What are National Historic Landmark Theme Studies?
National Historic Landmarks are often identified through theme studies.Theme studies are an effective way of identifying and nominating properties because they provide a comparative analysis of properties associated with a specific area of American history, such as the fur trade, earliest Americans, women's history, Greek Revival architecture, Man in Space, or labor history. Theme studies provide a national historic context for specific topics in American history or prehistory. In order to make the case for national significance, a theme study must provide that necessary national historic context so that national significance may be judged for a number of related properties.
Theme studies that highlight Indigenous heritage:
Historic Contact: Early Relations between Indian Peoples and Colonists in Northeastern North America 1524-1783:This theme study surveys archeological, documentary, documented oral histories, and other evidence to identify, evaluate, designate or thematically upgrade properties in three regions of the Northeast associated with the earliest phases of historic contact between Native Americans and Europeans from 1524-1783.
The Earliest Americans Theme Study for the Eastern United States: The purpose of this theme study is to identify Paleoindian sites that best exemplify and illustrate nationally significant information about human occupation over vast regions of the eastern United States during the earliest periods of settlement This theme study provides detailed contexts including chronological, geographic, and environmental information for the three Paleoindian periods for each region, the Northeast, the Southeast and the Midwest.
Last updated: July 3, 2019