At 09:28 PM 10/5/98 EDT, John Callan wrote:
>
>I will concede the merits of the environmental, political and profitatble.
>Not every historic site needs to be preserved to the same nat's posterior
>detailing, but some do.  If museums are elitist, it is a museum problem.
>Would you do away with preservation as museum object?
>
When I wrote that "when HP ceases to be environmental, political and
profitable it will cease to be a growing movement and revert to the realm
of elitism and museum-like places that are islands within the larger, and
sadly crummier, world around them"  I did not mean to suggest that museums
are "elitist" and so, no, I would not do away with the preservation of
museum's as objects, if that what John is asking.

My problem with limiting HP to "museum" and "museum-like" projects (where
every  gnat's posterior is accordingly crossed and retained) is that it
almost by definition such activity separates "history" from the rest of
life.  "Museums," while valuable and necessary are places where "they"
lived and worked...I think HP is primarily valuable to the degree that it
provides a sense of history and place within the main stream of the
community.  I don't want to "visit" a traditional place and have to go home
to poorly designed placeless garbage....I'd rather try hit a balance where
we retain a connection with the past on a daily basis but allow and support
the normal updating and modification that has always been a part of a
dynamic community.

Pierce Lewis, the noted cultural geographer, once wrote that the mere act
of designating something as "historic" tends to remove it from the
mainstream of life, by placing it behind a velvet rope.  I look for a
slightly less restrictive approach.  But I do recognize and agree that
there will always be a place for museums, frozen in time outside that
dynamic, if only as a place of reference....
>

George Kramer, M.S.
Historic Preservation Consultant
Ashland, Oregon