1998
Norman Rockwell works on his painting The Art Critic, 1955, one of the photographs preserved under the Save America’s Treasures program. Photo by Bill Scoville, courtesy of Norman Rockwell Museum
The White House Millennium Council, created by President William J. Clinton in 1998, was a multiyear initiative "marking the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the new millennium." In 1998, the White House Millennium Council partnered with the National Trust for Historic Preservation to establish Save America's Treasures, an effort to protect "America's threatened cultural treasures, including historic structures, collections, works of art, maps, and journals that document and illuminate the history and culture of the United States." The four goals of this innovative public-private partnership were to foster pride in U.S. heritage; educate citizens on the preservation problems facing the nation's cultural legacy; raise concern for the urgent preservation needs of nationally significant artifacts, sites, and documents; and stimulate wide-scale involvement in preservation efforts.
The National Park Service (NPS) partnered with the four federal cultural entities—the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), the President's Council on the Arts and the Humanities (PCAH), and the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS)—to administer and distribute the Save America's Treasures grant funds. NPS managed the application and review process for historic properties while the cultural entities managed the process for collections.
Projects supported by NEA Save America's Treasures grants included the preservation of acetate negatives of photography sessions by illustrator and painter Norman Rockwell, the conservation of the archives of master choreographer and dancer Merce Cunningham, and the restoration of Thomas Sully's 1817 painting of George Washington, The Passage of the Delaware.
The program was suspended in 2011 due to budget constraints of the recession, but in its decade of existence, 1,287 Save America's Treasures grants totaling $315,152,000 were awarded to preserve nationally significant and endangered historic structures, places, collections, artifacts, and artistic works. Projects in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and Midway Island received grants. The program was once again funded by Congress in 2017 and is once again preserving nationally significant items of U.S. heritage and culture.