Preservecast

Few names have become as synonymous with grit, determination, and liberty as Harriet Tubman. A Moses for her people, Tubman has become an almost mythical character who represents the best of the American spirit in the face of incredible suffering and inhumanity. Yet, for many years, she lacked a rigorous and scholarly biography. Today’s guest, Dr. Kate Clifford Larson, addressed that historical inequity and helped bring Harriet’s real story to a new generation. On this week’s PreserveCast, we're heading back to the brackish marshes of Maryland’s Eastern Shore to talk Tubman, slavery, and freedom. PreserveCast is powered by Preservation Maryland, a non-profit organization.    

Nestled among the verdant fields and winding streams of the Genesee River Valley in upstate New York is one of America’s largest living history museums. Founded in 1966, the Genesee Country Village & Museum features 68 historic structures from the 19th century, moved from locations throughout Western New York, a gallery of sporting art, and a nature center and attracts more than 90,000 visitors each year. On this week’s PreserveCast, we’re headed back to the 19th century to talk with Genesee Country Village & Museum CEO Becky Wehle and Curator of Collections Peter Wisbey about the future of open-air museums and the historic trades.

We all need role models – and we need to see ourselves represented – whether in film, print . . . or in Mattel’s iconic Barbie. Today’s guest, Despina Stratigakos, Vice Provost for Inclusive Excellence at the University at Buffalo, is a writer, historian, and professor. She is the author of three books that explore the intersections of power and architecture. Her most recent book, Where Are the Women Architects? confronts the challenges women face in the architectural profession. Despina also participated in a fascinating effort to get the Mattel Corporation to give Barbie a career in architecture. It was a study in representation and the future of the field – a story that we’ll detail in miniature and more on this week’s PreserveCast.

The story of where we live is uniquely personal. Many historic homes have been preserved and opened to the public – places that tell a story about the way we once lived.   However, American public housing – places built and maintained by governments – has been long been overlooked, forgotten, and worse yet, maligned.   Today’s guest, Dr. Lisa Lee, is working to solve that gap in memory and understanding as the Executive Director of the National Public Housing Museum, the only cultural institution devoted to telling the story of public housing in the United States.   Find the best spot to sit and relax in the place you call home as we talk about the history of housing on this week’s PreserveCast.   

As America confronts, commemorates, and questions its history – preservationists like Catherine Fleming Bruce are helping to frame those conversations and providing powerful examples of how historic places can help us in these challenging times. Bruce is the author of an award-winning book on sustaining the sacred spaces of civil rights, human rights, and social movements and how this work can support the march towards greater social justice. With her book, "The Sustainers: Being, Building and Doing Good through Activism in the Sacred Spaces of Civil Rights, Human Rights and Social Movements," she became the first African American winner of the annual Historic Preservation Book Prize, presented by the University of Mary Washington Center for Historic Preservation. It’s a weighty topic – but one we must explore – and with someone who knows it well on this week’s PreserveCast.

In challenging times, nature brings us peace. From time immemorial, humans have taken to nature to soothe their anxious and tired souls. In today’s busy and built world, opportunities to experience and commune with nature are limited – but today’s guest is doing something about that. Alden Stoner is the CEO of Nature Sacred, an organization dedicated to bringing natural sanctuaries to urban communities to reduce stress, improve health and strengthen communities. It is work that was important before and is becoming increasingly more important every day the nation confronts its current challenges. Take a deep breath and find your favorite tree – we’re talking nature in urban spaces on this week’s PreserveCast.

Americans have long admired the resistance, tenacity and spirit of those brave souls who were travelers and conductors on the Underground Railroad. On this week’s PreserveCast, we’re heading back to those days to dredge up another chapter – and one far less proud – that of the reverse Underground Railroad which brought captured formerly free blacks back to slavery. It’s a difficult history – but one we must confront and we’ll explore it with Dr. Richard Bell, a distinguished scholar who recently authored a book on this overlooked story from American history. Dr. Richard Bell is Associate Professor of History at the University of Maryland. He holds a PhD from Harvard University and is author of the new book Stolen: Five Free Boys Kidnapped into Slavery and their Astonishing Odyssey Home. He has won more than a dozen teaching awards, including the University System of Maryland Board of Regents Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching, the highest honor for teaching faculty in the Maryland state system. He has

As the nation confronts a crippling pandemic – we find ourselves drawn to history for parallels. History provides context for the confusion. Today’s guest has dedicated her career to exploring those connections. Dr. Marian Moser Jones is a social historian and ethicist of public health who studies the way in which Americans care for other Americans – and how that shapes our response in emergencies like the current pandemic. Stay calm – we’ll get through this – and we’ll learn how on this week’s PreserveCast.

For Civil War readers and historians, Maryland has always been confounding. Its location along the Mason-Dixon Line meant it was the seat of war for many pitched battles – and divided the loyalties of its citizens. But, for all the impact, bloodshed and division – its contribution to the Union Army is often overlooked. Confederate memory clouds the history – but today, the clouds are lifting thanks to the work of professor and historian Timothy Orr. Dr. Orr has begun to chronicle Marylanders who served in the ranks of the Union Army of the Potomac – a story long overdue that we’ll begin to explore on this episode of PreserveCast.  MORE ABOUT OUR GUEST Timothy J. Orr is Associate Professor of History at Old Dominion University. He earned his Ph.D. at the Richards Civil War Era Center at Penn State University and he worked for eight years as a seasonal Park Ranger at Gettysburg National Military Park. His publications include Last to Leave the Field: The Life and Letters of First Sergeant Ambrose Henry Haywar

When you think of pirates – you may think of far-off warm islands and tropical beaches or perhaps your mind goes to modern-day piracy off the dangerous horn of Africa – but you probably don’t think of the brackish waters of the Chesapeake Bay off the coast of Maryland and Virginia. But, today’s guest, Dr. Jamie Goodall, has spent years studying that very story – and has recently published a compelling account of piracy on these now quiet waters. Let’s set sail for Chesapeake Bay – but keep a clear eye because these waters be dangerous!

Few guests to PreserveCast have commanded as large an audience as today’s guest, Ruth Goodman. Ruth is an award-winning social and domestic historian of British history who has been involved in several highly-rated BBC television series and has used her knowledge and charm on the screen to make history approachable and interesting. On this week’s PreserveCast we’re crossing the pond to learn from a master of public history in a time when history matters more than ever before.

Born in an 1850s Greek Revival home that was lovingly restored by her parents (and having attended more country auctions than she can count), Elizabeth Finkelstein’s love for crown molding and decorative ironwork runs in her gene pool. After high school, she left the quiet of the countryside for the bright lights of the big city to entrench herself in New York’s great history and architecture. While there, she earned a Masters in Historic Preservation and spent years working in the field of professional preservation advocacy (and started a few geeky architecture blogs to boot!). A licensed tour guide, professor and architectural historian, Elizabeth is also Country Living Magazine‘s official real estate columnist. Through @circahouses and @cheapoldhouses, Elizabeth is proud to maintain two of the most popular Instagram feeds devoted specifically to historical homes for sale. The wildly popular, viral feed @cheapoldhouses has been featured in New York Magazine, The Financial Times, Money Magazine, Buzzfeed, a

Few names are as synonymous with Civil War battlefields as “The Bloody Cornfield.” It conjures up visions of harrowing bloodshed and the tragedy of fratricidal combat. Yet, for over 150 years, the story of this struggle has been difficult to track – the sway of battle back and forth over David R. Miller’s cornfield was a confusing melee of destruction. To help interpret this pivotal story, historian and author David A. Welker has produced a detailed study of this pivotal moment in American history which captures the reader and makes the compelling case for the national significance of these 20+ acres of Maryland soil. On this week’s PreserveCast, we’re taking a trip back to Sharpsburg, Maryland, on the morning of September 17, 1862, and descending into the Bloody Cornfield.

Dr. Harrison Goodall has over forty-eight years of experience with historic structures and facilities management and nearly sixty years of experience in training and education throughout the country. As a contractor, volunteer, and purveyor of preservation materials, Harrison has been involved in preserving hundreds if not thousands of historic structures around the nation. A 2016 award from the National Park Service documented that Goodall completed over 135 volunteer historic preservation projects in 55 national parks and over 40 of those projects took place in Grand Teton National Park, where he has volunteered consistently since 1976. On This week’s PreserveCast, we’re sitting down to talk with a preservation trades legend about the future of craft and the lessons learned restoring America’s most iconic places.

Today’s guest is a first for PreserveCast. Aimee Jorjani was appointed by the President of the United States to be the first full-time chairman of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation – the federal agency tasked with coordinating preservation policy across the government. From the halls of Congress to the pueblos of the southwest – Chariman Jorjani is doing her bit to promote preservation and we’ll learn what she’s planning next on this week’s PreserveCast. ABOUT OUR GUEST Aimee Jorjani earned Senate confirmation in June 2019 as the first full-time chairman of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP). Ms. Jorjani has nearly 20 years of experience in the fields of government and cultural resources from a variety of perspectives including both executive and legislative branches, as well as the non-profit sector. Her career began on Capitol Hill in 1999 working as a legislative aide to Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI). In 2002, she moved to the US Department of the Interior (DOI) and held several

Walt Whitman once wrote that, “Future years will never know the seething hell and the black infernal background of countless minor scenes and interiors . . . of the Secession war; and it is best they should not—the real war will never get in the books.” Although the painful, real stories of the Civil War and its grisly impacts may not have been accurately captured by authors –  today’s guest, Jake Wynn, the Director of Interpretation at the National Museum of Civil War Medicine, is dedicated to telling those stories – and highlighting the grave sacrifices and incredible compassion displayed during that era. As we confront a medical crisis in our own time, we sat down with Jake to learn about epidemics, disease, and health during the Civil War – and what lessons there might be for our own time.  ABOUT TODAY'S GUEST Jake Wynn is the Director of Interpretation at the National Museum of Civil War Medicine and the Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office Museum. He is a 2015 graduate of Hood College in Frede

On this special extra edition of PreserveCast, you'll hear from one of Preservation Maryland and PreserveCast's best friends, Mary Anthony, Executive Director of The 1772 foundation as she interviews her friends with the National Trust of Scotland about a very special fiddle. Just to *see* this 270-year-old violin in a glass case, you'd have to travel to the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum in Alloway, Scotland – but today you'll **hear** it and all about it...on this special recording of PreserveCast.  

Why do we do what we do and why don’t others understand why it’s so important? Those are the driving questions that prompted long-time preservationist and real estate expert Tom Moriarity to dive into a discourse on what preservation needs in the years ahead. It’s a big task – but one that we need to constantly revisit if we hope to save places that truly matter. So, prepare yourself for some real talk from one of America’s most trusted voices in preservation on this week’s PreserveCast!

In this final episode of PreserveCast's special Healthy, Hip & Historic series, Greg Werkheiser of Cultural Heritage Partners and ARtGlass presents the awesome opportunities that preservationists have to shape the telling of history well into the future – if, we tap into trends afoot in augmented reality, drone imaging and 3D printing, and artificial intelligence.  Greg Werkheiser is a lawyer and entrepreneur who builds ventures that connect the lessons of our past to the leadership of our future. Greg believes that solving critical societal challenges requires leaders who draw on wisdom and strategy from across time, culture, sector, industry, and ideology. To preserve and leverage history, Greg’s ventures advance law, public policy, business strategy, and technology in the cultural heritage field globally. To forge leaders for our age, Greg’s ventures re-imagine leadership development for emerging entrepreneurs of public, private, and social enterprises. To enable all to serve and lead, Greg advocates

In the penultimate episode of PreserveCast's special series during the COVID-19 pandemic, we will hear from Jim Lindberg, Senior Policy Director for the National Trust for Historic Preservation who will discuss the ways the goals of preservation are interconnected with those of advocates for issues like the environment, community health, and equitable development. Collaboration and partnership are a key part of any successful preservation effort and this presentation by Jim Lindberg will explore the importance of this broad coalition to build systems that encourage building reuse. Research across these various fields demonstrates the need to build new rules and unwind entrenched thinking on building communities. The aim to create places that are greener, healthier, and more equitable applies to urban and rural communities alike. James Lindberg has more than 25 years of experience in historic preservation, planning, and sustainable development. Through his leadership of the National Trust’s Research & Po