Research Catalog

Title

Preserving the Old Dominion : historic preservation and Virginia traditionalism / James M. Lindgren.

Author

Lindgren, James Michael, 1950-

Publication

Charlottesville : University Press of Virginia, 1993.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xiii, 316 pages : illustrations; 24 cm

Summary

"In 1889 tradition-minded women, including many from Virginia's most prominent families, formed the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities (APVA), the first state preservation organization in the United States. And where better? After all, who else could so readily claim both colonial and Confederate heritage, both Jamestown and the White House of the Confederacy?" "In Preserving the Old Dominion cultural historian James Lindgren shows how the preservation movement strove to rebuild a revered past upon the foundations of its historic structures. While vividly capturing entertaining incidents - white-gloved pilgrimages, a Richmond costume ball, even a search for a Jamestown Rock to set back those arriviste New Englanders - and introducing battling (often with each other) preservationists, Lindgren also explores the serious consequences of these sometimes amusing efforts. He shows how the reinvention of the past shaped contemporary Virginia and the South. In a very real sense the battle between North and South was replayed at the end of the nineteenth century in a contest to control the nation's past." "The AVPA's significance lies not only in the fact that it played a major role in the resurgence of conservatism in the late nineteenth-century South, but that it fits into a larger American picture where tradition-minded Americans tapped their history - whether imagined or real - to shape their identity." "Preserving the Old Dominion incorporates history, anthropology, architecture, archaeology, religion, and politics; it will be of interest to historians in all fields as well as women's studies scholars."--BOOK JACKET.

Subjects

• Historic preservation
• 1800-1999
• History
• Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities
• Virginia
• Traditionspflege
• Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities History
• Historic preservation > Virginia > History > 19th century
• Historic preservation > Virginia > History > 20th century

Genre/Form

History

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 257-304) and index.

Contents

Prologue: The Gospel of Preservation -- 1. "The Past Was Severed from the Present": Historic Preservation and the Resurgence of Old Virginia -- 2. "Whatever Is Un-Virginian Is Wrong": The Growth of the APVA -- 3. "Leaning on Virginia as Children Resting on a Mother": The Feminine Hand in Historic Preservation -- 4. "And They Shall Build the Old Wastes": Early Preservation Efforts in Williamsburg -- 5. "Our Inspiration and Our Goal": Jamestown as Mecca -- 6. "With Reverence and Due Regard for History": Jamestown in the National Focus -- 7. "Keeping Alive a Proper Veneration for the Past": Patchwork Memories of the Old Dominion -- 8. "To Capitalize Some of Its Historic Assets": New South Development and Virginia's Paradox -- 9. "Upholding the Standards of Liberty": The Politics of Anglo-Saxonism and Washingtoniana -- 10. "A Spirit That Fires the Imagination": The Historic Triangle and Beyond -- Epilogue: The Hegemony of Traditionalism.

ISBN

• 0813914507
• 9780813914503

LCCN

92046301

OCLC

• ocm27266799
• 27266799
• SCSB-14125198

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library