The built environment is in constant flux, whether from demolition and new construction, renovations and additions, or changing function and use. Social protest and cultural progress can also transform the built environment, as we have witnessed these past several years in efforts to remove monuments to the Confederacy from public spaces. (See “SAH Statement on The Removal of Monuments to the Confederacy from Public Spaces.”)
As a digital publication, SAH Archipedia strives to ensure that its content is up to date and that published texts accurately reflect physical conditions on the ground. To that end, our editors and authors are reviewing individual entries and essays to identify those that need to be updated.
While this work is ongoing and continuous, we want our readers to know that we are prioritizing updates to entries and essays (and illustrations and metadata) dealing with monuments to the Confederacy and memorials that otherwise symbolize oppression to indicate (1) the removal of statues and other forms of dismantling or transformation, (2) the renaming or retitling of buildings, parks, plazas, bridges, streets, and highways, (3) necessary contextualizing and interpretations in light of new historical research and scholarship.
As always, SAH Archipedia’s editors will work with authors and peer reviewers to maintain the highest standards of a scholarly publication.
Constructed as a rather plain rectangular building by an African American physician, Dr. William Granger, the house was purchased in 1906 by Newsome, a prominent African American lawyer, civil rights advocate, and newspaper editor. Newsome and his wife reoriented the entrance from Oak Street to 28th Street, and added the porch, turret, and Palladian window, making the house more Queen Anne in appearance. ... more
Pettengill Farm is a nineteenth-century saltwater farm located on an estuary of the Harraseeket River in Freeport. The thirty-foot-square saltbox house sits on over 180 acres of fields and woods that are bounded by the river to the south and west, Flying Point Road to the north, and Kelsey Brook to the east. As is typical of Maine saltwater farms, the fields gradually slope downward toward the marshland and saltwater rivers. ... more
Situated on the northern edge of New Harmony, a community established in 1814 by the idealist religious sect known as the Harmonie Society, near the Barrett Gate House, is a space framed by an imposing 12-foot-tall brick wall set in Flemish bond. Measuring nearly 232 feet long and containing a space 130 feet wide, this wall announces a shrine rich in history and conducive to reflection. ... more
Mefford’s Fort or Station is a rare surviving example of a log cabin constructed from the recycled boards and timber from an Ohio River flatboat. While the practice of reusing flatboat materials was common in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, it is unusual to find a flatboat cabin from such an early date and so far north. The first flatboat traveled downriver from Brownsville, Pennsylvania, to New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1782, at a time when Tecumseh and his Shawnee raiding parties were in full force. ... more
