History of Preservation

The Preservation Movement has gained more momentum over the last few decades. It began, however, more than a century ago with the Mount Vernon Ladies Association. The original “little old ladies in tennis shoes,” a group of ambitious women rallied, to save George Washington’s former home. South Carolina’s own Ann Pamela Cunningham led the effort and established liaisons in several states. While great places and people were the most popular in preservation efforts early, today’s preservation challenges have been preserving the more vernacular sites and places associated with women, African-Americans, and various other groups “forgotten” by history.

During the Great Depression, one of the programs established was a survey of historic and significant structures as a way to generate employment for out of work architects. Today these subsequent repositories of Historic American Building Survey and the Historic American Engineering Record (HABS/HAER) are an excellent resource for historians. Local preservation efforts set an unprecedented standard for using local government to enforce preservation.

The popularity of suburban housing in the post-war boom generated a flight from downtowns, leaving many buildings abandoned. The popularity of urban renewal and preservation organizations fighting back against the destruction of many historic homes and properties have led to campaigns which have saved local landmarks. The Historic Columbia Foundation, created in part to save the Ainsley Hall mansion, designed by architect Robert Mills, is an example of preservation in action.

In addition, the federal government also took action, creating the Historic Preservation Act in 1966, which established regulatory offices in each state to administer preservation programming. Since that era, historic preservation at the local and state levels have exploded into multifunctional organizations that effectively promote saving our built history.

The Historic Columbia Foundation (HCF) began in the early stages of the modern preservation movement. The Robert Mills House was part of Columbia’s early preservation initiatives. From 1961-1967 the house was carefully restored and furnished to represent the early 1800s. HCF continued its preservation efforts by working with the state of South Carolina on restoring the Hampton-Preston Mansion from 1969-1970. Around this same time, HCF obtained stewardship of the Woodrow Wilson Family Home, which had been open to the public as a museum since the 1930s. In 1978 HCF obtained the Mann-Simons Cottage, and ten years later it would acquire the Seibels House. In 1993 the Big Apple came under the ownership of HCF.