Church of the Holy Trinity, Episcopal, Nashville, TN
As a requirement for the PhD program in public history, I completed a professional residency. For the majority of the residency period, I worked with the Church of the Holy Trinity, Episcopal, in Nashville, TN through the Tennessee Civil War National Heritage Area. Holy Trinity is a National Register listed property and construction began on it in 1852. I worked closely with the priest-in-charge, Father Bill Dennler to organize the archives at Holy Trinity, to write a brief history of the congregation and building for their website, and to write a heritage needs assessment. Th
e heritage needs assessment includes the history written for the website and information about the archives as well as an updated structural needs assessment which addressed the priorities for the physical restoration of the building. Holy Trinity is a relatively small congregation and, working with mentors, I found solutions that would serve their need for storage of the records at professional archival standards while still providing access to the records within the budget. Funding for archival materials was provided through partnership with the Tennessee Civil War National Heritage Area.
Below is a copy of the heritage needs assessment that I wrote for the Church of the Holy Trinity. It includes the history as well as recommendations for the building and archives.
National Register Nominations
Through coursework and a research assistantship at the Center for Historic Preservation at MTSU, I worked on a variety of nominations to the National Register of Historic Places, including the Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church and Rosenwald School, in Notasulga, AL. I also completed the nomination for the John H. Leming House in Coffee County, Tennessee. This was the first nomination that I worked on alone, from start to finish, and it was a pleasure to be with the property owner at the State Historical Commission Meeting as they announced they would recommend nominating the property. It was officially listed on the National Register in March 2011.
Preservation Action Task Force
As a part of a research assistantship at the Center for Historic Preservation, myself and others were called on to act on behalf of the Research Committee of the Federal Historic Preservation Program Task Force, put together by Preservation Action. Katherine O’Bryan and I researched and wrote drafts of two white papers to research the history of the Federal Historic Preservation Programs. These drafts were read by many preservation activists and professionals for discussion at the 2010 meeting of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. They are below.
PAF Research Project 1 2010 by k10bd
PAF Research Project 2 2010 by k10bd
The Task Force continued its work, gathering public input and making recommendations for priorities to lobby the government for improvement to federal historic preservation programs and funding for those programs. The final product was collected as Aligned for Success: Recommendations to Improve the effectiveness of the Federal Preservation Program.
AlignedForSuccess Final PAF Report by k10bd
Restoring the Matt Gardner Homestead
In June 2010, myself and others from the Center for Historic Preservation did some restoration work at the Matt Gardner Homestead in Elkton, Tennessee, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. We did general cleaning and removed wallpaper and non-period panelling. This article by Lisa L. Rollins provides more information about the house and the work completed.
