William Howard Taft Administrative History

CHAPTER 4: THE NATIONAL PARK SERVICE'S STEWARDSHIP OF THE TAFT NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE, 1971-1985 (continued)

On April 1, 1977, the National Park Service announced the appointment of Fahy C. Whitaker as the new superintendent of the Taft National Historic Site. Whitaker assumed her new position after a three year assignment as historian at Cape Cod National Seashore in Massachusetts.

During Whitaker's four year assignment as superintendent of the Taft National Historic Site, the core staff level remained at five individuals: the superintendent, the administrative clerk, two park technicians, and a maintenance worker. The staff was supplemented by seasonals, interns, student workers, and other temporary staff. In late 1979, Administrative Clerk Charlesetta Spurlock retired after six years at the site.

Special interpretive programs included participation in the city-wide "Sun Day celebration," a week-long environmental and energy conservation event in 1978. For this event, an interpretive van was parked in Cincinnati's downtown and provided a continuous slide show on solar and alternative energy uses in the National Park Service system. In 1978, the staff participated in the Summer-in-the-Parks program by presenting programs on the Taft site to the public. Offsite school programs continued as did regular tours of the exterior and the first floor of the interior of the house .

During 1977 and 1978, Denver Service Center Historical Architect Anthony Crosby conducted additional architectural investigations of the historic fabric of the Taft home in order to respond to questions raised about the adequacy of documentation available for the master plan revision.

The investigations required the removal of the Memorial Association collection from the house to a Security Storage Company facility. By late 1979, Crosby's draft report had been completed and was in the process of being revised.

Maintenance of the property during Whitaker's years included repairs to the copper roof and to the downspouts to correct leaks in the main section of the house. In 1978, the exterior of the house was painted and the stone foundation repointed. The boiler was replaced and concrete paving around the site repaired. In 1979, the floor joists in room 05 on the ground floor, then used as a tool room and maintenance office, were found to be rotted and were replaced. Also in that year, the visitors' porch was replaced and a storage shed assembled on a slab to shelter lawn equipment.

At the time Whitaker arrived in Cincinnati, the reworking of the master plan had reached a critical point. Contradictory reactions were pouring into the Midwest Regional Office of the National Park Service from other offices within the bureau, reflecting significant objections to the draft plan. The objections reflected major disagreement about whether or not sufficient documentation was available to support recommendations regarding the rooms to be restored and furnished.

A new player in this complex process, Whitaker was unfamiliar with the sequence of events that led to this state of indecision. In 1980, she recommended that rooms be restored or furnished with exhibits based on anticipated traffic patterns through the house rather than on documentary evidence. Her suggestions were not received with enthusiasm by the staff at the Midwest Regional Office who reminded her that the compromise reached on the restoration of four rooms on the first floor was the best that could be achieved.

While the master planning process was reaching a tentative resolution in 1978, Congress was considering new parks legislation that included raising the development ceiling for the Taft National Historic Site from $318,000 to $1,888,000. The legislation also provided for the adjustment of the Taft National Historic Site boundaries to include the 0.79 acre lot at the corner of Southern Avenue and Young Street, which would provide for bus parking, and three other parcels of land on the block. The passage of the National Parks and Recreation Act of 1978 did little for the spirits of Charles Taft, now retired from his law practice and residing in Highland Towers. As he wrote to Congressman Bill Gradison of Ohio, "Of course the Department of Interior has been terrible, with the excuse they had to wait for the bicentennial." [18] It was not until early 1980, however, that Whitaker could assure Charles Taft that "the studies are just about completed, and we should be heading for construction soon." [19]

It was not the near completion of the planning studies that finally compelled the National Park Service to begin major development of the site--it was an act of nature. The earthquake of July 27, 1980, shook the Taft home and caused damage of such proportion that Denver Service Center architects David Scherer and Renzo Riddo voiced the opinion that the park's sole historic resource might collapse. They estimated the cost of emergency stabilization at $100,000. [20]

In March 1981, Whitaker left the Taft National Historic Site to take the position of superintendent of Nez Perce National Historical Park in Idaho. Park Technician Sam Witherup served as acting superintendent until late 1981 when the position was assumed by Mary Maxine Boyd.

Boyd's selection as superintendent was unusual given the career patterns of many National Park Service site personnel. She gained her experience with the National Park Service as one of the community lobbyists in support of the creation of the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site in Washington, D.C. She later served as community relations specialist for two years at the National Capital Parks-East office of the National Park Service in Oxon Hill, Maryland, and as community relations specialist for three years with the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area in California. While assigned to the National Capital Region, she entered an bureau-sponsored training program that prepared selected bureau employees for park superintendencies. She continued her superintendency training at Santa Monica. In all, her professional experience- with the National Park Service prior to arriving at the Taft site totaled five years. Her rapid rise through the system can be ascribed in part to bureau efforts of late 1970s to train and promote women and minority staff members to management positions.

Unlike many bureau employees, Boyd had become friendly with top Department of Interior officials because of her lobbying and community work. She had little patience with the bureaucratic niceties of "going through channels" and did not hesitate to appeal to top officials when her site was in need of funds or attention.

Upon her arrival at the Taft site, Boyd was stunned at the house's advanced state of disrepair and the meager interpretive facilities available for visitors. She was determined to upgrade her site's visibility and hence its support within the National Park Service system. Her single-minded effort drove her to use whatever means were available, whether or not they violated normal organizational procedures.

During Boyd's tenure as superintendent, the development program was accelerated for the period covering the fiscal years 1982, 1983, 1984, and 1985. The Midwest Regional Office initiated the development schedule, but Boyd was instrumental in increasing the level of annual expenditures. She was also successful in launching the Friends of the William Howard Taft Birthplace, a private support group that replaced the now defunct Memorial Association. During her superintendency, the staff was upgraded to include a GS-9 park historian and a GS-7 administrative technician and expanded to include a GS-5 secretary.

The interpretive programs in 1981 consisted of tours through the first floor of the house, tours of Auburn Avenue, and offsite programs. Uncertainty about development funds in that year led to reduced staffing, a lower priority placed on interpretation, and no new interpretive programs for that year. Tours through the property continued through much of 1982 until construction work made the presence of staff and visitors on the premises hazardous. An exhibit area and visitors center were set up in the Sanning apartment house just north of the house. Construction work during the years of Boyd's superintendency engulfed the attention of the site's staff and provided a vivid display of the restoration process for public viewing.

Although the construction work at the site constituted the major preservation and maintenance efforts of the Boyd years, several other projects contributed to the development of the property. In 1981, the lot at the corner of Southern Avenue and Young Street was graded and landscaped so that the ground was level with the sidewalk. The lot was cleared of extraneous trees and enclosed by a fence of a design thought to be more in keeping with the 1850s period. In the 1983 annual superintendent's report, Boyd reported that the lot at Southern and Young had been improved by pruning, removing and fertilizing trees, and by sidewalk replacement.

Despite the impression of dazzling accomplishment when compared with the level of activity of the preceding decade, Boyd's superintendency was, by her own admission, "turbulent." [21] The development work was carried out with considerable friction with the staffs of the Denver Service Center and the Midwest Regional Office. Boyd engaged in angry correspondence with her superiors, accusing them of thwarting her efforts to accomplish her work. In October and November 1984, Boyd became ill and was away from the office on sick leave. Dean C. Einwalter, management assistant at the Ozark National Scenic Riverways, was detailed to serve as acting superintendent. In late April 1985, Boyd retired from federal service. Einwalter was again detailed to the Taft National Historic Site until the appointment of Boyd's successor.

A few months later, in June 1985, a new superintendent for the Taft National Historic Site, Steven A. Kesselman, was appointed. Kesselman earned a Ph.D. in history from Harvard University and had taught at several prestigious colleges and universities before the academic glut encouraged him to accept a position as a historian and curator of the William Floyd Estate at Fire Island National Seashore in New York. The newsletter of the Friends of the William Howard Taft Birthplace praised the appointment and noted that he "was greeted with enthusiasm by the Cincinnati community. Dr. Kesselman has solid credentials both as a historian and as a park manager." [22]

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