PreserveCast

There is something profoundly satisfying about seeing art produced in front of you – and something mesmerizing about seeing a silhouette cut in mere seconds that captures the look and feel of an individual. Today’s guest is preserving a historic artform passed down through the generations and is helping to tell important and diverse stories with her hands, paper and delicate scissors. On this week...

History is a big field made up of a variety of disciplines. Finding the right people to do the job can be tough – but one of the nation’s foremost history firms is working to address that challenge with the launch of bestjobsinhistory.com. We’re talking for-profit history and recruiting the best and brightest with Beth Maser and Addison Williams of History Associates Incorporated.   Beth Maser is...

One of the best ways of learning is by doing – which is exactly what ALHFAM – the Association for Living History, Farm and Agricultural Museums is dedicated to supporting. In a digital era, working with your hands is becoming an outlet for expression and sustainable action – topics we dive into with Kathy Dickson, the President of ALHFAM, on this week’s PreserveCast.   Kathy Dickson is the Directo...

At its core, historic preservation should be about instrumentalizing heritage, broadly defined, to sustain communities and promote resilience.” That’s the argument Dr. Erica Avrami makes in one of her most recent publications on the legacy of preservation policy and the future of the field – a compelling and timely topic of conversation on this week’s PreserveCast where we’ll dive deep into what t...

Historic preservationists know that our work isn’t just about physically preserving historic buildings, structures, and sites. It’s also about preserving and celebrating the intangible heritage and culture of people and their communities. I would be remiss, and so would this podcast, if we didn't lead by acknowledging the heart-breaking conflict in Ukraine and the value and importance of those int...

Join us today for another Trades Takeover! Director of The Campaign for Historic Trades (powered by Preservation Maryland) Natalie Henshaw is joined by Abbey Vander Sluis, former member of NPS' Traditional Trades Advancement Program.  Hailing from Knoxville, Tennessee, Abbey Vander Sluis moved to Chattanooga, Tennessee to attend the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, and graduated with a Bach...

Common wheat is one of most important field crops around the world and has been for millennia. In an effort to bring together different museum sites, living history farms, the “Year on the Field” Project seeks to exchange knowledge about common wheat cultivation through the centuries and in different parts of the world. Sites and farms participating in the project will create a valuable database o...

How cities will survive and thrive post-COVID is a question on a lot of people’s minds. Today’s guest has been thinking about the future of cities since before the pandemic and has continued that work as the world grapples with this latest shock to the system. Mac McComas is the senior program manager of the Johns Hopkins University 21st century cities initiative – an effort aimed at providing cit...

COVID-19 has changed all of our lives. It is a defining moment for this generation – and for American history – which means that the Smithsonian has made it a priority for collecting and interpreting for future generations. How we will remember this moment is something as a historian I’ve often thought about – and a reason I wanted to sit down with an expert at the Smithsonian who is focused on th...

As a part of our historic foods series – where we’re diving into preserving some of the most iconic foods and brands, we sat down with pizza historian Alexander Hughes to discuss his work chronicling the history of pizza in the United States and Canada and what is being done to preserve this slice of our history. Pizza, history and preservation are three of my favorite things – and it’s rare that...

On this episode of PreserveCast, Natalie Henshaw of the Campaign for Historic Trades is talking with Mae Bowley of Re:Purpose Savannah in our first ever trades takeover! Join us as Natalie and Mae discuss all things historic trades. More About Our Guest Mae Bowley moved to Savannah in 2015. Out of a desire to learn more about the charming and mysterious city, she started taking classes in Historic...

Established in 1969,  the Maryland Commission on African American History and Culture  is the nation’s first-ever ethnic commission and has a 50-year track record of exploring, researching, commemorating and preserving important places associated with the African American history of the Old Line State. On this week’s PreserveCast, we’re talking with  Chanel Compton , the Executive Director of the...

The American Civil War was the first war to be truly photo-documented. The haunting images stare back at us and make the brutal conflict real and humanize the tragedy. Yet, for all of the photos, many of the identities of the individuals captured are now unknown. Today, Civil War Photo Sleuth is using modern-day technology to rediscover the lost identities in American Civil War-era photographs. Th...

Food is powerful. It has the ability to transcend artificial divisions and to unite – and it can speak to our history and heritage if we’re willing to listen, or think with our tastebuds. For this episode's guest, using food to tell a story is all a part of his daily work. Brent Rosen is the President and CEO of NatFAB, the Southern Food and Beverage Museum and the Museum of the American Cocktail...

You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen, but do you recall Rankin/Bass – the company behind some of America’s most beloved stop-action holiday films? Our guest, Rick Goldschmidt, does. He’s a historian of Rankin/Bass Productions – the creative team that created Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, The Year without a Christmas, and dozens upon dozens more. Preserving the legacy of those films a...

On this fifth edition of PreserveCast Conversations: The Professor and the Practitioner, a new monthly feature of PreserveCast, co-hosts  Nicholas Redding  and  Dr. Whitney Martinko  explore the trends, topics and issues that are making headlines in the world of preservation this month. They’re covering a lot of ground in today’s conversation on preservation and the issues that matter. For regular...

Today we're speaking with Roland Ennos, author of The Age of Wood: Our Most Useful Material and the Construction of Civilization.   As the dominant species on Earth, humans have made astonishing progress since our ancestors came down from the trees. But how did the descendants of small primates manage to walk upright, become top predators, and populate the world? How were humans able to develop ci...

Christmas at a historic home normally conjures up images of a roaring Victorian fireplace or perhaps even an early 20th century Christmas with tin toys and pleasant smells coming from the kitchen. But, what about the kitschy charm of the 1970s? On this week’s PreserveCast we’re revisiting with James Etherington, the Director of Kiplin Hall – a historic site in England which interprets the ancestra...

There are many ways to be a historian – and on this week’s PreserveCast we’re exploring the world of historians for hire – contract historians who do work to help organizations, corporations, agencies and law firms dig deep into history when the stakes are high. During his time at History Associates Incorporated, Scott Vierick has traveled from the Colorado mountains to the Florida Everglades, and...

Blight doesn’t happen by accident. It’s the result of countless decisions, bad policies and disinvestment over decades. Nneka N’namdi is the founder of Fight Blight Baltimore , an economic, environmental, and social justice initiative that is working to address these systemic barriers and challenges to communities in some of the state’s most historic neighborhoods. N’namdi was recently profiled in...

Some holidays are so ingrained into our lives, it’s hard to imagine the time before they existed – but Halloween wasn’t always the holiday we know today. On this year’s PreserveCast Spooktacular we’re talking with Lisa Morton. Morton recently published Trick or Treat: A History of Halloween , a comprehensive history of one of America’s favorite holidays.

On this fourth edition of PreserveCast Conversations: The Professor and the Practitioner, a new monthly feature of PreserveCast, co-hosts  Nicholas Redding  and  Dr. Whitney Martinko  explore the trends, topics and issues that are making headlines in the world of preservation this month. They’re covering a lot of ground in today’s conversation on preservation and the issues that matter. For regula...

Saving places requires a variety of tools and skillsets – including an understanding of Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act. It sounds dull – but it’s a tool everyone who cares about historic places should know about and get involved in – because it can save places and use the loss of historic resources to fuel preservation elsewhere. On this week’s PreserveCast, Jacqueline Draye...

Connecting people to places is the work of preservationists everywhere – and on this week’s episode we’re talking with the creative minds behind Maryland Road Trips , a new site dedicated to encouraging place-based tourism. It’s a story rooted in Maryland, but one with lessons for preservationists and historians across the globe. PreserveCast is a nationwide podcast – exploring topics in history,...

Preservation without funding is just good intentions. That’s why people like Merrill Hoopengardner and her team at the National Trust Community Investment Corporation are so integral to the future of this work. Right now, they’re working on big changes to federal funding for preservation – a timely and critical issue we knew had to be on PreserveCast. Merrill Hoopengardner may not be a household n...