EXPANDING APPROACHES TO CRITERION A: UNDERSTANDING RELIGIOUS PLACES AS THE CENTER OF RURAL COMMUNITY LIFE

Abstract

Religious properties are the centerfold of small rural communities, often functioning as the catalysis and setting for local community social life. Understanding the role of these properties within the field of historic preservation provides an avenue for establishing significance within the National Register program. Historic religious properties not only serve spiritual needs within communities, but they also are the settings for many components of social life, as meeting places, local wayfinding landmarks, cornerstones to familial histories, homes for clubs, educational resources, all contributing to the expansive story of local history.

I assert that historic preservation practitioners must make greater efforts to expand their gaze in order to build upon existing National Register frameworks, for the purposes of critically evaluating these properties under Criterion A. Many of these properties are first evaluated during reconnaissance level survey work, typically under environmental review or Certified Local Government survey work. This study examines the ways in which historic preservation practitioners currently approach the survey and evaluation of religious properties and provides advice for considering small rural communities as the context of the evaluation.

This study provides expanded ways to approach survey work, based on available National Register guidance and building on my own experiences as a historic preservation practitioner. Drawing upon the National Register program and studies of place attachment and sense of place in aligned fields, I present three case studies that incorporate the components of social history and community development through the interactions of people most closely tied to the place. Ultimately, rural religious properties offer deep insight into the ways in which communities create local social history.