ABSTRACT
Bostonians saved the Old South meetinghouse in the 1870s, bringing preservation to the heart of the city. They worked next to save Boston Common and historic landscapes. The preservation and parks movements grew together. In the 1890s, architects campaigned to save Boston’s Bulfinch State House, motivated by architectural history. They reconciled modern electrical, mechanical and safety systems with new ideas of historical integrity. Massachusetts legislators preserved views of their statehouse by enacting building height limits, which became one national ancestor of zoning. William Sumner Appleton, Jr., in 1910, institutionalized the movement in the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities (now Historic New England). He professionalized preservation but turned away from urban issues toward what he saw as New England’s Anglo-Saxon countryside. His philosophy encompassed all of material culture, which, in the long run, expanded the inclusiveness of the preservation movement.
