Charleston Loan Exhibition

P RESERVING C HARLESTON 8 istoric Charleston Foundation is one of the nation’s oldest and most respected historic preservation organizations. Founded in 1947 the Foundation has played an important role in revitalizing Charleston and preserving the city’s historic architecture and neighborhoods. In the process, it has become one of the most innovative and effective preservation advocacy organizations in the United States. Throughout its history, Historic Charleston Foundation has undertaken programs that concentrate on property conservation, neighborhood and commercial zoning, and the revitalization and stabilization of Charleston’s architecturally significant urban environment, which traces its origins to the 1670s. The Foundation’s primary efforts have centered in Charleston’s Old and Historic District, the oldest in the United States. Foundation programs advocate for realistic, economically feasible preservation initiatives; provide protection for vulnerable buildings including their interiors and priceless collections; and promote heritage education and citizen participation. These programs serve as models for communities throughout the nation. The protection and the conservation of irreplaceable cultural resources require a broad range of programs based in preservation advocacy; curatorial and museum operations; and documentary, archaeological and photographic research. The Foundation’s mandate also provides that it encourage the preservation of cultural resources through educational programming, heritage tours, advocacy publications and the reproduction of artifacts and works of art that further the knowledge and appreciation of our nation’s history. Historic Charleston Foundation administers two historic sites which operate as publicly interpreted museums: the Nathaniel Russell House and the Aiken-Rhett House. Both are National Historic Landmark sites. Premier among the Foundation’s holdings, the Nathaniel Russell House (1808), is maintained and operated as a house museum depicting life in one of the nation’s most important urban neo-classical structures. HCF acquired the Russell House in 1955 and has gathered there a singularly important collection H Advertisements for Ansonborough Houses, Charleston News and Courier. Historic Charleston Foundation created the nation’s first Revolving Fund, which stressed the importance of revitalizing an entire neighborhood in addition to rather than just individual structures. Historic Charleston Foundation Festival of Houses and Gardens Poster, 1958. From 1955 until 1992, the Nathaniel Russell House served as Historic Charleston Foundation’s headquarters, functioning as the center of the Foundation’s preservation initiatives, which included operating the historic structure as a public museum.