MICHAEL P. STEINITZ

 

 

FIELDS OF SPECIALIZATION               

 

Historic preservation planning, cultural resource documentation, vernacular architecture, industrial archaeology,

urban historical geography, environmental planning, cultural landscapes, geographic information systems

 

EDUCATION   

 

Clark University, Graduate School of Geography, M.A. 1982, Ph.D. 1988. Dissertation: “Landmark and Shelter: Domestic Architecture in the Cultural Landscape of the Central Uplands of Massachusetts in the 18th Century”

 

Clark University, B.A. cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, 1975 (Travelli Scholar, Jonas Clark Scholar 1971-75)

 

PROFESSIONAL, RESEARCH AND EDITORIAL EXPERIENCE

 

Director, Preservation Planning Division, Massachusetts Historical Commission (2002-present)

 

Survey Director, Massachusetts Historical Commission (1989-2002)

 

Manuscript Reviewer (1989-present), Johns Hopkins University Press, University of Tennessee Press, Journal of Historical Geography, Great Lakes Geographer, Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture, Old-Time New England

 

Principal Consultant (1992-93), Center for Historic Architecture and Engineering, University of Delaware, National Endowment for the Humanities grant project, "Architectural Patterns and Process in the United States Landscape, 1795 - 1801"

 

Research and Editorial Consultant (1988), Massachusetts Historical Commission: prepared individual property, district, and community‑wide nominations of properties for the National Register of Historic Places including:

 

Historical Geographer (1986‑7), Atlas of Massachusetts, Department of Geology and Geography, University of Massachusetts, Amherst: coordinator of research for Atlas section on the evolution of the Massachusetts cultural landscape

 

Consulting Geographer (1986‑7), Old Sturbridge Village Research Department, Sturbridge, MA: developed computer mapping component for National Endowment for the Humanities grant project, "Rural Economic Life in Central Massachusetts, 1790‑1850"

 

Historical Geographer (1983‑1985), Massachusetts Historical Commission, State Reconnaissance Survey: Member of research team that produced town and regional reports based on field and documentary research for eighty‑five Massachusetts cities and towns to identify historic resources and recommend planning priorities

 

Geographer (1984), National Park Service, Blackstone Canal Heritage Park Project: conducted historical research relating to Massachusetts and Rhode Island communities along the nineteenth‑century canal (since included in the Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor)

 

Documentary Historian (1980‑81), Shattuck Farm Archaeological Survey, Andover, MA: documented 250 years of agricultural land use and architectural development for a farmstead complex

 

Research Associate (1980‑81), Worcester Three‑Decker Architectural Survey, Worcester, MA: member of team that undertook  field and documentary inventory of over three‑thousand surviving three‑deckers in Worcester

 

Geographer and Coordinator (1978‑1979), Massachusetts Historical Commission, State Cultural Resources Management Plan Project: developed comprehensive, state‑wide, cultural resources protection plan

 

Graduate Research Assistant (1975‑1977), Graduate School of Geography, Clark University: Desertification Monitoring Project, Man and the Hydrologic Cycle Project, Reconstruction Following (Earthquake) Disaster Project

 

Internships (1975), Central Massachusetts Regional Planning Commission, Worcester, MA; United States Environmental Protection Agency, Division of Water Resources Planning, Washington, D.C.

 

 

ACADEMIC EXPERIENCE

 

Lecturer (Summer 1998), Massachusetts Dept of Education Teacher Institute on Historical Interpretation, Technology and the Nineteenth Century Workplace

 

Guest Lecturer, Boston University Preservation Studies Program, Harvard University Graduate School of Design, University of Technology - Loughborough, UK

               

Visiting Instructor (Fall 1991), Geography Department, Clark University

 

Visiting Lecturer (Spring 1987), Geography Department, University of New Hampshire

 

Instructor (1985), Geography Department, Clark University:

 

Instructor (1981), College of Professional and Continuing Education, Clark University

 

Instructor and Associate Director (1977‑1979), Explore Your America: a summer cross‑country environmental education program for high school students

 

Graduate Teaching Assistant (1975‑1976, 1979‑1981), Graduate School of Geography, Clark University

 

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS AND REPORTS

 

(contributor and co-editor, with Bernard L. Herman) Landscapes Lost and Found: Architecture and Place in a New Nation (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, forthcoming)

 

(contributing author) Joseph S. Wood, The New England Village. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press (1997)

 

Review of James M. Lindgren, Preserving Historic New England: Preservation, Progressivism, and the Remaking of Memory, in The New England Quarterly 69, 3 (September 1996), 506-508

 

 (with Joseph S. Wood)  "A World We Have Gained: House, Common, and Village in New England," Journal of Historical Geography 18,1 (1992), 105-120 (Special Issue on the Invention of Tradition in America)

 

(with Joseph S. Wood) "Walden" in Geographical Snapshots of North America, Donald G. Janelle (ed.), New York: The Guilford Press, 1992

 

"A Popular Planet," "City Sprawl," and "Coastal Calamity" in The State of the Earth Atlas,  Joni Seager (ed.) New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990

 

"Rethinking Geographical Approaches to the Common House: The Evidence from Eighteenth Century Massachusetts" in Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture III,  Bernard Herman and Thomas Carter (eds.), Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1989

 

(with Peter Stott et al.) Historic and Archaeological Resources of Cape Cod and the Islands (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Commission, 1987)

 

(with Claire Dempsey et al.) Historic and Archaeological Resources of Central Massachusetts (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Commission, 1985)

 

"Report on Documentary Research, Shattuck Farm, Andover, Massachusetts" in An Archaeological Survey and Documentary History of the Shattuck Farm (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Commission Occasional Publications 2, 1981)

 

(with Joni Seager) Cultural Resources in Massachusetts: A Model for Management (Washington: United States Department of Interior, Resource Protection Planning Series, 1979)

 

RECENT PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS AND ACTIVITIES

 

Vernacular Architecture Forum

Preservation Officer, Executive Committee, Board of Directors (ex-officio), 1997-2002

 

Society for Industrial Archeology

                     Southern New England Chapter President, National Board of Directors (ex officio), 1992-1998

Southern New England Chapter Vice-President and Program Chair, 1990‑91

 

National Park Service Revolutionary War and War of 1812 Study  - Advisory Committee, 2000

 

Massachusetts Department of Environmental Management Historic Landscape Preservation Grant Program

                Statewide Advisory Committee, 2001-present