New Book | Stewards of Memory
From The University of Virginia:
Carol Borchert Cadou, with Luke Pecoraro and Thomas Reinhart, eds., Stewards of Memory: The Past, Present, and Future of Historic Preservation at George Washington’s Mount Vernon (Charlottestville: The University of Virginia Press, 2018), 280 pages, ISBN: 978-0813941516 (cloth), $60, ISBN: 978-0813941523 (paper), $30.
Mount Vernon, despite its importance as the estate of George Washington, is subject to the same threats of time as any property and has required considerable resources and organization to endure as a historic site and house. This book provides a window into the broad scope of preservation work undertaken at Mount Vernon over the course of more than 160 years and places this work within the context of America’s regional and national preservation efforts.
It was at Mount Vernon, beginning with efforts in 1853, that the American tradition of historic preservation truly took hold. As the nation’s oldest historic house museum, Mount Vernon offers a unique opportunity to chronicle preservation challenges and successes over time as well as to forecast those of the future. Stewards of Memory features essays by senior scholars who helped define American historic preservation in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, including Carl R. Lounsbury, George W. McDaniel, and Carter L. Hudgins. Their contributions—complemented by those of Scott E. Casper, Lydia Mattice Brandt, and Mount Vernon’s own preservation scholars—offer insights into the changing nature of the field. The multifaceted story told here will be invaluable to students of historic preservation, historic site professionals, specialists in the preservation field, and any reader with an interest in American historic preservation and Mount Vernon.
Support provided by the David Bruce Smith Book Fund and the Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington at Mount Vernon.
Carol Borchert Cadou, who spent nineteen years on the collections and preservation staff at Mount Vernon, is Charles F. Montgomery Director and CEO of Winterthur Museum. Luke J. Pecoraro is Assistant Director for Archaeology at George Washington’s Mount Vernon. Thomas A. Reinhart is Director of Architecture at George Washington’s Mount Vernon.
C O N T E N T S
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
A Chronology of Historic Preservation at Mount Vernon in National Context
• Douglas Bradburn and Carol Borchert Cadou, Introduction
• Carl Lounsbury, New History in Old Buildings: Architectural Research and Public History in the Chesapeake
• Thomas Reinhart and Susan Schoelwer, ‘Distinguished by the Name of the New Room’: Reinvestigation and Reintepretation of George Washington’s Grandest Space
• Luke Pecoraro, ‘We Have Done Very Little Investigation There; There Is a Great Deal Yet to Do’: The Archaeology of Georges Washington’s Mount Vernon
• Robert Fink, Thomas Reinhart, and Alyson Steele, Mount Vernon’s Historic Building Information Management Systerm: Digital Strategies for Preservation in the Twenty-First Century
• George McDaniel, Stepping Up and Saving Places: Case Studies in Whole Place Preservation
• Lydia Mattice Brandt, The Dangers of Preserving while Popular: The Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association’s Image of Mount Vernon versus Contemporary Architecture
• Scott Casper, Saving Mount Vernon, in Black and White: Toward an Alternative History of Historic Preservation
• Carter Hudgins, Mount Vernon and America’s Historic House Museums: Old Roles and New Responsibilities in the Preservation of Place
• Carol Borchert Cadou and Luke Pecoraro, Conclusion
Contributors
Index
Call for Papers | Cardinal Alessandro Albani
From the Call for Papers:
Cardinal Alessandro Albani: Collecting, Dealing, and Diplomacy in Grand Tour Europe
Collezionismo, diplomazia ed il mercato nell’Europa del Grand Tour
British School at Rome / Centro di Studi sulla Cultura e l’Immagine di Roma, 11–13 December 2019
Organised by Clare Hornsby and Mario Bevilacqua
Proposals due by 1 April 2019
This conference aims to bring together an international range of art historians alongside scholars of related humanistic disciplines to open a new chapter on the multifaceted life and career of Cardinal Alessandro Albani (1692–1779), ‘The Father of the Grand Tour’. Albani operated in many different spheres of Roman society in a variety of roles: antiquarian, collector, art dealer, political agent, spy. It is time to make a reassessment of his life and of his activities.
There is a close connection between Britain and the study of Cardinal Albani, reflecting the central role that the British played in the art market in Rome, as entrepreneurs and purchasers. This subject—which casts valuable light on the political and diplomatic networks in mid-eighteenth-century Europe—needs to be revisited, particularly in the light of the many books, conferences, and exhibitions on collecting and the art market that have appeared in the last 25 years. It is appropriate that this conference should have as one of its venues the British School at Rome [BSR], which has, over this period, hosted many scholarly events connected with the Grand Tour.
For many years European scholars have examined aspects of the life of Cardinal Alessandro Albani, particularly in respect of his magnificent collections of ancient sculpture—of central importance in artistic and museological culture in Rome—as well as in the family archives and European correspondence. His relationship with major figures in eighteenth-century European art such as Winckelmann and Piranesi remains a fruitful area of study.
The second venue of the conference—the Centro di Studi sulla Cultura e l’Immagine di Roma [CSCIR—is an institution renowned for its commitment to a deeper understanding and reflection on Roman historical and artistic life. By this British and Italian collaboration we hope not only to build new networks of scholarship but to focus international attention on the Albani collections at a key moment.
The role of Alessandro Albani is key in eighteenth-century Rome, both as a patron of the arts and in the wider political life of the European courts. This conference is designed to be multi-disciplinary and international, reflecting the life and career of Albani himself. Proposals for talks might address the following themes:
Albani in the Grand Tour
The Roman art market
Albani and Vatican diplomacy
His correspondents and social networks
The Stuart court in Rome
Philipp von Stosch, Horace Mann, and spying
Albani the archaeologist
The drawings collection of Cassiano dal Pozzo and their sale to King George III
Winckelmann and Albani
Albani as taste-maker
The collections — sculpture, drawings, and the libraries
Albani and Piranesi
The Albani archives
Villa Albani
The languages of the conference are English and Italian, and the event will be open to the public. We invite doctoral students, postdoctoral researchers, established scholars, and members of the foreign academies in Rome to submit proposals for papers which will fall into two groups:
(1) 15-minute presentations on one event, object, or discrete theme
(2) 30-minute presentations on collections or connected themes
Please send an abstract of either 500 words (for a 15-minute talk) or 1000 words (for a 30-minute talk) with a 200-word CV to albaniconvegno@gmail.com by 1 April 2019.
We plan to publish a volume of essays based on this conference.
Scientific Committee
Mario Bevilacqua (Università degli Studi di Firenze, CSCIR), Amanda Claridge (Royal Holloway University of London, Cassiano del Pozzo project), Clare Hornsby (Research Fellow, BSR), Ian Jenkins (Dept. of Greek and Roman Antiquities, British Museum), Harriet O’Neill (Assistant Director, BSR), Susanna Pasquali (La Sapienza Roma), Jonny Yarker (Libson and Yarker Ltd., London)
Enfilade 
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