City on a Hill
City on a Hill

Author: Abram C. Van Engen

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2020-02-25

Total Pages: 390

ISBN-13: 0300252315

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A fresh, original history of America’s national narratives, told through the loss, recovery, and rise of one influential Puritan sermon from 1630 to the present day In this illuminating book, Abram Van Engen shows how the phrase “City on a Hill,” from a 1630 sermon by Massachusetts Bay governor John Winthrop, shaped the story of American exceptionalism in the twentieth century. By tracing the history of Winthrop’s speech, its changing status throughout time, and its use in modern politics, Van Engen asks us to reevaluate our national narratives. He tells the story of curators, librarians, collectors, archivists, antiquarians, and often anonymous figures who emphasized the role of the Pilgrims and Puritans in American history, paving the way for the saving and sanctifying of a single sermon. This sermon’s rags-to-riches rise reveals the way national stories take shape and shows us how those tales continue to influence competing visions of the country—the many different meanings of America that emerge from its literary past.

Building Old Cambridge
Building Old Cambridge

Author: Susan E. Maycock

Publisher: National Geographic Books

Published: 2016-11-04

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 0262034808

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An extensively illustrated, comprehensive exploration of the architecture and development of Old Cambridge from colonial settlement to bustling intersection of town and gown. Old Cambridge is the traditional name of the once-isolated community that grew up around the early settlement of Newtowne, which served briefly as the capital of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and then became the site of Harvard College. This abundantly illustrated volume from the Cambridge Historical Commission traces the development of the neighborhood as it became a suburban community and bustling intersection of town and gown. Based on the city's comprehensive architectural inventory and drawing extensively on primary sources, Building Old Cambridge considers how the social, economic, and political history of Old Cambridge influenced its architecture and urban development. Old Cambridge was famously home to such figures as the proscribed Tories William Brattle and John Vassall; authors Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and William Dean Howells; publishers Charles C. Little, James Brown, and Henry O. Houghton; developer Gardiner Greene Hubbard, a founder of Bell Telephone; and Charles Eliot, the landscape architect. Throughout its history, Old Cambridge property owners have engaged some of the country's most talented architects, including Peter Harrison, H. H. Richardson, Eleanor Raymond, Carl Koch, and Benjamin Thompson. The authors explore Old Cambridge's architecture and development in the context of its social and economic history; the development of Harvard Square as a commercial center and regional mass transit hub; the creation of parks and open spaces designed by Charles Eliot and the Olmsted Brothers; and the formation of a thriving nineteenth-century community of booksellers, authors, printers, and publishers that made Cambridge a national center of the book industry. Finally, they examine Harvard's relationship with Cambridge and the community's often impassioned response to the expansive policies of successive Harvard administrations.

Buying Time for Heritage
Buying Time for Heritage

Author: J. Myrick Howard

Publisher: UNC Press Books

Published: 2023-10-03

Total Pages: 458

ISBN-13: 1469677016

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What does it take to save endangered historic properties? This practical guide builds on decades of historic preservation experience to provide readers with legal, financial, political, and technical tools and strategies to be more effective preservationists. Myrick Howard makes clear that large sums of money are not necessarily needed to save endangered historic properties, but knowledge and passion are essential. This book shows how preservation-minded neighbors and organizations can succeed with only modest resources and rather than clash with developers, can become developers themselves for community benefit. Howard draws on case studies from forty-five years of successful work leading Preservation North Carolina, with lessons that are applicable coast to coast. This richly illustrated, fully revised and redesigned second edition includes detailed projects to renovate vacant houses in working-class neighborhoods; reflections on addressing racial equity through preservation; an expanded section on using preservation easements; and summaries of revolving fund programs around the country. Buying Time for Heritage is an indispensable resource for those looking to save the special places of our collective past.

Sustainability & Historic Preservation
Sustainability & Historic Preservation

Author: Richard Longstreth

Publisher: University of Delaware

Published: 2011-02-24

Total Pages: 137

ISBN-13: 1461662702

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Sustainability and Historic Preservation: Towards a Holistic View broadens the horizons of the mushrooming drive to correlate the objectives of these two spheres. To date, discussions of the relationship between historic preservation and sustainability have generally focused on the energy consumption of buildings. The nine chapters in this book show how that agenda can and should be expanded by examining many other facets of the environment, including agricultural lands, urban waterworks, irrigation systems, natural settings, an arboretum, and post-World War II suburbs. Written by specialists from a variety of disciplines—anthropology, architecture, landscape architecture, and urban history among them—the contents explore new realms in which historic preservation and sustainability can have common purpose. This book addresses subjects of concern to many persons engaged in both fields and argues the case for creating a greater spectrum of common ground between them.

The American Revolution
The American Revolution

Author: Gordon S. Wood

Publisher: Modern Library

Published: 2002-03-05

Total Pages: 204

ISBN-13: 1588361586

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “An elegant synthesis done by the leading scholar in the field, which nicely integrates the work on the American Revolution over the last three decades but never loses contact with the older, classic questions that we have been arguing about for over two hundred years.”—Joseph J. Ellis, author of Founding Brothers A magnificent account of the revolution in arms and consciousness that gave birth to the American republic. When Abraham Lincoln sought to define the significance of the United States, he naturally looked back to the American Revolution. He knew that the Revolution not only had legally created the United States, but also had produced all of the great hopes and values of the American people. Our noblest ideals and aspirations-our commitments to freedom, constitutionalism, the well-being of ordinary people, and equality-came out of the Revolutionary era. Lincoln saw as well that the Revolution had convinced Americans that they were a special people with a special destiny to lead the world toward liberty. The Revolution, in short, gave birth to whatever sense of nationhood and national purpose Americans have had. No doubt the story is a dramatic one: Thirteen insignificant colonies three thousand miles from the centers of Western civilization fought off British rule to become, in fewer than three decades, a huge, sprawling, rambunctious republic of nearly four million citizens. But the history of the American Revolution, like the history of the nation as a whole, ought not to be viewed simply as a story of right and wrong from which moral lessons are to be drawn. It is a complicated and at times ironic story that needs to be explained and understood, not blindly celebrated or condemned. How did this great revolution come about? What was its character? What were its consequences? These are the questions this short history seeks to answer. That it succeeds in such a profound and enthralling way is a tribute to Gordon Wood’s mastery of his subject, and of the historian’s craft.

A Guide to State Historic Preservation Programs
A Guide to State Historic Preservation Programs

Author: National Trust for Historic Preservation in the United States. Office of Preservation Services

Publisher:

Published: 1976

Total Pages: 552

ISBN-13:

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"A project of the Office of Preservation Services of the National Trust for Historic Preservation under the auspices of a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, with the cooperation and assistance of the State Historic Preservation officers and staffs."--T.p.