The Historic American Buildings Survey: Preservation's Humble Beginnings
February 21–May 20, 2012

A historic building can be preserved through conscious protection of its materials and sensitive repairs to its structural elements. A building can also be preserved through pencil, paper, and film. In fact, it was with these humble preservation tools that the nation's first federal preservation program began. Before America had official National Landmarks or historic districts, we had the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS).

In 1933, Charles Peterson, Deputy Chief Architect of the National Park Service, submitted a proposal to put one thousand out of work architects, draftsmen, and photographers to work documenting "America's antique buildings." Buildings were selected based on criteria such as their threat of destruction and their historic or architectural significance. Using three methods of documentation—measured drawings, large format black and white archival photography, and written reports of the buildings' history—they recorded a representative sample, ranging from humble to elaborate, of America's historic buildings.

Two of The Heritage Society's historic structures, the 1847 Kellum-Noble House and the 1850 Nichols-Rice-Cherry House, were recorded during the earliest days of HABS in 1934 and 1936. In the fall of 2011, three more of The Heritage Society's historic structures, the 1823 Old Place, the 1866 4th Ward Cottage, and the 1870 Yates House, were added to the archive. The Historic American Building Survey: Preservation’s Humble Beginnings features examples of the HABS documentation projects from the 1930s and 2011, along with the measuring tools and drafting equipment used to create them. Come see the similarities and differences between the drawings and photographs, learn what information was collected at each building and how the information is used today.

This project has been funded in part by a grant from the Fondren Endowed Preservation Services Fund for Texas of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The Heritage Society is funded in part by a grant from the City of Houston through Houston Arts Alliance.