See also: HABS and HAER, Library of Congress images

The Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), Historic American Engineering Record (HAER), and Historic American Landscapes Survey (HALS) are programs of the National Park Service

National Park Service

The National Park Service is the U.S. federal agency that manages all national parks, many national monuments, and other conservation and historical properties with various title designations...

 established for the purpose of documenting historic places. Records consists of measured drawings, archival photographs, and written reports. They are currently managed by the office of Heritage Documentation Programs.

HABS

In 1933 the Park Service established the Historic American Buildings Survey following a proposal by Charles E. Peterson

Charles E. Peterson

Charles Emil Peterson is widely considered to be a seminal figure in professionalizing the practice of historic preservation in the United States...

, a young Park Service landscape architect

Landscape architect

A landscape architect is a person involved in the planning, design and sometimes direction of a landscape, garden, or distinct space. The professional practice is known as landscape architecture....

. It was founded as a make-work program for architects, draftsmen and photographers left jobless by the Great Depression

Great Depression

The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...

. Guided by field instructions from Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

, the first HABS recorders were tasked with documenting a representative sampling of America's architectural heritage

Cultural heritage

Cultural heritage is the legacy of physical artifacts and intangible attributes of a group or society that are inherited from past generations, maintained in the present and bestowed for the benefit of future generations...

. By creating an archive of historic architecture, HABS provided a data base

Database

A database is an organized collection of data for one or more purposes, usually in digital form. The data are typically organized to model relevant aspects of reality , in a way that supports processes requiring this information...

 of primary source material for the then fledgling historic preservation

Historic preservation

Historic preservation is an endeavor that seeks to preserve, conserve and protect buildings, objects, landscapes or other artifacts of historical significance...

 movement.

HAER

The Historic American Engineering Record program was founded on January 10, 1969 by the National Park Service and the American Society of Civil Engineers

American Society of Civil Engineers

The American Society of Civil Engineers is a professional body founded in 1852 to represent members of the civil engineering profession worldwide. It is the oldest national engineering society in the United States. ASCE's vision is to have engineers positioned as global leaders who strive toward...

. HAER documents historic mechanical and engineering artifacts. Since the advent of HAER, the combined program is typically called "HABS/HAER". Today much of the work of HABS/HAER is done by student teams during the summer, or as part of college-credit classwork.

HALS

In October 2000 the National Park Service and the American Society of Landscape Architects

American Society of Landscape Architects

The American Society of Landscape Architects is the national professional association representing landscape architects, with more than 17,000 members in 48 chapters, representing all 50 states, U.S. territories, and 42 countries around the world, plus 68 student chapters...

 permanently established a sister program, the Historic American Landscapes Survey for the systematic documentation of historic American landscapes (HALS). A predecessor to HALS was the Historic American Landscape and Garden Project (HALGP). Between 1935 and 1940 the project recorded of historic Massachusetts gardens. The project was funded by the Works Progress Administration

Works Progress Administration

The Works Progress Administration was the largest and most ambitious New Deal agency, employing millions of unskilled workers to carry out public works projects, including the construction of public buildings and roads, and operated large arts, drama, media, and literacy projects...

 (WPA), but administered and records collected by HABS.

Library of Congress

The permanent collection of HABS/HAER/HALS is housed at the Library of Congress

Library of Congress

The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...

. As a branch of the U.S. Federal Government

Federal government of the United States

The federal government of the United States is the national government of the constitutional republic of fifty states that is the United States of America. The federal government comprises three distinct branches of government: a legislative, an executive and a judiciary. These branches and...

, its created works are in the public domain

Public domain

Works are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all...

. Many images, drawings, and documents are available at the L.o.C. American Memory project online archive of: proposed, demolished, and existing; structures, locales, projects and designs.

See also

• Jack E. Boucher
  Jack E. Boucher
  Jack E. Boucher is an American photographer. He began working for the National Park Service in 1958 and continued working there until at least 2006, 48 years later, serving as the Chief Photographer for the Historic American Buildings Survey...
  
  , chief HABS photographer
• Eric DeLony
  Eric Delony
  Eric DeLony served as chief of the Historic American Engineering Record from 1971 to 2003 and is a noted historic preservationist. He is a professional engineering and industrial heritage consultant and his particular interest is the preservation of historic bridges...
  
  , former chief of HAER.
• White Pine Series of Architectural Monographs
  White Pine Series of Architectural Monographs
  The White Pine Series of Architectural Monographs, subtitled "A Bi-Monthly Publication Suggesting the Architectural Use of White Pine and Its Availability Today as a Structural Wood", was a landmark publication of drawings, photographs and descriptions of early American architecture...
  
  , an earlier privately-funded effort to document American buildings, many of the contributors to which joined the HABS project.

External links

• memory.loc.gov. HABS/HAER/HALS – Official website homepage and search-engine
• National Park Service: Heritage Documentation Programs
• Prints & Photographs Online Catalog Home Page – Search and Collections List
• Searching HABS/HAER/HALS
• The Library of Congress homepage
• The Library of Congress > American Memory Home
• FAQ on HABS/HAER/HALS and list of similar documentation programs in the United States