The Presidency and Historic Preservation Symposium

Our 2022 symposium, The Presidency and Historic Preservation, will be a day-long event hosted by the White House Historical Association in partnership with the National Trust for Historic Preservation. This symposium will feature prominent scholars, historians, preservationists, and professionals who will discuss preserving presidential sites; women in historic preservation; presidential sites of enslavement; and preservation of the White House.

It will feature opening statements from Association President Stewart D. McLaurin and National Trust President and CEO Paul Edmondson. These remarks will be followed by morning and afternoon sessions with different thematic approaches to understanding preservation and the presidency. Katherine Malone-France, Chief Preservation Officer at the National Trust will moderate a discussion on the challenges of interpreting and preserving presidential sites with Sara Bon-Harper, Michael Atwood Mason, and Dawn Hammatt. Association Senior Vice President Colleen Shogan will then moderate a panel that considers the role of women in historic preservation with Susan P. Schoelwer, Elaine Rice Bachmann, and Melissa Naulin.

Following a break for lunch, Mary Elliott, Curator at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture will discuss interpreting slavery at presidential sites with Lina Mann, Andrew Davenport, and Sara Bon-Harper. Finally, Association Senior Historian Matthew Costello will moderate a conversation on White House preservation with Stewart McLaurin, Lydia Tederick, John Stanwich, and Leslie Greene Bowman. The day will conclude with closing remarks by Stewart McLaurin.