Heritage Documentation Programs

Heritage Documentation Programs (HDP) is a division of the U.S. National Park Service (NPS) responsible for administering the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), Historic American Engineering Record (HAER), and Historic American Landscapes Survey (HALS). These programs were established to document historic places in the United States. Records consist of measured drawings, archival photographs, and written reports, and are archived in the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress.

In 1933, NPS established the Historic American Buildings Survey following a proposal by Charles E. Peterson, a young landscape architect in the agency. It was founded as a constructive make-work program for architects, draftsmen and photographers left jobless by the Great Depression. Guided by field instructions from Washington, D.C., the first HABS recorders were tasked with documenting a representative sampling of America's architectural heritage. By creating an archive of historic architecture, HABS provided a database of primary source material and documentation for the then-fledgling historic preservation movement. Earlier private projects included the White Pine Series of Architectural Monographs, many contributors to which later joined the HABS program.

Notable HABS photographers include Jack Boucher, who worked for the project for over 40 years.

The Historic American Engineering Record program was founded on January 10, 1969, by NPS and the American Society of Civil Engineers. 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. Eric DeLony headed HAER from 1971 to 2003.

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