In most and ordinary communities, historic preservation is
very much about commemorating outstanding residents (as well as, of course,
signal events and remarkable architecture).
CITIZENSHIP
The commemoration of residents focuses on their citizenship, which typically
means contributions to political, educational, charitable and other local community institutions. Thus,
long-time elected government officials, educators, and workers in charitable
endeavors figure prominently in historic preservation commemorations.
For many, if not most, communities, it is fine to stop with
recognizing local citizenship. But a few communities are different and have an unusual
additional task and obligation,
I think.
COLLEGE TOWNS AND SCHOLARSHIP
That type of community is what we commonly call “the college
town,” meaning it is the home of an institution of higher education, one that
is sometimes a research university.
Research university college towns are peppered with residents
who are scholars (aka scientists, researchers) who are oriented to trans-local
and cosmopolitan fields of research and learning. Some few among them have
discovered or invented knowledge that is of very high significance in the wider
scheme of things. But, that significance may be unknown and of little or no
immediate consequence in the local community where those scholars reside.
Even though these people may make little or no local impact,
they are nonetheless fundamentally what the college town is about--even a
town’s literal raison d’etre.
THE TASK AND
NEGLECT IN DAVIS
Davis is, of course, such a college town. A significant
number of Davis’ oldest homes were once the residences of scholars at UC Davis
who were major architects of modern agriculture and other areas of knowledge,
especially in UCD’s formative decades of the aughts, tens, twenties, and thirties.
The presence of significant scholars in these older homes is
integrally what Davis has been and is about. Our heritage is not only
citizenship, it is also fundamentally scholarship.
Unfortunately, we have not yet properly recognized this
special kind of historic preservation task. When a home in the “1917 City” has
come under Davis’ Historical Resources Management Commission scrutiny, few
people have cared who lived there, although a few outstanding citizens such as
Judge William Henry Scott have been accorded citizenship recognition.
A CONFESSION
I must confess I have been slow to recognize this special
preservation task. Indeed, I only began to see it as a somewhat accidental
byproduct of other research I was doing.
A couple of years ago, I decided to document the histories
of the 16 homes on the block where I live. In this process, I discovered at
least three of the many UCD researcher/scholars who lived there were quite significant
figures in their fields and of a stature in their realms on a par with or above
people like Calvin Covell and William Henry Scott.
These were professors Asmundson, Cruess and Bringhurst, who can
be read about in the brief bios of them reproduced here from publication in my
booklet on the E-500s block.
Since then I have become more sensitive to the possibility
that such scholars lived on many blocks of the “original city” in the
formative pre-WWII decades. This area still contains on-the-order-of 300
Pre-WWII homes. Among them, significant scholars resided in perhaps a couple of
dozen.
Yet, we have hardly begun to think about commemorating
scholarship, much less developed systematic means of identifying and reacting to
these sites.
A recent case in point is, of course, 315 D Street, where
the question of who lived there per se--citizen or scholar questions aside--did
not even come up in a serious way in the course of deliberations (post # 90,
this blog).
MODEST BUT
EFFECTIVE COMMEMORATIONS
Let me hasten to declare that I am not implying that every
home resided in by a significant scholar should be made a “landmark” or “merit”
historical resource. Although that might be appropriate in truly exceptional circumstances,
I think fitting action would more commonly consist of modest and tasteful site installations
with text and graphics depicting a location’s importance.
I have in mind, for example, the kind of display recently
installed in North Star Park at what is now the Julie Partansky Pond. I
reproduce a snapshot of it here.
It seems to me that installations such as the Partansky one
focusing on significant local citizens and
scholars should dot the “original city.”
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| (From "Blue Plaque," Wikipedia) |
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| (Wikipedia graphic) |
