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usalytton
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:
FROM:
MaryEllen McGuire
Office of the First Lady
RE:
First Lady Book Projects- Forewords/Afterwords/Introductions
As a reminder to our previous conversations, the First Lady's name, title, image, or any reference
to the work she has prepared, may not be used in marketing or publicizing your book project.
Additionally, the First Lady's name, title, or image should not be listed or used on the cover of
the book.
me
Any questions regarding these restrictions should be directed to myself, who will then send them
on to White House Counsel. I can be reached at (202) 456-2016.
Foreward
Draft #1
FIRST LADY HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON
FOREWORD TO NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY
BOOK ON SAVING AMERICA'S TREASURES
APRIL 1, 2000
would
Have you ever thought about what you'd grab first if your house were
on fire? After assuring yourself that your family and pets were safe, most of
you would probably want to save the irreplaceable symbols of your family's
history: photograph albums, baby books, old home movies, yearbooks,
precious nursery school era artwork, baseball cards and your grandmother's
love letters.
Hanging in the East Room of the White House is a painting that
represents just such an irreplaceable symbol of America's history. Every
time I walk past it, I am transported back to the summer of 1814 when
Dolley Madison was First Lady. As British soldiers entered Washington on
August 14, intent on burning the White House and the rest of Washington's
public buildings to the ground, Mrs. Madison refused to leave the mansion
removed
until Gilbert Stuart's portrait of George Washington was safely secured and
on its way out of the doomed capital. Today, that portrait - the only
furnishing in the house that survived the fire - hangs proudly in the East
Room, symbolizing the triumph of democracy over tyranny and reminding
Americans of their proud heritage.
As British troops advanced on the city that torrid August day, Stephen
Pleasonton had just received word in his State Department office that enemy
troops were coming and he should guard the papers in his office. He took
G
the responsibility of gathering together the official papers of the
revolutionary government - the Declaration of Independence, laws, George
Washington's letters and the unpublished journals of Congress, and he
these
commandeered wagons to transport this irreplaceable group of historic
documents the 35 miles to Leesburg, Va., where he secured them in an
when
empty house. The next day he heard the news; every public building in
Stephen was are of the few who knew that
Washington had burned to the ground, But the record of the America's early years of
had not penshed but survived.
our nation's struggle was saved.
Unlike 200 years ago when the White House and the State Department
present day America anenemy threatening to
burned, the country isn' faced with a siege that could destroy the precious-
not
our
symbols of its past. Rather, whether by ignorance, indifference or neglect,
we ourselves our are a llowing
much of our heritage is literally to crumbling e away. in our libraries, museums,
are crumbling ,re cords aren't Stured being
proper 14
archives, town squares and private holdings. As with the treasures in our & arti facts
yet all ou are
aren't
own homes, these precious places and things comprise the collective
being
that
catalogued.,
memory of America. Long after we're gone, the flag, the documents, the
statues and the paintings will tell our country's story to our children and
grandchildren. We must not let them be lost.
When the President and I returned to the White House in 1997 for his
second term, it was a great privilege and honor to know that we would be
living here as the nation and the world celebrated the dawn of a new
millennium. Pondering how best to shape America's official
commemoration, we knew that December 31, 1999 would not only offer the
opportunity for grand parties, complete with fireworks and champagne, but
also a rare chance to bring our nation together, honoring the past and
imagining the future.
Americans are justifiably proud of their history. Yet, important
symbols of that history, such as the Star-Spangled Banner, the Constitution
and the Declaration of Independence, arguably among the most important
documents of all time, have been disintegrating right before our eyes. The
Gettysburg Battlefield, where tens of thousands of young American boys
died, Little Rock's Central High School and Topeka's Monroe School,
where the battle for human rights still raged a century later, have also come
close to disappearing from the nation's landscape.
VMillennium.
As part of our celebration, and as a means to save these historic icons,
the President and I launched an initiative called "Save America's Treasures."
With the help of public and private partners such as the National Park
Service and the National Trust for Historic Preservation, as well as the
generous support of many corporations and private donors, we hoped to
begin the process of preserving our historical and cultural legacy for
generations to come. As we proceeded, We We also hoped that Americans from
every corner of the country would be inspired to look for the history in their
own back yard - a monument in the town square covered with graffiti, a
cemetery overgrown with weeds, a historic building threatened by
development, a library lacking in resources, a piece of art tucked away in a
corner, historic photographs and documents yellowing in a county clerk's
filing cabinet - renewing and restoring it for their children and
grandchildren.
I am proud that, since launching "Save America's Treasures," over
vpart of the
500 sites have earned the distinction of being deemed official "Save
program
America's Treasure" sites. Citizens all over the country have rallied
time
resources and elbow grease to save precious landmarks and artifacts such as
Thomas Edison's Invention Factory, George Washington's winter
-
encampment at Valley Forge, the historic Congressional Cemetery here in
Washington, Michigan's lighthouses, Babe Ruth's scrapbooks, Ellis Island,
the Lowell Observatory and Mesa Verde National Park, where our native
ancestors built cliff dwellings and mesa-top villages nearly 1,400 years ago.
Over the course of the last two years, I have had the pleasure of
visiting nearly 40 of these sites. My goal on these tours has been to raise
awareness and garner support for their dire conservation needs. My first tour
began at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American
History. There, the President and I stood before the threadbare and torn
Star-Spangled Banner and announced $18 million in private donations to be
used for the flag's restoration, conservation and future display. Thanks to
the patriotism and generosity of these donors, generations to come will gaze
at the flag or sing the National Anthem with a new understanding of the
price our ancestors paid for their freedom and ours.
On that same trip, I stopped in Auburn, N.Y., to visit the home of one
of the renowned leaders of the Underground Railroad, Harriet Tubman.
Since that day, visits to the Tubman home have increased by 100 percent and
the site has been the recipient of tens of thousands of dollars in matching
restoration funds. The children of one elementary school in Philadelphia
-
-
have adopted the Tubman home and this slogan: "Pennies for Preservation."
Penny by penny, they have collected $1,100 for the place where one of the
true heroes of American history once lived. They know about Harriet
Tubman and the Underground Railroad from reading their history books.
But the pennies have helped them to understand in a whole new way the
important role Tubman played in their country's history and in their own
lives.
Third graders at a Boulder Co., elementary school devised a similar
plan to preserve a piece of history close to home. The students raised money
by doing odd jobs and extra chores, as well as by selling "Adopt-a-Ruin"
calendars that they designed. They have sent nearly $3,000, to the Ute
Mountain Tribe and the Mesa Verde National Park to help protect the
thousand-year-old remains of the pueblo culture. One of the students wrote
about why she worked so hard to raise money for Mesa Verde: "I think
'Adopt-a-Ruin' is a good idea because in 40 years, my kids will probably
want to see the ruins, so I want to save them. I feel very special about
accomplishing our goal because it will mean so much to me to have my kids
get the experience. I think the best part of that is when I grow up, I think it
will be great to see the expressions on my kids' faces." I can't think of a
better way to express why and how the "Save America's Treasures" program
touches lives.
I want to thank the editors of the National Geographic Society for their
interest in and dedication to this project. In the pages that follow, you will
have the opportunity to look at some important symbols of American history
through the preservationist's eyes. You will be inspired by the Latino
residents who now live in what was once a thriving Jewish community in
East Los Angeles' Boyle Heights. They are working with the Jewish
Historical Society to restore the historic Breed Street Shul as a museum and
cultural center. On the other side of the country, the Louis Armstrong House
and Archives in Queens, N.Y., has collected thousands in private donations
for the home of one of this country's finest jazz icons. There, visitors will be
able to view and study his vast personal collection of photographs, papers,
scrapbooks, recordings, memorabilia, and musical instruments.
One hundred years from now, children will visit the National Archives
and whisper the words of our Founding Fathers in the Declaration of
Independence, see the notes that President Eisenhower wrote during the
Little Rock crisis, and look over the papers detailing the arrest and
conviction of Susan B. Anthony for choosing to vote. They will be
awestruck by the sight of the Star-Spangled Banner and fascinated by
Edison's Invention Factory, inspired by the strength of Harriet Tubman and
the talents of Louis Armstrong. They will take this all in, and leave with
America's legacy of rights and responsibilities, creativity, energy and
generosity firmly embedded in their hearts and minds.
[1517 words]
SAVING AMERICA'S TREASURES
NATIONAL
GEOGRAPHIC
NATIONAL TRUST FOR HISTORIC PRESERVATION
FOREWORD BY
Hillary Rodham Clinton
INTRODUCTION BY RAY SUAREZ
I
PHOTOGRAPHS BY IRA BLOCK
10
SAVING AMERICA'S TREASURES
NATIONAL
GEOGRAPHIC
NATIONAL TRUST FOR HISTORIC PRESERVATION
FOREWORD BY
Hillary Rodham Clinton
INTRODUCTION BY RAY SUAREZ I PHOTOGRAPHS BY IRA BLOCK
85% printant - Sales Blad
PRESERVING OUR PAST
SAVING AMERICA'S TREASURES
NATIONAL
GEOGRAPHIC
NATIONAL TRUST FOR HISTORIC PRESERVATION
THE
R
FOREWORD BY
Ballroom detail C. "Zan
B.J.A. Mald Singling
Hillary Rodham Clinton
INTRODUCTION BY RAY SUAREZ
PHOTOGKAPHS BY IRA BLOCK
WITH ESSAYS BY
When an irreplaceable treasure such
as an old church, a 16-sided barn.
Ian Frazier
or a sailing ship is gone. what have
Thomas Mallon
we really lost? It's impossible to
calculate. Save America's Treasures
Henry Petroski
identifies historic places, artifacts,
Francine Prose
and documents needing immediate
preservation. The places and col-
Phyllis Theroux
lections in this book span centuries
Dwight Young
of American history, and carry in
their bricks and mortar, drawings
and photographs, the DNA of our
democracy. They are to ourselves
AFTERWORD BY
what GMT is to time: what magnetic
Richard Moe
north is to a compass; and what
President, National Trust for Historic Preservation
absolute zero is to a physicist.
These survivors whisper to us a
steady litany of reminders of who
SAVE AMERICA'S TREASURES
we are and what we were.
IS A PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN THE
WHITE HOUSE MILLENNIUM COUNCIL
$ National author publicity
AND THE NATIONAL TRUST
1
National launch event at historic site
FOR HISTORIC PRESERVATION
I
National satellite television tour
, city author tour
National advertising in
I History/Photography
THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW,
192 12 pages
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC,
5 135 archival and original photographs
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC TRAVELER,
I Illustrated Index of Official Treasures
TOP The Schooner Yecht Curent Long Island Sound 1893
and PRESERVATION Magazine.
Courtey for No England
$ 9% 10%
MIDDLE Consensiory of Flowers Powcard 1914
I Web site feature on ww.nationalgeographic.com
I Price: $35.00 hardcover ($52 00 Canada)
Marrapular
and www.saveamericastreasures.org
BOTTOM Edub Wharion her desk 1905
I ISBN: 0-7922-7942-5
Country Fab Mount
Media review mailing
I
Publication date: October 2000
Promotional poster
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
CONTENTS
COMMUNITIES OF FAITH
9
FOREWORD BY Hillary Rodham Clinton
89
ESSAY BY Phyllis Theroux
12
Star-Spangled Banner Preservation Project
Washington, D.C.
14
The Founding Fathers' Papers
Nationwide
94
Breed Street Shul
Los Angeles, California
16
Congressional Cemetery
Washington, D.C.
96
Ebenezer Baptist Church
Atlanta, Georgia
98
Maui Jinsha Shrine
Wailuku, Maui, Hawaii
19
INTRODUCTION BY Ray Suarez
102
Mormon Row Historic District
Moose, Wyoming
104
North Dakota Prairie Churches
Statewide, North Dakota
106
San Esteban del Rey Mission
Acoma Pueblo, New Mexico
AUTOGRAPHED
AMERICAN DIVERSIONS
110
PERSONAL
African Meeting House
Boston, Massachusetts
BabiRuth
112
St. Louis Cemetery
New Orleans, Louisiana
25
ESSAY BY Francine Prose
1000 GENLINE PMINT
CUAST LEAGUE RASEBALLS
NATION AT WORK
32
Asbury Park
Asbury Park, New Jersey
34
Babe Ruth Archives
Cooperstown, New York
117
ESSAY BY Henry Petroski
36
Ca "Zan, Home of John and Mabel Ringling
Sarasota, Florida
38
The Schooner Yacht Coronet
Newport, Rhode Island
122
B &O Roundhouse
Martinsburg, West Virginia
40
Colonial Theatre
Pittsfield, Massachusetts
124
Michigan Lighthouse Project
Statewide, Michigan
42
Conservatory of Flowers
Son Francisco, California
126
Portland Observatory
Portland, Maine
44
National Film Preservation Foundation
Nationwide
128
Pullman Factory Complex
Chicago, Illinois
46
Louis Armstrong Archives
Flushing, New York
130
10th Street Bridge
Great Falls, Montana
48
Taliesin. Home of Frank Lloyd Wright
Spring Green, Wisconsin
132
Thomas Edison Invention Factory
West Orange, New Jersey
50
The Mount, Home of Edith Wharton
Lenox, Massachusetts
136
Washburn Mill
Minneapolis, Minnesota
52
Vista House at Crown Point
Corbett, Oregon
138
Teeple Barn
Elgin, Illinois
140
Thomas Day House
Milton, North Carolina
POLITICAL LEANINGS
57
ESSAY BY Thomas Mallon
LAND OF THE FREE
145
ESSAY BY Ian Frazier
64
Anderson Cottage
Washington, D.C.
66
1778-79 Valley Forge Winter Encampment
Valley Forge, Pennsylvania
150
Angel Island Immigration Station
San Francisco, California
68
Manzanar Internment Camp
Independence, California
152
National Anthropological Archives
Washington, D.C.
World War II Fighter Nose Art
Midlands, Texas
TOBACCO
GIRL
70
154
Castle Clinton
New York, New York
72
Old Charleston City Jail
Charleston, South Carolina
156
Ellis Island Ferry Building
Jersey City, New Jersey
74
Harriet Tubman House
Auburn, New York
158
Mesa Verde Cliff Dwelling Sites
Meso Verde, Colorado
76 Val-Kill Cottage, Home of Eleanor Roosevelt
Hyde Park, New York
162
Ybor City Historic District
Tampa, Florida
78
Sewall-Belmont House and Collection
Washington, D.C.
82
Poplar Forest, Home of Thomas Jefferson
Forest, Virginia
84
Lewis and Clark Herbarium
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
167
AFTERWORD BY Richard Moe
President, National Trust for Historic Preservation
170
ILLUSTRATED INDEX OF TREASURES
Babe Ruth scrapbook. Use.g. Value importion NY
Anderson
Courage.
1868
African
Meeting
House
1895
Sensie
Teeple
COPYRIGHT C NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY
Tobacco
label
The
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
COVER
The
Banner.
now
INTRODUCTION
Saving Our Treasures and Ourselves
Ray Suarez
IS THERE A PLACE YOU CAN GO THAT IMMEDIATELY REMINDS YOU
of who you are? Whether you walk by it or watch it pass in your
windshield. is there a place that connects you to a jolt of current-of
family, ethnic group, shared history, personal past? Imagine that
place for a moment. Could you stand the sight of it crumbling in neglect, paved
over for a strip mall, or simply abandoned? Would you miss it? Would you raise
your voice or write a letter or check to save it? With our breakneck push across a
continent and our ease in discarding our past, it's impossible to calculate how many
of us have already felt that loss. A vast array of American treasures-precious build-
ings, wild lands, and historic neighborhoods-didn't make it to the beginning of
this new century.
When an irreplaceable structure-an old house of worship, a farmhouse in the
A fork serves as 0 latch for the
midst of what is now a city, a 200-year old battleship- gone, what have we really
door of the Teeple in Elgin,
lost? In a country as big as ours, it seems safe to guess that most Americans will
Illinois The Teeple Barn is one of
never make it to Frank Lloyd Wright's home, Taliesin, in central Wisconsin. In a
the last remaining 16-sided barns
country of 275 million people, busy and mobile as we are, would we notice the loss
in the United States.
of an old railroad roundhouse in West Virginia, or Russian Orthodox churches in
a remote part of Alaska? Any of these places can be "visited" in old photos in the
pages of a book, or by pointing and clicking on the Web. Perhaps it is an abstract
proposition to ask people to mourn the loss of a place they' II never see, like the
loss of a tiny species of moth in a part of the world they 11 never visit. Some of us
see our common inheritance as Americans reduced when a place like the Mapes
Hotel and Casino in Reno, Nevada, is demolished after a long fight to save her-
even if we never go anywhere near Reno.
Americans just back from a trip to Europe or Asia might speak with praise of
nations and peoples that have direct physical and cultural links to their pasts, links
preserved to be savored today. Yet we are gripped by paradoxical feelings about our
own relationship with the past. We are thrilled by newness, ready to cast away places,
ideas, or fashions simply because they are old. We invent new identities. We invent
new religions. We give ourselves new names. We shed our personal pasts as easily as
we don a new set of clothes. America's economic dynamism has untethered ideas
of status and achievement from the anchors of birthplace, social class, religion,
and national origin.
COLONIAL THEATRE
PITTSFIELD, MASSACHUSETTS
Like its counterparts everywhere, Pittsfield's Park Square Historic
District IS an open-air gallery of the vagaries and delights of Amer-
ican architecture. Dominating one side of the park is the Berkshire
Athenaeum. muscular Gothic pile that flaunts bold patterns in its
stone walls and slate roof. The county courthouse next door is more
subdued, with pale marble and a pediment lending a suitably dig-
COLONIAL THEATRE, PITTSFIELD, MASS
nified air. Churcheswith crenellated towers punctuate rows ofstore-
fronts with Italianate cornices, and there are houses in every style
from Greek Revival to God-knows-what.
In the middle of this wonderful architectural muddle, just
around the corner from the park, sits the Colonial Theatre. There
was a time when almost every community had a showplace like this,
a place where you could walk in from the street and be transported
to world far removed from the mundane rituals of everyday life.
Most of them-magical venues with names like Grand or Tivoli or
Majestic-are long gone, but the Colonial is still here. Before the
First World War, the Colonial was a regular stop for big-name
Color postcard of the
entertainers: Sergei Rachmaninoff performed here, along with
Colonial Theatre, 1912
John Philip Sousa, Sarah Bernhardt and the Ziegfeld Follies. In
1915 a new owner brought movies to the Colonial, and stage shows
Country. - -
- Phone Victoria Was
Their
gave way to the looming. luminous visages of Mary Pickford and
Bugs Bunny. The screen went dark for the last time in the late 1950s.
Another new owner installed his paint and wallpaper store in the
building, but he was careful to preserve most of the theatre's inte-
rior features intact. Above the store's dropped ceiling, out of sight
of salesclerks and customers, chubby cherubs still flutter among
swags of plaster fruit. while graceful figures in painted depictions
of "Art" and "Music" still stand guard over the stage.
-
online
1903
Structurally sound with
Complete restoration to
some water damage
per forming arts center
THE MOUNT
LENOX. MASSACHUSETTS
In his introduction to Edith Wharton's autobiography, A Backward
Glance. Louis Auchincloss writes, "Mrs. Wharton was always deter-
mined to be surrounded with a beautiful world. even if she had to
build it herself. She built that "beautiful world" in the flowing prose
of series of meticulously observed nov-
that depicted with unsentimental pre-
cision the manners and foibles of the
privileged world into which she had been
born. She also built it in wood and stucco
and terraced gardens in the Berkshires of
western Massachusetts. at the country
estate she called The Mount.
In a sense, the place existed in her
head long before it took shape on the
ground. In her 1897 book The Decoration
of Houses, written with her friend Ogden
Codman. Jr., Wharton laid down many
of the design principles later embodied in The Mount. "Innova-
tion" was not among those principles: "tradition" was, along with a
clear sense of what was "suitable." Demonstrating a firm command
of the classical design vocabulary and disdaining showiness, The
Mount' sroomsand gardens are cool, serene, supremely self-assured.
They are, in short, evocative links with the placid, long-vanished
world that was disappearing even at the moment when Edith Whar-
ton captured its essence in The House of Mirth and The Age of Innocence.
In 1921 she became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize
for fiction. By that time, she had sold The Mount and settled in
France. Though she lived an ocean away from it, she never forgot
the beautiful world she had built in the Berkshires. Near the end of
her life she wrote, "The Mount was my first home, and though it is
nearly 20 years since I last saw it (for I was too happy there ever to
want to revisit it as a stranger) its blessed influence still lives in me."
1901-02
Exterior restoration
Restoration of interior
Top: Garden new of The Mount
complete,general
outbuildings. and gardens
deterioration of interior
Left. Edith Wharton at her desk 1905
and gardens
Country Where American The You-
WASHBURN-CROSBY "A" MILL
MINNEAPOLIS. MINNESOTA
The first European explorers to pass this way must have heard the
fallslong before they saw them. the distant roar urging the tired men
to quicken their pace until at last they stood awestruck at the sight
of the great river crashing and foaming over the rocks. Later arrivals.
drawn to the spot not by the falls' scenic allure but by their poten-
tial as a source of power. built a settlement here. The settlement
became a town, then a city called Minneapolis. and the roar of the
falls was the steady drumming of the city's industrial heartbeat.
In the mid-19th century. as rich harvests of grain poured in
from the farmlands that stretched off to the horizon around the
city, the power of the falls helped make Minneapolis the
flour-milling capital of the nation. In the flour industry's hey-
day. thirty mills lined the riverfront, massive build-
ingswith household names like "Pillsbury's Best" and
"Gold Medal" painted on their walls or flashing
from their roofs. None was more impressive than
the Washburn "A" Mill. built in 1874 and rebuilt
after a disastrous fire in 1879. By the time it ceased
operations in 1965, the huge Washburn complex
had become the birthplace of the industrial giant
General Mills and the home of the company's
famous symbol, Betty Crocker.
In 1991 another fire left the building in ruins.
an imposing curiosity in a country so enamored of
building and clearing and rebuilding that ruins are
few and rare. There are plans to turn it into a lively
museum and orientation center where visitors can
learn about the milling district. For now, however.
000
the shell of the great "A" mill is quiet, an evocative reminder of the
Top. General Mills Flour Mill postcard,
times when many of the nation's-and the world's-loaves and
1914
piecrusts carried inside them an echo of the thunder of the falls.
Bottom: St Anthony Falls and Viaduct
with mills in the bac kground, 1900
Cash fews
- Dear Burly
F121
1879-1880
fire-damaged ruin
New construction to create
museum complex, incorporating
remaining ruins of original building
SAVING AMERICA'S TREASURES
NATIONAL
GEOGRAPHIC
NATIONAL TRUST FOR HISTORIC PRESERVATION
FOREWORD BY
Hillary Rodham Clinton
INTRODUCTION BY RAY SUAREZ PHOTOGRAPHS BY IRA BLOCK