Keeping History Above Water – Charleston: A Workshop for Communities in Action

Abstract

This submission seeks funding for a three-day workshop in Charleston, SC focused on community efforts in that city and nationwide to ameliorate the negative effects of climate change on historic resources. Charleston provides a particularly appropriate setting for the workshop given its leading role within the historic preservation and climate change movements. The focus of the workshop is specifically not about climate change itself, but rather what preservationists, engineers, city planners, community organizations, legislators, insurers, historic home owners and other stakeholders are doing to protect historic buildings, landscapes and neighborhoods from the increasing threat of inundation. The workshop will feature a keynote address given by a visionary in the field (to be determined), with the rest structured around two formats - morning presentations given by individuals representing the groups mentioned above, and afternoon tours, site visits, and hands-on projects that allow attendees to engage with our community partners in Charleston to experience how stakeholders are taking on these preservation challenges. We envision an edited volume, published by an academic press, and a digital handbook of practical recommendations as the products of this work. The funds we are requesting will pay for graduate students to help in planning and logistics and transportation for the tours and site visits.

Our workshop will be managed by a multidisciplinary team representing the diversity of historic preservation subfields and careers. Principal Investigators B.D. Wortham- Galvin (Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology; M.Arch, University of Maryland; M.S. Historic Preservation, University of Pennsylvania): Dr. B.D. Wortham-Galvin is Director of the Master of Resilient Urban Design program and Associate Professor in the School of Architecture, Clemson University. Her research focuses on how theories of cultural sustainability and the everyday can be applied to the design and stewardship of an adaptable built environment with a particular focus on how tactics can become strategies and on those people and places left out of traditional design and development decisions. She works with local and national communities on issues of equity and resilience in managing change in rural, suburban, and urban places.

Personnel

Jon Bernard Marcoux (Ph.D. Anthropology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; M.A. Anthropology, University of Alabama)

Dr. Marcoux is the director of the Graduate Program in Historic Preservation. He is trained as an anthropological archaeologist with a professional background in both applied preservation work and in academia. He has over 20 years of experience working in the cultural resource management field - collaborating with architectural historians, public historians, museum professionals, and government agencies to manage projects involving historically significant buildings and archaeological sites. Marcoux’s research focuses on early colonial interactions between Native Americans, enslaved Africans, and Europeans in the southeastern United States.

Mark Thompson (M.A. History, Certificate in Museum Studies, University of Delaware)

As executive director of the Newport Restoration Foundation, Mr. Thompson facilitates all initiatives and programs, including the Keeping History above Water events.

Alyssa Lozupone (M.S. Historic Preservation, University of Pennsylvania)

Ms. Lozupone is the director of preservation for the Newport Restoration Foundation. In this role, she manages the preservation of over 70 historic structures owned by the foundation.

Erin Stevens (M.L.Arch. University of Georgia)

Founder, President, and Landscape Architect of a certified woman-owned urban design and landscape architecture firm with an emphasis on urban resilience and sustainable infrastructure for municipal, commercial, residential, and industrial projects located throughout the Charleston region.