Winners To Be Awarded Share of $2 Million in
American Express Preservation Grants Decided Through Public
Voting Campaign
Over 1.1 Million Votes Cast for 20 Competing
Sites, A Record for Partners in Preservation: Main Streets
American Express and the National Trust for Historic
Preservation, in collaboration with Main Street America, announced
today the winners of the 2019 Partners in Preservation: Main
Streets program.
The 13 winners, including the Savannah, GA birthplace of Girl
Scouts founder Juliette Gordon Low and the hometown courthouse of
famed author Harper Lee in Monroeville, AL, were determined by a
public voting campaign conducted online at VoteYourMainStreet.org.
American Express enlisted the support of National Geographic to
build the site and to amplify the campaign to their audiences.
Members of the public were also able to cast their votes in person
at open house events held by each local site between Sept. 24 to
Oct. 29.
Overall, the 20 competing sites garnered more than 1.1 million
votes during the period, making it the largest Partners in
Preservation: Main Streets voting campaign to date.
The winning sites of Partners in Preservation: Main Streets
are:
- Janesville, WI | Janesville Woman's Club Building
- Savannah, GA | Juliette Gordon Low Birthplace
- Astoria, OR | Odd Fellows Building
- West Chester, PA | Chester County Historical Society
- Monroeville, AL | Monroe County Courthouse
- Holly, MI | Holly Union Depot
- Staten Island, NY | Casa Belvedere
- Salt Lake City, UT | The Ladies’ Literary Clubhouse
- Mount Pleasant, IA | Union Block
- Denver, CO | Dr. Justina Ford Home
- Painesville, OH | College Hall (Lake Erie College)
- Austin, TX | Elisabet Ney Museum
- Minneapolis, MN | The Woman’s Club of Minneapolis
Twenty historic sites participated in the public voting campaign
to win a share of $2 million in preservation funding from American
Express. This year’s Partners in Preservation campaign placed
special emphasis on historic buildings and sites that celebrate the
contributions of women in communities across America to honor the
upcoming 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th
Amendment, guaranteeing women the right to vote.
Adding to its share of the $2 million in funds, Union Block in
Mount Pleasant, IA, won an additional $50,000 for having the most
in-person votes at its open house event. The site is where Belle
Babb Mansfield, a leading activist in the national women’s suffrage
movement, passed a rigorous bar exam in 1869 to become the first
female lawyer in the United States.
“We are inspired by the record high levels of community support
and engagement at each of the 20 sites, helping to raise awareness
for the contributions women have made to our country,” said
Timothy J. McClimon, President, American Express Foundation.
“The energy of this campaign is exemplified by the top 13 sites,
which each play an important role in the story of their local
communities. Seeing these communities rally around such vital
institutions strengthens our dedication to preserving these special
places.”
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 country,
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
returned for its third year in a row and aimed to inspire long-term
support from local citizens for sites on Main Streets across the
country.
“As we anticipate the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment,
that gave women the right to vote in this country, this campaign
highlights the many contributions women have made to our country
and the places where they made history,” said Katherine
Malone-France, Chief Preservation Officer at the National Trust for
Historic Preservation. “As these sites demonstrate, women have
founded lasting organizations like the Girl Scouts, uplifted ideas
of conscience like the author Harper Lee, and have built stronger
communities across the United States. We look forward to seeing
these sites thrive for years to come and are honored to have played
a small part in their history.”
More about the winning sites:
Janesville, WI | Janesville Woman's Club Building
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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, UT. 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.
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.
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.
Painesville, OH | College Hall (Lake Erie College)
Nestled in Painesville, OH, 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.
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.
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.
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.
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
the National Geographic Society and Disney, 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 131
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.
About Shop Small®
Shop Small® is a nationwide movement to support small,
independent businesses and call attention to the valuable and
distinct contributions they make to their communities and the
economy. Shop Small celebrates small businesses ranging from retail
stores and restaurants to fitness studios and salons, and
everything in between. The Shop Small movement was spurred by the
widespread participation in Small Business Saturday®, a day founded
in 2010 by American Express. This national holiday shopping
tradition is dedicated to celebrating small businesses and driving
more customers through their doors on the Saturday after
Thanksgiving. November 24, 2018 marks the ninth annual Small
Business Saturday, proudly backed by American Express. Learn more
and connect with us on ShopSmall.com, instagram.com/shopsmall,
facebook.com/SmallBusinessSaturday.
View source
version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20191030005908/en/
Media Contacts: American
Express Andrew Johnson 212-640-8610 andrew.r.johnson@aexp.com
National Trust for Historic Preservation Brenda Jones
202-588-6043 bjones@savingplaces.org
BECK Media & Marketing Aubrey Siegel 646-762-8702
aubrey@beckmedia.com
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