The National Park Service Program of Conservation for Areas and Structures of National Historical Significance
Stauffer AP and Porter CW. 1943. The National Park Service Program of Conservation for Areas and Structures of National Historical Significance. The Mississippi Valley Historical Review. Chicago, Illinois
Historic sites and structures constitute an important body of source materials for reconstructing the historic past. In spite of the changes which time brings to an historical area, neither the reading of books nor the study of documents can supplant the poignant imagery and understanding which, one direct contact with the site evokes. If the aim of historical study end writing is the accurate portrayal of historic reality,the pnysical site and its remains must be visited and given the same careful study that is bestO\'led on the written sources.2:/ Failure to examine the si te and its 1Jh,ysical remains :MY result in egregious blunders in historical writing. This is especially true of military history, ,since the peculiarities of terrain are frequently as much a conditioning force in the outcome of an L>IIDed struggle as orders given on the battlefield, and it is also true of other s~ecial~ zed fields of histo~J. Historiens 'II<,ho have never seen Roanoke Island or Jamestown sometimes gsner8lize,on the limitations of ~hose places as settlement sites without realizing their positive assets ,md "Potentialities. Historians of the Americ~Ul frontiGr who have been through Cumberland Gap, over the Oregon Trail, or acros's Death Valley can write with more assurance 8nd conviction thEn those who r~ve never had this enlightening experience.
- Type
- Published Report
- Authors
- Stauffer, Alvin; Porter, Charles
- Date of Issue
- 1943-06
- Publisher
- The Mississippi Valley Historical Review
- Units
- HIST
- Keywords
- areas, Conservation, ehistory, Historical Significance, History, National Park Service, NPS, significance, Structures