Join John H. Sprinkle Jr., PhD, for an animated discussion on the Hampton Mansion and the Nationall Trust for Historic Preservation.
Located outside Baltimore, Hampton was the late eighteenth-century home of Maryland’s Ridgely family. In addition to its association with the establishment of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, one of its claims to fame is that Hampton was the first property federally designated as nationally significant only for its architectural qualities. The story of Hampton’s recognition involves the collaboration of Fiske Kimball and David Finley, who believed that part of their mission as museum curators was to expand the patriotic goals of the historic preservation movement to include the official and academic recognition of the intrinsic value of American architecture as beautiful works of art. Their work to identify, evaluate, and collect a representative sample of American art paralleled the National Park Service’s mandate (beginning in 1935) to inventory, document, and recognize a comprehensive register of nationally significant historic places.
As a historic property with no association with important events or individuals, the designation of Hampton in 1948 can be viewed as the administrative foundation of Criterion C of the National Register of Historic Places. This criterion is the most commonly listed among the National Register Criteria–more than 50 percent of listings reference a property’s architectural significance. Hampton’s designation and the bureaucratic recognition of architectural significance absent historical associations are important for understanding the foundations of architectural history’s role within historic preservation.
Dr. Sprinkle serves as a historian with the National Park Service in Washington, DC. This presentation is based on Crafting Preservation Criteria: The National Register of Historic Places and Historic Preservation published in 2014 by Routledge.
The Morrison House Presents, salon-styled discussion series, is sponsored by the Alexandria Archaeological Commission, The Torpedo Factory Art Center, and the Morrison House Hotel.
