20 Historic Sites Celebrating Women’s
Contributions to Local Communities Competing for $2 Million in
Grants Through 2019 Partners in Preservation: Main Streets
Campaign
American Express (NYSE: AXP) and the National Trust for Historic
Preservation, in collaboration with Main Street America, announced
today that their annual Partners in Preservation campaign this year
will shine a light on historic buildings and sites celebrating the
contributions of women in local communities across the country.
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In honor of the upcoming 100th anniversary of the ratification
of the 19th Amendment, guaranteeing women the right to vote, the
Partners in Preservation program will feature 20 sites that each
play a role in highlighting and raising awareness for the often
unrecognized contributions of women to American history and
society. From the home of Colorado’s first female African American
doctor in Denver, to famed author Harper Lee’s hometown courthouse
in Monroeville, Alabama, these sites celebrate the triumphs,
struggles and rich history of women in America.
Beginning today through Oct. 29, anyone can vote for their
favorite Partners in Preservation: Main Streets at
VoteYourMainStreet.org. The voting platform is hosted by media
partner National Geographic, and Delta Air Lines is also joining as
a campaign sponsor for the third year in a row. People can cast up
to five votes each day of the campaign. The historic sites with the
most votes will receive a share of $2 million in preservation
funding from American Express, and each local partner is receiving
an initial grant of $10,000 to increase public awareness of the
importance of these historic places and build grassroots support
for their Main Street district. Winning districts will be announced
on Oct. 30.
“At American Express, we have long valued a culture that
reflects and celebrates the world around us," said Timothy J.
McClimon, President, American Express Foundation. “Backing the
communities where our customers and colleagues live and work is
vital to what we do. We’re committed to historic preservation by
bringing attention and support to buildings and landmarks that
celebrate the contributions of women this year.”
“You cannot tell the full story of America without including the
many incredible contributions women have made to our country’s
history,” said Katherine Malone-France, Chief Preservation
Officer at the National Trust for Historic Preservation. “By
highlighting historic places on main streets across America that
are telling the stories of women, we hope to not only preserve
these sites, but also amplify the women who have made our main
streets what they are today.”
Partners in Preservation is a community-based partnership,
created in 2006, to engage the public in preserving historic
places. Over the past 13 years, the program has provided more than
$28 million in support of 260 historic sites across the U.S.,
including 20 national parks, 14 cities, and 12 main street
communities, and has engaged more than a million people through
events and online voting. Partners in Preservation: Main
Streets is back for its third year in a row and seeks to
inspire long-term support from local citizens for sites on Main
Streets across the country.
For more information and to vote daily through Oct. 29, the
public is encouraged to visit VoteYourMainStreet.org.
The 20 sites vying for Partners in Preservation: Main
Streets grants include:
Astoria, OR | Odd Fellows Building
In a town of less than 10,000, in the oldest settlement west of
the Rockies, proudly sits the Odd Fellows Building in downtown
Astoria. A center for social, cultural, and creative activity, it
was the first building the community chose to rebuild in 1923 after
a fire devastated the town. Almost a century later, three local
women purchased the building and, with an incredible amount of
community support, saved it from developers.
Today, the building houses a gallery, apothecary, art studio,
and coffee shop, as well as Astoria’s only nonprofit dance studio
and black box theatre—all owned and operated by local women.
Funding will restore and weatherize the building’s historic facade
and windows to ensure it continues to serve the community for
generations to come.
Austin, TX | Elisabet Ney Museum
Elisabet Ney rocketed to fame as a sculptor in 19th-century
Berlin. Deeply intellectual, a gender non-conformist, and a
democracy activist, she fled persecution in 1871 and landed in
Texas. In 1892, after farming and raising a son, she built Formosa,
a rugged but majestic limestone homestead and studio, and
relaunched her career. She created important artwork here, but also
sparked a brilliant legacy: the birth of Austin’s independent
spirit.
Today, the Elisabet Ney Museum at Formosa provides both an
anchor and a laboratory for progressive identity and art. Funding
will help restore the homestead’s 18 exterior doors. Worn and
fragile, plain but grand, they graciously welcome outsiders—women,
artists, and immigrants—just as they did a century ago.
Denver, CO | Dr. Justina Ford Home
Denied access to local hospitals, Colorado’s first licensed
female African American doctor Justina Ford instead treated
patients at her home office, helping circumvent the racial and
economic barriers to their medical care. Locally, Dr. Ford became
known as the “Baby Doctor” because she delivered over 7,000 babies
in her 50-year medical career.
Saved from demolition in the 1980s by the Five Points Community
and Historic Denver, Dr. Ford’s 1890 Italianate-style house is now
home to the Black American West Museum & Heritage Center. Grant
funding will allow for important exterior renovations such as
window restoration and masonry work, ensuring that the Museum can
safeguard its rich collection of black history, remain a place of
learning, and continue to symbolize the black experience in the
West.
Franklin, TN | Franklin Grove Estate & Gardens
Saved from development by the Heritage Foundation of Williamson
County, Tennessee, this five-acre sanctuary in downtown Franklin
testifies to the contributions of women. Franklin Grove has long
had educational ties, housing institutions such as a girls’ school,
a Freedmen’s School, and the O’More College of Design, founded by
Eloise O’More.
Funding will support plans to turn the property’s two historic
mansions into public exhibit space and an entrepreneur center;
create new event space; and relocate an endangered Rosenwald school
to the property for restoration, helping to transform the estate
into an enduring history lesson.
Holly, MI | Holly Union Depot
Holly Union Depot, built in 1886, was such a “people place” that
over time, millions of travelers wore depressions in the floor as
they waited to purchase tickets. In the course of its history,
women also developed a strong connection to the Depot; there, they
distributed meals for soldiers, sent the men off to war, and
welcomed them home. Of note, famous Prohibitionist Carry Nation
arrived at the Depot in 1908 and became known locally for her
hatchet-wielding crusades against “demon-rum” in nearby Battle
Alley.
Grant funding will help rehabilitate the Depot and transform it
into a welcome center and tourism office where visitors can learn
about Holly’s history and the important roles that women past and
present play in the community.
Janesville, WI | Janesville Woman's Club
Built in 1928, the Janesville Woman’s Club Building has served
women’s organizations and provided countless hours and hundreds of
thousands of dollars for scholarships and services in Janesville.
More than bricks and pillars, the building was an anchor in an era
of new political clout; a safe roof during wars and strife; a
window into the community’s needs; and a grand entrance into a
country of greater gender equity and racial justice.
Grant funding will help reinforce the building’s aging
foundation and repair its entrance, renewing its life for another
century of women who will continue the tradition of service to
others.
Kansas City, MO | EGG (Economic Growth Gallery)
Building
Located in the heart of Kansas City’s Historic Northeast, the
EGG (Economic Growth Gallery) building was originally constructed
in 1945 for Rose Marie’s Floral and Gift Shop. In 1995 her business
closed after 50 successful years. Today, the EGG is home to small
business pop-ups created by entrepreneurs (primarily women) from
local immigrant and refugee communities, offering an opportunity to
hone business skills while showcasing global products and
services.
Funding will restore the original Art Deco architecture, replace
deteriorating elements, and install new building features. The
mission is to create an eco-friendly environment that nurtures a
multicultural community and hatches a new future for the women of
tomorrow.
Los Angeles, CA | Downtown Women's Center
Downtown Women’s Center (DWC) offers a full range of programs
and services designed to help end women’s homelessness. In 1978,
DWC founder Jill Halverson used her savings to open Los Angeles’
first drop-in day center for homeless women. In the 1980s, DWC’s
services grew to offer the first permanent supportive housing
program for women. In 2010, and with a female architect at the
lead, DWC completed a $35 million capital campaign to revitalize a
historic building constructed by female developer Florence Casler
in 1927.
Funding will cover the re-design of current external signage, as
well as support the revitalization of DWC’s external facade. As an
advocate for historic preservation and a firm believer in managing
rather than preventing change, DWC demonstrates how historic
buildings can continue to serve as beacons of hope for the
community.
Macon, GA | Ruth Hartley Mosley Memorial Women's
Center
Ruth Price Hartley Mosley was a women’s empowerment pioneer,
shrewd businesswoman, and civil rights activist. She shattered
boundaries in nursing when she was appointed, at age 24, as the
first African American head nurse of the “Colored Female
Department” at the Georgia Sanitarium in Milledgeville. She also
became one of the first women morticians in the U.S. and an NAACP
leader in the civil rights movement. Her estate established the RHM
Center to be a community resource providing educational and life
enhancing opportunities to women and families.
The Center, located in her former home and now listed on the
National Register, cultivates opportunities for women and serves as
a community resource and venue. Funding is essential for
structural, floor, and window repairs.
Minneapolis, MN | The Woman's Club of Minneapolis
The Woman’s Club of Minneapolis was founded by women, for women,
as a place to gather and engage in educational opportunities, civic
contributions, and friendly association. The Club’s auditorium has
historically hosted diverse forms of theatrical practice and public
engagement, and currently fills a vital need in the Twin Cities
arts community by providing a safe and accessible performance space
for independent artists.
This space, formally called The Assembly, needs updates and
upgrades to better serve the community. Funding will help replace
the seats and repair the damaged floor—a critical first phase of a
three-phase renovation.
Monroeville, AL | Monroe County Courthouse
Monroe County Museum houses the courtroom made famous by Harper
Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel To Kill a Mockingbird, which is
taught and beloved around the world and was recently voted the top
favorite in PBS’ “The Great American Read” program.
Constructed in 1903, the courthouse building is showing its age
with serious structural problems in the southwest wall, which grant
funding will address. By saving the courthouse—and with it the very
spot in the courtroom balcony where Harper Lee watched her father
passionately defend his clients—the public can continue to
experience the last tangible connection in Lee’s hometown to her
iconic novel.
Mount Pleasant, IA | Union Block
Constructed in 1861, the Union Block building has anchored the
north side of the Mount Pleasant square for 158 years. Here in
1869, Belle Babb Mansfield passed a rigorous bar examination,
becoming the first female lawyer in the United States. Mansfield
then became active in the local, state and national women’s
suffrage movement, including chairing the first Iowa Women’s
Suffrage Convention in Mount Pleasant in 1870.
Continuously occupied until ravaged by fire in 2011, the
building was renovated and rededicated in 2014. Funding will help
restore the exterior elements not included in that most recent
renovation—namely, the east side gable and 32 museum-quality storm
windows for the trefoil windows.
Painesville, OH | College Hall (Lake Erie College)
Nestled in Painesville, Ohio, just minutes from Painesville’s
charming downtown, Lake Erie College is one of the oldest
institutions for higher learning in the Western Reserve. From its
start as a female seminary in 1856 to its evolution into a
coeducational institution today, Lake Erie College is proud of its
long heritage leading higher education for more than 160 years.
At the center of its picturesque campus stands College Hall,
where more than a century ago, women were leading the charge to
advance their education and blaze new trails, including through the
women’s suffrage movement. Funding will help preserve this iconic
building by restoring its grand entrance, inviting all who enter to
experience its rich and significant history.
Rawlins, WY | Strand Theatre
In December 1869, Wyoming became the first state to grant women
the right to vote. This high bar remains 150 years later as Wyoming
women continue to excel and give back to their community. A prime
example: Rose Cain, the owner of Strand Theatre, an iconic
red-brick building built in 1919 that currently awaits its
comeback.
Cain, who owns three businesses in Rawlins, is an energetic
entrepreneur making positive changes in the downtown. Her vision:
create a vibrant performing arts center that becomes a true
downtown destination. Though a partial renovation was completed in
2018, this grant funding will help complete the facade—including
its historic marquee—and bring the theatre fully back to life.
Salt Lake City, UT | The Ladies’ Literary Clubhouse
The oldest women’s club west of the Mississippi River was
established in 1877 in Salt Lake City, Utah. The Ladies’ Literary
Club (LLC) sought education in history, science, arts, literature,
and current events before academic opportunities were readily
available to women. By organizing study sections, lectures, and
social events, the club promoted a non-religious counterculture in
an otherwise conservative state. In 1913, the LLC commissioned an
architectural masterpiece in the likeness of Frank Lloyd Wright’s
Prairie School style, a building that became known as “the House
that the Women Built.”
Situated on Utah’s most historically significant boulevard, the
Clubhouse on South Temple Street proudly stands more than 100 years
later as a creative venue for performing arts and education. Grant
funding will help restore the sinking front porch and stairs with
the addition of an ADA wheelchair ramp, making the Clubhouse truly
accessible to all communities for the first time in its
history.
Savannah, GA | Juliette Gordon Low Birthplace
The Juliette Gordon Low Birthplace is one of the treasures of
Girl Scouts. Here, visitors from around the world can learn more
about the woman who started the largest, most powerful, and most
successful girl leadership development program in the world:
Juliette Gordon Low.
Today, the Birthplace needs to change, grow, and innovate to
serve the needs of today’s girls. Funding will empower Girl Scouts
to revitalize the Birthplace and make it more sustainable,
accessible, flexible, and engaging for the general public, so that
every person who experiences it can be inspired by the life of
Juliette Gordon Low, the Savannah community she knew and loved, and
the vibrant movement she founded.
Seattle, WA | YWCA Seneca Headquarters
As YWCA’s headquarters since its construction in 1914, the
Seneca Building embodies the organization’s 125-year history of
advocacy for women, from economic freedom to suffrage to fair
housing, as it champions for their advancement and challenges the
inequities they face.
The building’s lobby has long been a gateway for women to find
safety, support, self-empowerment, and a place in the workforce,
but it’s showing wear and tear. Grant funding will restore the
lobby as a warm and inviting gathering place, creating easier
access, updated amenities, and informative contemporary and
historical displays—all to help inspire the next generation of
women.
Staten Island, NY | Casa Belvedere
Built in 1908, this former private home-turned-public arts and
cultural center has strong connections to notable “women of
steel”—Suzette Claiborne Grymes, Emily Warren Roebling, and Laura
Roebling Stirn—whose contributions helped shape Staten Island, the
Brooklyn Bridge, and ultimately, the United States.
The Roebling-Stirn Mansion, known today as Casa Belvedere,
serves as a significant architectural and cultural pillar, as well
as a destination venue for locals and tourists alike. Grant funding
will restore upper levels that sustained severe water damage from
Hurricane Sandy, with the ultimate goal to transform them into new
gallery space.
West Chester, PA | Chester County Historical Society
Present-day visitors can still hear echoes from the first
Pennsylvania Women’s Rights Convention, held June 2-3, 1852, in
architect Thomas U. Walter’s Horticultural Hall, now the home of
Chester County Historical Society. In the words of convention
president Mary Anne Johnson: “Woman at length is awaking from the
slumbers of ages. […] They weary of the senseless talk of ‘woman’s
sphere’[…] We demand for woman equal freedom with her brother to
raise her voice and exert her influence.”
Today a leaking roof and crumbling chimneys threaten this
historically and architecturally significant building. Grant
funding will enable critical repairs and help the echoes of the
past reverberate into the future.
West Palm Beach, FL | Ann Norton Sculpture Gardens
At a time when women were just granted the right to vote, a
petite Southern woman left Alabama to attend college in NYC where
she studied and created art during the Great Depression. That
woman, artist Ann Weaver Norton, went on to create monumental art
that mirrored how she approached life.
Norton’s home, gardens, and studio sit on a two-acre sanctuary
that today carries on her environmental and cultural impact. Grant
funding will help preserve the studio that inspired and soothed
her, honoring the tiny visionary whose body of work invites us all
to think big.
About Partners in
Preservation
Partners in Preservation is a program in which American Express,
in partnership with the National Trust for Historic Preservation,
awards preservation grants to historic places across the
country.
Through this partnership, American Express and the National
Trust for Historic Preservation seek to increase the public's
awareness of the importance of historic preservation in the United
States and to preserve America's historic and cultural places. The
program also hopes to inspire long-term support from local citizens
for the historic places at the heart of their communities.
About American Express
American Express is a globally integrated payments company,
providing customers with access to products, insights and
experiences that enrich lives and build business success. Learn
more at americanexpress.com and connect with us on
facebook.com/americanexpress, instagram.com/americanexpress,
linkedin.com/company/american-express, twitter.com/americanexpress,
and youtube.com/americanexpress.
Key links to products, services and corporate responsibility
information: charge and credit cards, business credit cards, travel
services, gift cards, prepaid cards, merchant services, Accertify,
InAuth, corporate card, business travel, and corporate
responsibility.
About the National Trust for Historic
Preservation
The National Trust for Historic Preservation, a privately funded
nonprofit organization, works to save our nation’s historic places.
In its 70th year, the National Trust is dedicated to preserving the
places that reflect our diverse experiences. From iconic historic
homes and celebrated architectural marvels, to vibrant main streets
and reinvigorated cities, the National Trust invests in the future
by preserving the places that matter: www.savingplaces.org.
About Main Street
America
Main Street America has been helping revitalize older and
historic commercial districts for more than 35 years. Today it is a
network of more than 1,600 neighborhoods and communities, rural and
urban, who share both a commitment to place and to building
stronger communities through preservation-based economic
development. Main Street America is a program of the nonprofit
National Main Street Center, Inc., a subsidiary of the National
Trust for Historic Preservation. www.mainstreet.org
About National Geographic Partners
LLC
National Geographic Partners LLC (NGP), a joint venture between
National Geographic and 21st Century Fox, is committed to bringing
the world premium science, adventure and exploration content across
an unrivaled portfolio of media assets. NGP combines the global
National Geographic television channels (National Geographic
Channel, Nat Geo WILD, Nat Geo MUNDO, Nat Geo PEOPLE) with National
Geographic’s media and consumer-oriented assets, including National
Geographic magazines; National Geographic studios; related digital
and social media platforms; books; maps; children’s media; and
ancillary activities that include travel, global experiences and
events, archival sales, licensing and e-commerce businesses.
Furthering knowledge and understanding of our world has been the
core purpose of National Geographic for 130 years, and now we are
committed to going deeper, pushing boundaries, going further for
our consumers … and reaching millions of people around the world in
172 countries and 43 languages every month as we do it. NGP returns
27 percent of our proceeds to the nonprofit National Geographic
Society to fund work in the areas of science, exploration,
conservation and education. For more information visit natgeotv.com
or nationalgeographic.com/, or find us on Facebook, Twitter,
Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn and Pinterest.
View source
version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190924005705/en/
Media:
American Express Andrew Johnson 212-640-8610
Andrew.R.Johnson@aexp.com
National Trust for Historic Preservation Ruth McBain
603-359-2503 rmcbain@savingplaces.org
BECK Media & Marketing Aubrey Siegel 646-762-8702
aubrey@beckmedia.com
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