I was a little too late to witness the grand moment when the site finally got its due. It's now a National Historic Landmark (thanks Anthony).
Ready for my rant?
The process of naming a property on the National Register of Historic Places is a burdensome one. Reaching national landmark status, the pinnacle of historic American recognition, is doubly so. The National Park Service oversees the processes, and asks for a ridiculous amount of work to be done to prove worthiness for a site. And in most instances, that's a good thing. Not every "Washington slept here" inn or "Paul Revere drank here" tavern should be on the list. The list should have integrity. It should truly mean something significant to American history took place there.
That said, some places should be automatically listed: famous battle sites, grand engineering landmarks, homesteads of historically important men and women, etc., much like Wayne Gretzky shouldn't have to wait five years to get into the hocky hall of fame. Instead, a place like the Alden House has to go through the process while, stupidly, a place like the visitors center at the Cape Cod National Seashore - a VISTORS CENTER! - is granted automatic National Register status the moment it hits the requisite age. How the National Park Service can sleep at night with regulations like that is beyond me.
Harumph.
So the Alden House, the famous home of John and Priscilla, with its ancient sturdy sills, its good morning staircase and its annual gathering of Alden descendants, has finally been given its due. That's damn good work on the part of the people who maintain it, and who make it available to teach us that not all of American history is about bureaucracy and unfairness for all.
Time: 36 minutes.
New species: None.
Stranger hellos: None.
What else is going on: joined Regina Porter, local historian, on Duxbury Beach for her talk in the character of Elizabeth Stockbridge Winslow White, 1870; worked the rest of the day; dinner with Michelle's family; wrote one short article for Northeast Boating.
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ReplyDeleteHi, I volunteer at the John Alden House and wanted to clear something up about you saying how they "automatically put the Visitor's Center on the Register". The NHL status and being on the Register of Historic Places is not the same thing by any means. The Visitor's Center has been put on the Register, but they are NOT a National Historic Landmark like us. They're two whole different processes. Achieving NHL status proves that you are significant to the Nation, whereas being on the Register just says "yes you're important". The NHL status took us about 10 years, and is much harder to get. We are also listed on the Register in 1973. To clarify, NHL status is much, much more significant than being on the Register.
ReplyDeleteThanks!
Hi Anthony -
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment, and believe me I'm well aware of the difference. You guys certainly are fully deserving of landmark status. I am so happy for you guys. I guess I should have used another example - like the Bradford House in Kingston. Just to get on the Register they had to go through a couple of years of form-filling, hiring an expert writer, etc. I think my wider point is that the National Park Service should be more proactive and work on identifying qualified historic sites rather than waiting for them to come to them, and should also know that a 35-year-old visitors center, just because it's owned by them, shouldn't automatically be pushed to the front of the line ahead of properties far more deserving. I can think of dozens of places that desrve at least Register, if not Landmark status that are otherwise bypassed by this process.
Congrats to you and the Alden House crew, and keep up the great work! You're one of the gems of the South Shore. Get ready for a busy decade - the quadricentennial of the Mayflower landing will be here before we know it.
John
Thanks!
ReplyDelete