2/22: Andrew Hurley, Beyond Preservation: Using Public History to Revitalize Inner Cities

    Andrew Hurley’s book Beyond Preservation: Using Public History to Revitalize Inner Cities plainly states in the preface that “The central argument of this book is that inner-city communities can best turn preserved landscapes into assets by subjecting them to public interpretation at the grass roots” (Hurley ix). Throughout the book, Hurley focuses on the different ways grass roots efforts can be inspired, started, and maintained. This grass roots view of public history perfectly reflects the efforts started by Eatonville to preserve their community. This effort to preserve their community has shown great success so far as the community’s efforts have garnered the efforts of large organizations like UCF and the Southern Poverty Law Center. While the whole book focuses on grass roots efforts, I decided to discuss Chapters 3 and 5 of the book.

Chapter 3 focuses on the development of Old North St. Louis and the local community’s effort to revitalize their community. The story of Old North St. Louis reflects the struggle of Eatonville greatly. North St. Louis dates as one of the oldest parts of the city where many of the city’s minorities would live. While the racial demographic differed with a large number of Germans, Poles, and Italians, North St. Louis featured a vibrant African American community in the 1940s like Eatonville. Both communities would be ravaged by the rise of highways as the new roads forced their way through the neighborhoods and uprooted many of the residents there. Both communities also began to use history to establish their independent in their larger cities. After south St. Louis began to see a gentrification of its old neighborhoods by big businesses, the north side residents founded the Old North St. Louis Restoration Group in 1981. The community found some success in getting dozens of buildings National Historic Landmark Status, renaming the area to “Old North St. Louis”, and even compiling a collection of recipes from local immigrant families. Despite these successes, by 1997 the group had not seen the success that they had hoped to see. Having already reached out to the University of Missouri, the two groups would form the Old North Partnership Center in 2001.

The new Partnership went well beyond historical research by assisting the local community with assistance in getting funding, continuing development, and guiding local residents on financial literacy and tenant organization. To stick with the history, the partnership began a two-pronged effort of collecting oral and archeological history. The community was encouraged to assist with both of these efforts through their own contributions. The Partnership helped to teach the community how to store and collect their own oral histories without the University. During the archeological digs, the community was invited to join the historians in their efforts. The historians also invited the community to bring their own artifacts as donations to the new museum that was created to display the local history. This collaboration would end by the mid-2000s, but the community would continue to teach their own history to this day. This effort to focus on history mirrors the efforts Eatonville takes to build their own community through their work with UCF and the Zora Neil Hurston festival. It also echoes the voices of people in the Eatonville community who seek to tell their own stories without being controlled by an outside force.

Chapter 5 focuses on the ways you can preserve history through its landscapes instead of just man-made structures. The book opened my eyes to the idea that the natural landscape ties into the local history of the community, such as the story of runaway slaves trying to cross the Mississippi river as part of their journey on the Underground Railroad. Tying back into the Old North St. Louis, the book tells the story of how the local community swam, fished, and interacted with the river in the past. When the city attempted to expand a fruit market into a larger complex that blocked the community’s access from the river even more, the community rose up to fight the expansion. This use of natural landscapes got me thinking about how the Hungerford property could still be used by the community as a way to teach their local history even without the Hungerford building. The school had a history of being an agricultural school, so the community can use the land as an opportunity to reignite the farming education the school taught.