An Overview of the National Historic Preservation Program

Within the past generation, historic preservation has evolved from a limited and somewhat insular pursuit into a broad based popular movement with wide support. The reasons for this support are varied. Some desire a tangible sense of permanence and community, while others wish to know about and embrace America's heritage in a direct and personally meaningful way.

Recognition that historic preservation often is associated with economic successes is an important reason, as is the fact that many see the preservation of historic districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects as enhancing their quality of life, adding variety and texture to the cultural landscape in which they live and work. Largely because of such highly personal responses, public support for historic preservation has flowed from the bottom up, making it in the truest sense a grassroots movement, not just another Government program.

Passage of the National Historic Preservation Act in 1966 was a watershed event. It marked a fundamental shift in how Americans - and the federal government - regarded the role of historic preservation in modern life. Before 1966, historic preservation was mainly understood in one-dimensional terms: the proverbial historic shrine or Indian burial mound secured by lock and key - usually in a national park - set aside from modern life as an icon for study and appreciation. NHPA largely changed that approach, signaling a much broader sweep that has led to the breadth and scope of the vastly more complex historic preservation mosaic we know today. Like the American culture it mirrors, historic preservation today is perhaps best defined in terms f its diversity.

As diverse as American culture is, so too is the diversity of historic properties that express this rich cultural legacy. Consider the intricacy and the complexity of the modern mosaic. Our definition of historic properties has evolved to encompass a much broader interpretation of American history, one that acknowledges significance at the local level. Further, historic properties are now understood and appreciated as part of - not isolated from - the landscape to which they belong. It is only logical that this more complex view of what historic properties are, and how Americans relate to them has engendered equally complex challenges concerning their preservation and treatment.

Historic preservation is both a public activity and a private passion and is supported through the country by individual citizens, organizations, businesses, communities, elected officials, and public institutions in various and varied ways. For more than three decades the National Historic Preservation Program has continued to rely upon the partnership between the State Historic Preservation Offices, the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, and the National Park Service as well as the National Trust for Historic Preservation and Preservation Action. The underlying premises and principles of the National Historic Preservation Act, and the partnership it engendered, remain sound.

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