Two career paths, one philosophy
By Peggy Nolan
You wouldn’t expect a bilingual elementary school teacher and a historic preservation consultant to have much in common. Beth Miller is both – and what she’s learned teaching diverse students has shaped her perspective on preserving our past, especially in underrepresented communities.
Since 1985, you’ve prepared more than 100 National Register of Historic Places and six National Historic Landmark (NHL) nominations for sites and properties in Wisconsin. Thirty of your National Register and four of your NHL submissions have been for sites in Madison. Are you a Wisconsin native?
I’m from Florida originally, but I came to Wisconsin when my dad became a professor at UW-Madison. I was eight or nine years old. I mostly grew up in Wisconsin. I lived out of state in the ‘80s. Then I came back and have lived here continuously since 1992.
Beth Miller
How did you get interested in historic preservation?
I always had an appreciation for historic sites and history, probably because my family did. When I was a kid, wherever we traveled, we always visited historic sites, museums and natural areas. That’s where my interest started.
As a historic preservation consultant, I see each project as a chance to learn more about our history. I just really enjoy learning new things. There’s always something that surprises me and is interesting.
My undergraduate degree, an individual major in urban studies, was from UW-Madison. I especially enjoyed classes about the history of architecture, landscape architecture, cities and urban planning. I then completed a master’s in historic preservation, but when I finished, there wasn’t a lot of work in the field, so I went back to do a master’s in urban and regional planning. As soon as I finished it, I got a job as the historic preservation planner for the city of West Palm Beach, Florida. I’ve never actually worked in urban and regional planning. It’s all been historic preservation, mostly part time for the last 20 years because I went back to school and became a bilingual elementary school teacher in 2001.
Why is historic preservation important?
I think it’s important because it tells the stories of our past, not just the positive, feel-good stories but also truthful stories that may seem hurtful or negative to the dominant culture in the U.S. They help us better understand ourselves and where we’ve come from and will help us plan for our future. Also, saving historic buildings is a sustainability practice.
What does a historic preservation consultant do? And is your role as an independent consultant unique?
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There are only about 30 historic preservation consultants working in Wisconsin, and most are within firms rather than being independent. The State Historic Preservation Office maintains a list.
There are two main areas I work in:
Documentation for historic designations, such as listings in the National Register of Historic Places and National Historic Landmark designations.
The other area is compliance work for Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966. The Act requires that any project that uses federal funds or is federally permitted must “take into account” the project’s potential effect on any resources that are eligible for or listed in the National Register of Historic Places. There’s a special section for national historic landmarks, providing additional protection.
What’s most common for me with Section 106 compliance are projects related to roadways and highways. Other projects have included relicensing hydroelectric facilities for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Section 106 roadway projects generally involve identifying an area of potential effects, surveying the area to identify resources that might be eligible or listed in the National Register, and then assessing the project’s potential to affect those resources. For example, when the recently completed Beltline Highway/Verona Road interconnection was first proposed for improvement 20 years ago, I carried out the Section 106 survey for architecture and history. As part of that, I identified the UW-Madison Arboretum as potentially nationally significant in the field of conservation as the birthplace of ecological restoration. I think anyone knowledgeable about the Arboretum at the time probably knew that it was nationally significant, but it was the first opportunity to really look at its potential eligibility for the National Register.
I also conduct research for historic structure reports, mostly for the university but sometimes for the state. For example, the UW-Madison Memorial Union, Science Hall and the Dairy Barn have all had historic structure reports prepared for them to see what condition they’re in, what parts of the building are most historic and need to be preserved, and what could be changed to accommodate them for future use. I prefer documentation work to Section 106 work.
UW-Madison Arboretum, courtesy of the Arboretum
What are you most proud of in terms of your historic preservation work?
I’m proud of the work for UW-Madison Arboretum’s National Historic Landmark designation. It involved a great deal of research and thinking about how to evaluate it and how to include all the different resources that are a part of the Arboretum. Those include plant communities, trailways and buildings. It was a major project. I had done the National Register nomination for it earlier, in 2019, but this was probably another year or more of work. I had a lot of help from Daniel Einstein, who was then the historic cultural resources manager for the university, and also Barbara Wyatt, who was the National Parks Service contact.
What are some of the current threats to historic preservation?
An obvious one is the conflict between development and historic interests and how to reconcile that. I don’t have an answer for that. One place where this is particularly evident to me is on State Street. I prepared a nomination for the National Register for the State Street historic district in the ‘90s. Ultimately, it was not listed because there were owner objections and concerns about what kind of restrictions a National Register listing might impose, even though those are really minimal. Since that time, we’ve lost quite a few contributing buildings.
Part of what we’re all trying to learn about now is what is significant for underrepresented communities, in order to recognize them through landmarking and so that developers and planners will take them into account. The most egregious example of disregard for what is significant to underrepresented communities, in my opinion, is how Euro-American settlers destroyed effigy mounds that were in the Madison area, all in the name of progress.
“It’s important to recognize, document, teach about and designate for protection resources that are significant to underrepresented communities. Their collaboration is key to doing that.”
How does your teaching experience inform your perspective on historic preservation?
I’ve worked with underrepresented communities for my entire teaching career. Historic resources in these communities have long gone unrecognized and often destroyed. History from a Euro-American perspective has held sway, and there are various reasons – Euro-Americans have been the majority, have had the power and controlled the institutions. History has been taught in U.S. schools from that perspective.
We’re now recognizing and acknowledging that the Euro-American view of history is not the whole truth. The histories of Black, Asian and indigenous and Latino and LGBTQ+ communities should be studied and taught. All these diverse histories are part of our U.S. history, and they give us a more complete understanding of our history.
It’s important to recognize, document, teach about and designate for protection resources that are significant to underrepresented communities. Their collaboration is key to doing that. For example, we shouldn’t just send a white surveyor onto the Menominee reservation and say, “I think that looks significant.” It has to come from those communities. We can be allies.
As Maya Angelou said, “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” That’s my philosophy for teaching as well as for historic preservation.
Periodically in this space, we’ll feature local historic preservation heroes. We all have a role to play in keeping Madison’s history alive. What’s yours? Submit suggestions for others we should feature here.