The movement to save historic structures is commonly dated as beginning in 1966, with the passing of the National Historic Preservation Act, which gave new powers to the National Park Service to administer and encourage preservation programs in every state.

The political impetus for this act was the 1963 demolition of one of New York City’s finest works of architecture, Pennsylvania Station, as well as more generally from a rejection of urban-renewal policies of the post-Second World War era.

In fact, the practice of preserving historic buildings and landscapes, as well as art and artifacts, dates back to the mid-nineteenth century at least, with the fight to save Mount Vernon, and encompasses activities far beyond the purview of the federal government.

While the National Trust for Historic Preservation, chartered in 1949, remains the primary national advocacy organization (though as of 1998, without federal financial support), preservation is a predominantly local movement. It is based around private local efforts to save and rehabilitate historic structures, encourage private rehabilitation and promote public interpretation of historic resources.

Preservation, due largely to its traditional constituency of local, mainly female, welloff reformers, remains an elite undertaking (as in Rockefeller’s stewardship of colonial Williams-burg). As such, the scope of preservationists’ efforts remains narrow: architectural distinction as opposed to social or cultural significance continues to be the prime criteria for “listing” structures on local historic resources lists and the National Register of Historic Places. Nonetheless, as new groups have gained political and social influence, what is considered worth saving has broadened tremendously. State preservation offices, smalltown historical societies and historical museums now routinely seek—at least in limited ways—to preserve and interpret the physical places of African Americans, women and other minority groups.