchings and/or conspired to conceal the identities of those who committed lynchings. According to the Baltimore Sun, all of the lynchings are considered to be open murder investigations. The commission includes a staff member from the state Attorney General’s Office who is authorized to issue subpoenas for documents and witnesses that could reveal key details like the burial place of victims. The Maryland Historical Trust, the State Historic Preservation Office, also has a seat on the Commission.
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The idea for such a commission is rooted in the spirit of restorative justice, which emphasizes repairing the harm to people, relationships and the community caused by criminal behavior. Thus, “justice” must address those harms as well as the wrongdoing. A key principle of restorative justice is that the people most affected by the crime should be able to participate in its resolution.
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Federal Funding for History Programs, Projects, and Agencies
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Last week, the Senate cleared a stopgap funding measure delaying the deadline for action on the fiscal year 2020 budget until November 21. The National Coalition for History has published a summary of where things stand, and how federal history, archives, and education programs would be affected. Appropriations for several federal programs in which DHR participates are included in the summary. The Historic Preservation Fund provides a large percentage of annual funding to state historic preservation and tribal historic preservation offices throughout the U.S. The American Battlefield Protection Program provides grants to acquire battlefield lands for permanent protection and preservation. The Save America’s Treasures program offers grants for bricks-and-mortar projects to assure continued preservation of significant buildings and structures. Please note that appropriation amounts will not be finalized until the House and Senate reconcile differences in budget amounts and the legislation is signed by the president.
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