Last weekend, the National Trust ‘Council’ (a group of high level donors) spent a day on the Eastern Shore  touring some of our  great historic resources. As one of the guides for the day, I had the opportunity to engage some of the participants in conversations about today’s preservation movement and the challenges of reaching beyond our ‘borders’ to a broader audience. The conversation drew a lot of interest and got me thinking more broadly about the question of why people don’t seem to embrace preservation the way we often think they should?

My most basic observation here is this, preservation is a movement, so that means we have to move, forward.  It doesn’t mean standing still, going in reverse or even worse, stagnating.  It means that we need to reinvent, reinterpret (ourselves) and reassess where we are all the time so that we remain relevant and therefore, effective in our mission.  By definition, the word movement speaks to the collective advancement of a shared idea, to progressive development, to change and repositioning.  For a movement whose mission is perceived to mean freezing time, we have to remember to message that it’s really about managing change.

Preservationist often look to the conservation movement with an eye towards their success in being embraced by the general public.  One advantage is that the more progressive conservation organizations routinely revisit the question of what’s needed and what’s relevant, what’s working and what isn’t. They’re great at reassessing their position and figuring out how to make their cause personal, which results in be able to engage people on a grass roots level, despite the fact that environmental regulations have decidedly become stricter. Conservation is regulated by the government, not by its citizens, unlike the most public aspect of preservation – historical commissions.  This makes our job considerably more difficult. To gain ground, we have to ensure that those who serve on our front lines are well trained and well informed so that the message they deliver is not only right, but right on target.  Unfortunately this is not where we always allocate our resources, why I don’t know.  As a movement we have gone from volunteer based to one that has complicated levels of regulation and policy that stretch from Washington to your own back yard. Sandwiched between the bureaucrats and the public is the volunteer who is often times struggling with how to answer the questions, interpret the standards and define the criteria while coming away without feeling fairly perplexed and embattled. It’s clearly a top down problem and one that we seriously need to address.

That being said, it is even more important for us as preservationists to adapt and reinvent as history and conversations change around us.  Today building preservation and revitalization is directly related to an improved environment, certainly a cause the younger generation relates to. In addition we have the ever evolving voice of African American history to explore and the surge of heritage tourism as Maryland lays down a myriad of historic trails that delve into everything from the voyage of John Smith to the War of 1812 and beyond.  History in Maryland is fast becoming the currency of choice for many counties that are realizing its economic and social value.  As preservationists we innately like the road less traveled, but we have to remember not only to fill in the pot holes along the way but to leave a trail of breadcrumbs so others can easily find us.

-          Elizabeth Beckley