PreserveCast

On this fourth edition of PreserveCast Conversations: The Professor and the Practitioner, a new monthly feature of PreserveCast, co-hosts Nicholas Redding and Dr. Whitney Martinko explore the trends, topics and issues that are making headlines in the world of preservation this month. They’re covering a lot of ground in today’s conversation on preservation and the issues that matter. For regular listeners, also, be sure to send any questions you have about this episode or questions you’d like answered in next month’s conversation to [email protected]. Dr. Whitney Martinko is an associate professor of History at Villanova University, where she teaches classes about the early United States, environmental history and sustainability, and material culture. She also directs the graduate program in public history. She earned her AB in History from Harvard College and her MA and PhD in History from the University of Virginia. She lives in West Philadelphia. Learn more about Martinko and her work at https://www.whitneymartinko.com/

Saving places requires a variety of tools and skillsets – including an understanding of Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act. It sounds dull – but it’s a tool everyone who cares about historic places should know about and get involved in – because it can save places and use the loss of historic resources to fuel preservation elsewhere. On this week’s PreserveCast, Jacqueline Drayer, a 106-specialist is leading us down the road to 106 awareness.

Connecting people to places is the work of preservationists everywhere – and on this week’s episode we’re talking with the creative minds behind Maryland Road Trips, a new site dedicated to encouraging place-based tourism. It’s a story rooted in Maryland, but one with lessons for preservationists and historians across the globe. PreserveCast is a nationwide podcast – exploring topics in history, preservation and place from all around the world – but our heart will always be in Maryland where we’re based and produced. So, this week, we’re talking with Laura Rennie, the editorial manager of Maryland Road Trips to see how one new site is working to connect people to place – with lessons learned along the way for anyone listening who cares to do the same. More About Our Guest Laura Rennie’s curiosity and inquisitive nature leads her toward finding the story unseen. With a background in print journalism, she explores the unknown both with ease and genuine interest. At Maryland Road Trips, a Postern Publishing publication, Laura approaches her work like any seasoned adventurer would; by dusting off the path less traveled and looking where others might not think to look. After all, everyone has a story to tell and Laura has what it takes to tell it. Visit Maryland Road Trips at: www.marylandroadtrips.com

Preservation without funding is just good intentions. That’s why people like Merrill Hoopengardner and her team at the National Trust Community Investment Corporation are so integral to the future of this work. Right now, they’re working on big changes to federal funding for preservation – a timely and critical issue we knew had to be on PreserveCast. Merrill Hoopengardner may not be a household name in preservation – but she should be. Merrill is the President and CEO of the National Trust Community Investment Corporation and is part of an effort to vastly improve the nation’s historic tax credit – the federal government’s largest investment in preservation. As President of NTCIC, Merrill directs fundraising and acquisition opportunities, develops and implements overall strategy and new lines of business for the company, and coordinates governing board/staff relations. On this week’s PreserveCast, listeners have an opportunity to take action and make a difference and Merrill is leading the charge.

On this week's episode of PreserveCast, we are excited to be talking with Kara Harris, a blogger, historian and Maryland food lover. Kara Harris is the blogger and historian behind "Old Line Plate," a fantastic Maryland based food history website that I personally love, and something that I knew we had to bring to this week's episode of PreserveCast. The blog "Old Line Plate," a play on Maryland's historic state nickname "Old Line State," seeks to tell the story of Maryland's historic foodways and cooking traditions. Let's sink our teeth into today's episode of PreserveCast!

Yep, you guessed it, I connected with Christina on Twitter – where she learned about a historic rehabilitation project Preservation Maryland was undertaking. Since then, I’ve become a huge fan of her work and the way in which she expertly weaves history and food together – two of my biggest passions. For anyone with an appetite, this is the interview for you. Christina Tkacik has spent her career telling important stories – and has a talent for weaving history and food together as the dining reporter for the Baltimore Sun. From crabcakes to sno-balls to log cabins, Christina is doing her part to preserve our past in the pages of the Baltimore Sun and is serving up a tasty helping on this week’s PreserveCast.

Foxfire is the bioluminescence created by some species of fungi present in decaying wood. It is a wonderfully evocative word selected by a teacher and student over 50 years ago to be the title for their new project to document life in the southern Appalachians. What started initially as a student project has live on for decades and is today an open-air museum and outdoor village with over 20 historic log buildings and the Foxfire Archive, which consists of over 50 years of oral history interviews, images, and video. With the light of the foxfire marking our path, on this week’s PreserveCast we’re talking with Kami Ahrens, the Assistant Curator for the Foxfire Museum about the special work they’re doing to preserve the past.

On this week’s re-release of PreserveCast, we’re heading back to the brackish marshes of Maryland’s Eastern Shore to talk Tubman, slavery, and freedom. Few names have become as synonymous with grit, determination, and liberty as Harriet Tubman. A Moses for her people, Tubman has become an almost mythical character who represents the best of the American spirit in the face of incredible suffering and inhumanity. Yet, for many years, she lacked a rigorous and scholarly biography. Today’s guest, Dr. Kate Clifford Larson, addressed that historical inequity and helped bring Harriet’s real story to a new generation.

A two-time Pulitzer Prize winning artist, Bill Mauldin’s cartoons embodied the spirit of the infantryman during World War II before turning his critical pen to those in the political sphere. On this week’s PreserveCast, we’re talking with James Brundage, the curator of the Pritzker Military Museum & Library to explore the preservation of this unique art and how Mauldin’s message still resonates. I’ve personally always loved the art of Bill Mauldin – it’s honest, real and sometimes even a little cheeky. In many ways, the art has come to define the GI of World War II and colors our memory of that conflict. That’s why when the Pritzker Military Museum & Library, long-time friends of the podcast, approached us about their new exhibit, I felt it was a story perfect for PreserveCast. Listen: https://www.preservecast.org/

We all need role models – and we need to see ourselves represented – whether in film, print . . . or in Mattel’s iconic Barbie. Today’s guest, Despina Stratigakos, Vice Provost for Inclusive Excellence at the University at Buffalo, is a writer, historian, and professor. She is the author of three books that explore the intersections of power and architecture. Her most recent book, Where Are the Women Architects? confronts the challenges women face in the architectural profession. Despina also participated in a fascinating effort to get the Mattel Corporation to give Barbie a career in architecture. It was a study in representation and the future of the field – a story that we’ll detail in miniature and more on this week’s PreserveCast.

How do serve your mission, your visitors and keep the lights on? That’s a question that nonprofit leaders in the cultural and museum fields ask themselves every day and is all in a day’s work for Colleen Dilenschneider, today’s guest on PreserveCast. Colleen provides data and analysis to inform the evolution of visitor-serving organizations so that they may optimize mission execution and financial sustainability. I’ve been following Colleen’s blog for many years – and have always found her analysis to be some of the very best out there for visitor serving organizations – a voice I knew I wanted to bring to our growing PreserveCast audience.

On this third edition of PreserveCast Conversations: The Professor and the Practitioner, a new monthly feature of PreserveCast, co-hosts Nicholas Redding and Dr. Whitney Martinko explore the trends, topics and issues that are making headlines in the world of preservation this month. They’re covering a lot of ground in today’s conversation on preservation and the issues that matter.

Preservation requires a solid and significant understanding of our past – and on this week’s PreserveCast we’re talking with Jason Church, a National Park Service preservationist who is leading an effort to expertly document the powerfully important physical vestiges of slavery and tenant farming. As these humble and simple structures fade away, work like this takes on a new level of importance and significance. All across America, the physical evidence of slavery is being lost to the ravages of time and indifference. Without expert documentation – there’s a real chance we could lose all memory and understanding of these important buildings. That’s why Preservation Maryland is partnering with the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training to laser scan structures on Maryland’s eastern shore as a part of a broader national effort – a topic we knew we had to bring to our listeners.

This week’s guest is unique; we’re bringing back Bonnie McDonald to talk about the work of her organization, Landmarks Illinois, as they celebrate their 50th anniversary and look forward to the next 50 years of saving places and making preservation relevant in a rapidly changing world.

On this second edition of PreserveCast Conversations: The Professor and the Practitioner, a new monthly feature of PreserveCast, co-hosts Nicholas Redding and Dr. Whitney Martinko explore the trends, topics and issues that are making headlines in the world of preservation this month. From philanthropy to Mohawk ironworkers, they're covering a lot of ground in today's conversation on preservation and the issues that matter. For regular listeners, also, be sure to send any questions you have about this episode or questions you’d like answered in next month’s conversation to [email protected].

On this week’s PreserveCast, we’ll explore the intersection between heritage, education and entertainment with Nigel Hetherington, the founder of Past Preservers. With a global reach, Past Preservers serves as a creative hub between the media and heritage worlds. The heart of the operation lies in their expert database which currently contains over 1,400 professionals from over twenty countries and includes archaeologists, historians, Egyptologists, classicists, conservationists, forensic biologists, anthropologists, authors, and heritage consultants.

In Burgundy, France, around forty workers are taking up an extraordinary challenge: to build a fortified castle using the techniques and materials used in the Middle Ages. It’s almost a surreal project and today we’re talking with Sarah Preston, a bilingual tour guide at Guédelon, a site that is literally resurrecting age old trades in the name of preservation, history and understanding. I was introduced to Guédelon by a previous PreserveCast guest, Peter Ginn – who participated in “Secrets of the Castle,” a BBC series which explored the challenges of building a castle using only medieval techniques. Peter connected us to Sarah Preston, today’s guest, and the rest is history.

With every year that passes, the D-Day landings move further and further from memory to history – and how we protect, remember and honor those bloody beaches becomes a conflict between tourism and respect. Today’s guests are part of a Normandy based preservation organization opposed to the creation of a D-Day land – a cross between heritage and entertainment that has riled up the normally quiet bocage country.

On this first edition of PreserveCast Conversations: The Professor and the Practitioner, a new monthly feature of PreserveCast, co-hosts Nicholas Redding and Dr. Whitney Martinko explore the trends, topics and issues that are making headlines in the world of preservation this month. From murals to infrastructure and traditional trades, they’re covering a lot of ground in this conversational take on preservation and the issues that matter. For regular listeners, also, be sure to send any questions you have about this episode or questions you’d like answered in next month’s conversation to [email protected] Learn more about Dr. Martinko at whitneymartinko.com

To regular listeners of PreserveCast, you know that I’m a huge fan of the BBC “farm” series – which have explored Tudor, Victorian, Edwardian and other eras of British history. Alex Langlands rounds out our interviews with each of the presenters from the series – and Alex also recently published a new book, Craeft: An Inquiry into the Origins and True Meaning of Traditional Crafts, which is a perfect topic of conversation at a moment when the world is almost entirely virtual.

Connecting place to story to digital resources is a challenge confronting communities across the globe. That’s why when I learned about nashvillesites.org, I knew we had a winner for PreserveCast. Not only is Nashville an amazing town – but this story holds many lessons for countless other places looking to bring their history to life. There are over 150 metro markers, over 50 more state and nationally designated and recognized historic markers, sites, buildings, and districts in Metro Nashville. NashvilleSites.org augments Nashville’s unique history with multimedia information and dynamic online resources.

It’s been roughly a year since the world was plunged into a COVID lockdown – and many of those quarantining turned to baking and cooking as a way to pass the time. For Seamus Blackley, particle physicist, inventor of the Xbox and fermentation expert, he was able to resurrect and recreate Egyptian bread using traditional tools, techniques and yeast dating back 4,000 years. This week, we’re talking about preserving the craft of historic bread baking with a renaissance figure in this unique and fascinating field of yeasty experimentation.

In this week’s PreserveCast, we’re spilling the tea on the history of this favorite drink and how one company is resurrecting historic blends for modern palates. We can experience history in many ways – oftentimes that experience happens at a site or by reading an account – but all too often we overlook the powerful experience of tasting history. For today’s guest, serving up a taste of the past is all in a day’s work as the owner of Oliver Pluff and Company, which is dedicated to producing early American tea, coffee, and spice blends for historical and gourmet markets.

If these walls could talk is an old refrain used by lovers of historic places and buildings, and thanks to the in-depth research and loving care of today’s guest, a historic log cabin in West Virginia’s historic panhandle is talking again. Joe Goss is a somewhat unlikely preservationist – an engineer with decades of experience in large-scale infrastructure projects – but the purchase of a historic, circa 1780 log home in Shepherdstown, West Virginia tested his skills and critical thinking to the utmost. On this week’s PreserveCast we’re talking preservation, research and logs with a passionate advocate for one home’s story.

Talented tradespeople make preservation physically possible. Today’s guest is Amy McAuley, the preservation joiner at George Washington’s Mount Vernon, where she uses hand powered tools to repair, restore and preserve one of America’s most historic homes. As we celebrate Women’s History Month, we’re talking with a talented female tradesperson who is doing her part to keep the traditional trades alive.

The Jingle Dress project originated from a dream to unite the beauty of the land and the healing power of the jingle dance during these uncertain times due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The origin of the jingle dance to the Ojibwe people happened during the influenza pandemic of 1918-19. It came as a dream to a father whose daughter was sick with the virus. His dream revealed the new dress and dance that had the power to heal. When the dresses were made, they were given to four women to perform the dance. When the little girl heard the sound of the jingles, she became stronger. By the end of the night she was dancing too. Today’s guest, Eugene Tapahe, also has a dream to take this healing power to the land, to travel and capture a series of images that will document spiritual places where ancestors once walked. The goal is to unite and give hope to the world through art, dance and culture to help us all to heal together. Learn more about the project and support it at: https://tapahe.com/jingle-dress-project.html

Without trained hands able to restore buildings – we can’t “do” preservation. It’s just that simple. Today’s guest is a true trailblazer in the preservation trades; an accomplished historic architect, accomplished tradesperson and notably, the first woman to complete the National Park Service preservation trades training program. On this week’s PreserveCast, we’re talking with Lisa Sasser about women in the trades and the future of trades training in America.

Collecting, cataloguing, conserving. The heart of a museum is its collection, but how do Museums make decisions and who gets to answer the question, “Why Keep That?” The innovative staff at the National World War I Museum and Memorial have taken that question and built an entire exhibit around it. On this week’s PreserveCast, we’re talking with Stacie Peterson, Collections Registrar, National World War I Museum and Memorial, about the challenge of collecting, interpreting and exhibiting.

Established in 1969, the Maryland Commission on African American History and Culture is the nation’s first-ever ethnic commission and has a 50 year track record of exploring, researching, commemorating and preserving important places associated with the African American history of the Old Line State. On this week’s PreserveCast, we’re talking with Chanel Compton, the Executive Director of the Commission, about their work and the exciting future of African American preservation in Maryland and beyond.

Historian, businesswoman, investor, developer, and philanthropist. Colonel Jennifer Pritzker has led an amazing life. A retired Lieutenant Colonel of the U.S. Army, for nearly three decades Col. Pritzker served in the U.S. Army, U.S. Army Reserve, and the Illinois Army National Guard. Today, her legacy of service continues in her philanthropic investments across the nation in heritage, veterans’ issues and beyond. On Today’s PreserveCast we’re talking with a legend of preservation philanthropy. Learn more at: tawanifoundation.org

What do you get when you cross information from George Washington’s own handwritten letters, records from the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association, and the latest tech in data systems and digital modeling? Tom Reinhart is here to explain how George Washington’s Mount Vernon is using and expanding Building Information Modeling (BIM) technology to piece together one of the most detailed architectural models ever. Happy President's Day from PreserveCast!

What if individuals could band together to make change that they couldn’t possibly accomplish alone? That’s the concept behind Small Change, a real estate crowdfunding investment platform founded by today’s guest, Eve Picker. We’ll dive into the new world of crowdfunded real estate investments and how that could shape the future of preservation on this week’s PreserveCast.

For lovers of early American architecture, folkways, crafts and tools, there are few who compare to Eric Sloane. Sloane was a prolific chronicler of the American past – and had a reverence for the way we were that was at moments charming, beautiful and absurd all at once. Today, the legacy of this collector and accomplished artist is being cared for and reinterpreted by the State of Connecticut. Originally from West Virginia, where he received his B.A. in Social Studies Education from Shepherd University, Andrew comes to the Eric Sloane Museum with experience working at public history sites like Harper’s Ferry National Historical Park, South Mountain State Battlefield for the Maryland Park Service, and Henricus Historical Park managing their 17th century Virginia tobacco farm. In his spare time, Andrew is an avid agriculturalist and supporter of historical trades and may be found climbing the lines, working aboard tall ships. He and his wife are thrilled to be living in New England in a small timber-framed farmhouse with their two pups and cat. Andrew is honored to be a steward of one of Connecticut’s valuable cultural resources.

As nearly anyone who has seriously studied American history can attest – there is no American story without the story of slavery. It is central to our origin and must be included in order to get a full and complete picture of our history. Unfortunately, the records of slavery are spread far and wide and are often siloed and incomplete. In this two part series, we’re talking to two of the minds behind Enslaved: Peoples of the Historic Slave Trade – a digital preservation effort aimed at connected the dots and knocking down the silos of slave history. Learn more at www.enslaved.org.

As nearly anyone who has seriously studied American history can attest – there is no American story without the story of slavery. It is central to our origin and must be included in order to get a full and complete picture of our history. Unfortunately, the records of slavery are spread far and wide and are often siloed and incomplete. In this two-part series, we’re talking to two of the minds behind Enslaved: Peoples of the Historic Slave Trade – a digital preservation effort aimed at connected the dots and knocking down the silos of slave history. Learn more at www.enslaved.org. Daryle Williams (PhD, History, Stanford University, 1995), Associate Professor of History and Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs in the College of Arts and Humanities at the University of Maryland, is Co-Principal Investigator on AADHum and Enslaved, two collaborative projects in black studies and digital humanities sponsored by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Williams was lead editor on The Rio de Janeiro Reader: Politics, History, Culture (Duke University Press, 2015) and serves as Area Editor (Brazil pre-1888) on the Dictionary of Caribbean and Afro-Latin American Biography(Oxford University Press). Single-author publications include Culture Wars in Brazil: The First Vargas Regime, 1930-1945 (Duke, 2001), winner of the American Historical Association's John Edwin Fagg prize, and several articles and book chapters on nineteenth- and twentieth-century Brazilian cultural and social history. His current book project is "The Broken Paths of Freedom: Liberated Africans in Nineteenth-Century Brazilian Slave Society." Williams has held grants and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Fulbright Scholar Program, the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Humanities Fellowship Program, and the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities. Prior to serving as an associate dean, Williams was graduate studies director in the UMD history department and associate director of the David C. Driskell Center for the Study of the African Diaspora.

What we preserve tells as much about us as it does about the history itself. Preservation is a movement with a history unto itself – but all too often that story is overlooked in favor of the history of the sites that are preserved. Whitney Martinko, an associate professor of History at Villanova University, is tackling that story and recently published Historic Real Estate: Market Morality and the Politics of Preservation in the Early United States, an in-depth look at why and what we preserve and how interconnected our preservation landscape is to our market driven economy. On this week’s PreserveCast we’re talking about the impulse to preserve and what it says about us, the preservers.

The American Civil War was the first war to be truly photo-documented. The haunting images stare back at us and make the brutal conflict real and humanize the tragedy. Yet, for all of the photos, many of the identities of the individuals captured are now unknown. Today, Civil War Photo Sleuth is using modern-day technology to rediscover the lost identities in American Civil War-era photographs. This new endeavor holds tremendous potential not only to uncover the lost history of the Civil War–but of countless other anonymous photographs. On this week’s PreserveCast, we’re talking artificial intelligence, Civil War history and the future of historical investigations.

Food is powerful. It has the ability to transcend artificial divisions and to unite – and it can speak to our history and heritage if we’re willing to listen, or think with our tastebuds. For today’s guest, using food to tell a story is all a part of his daily work. Brent Rosen is the President and CEO of NatFAB, the Southern Food and Beverage Museum, and the Museum of the American Cocktail in New Orleans, Louisiana. So, pack your back, but don’t bring any food – we’ve got that covered on this week’s PreserveCast.

You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen, but do you recall Rankin/Bass – the company behind some of America’s most beloved stop-action holiday films? Today’s guest, Rick Goldschmidt does. He’s a historian of Rankin/Bass Productions – the creative team that created Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, The Year without a Christmas, and dozens upon dozens more. Preserving the legacy of those films and the actual props has been a lifelong passion for Rick and on this week’s PreserveCast we’ll head back to the 1960s to talk TV preservation and memory with an authority on the subject.

John Brown. Few names in American history inspire as much controversy, admiration, and consternation. He was a controversial figure in his own time and remains so today. No matter your opinion, Brown’s legacy is critically important and must be explored and remembered. Today’s guest, Martha Swan, is the founder and Executive Director of John Brown Lives!, an organization dedicated to preserving Brown’s farm in upstate New York and using his legacy to inspire future generations. On this week’s PreserveCast, we’re talking about John Brown, memory and how to use the past to engage the present.

When most Marylanders – or most Americans for that matter – think about the first European settlers they generally begin that story on the shores of North America. However, in reality, these early colonists had long lives in their native countries before they ever set foot in America. Today’s guest, James Etherington, is the Director of Kiplin Hall – a historic site in England that interprets the ancestral home of the Calverts, one of Maryland’s earliest and most prominent colonial families. On this week’s PreserveCast, we’re heading across the pond to tell the rest of the story of American colonization.

Change can be difficult. Building momentum, engaging diverse audiences, and bringing history to life is the tough stuff of preservation and community engagement. Today’s guest, Dana Saylor, has made it her mission to help fellow preservationists, artists, community leaders, and interested citizens in developing strategies that turn ideas into action. Dana is a creative community connector and mentor to fellow changemakers. Her work is about building emotional connection to place. She is based in Buffalo, New York, and is an Advisor to the National Trust for Historic Preservation. On this week’s PreserveCast, we’re talking the nuts and bolts of making change happen with a leading voice for this critical and timely work. Hey, Nick here, and before we get started – just a quick reminder to please consider making a donation – even $5 would go a long way – and you can do it at preservecast.org; also would you be willing to give us a five-star rating and maybe a quick review. We haven’t had a new review in way too long and I need your help! And, finally, today’s episode is made possible thanks to the support of The 1772 Foundation. Now, let’s make some change happen!

Today’s guest is a part of a powerful movement to share the authentic, painful and real history of slavery at some of America’s most visited plantation sites. Olivia Williams is a cultural history interpreter at McLeod Plantation Historic Site in Charleston, South Carolina. She’s been featured in the BBC, CBS News and the New York Times for her work and for shining a light on the awkward and uncomfortable questions posed by many visitors which underscore the lack of understanding of America’s slaveholding past. This week on PreserveCast, we’ll discuss this critical work with a master of the trade.

In some cases, the legacy of history is buried deep – requiring research, archaeology, or exploration to find it. In other cases, the legacy of history literally clouds our streams. On today’s PreserveCast, we’re blending modern environmentalism with a discussion of the legacy of mining in rural Ohio – and how old damage is creating new vibrancy with Michelle Shively, the Director of Project Development for True Pigments – a project aimed at using pollution to give the world a fresh coat of paint. Make sure you have your painting smock on because we’re about to let the pigments fly on this week’s PreserveCast.

Our nation is confronting challenges on almost every front – so why invest money in historic sites when the challenges are so great? Places like Historic Sotterley, located in Southern Maryland, can make the case for why we should invest. Sotterley has worked to become an exceptional cultural and educational resource for its region and state, and through ongoing work strives to help build a better community with local and regional partners. On today’s episode of PreserveCast, we’re talking with Nancy Easterling, the Executive Director of Historic Sotterley about tackling the complex history of a plantation and how that conversation can improve communities.

There are some topics that are easy to introduce to our PreserveCast listeners. Today’s episode is not one of those – but it is a topic we feel compelled to cover and explore. Among his many responsibilities and positions, today’s guest, Dr. David Fakunle, is also currently serving as the as Chair of the Maryland Lynching Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the first state body in the United States dedicated to chronicling and bringing justice to racial terror lynchings. It is a dark and painful chapter in our history – but a history which we’ll confront and discuss on this week’s PreserveCast with a leader dealing with the legacy of lynchings and the effort to bring justice to those who were denied it.

As a child growing up in Western New York, with Mohawk cousins, the history and world of native American culture always fascinated me. The story of the native peoples of America speak through many voices – music, art, culture – but all too often are missing from the landscape of museums and historic sites. Today’s guest, G. Peter Jemison, is a renaissance figure in native culture, art, and heritage and also serves as the Historic Site Manager of Ganondagan State Historic Site, the location of a 17th-century Seneca town in Victor, NY. On today’s PreserveCast, we will explore the rich history of the Iroquois and learn how their heritage continues in the present.

Today on PreserveCast, we’re talking with Richard Carlin and Ken Bloom, the co-authors of Eubie Blake: Rags, Rhythm and Race, a new biography of one of the key composers of 20th century American popular song and jazz. A gifted musician, Blake rose from performing in dance halls and bordellos of his native Baltimore to the heights of Broadway. As successful as his career and music were, racism and bad luck hampered Blake's career. Remarkably, the third act of Blake's life found him heralded in his 90s at major jazz festivals, in Broadway shows, and on television and recordings. Now, let’s get jazzy on this week’s PreserveCast!

Wyoming is a mysterious and magical place. The very word conjures up visions of roughhewn buildings, horses, and wide open spaces. Preservation seems a natural fit in that majestic setting – and today’s guest is plying the craft and trade of preservation in Jackson Hole as the Director of the National Park Service’s Western Center for Historic Preservation. So, tighten your girth and slacken your rein, we’re headed to Wyoming to talk preservation, western style, on this week’s PreserveCast.

Foxfire is the bioluminescence created by some species of fungi present in decaying wood. It is a wonderfully evocative word selected by a teacher and student over 50 years ago to be the title for their new project to document life in the southern Appalachians. What started initially as a student project has live on for decades and is today an open-air museum and outdoor village with over 20 historic log buildings and the Foxfire Archive, which consists of over 50 years of oral history interviews, images, and video. With the light of the foxfire marking our path, on this week’s PreserveCast we’re talking with Kami Ahrens, the Assistant Curator for the Foxfire Museum about the special work they’re doing to preserve the past.