A Historic Preservationist

Abstract

Cultural resource management is the name given to the broad specialty in the National Park Service that embraces the preservation of historic and prehistoric sites and structures and their management and interpretation. These activities employ historians in a variety of ways, principally for research and administration. On the one hand, historians are assigned to research the history of sites and structures. Usually if the information is needed for legislative purposes, to assess quickly the significance of a site or structure, the researcher will only go to secondary sources. If the information is needed to acquire background data for the preparation of a master plan that will describe how a site will be developed, then extensive research into courthouse records, manuscript collections, government documents, or surviving participants is necessary. Park Service historians do detailed research on subjects as complex as exact troop movements on a battlefield, or as prosaic as the daily life of a nineteenth-century farmer. For example, the historian may be called upon to do research for a diorama so that a scene may be accurately depicted. In the preservation of historic structures, the historian usually provides documentary research that relates how and when a structure was erected and what ma-