Heritage Preservation Assisting U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs with Care of Historic Monuments
In order to address the condition of historic monuments memorializing our nation's war dead, the National Cemetery Administration (NCA) of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has contracted with Heritage Preservation to preserve memorials in VA cemeteries.
Heritage Preservation coordinated conservators to assess 160 historic monuments in 67 cemeteries across the United States, from Augusta, Maine to San Diego, California. This assessment phase came out of a 2006 comprehensive survey by NCA staff and volunteers of the approximately 960 monuments in the 125 national cemeteries and 33 soldiers' lots maintained by NCA at the time. The process was based on the model developed by Heritage Preservation's Save Outdoor Sculpture! (SOS!) program in its inventory of the nation's collection of outdoor sculpture.
In 2010 and 2011, NCA arranged for the conservation treatment for 76 of these monuments and Heritage Preservation assisted NCA in reviewing the treatment proposals. Heritage Preservation is now consulting with NCA to draft a maintenance procedure manual for these monuments and is developing a curriculum for teaching basic monument preservation principles to NCA cemetery staff.
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Rigby Monument, Loudon Park National Cemetery, Baltimore, MD, before and after its 2010 treatment | |
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Civil War Soldier, Los Angeles National Cemetery, Los Angeles, CA, before and after its 2010 treatment |
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SOS!, a project of Heritage Preservation, helps communities across the United States preserve and promote their sculpture. SOS! began in 1989 by involving 7,000 volunteers in cataloging and assessing 30,000 publicly accessible outdoor sculptures. Fifty-four percent were determined to be in critical or urgent need of conservation. The data is accessible via the Inventory of American Sculpture database at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Support Heritage Preservation as we work to save outdoor sculpture and monuments.