Remarks

May 4, 1998

Remarks by Richard Moe,
President, National Trust for Historic Preservation,
at the First Meeting of the Millennium Committee
to Save America's Treasures

The White House
WASHINGTON, D.C.

Treasures Preserved: Our Gift to Americans of the New Millennium

I want to commend the First Lady for the vision and commitment she has demonstrated in the creation and development of the "Save America’s Treasures" initiative. I’m convinced that this program has the potential to be the most significant effort of its kind ever undertaken. It offers us a great opportunity to make enormous strides in saving the special places, objects and works of art that tell America’s story. It’s the most appropriate way to mark the beginning of a new millennium — by celebrating the achievements that have brought us this far, and ensuring that future generations will be able to enjoy, appreciate and learn from them as well.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation is honored to have been chosen as the White House’s partner in this important effort to save America’s heritage. For those of you who may not know about the National Trust and our work, we are a nonprofit organization with almost 50 years’ experience as the private-sector leader of the nationwide movement to save historic buildings and the living, breathing neighborhoods they anchor. Our mission is simple and crucial: to protect the irreplaceable — and that’s exactly what the "Save America’s Treasures" program is all about.

I also want to acknowledge the marvelous assistance we’ve received — and will continue to count on — from two other organizations that are working with us in this effort. From all of us involved in the "Save America’s Treasures" program, a sincere "thank you" to Larry Reger, president of Heritage Preservation, Inc., and Jim Maddy, president of the National Park Foundation.

Several years ago, while I was researching a book about the Civil War, I went to Gettysburg. I wanted to examine a photo relating to the battle, but it wasn’t there; it had been lost or stolen. That’s when I first realized that America’s heritage is in danger.

A short time later I became president of the National Trust. I’ve had the good fortune to travel all over the country in this capacity — and everywhere I go, the same disturbing realization keeps being impressed on me: Our history is disappearing.

In the next few minutes I’d like to tell you about some of America’s most important treasures that are in trouble. Some of them are familiar; others may surprise you. I hope that when you hear about them, you’ll be inspired to lend your support to this ambitious effort to save them as our gift to future generations.

First is Mesa Verde, an awe-inspiring place in southwestern Colorado whose history is older than the millennium that is now ending. Mesa Verde National Park contains the country’s — and the world’s — most important and best-preserved collection of pre-Columbian cliff dwellings.

These remnants of the Anasazi culture that flourished in the area from the 5th through the 13th century are not just an American treasure, they’re a treasure of global significance — and they’re in peril. There are more than 4,000 archaeological sites at Mesa Verde, including 500 cliff dwellings, but the National Park Service has funds to provide regular maintenance for only 40 to 50 of them. As a result, collapsing walls, undermined foundations, sagging roofs, rising damp, eroding mortar and other factors place some of the most important structures at risk. Unless steps are taken soon to protect them, some sites at Mesa Verde will be lost within just a few years — and a link with a vanished civilization will crumble into dust.

That same process of deterioration is robbing us of another treasure at Thomas Edison’s Invention Factory in West Orange, New Jersey. This complex of buildings — the prototype of the modern industrial research lab — is where Edison’s ideas became reality. Edison boasted that this place could build anything from a "lady’s watch to a locomotive," and he was right: This is where he and his staff developed or perfected the phonograph, the movie camera, the storage battery, the fluoroscope and many other innovations. Everywhere you look in this amazing place, a one-of-a-kind collection of more than 5,000,000 documents and almost 400,000 objects is at risk. Papers, prototypes, original wax cylinder recordings and other fragile items are rapidly deteriorating because of inadequate climate control and poor storage facilities. This is the tangible evidence of genius. If it isn’t catalogued, conserved and properly stored — soon — it will disappear.

Mesa Verde and Edison’s Invention Factory are two of the big-name "stars" on the list of America’s endangered treasures. These places and others like them represent history that most people know about. They’ve been entrusted to the care of the federal government. They are loved and visited by millions of people every year. If these places are in trouble, imagine the plight of lesser-known treasures that represent America’s "hidden history" — important chapters of our nation’s story that have been ignored, overlooked or forgotten.

Anderson Cottage here in Washington is such a place. Chances are you’ve never heard of it, but it played an important role in an era that defined America. Dating from 1843, Anderson Cottage is the oldest building on the grounds of the oldest remaining Soldiers’ Home in the United States, one of three established by Congress in 1851. Because of its elevated location above the swampy heat of Washington, the cottage was used as a summer residence by presidents from Buchanan to Arthur. In a very real sense, this was the "Camp David" of the 19th century. During the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln spent almost every night here during the summer months. It was here, in this leafy setting that provided a refuge from the cares and demands of the wartime White House, that Lincoln wrote the final draft of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1862. Lincoln is our most beloved president, yet this site intimately associated with him is hidden in the shadows. It deserves to be restored, interpreted and opened to the public.

There’s another house not far from Washington associated with another of our greatest presidents. It’s called Montpelier. It was the lifelong home of James Madison and his vivacious wife Dolley. This estate, with its classically-designed mansion looking across rolling fields to the distant Blue Ridge Mountains, is where Madison’s vision for a new nation took shape. Since the property opened to the public in 1987, the National Trust has carried out repairs to the structural system and roof of the mansion, but much more remains to be done. More research into the Madisons’ life at Montpelier, additional restoration of the mansion and outbuildings, and installation of top-quality exhibits on Madison’s role in the establishment of the early republic — all of these are needed if future generations are to gain a richer appreciation of the man who was the Father of the Constitution and the author of our cherished Bill of Rights.

Not all of America’s endangered treasures are associated with great names from our past. Not all of them are immediately recognizable as great works of art, engineering or architecture. Some of them are made of mud.

Scattered across the deserts and mountains of New Mexico is a marvelous collection of adobe churches that are living symbols of the zeal of the early missionaries, the strength of Hispanic traditions, and the abiding faith of present-day residents. These are not museums, but centers of community where people come together to mark the most important passages of life. These buildings are timeless — and they are among the most fragile of all of America’s treasures: They suffer from shrinking congregations, the ravages of time and weather, misdirected preservation efforts and techniques, and the lack of technical skills to keep them in good condition. The result is a sobering statistic: Of almost 400 adobe churches in New Mexico, almost 1/3 are in imminent danger of loss or severe damage. An organization called Cornerstones is working hard to help some congregations stabilize their buildings — but if they can’t get the technical assistance and funding they need, more communities will lose the historic churches that are their heart and soul.

Everyone recognizes the Star-Spangled Banner, of course. It is one of the most important icons of America. We learn the story of this flag as children, and we celebrate its history every time we sing our national anthem. To the millions of visitors who see it on display in the Smithsonian Institution, it is an object of reverence and patriotic pride. But it is also a fragile piece of fabric that has been subjected to decades of dust, light, humidity and airborne pollutants — and is showing its age. Today the banner needs careful study to determine its structural stability, and it needs painstaking, state-of-the-art conservation. Saving this treasure will be costly — but we must ask ourselves, What would be the cost of losing it?

These are just a few of America’s treasures in trouble. They are included in a list of 101 endangered places and things that we have compiled with assistance from an extensive network of individuals and organizations active in preservation and conservation at the grassroots level.

Among the other treasures on the list are: the Conservatory of Flowers in San Francisco, built in the 1880s and closed to the public in 1996 because of structural problems; the Walker Evans Archive at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the legacy of a master photographer who looked into the soul of America in the 1930s — a unique trove of letters, books and 40,000 negatives and transparencies, many of them deteriorating; the frigate Constellation, the nation’s only surviving naval vessel from the Civil War era, now in drydock in Baltimore with a leaking, badly rotted hull; the murals that frame the Declaration of Independence in the rotunda of the National Archives in Washington, painted in the 1930s and now in need of cleaning and stabilization; the NASA spacesuits at the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum, irreplaceable reminders of America’s triumphs in space, now inadequately stored and in increasingly fragile condition; and the abandoned and crumbling hospital buildings on the south side of Ellis Island, where thousands of immigrants were confined for medical treatment or quarantine on the threshold of the New World.

This list of 101 endangered treasures is an alarm bell, a call to all Americans to wake up and look around. The message couldn’t be simpler: Our heritage is at risk, and it’s up to us to save it. The tangible evidence of our past — history that you can see up-close and touch and learn from — is a non-renewable resource; if these treasures disappear, they’re gone forever.

The list illustrates the great diversity of the shared history that helps to define us as Americans — a history expressed in buildings, objects, documents and works of art. It is a reminder that America’s story is told in ringing tones at our nation’s great shrines, but it’s also told vividly in the history that lives in our own back yards, the history that touches each of us every day. Not every community has an Independence Hall or a priceless collection of Tiffany windows, but every community has treasures that make it a unique and special place.

Saving these treasures isn’t someone else’s job.

You’ll hear in a moment from Sgt.Thomas Williams of Andrews Air Force Base, who decided it was up to him to do something to save an endangered treasure here in Washington.

Last year the National Trust included Congressional Cemetery on our annual list of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places, and it was featured in a program on The History Channel. When Sgt. Williams saw the broadcast, he started calling his friends and colleagues at military installations all over the Washington area. In response to those calls, more than 1,000 men and women from all branches of the armed forces volunteered for a "rescue mission" — mowing grass, clearing graves of trash and underbrush, resetting headstones — that transformed Congressional from a shameful eyesore to a proud shrine to our nation’s past.

Sgt. Williams’ concern about one of America’s treasures and his decision to do something about it made a real difference at Congressional Cemetery. That’s the attitude we all need to adopt. We can make a difference too.

Teddy Roosevelt once said, "We are not building this country of ours for a day; it has to last through the ages." It all comes down to this: If we do nothing, our past won’t have a future. But if we act wisely and decisively now, we can ensure that the treasures that tell America’s story will last through the ages. That’s the best possible gift we could give to the Americans of the new millennium.

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