Robert E. Stipe Papers, PC.1989

[Identification of item] Robert E. Stipe Papers, PC.1989. State Archives of North Carolina.

This collection contains various items, 1974-2001, including papers, notebooks, audio cassettes, and miscellaneous materials related to the career of Dr. Stipe in preservation, as professor emeritus of design in the School of Design at North Carolina State University, and as Director of the Division of Archives and History during the mid-1970s.

Arranged by series and type of material

Robert Edwin Stipe (1928-2007) was born in Eaton, Pa. to J. Norwood and Ethel M. Stipe. Over time he was educated as a lawyer, planner, and also studied and worked as a public official, teacher, and author. Through his service, work, ideas, and inspiration, Stipe has been widely regarded as a main founder of the modern historic preservation movement in North Carolina.During the latter part of the 1940s, Stipe followed a sister to Duke University where he received degrees in economics and law. Other studies there, including art history, helped stimulated a life-long interest in architecture. He was married in 1952 to Josephine (Josie) Davis Weedon, and worked for a while in Pennsylvania as a law clerk. Realizing he was not suited to the legal profession, the couple returned to North Carolina and Stipe began the study of urban and regional planning at UNC-Chapel Hill. In 1959 he was awarded a Master of Regional Planning. During that period Stipe work at UNC's Institute of Government, serving as assistant director and professor of public law until 1975. In 1968-1969, Stipe was a senior Fulbright Research Fellow at the University College of London, where he studied problems of historic preservation, amenity planning, and countryside conservation in England. As a professor and assistant director of the University of North Carolina's Institute of Government, Mr. Stipe's public policy leadership, and his legislative drafting in the early 1970s, laid the foundation for the state's current public history program. After more than fifteen years at the Institute of Government, Stipe became during 1974 director of the then Division of Archives and History, within the N.C. Dept. of Cultural Resources. In that capacity and as State Historic Preservation Officer, he was able to carry out the programs that he helped create. Moreover, he led the state's private non-profit historic preservation organization, which he served as president from 1980 to 1982. In the area of education, Stipe created both a statewide and national body of preservation leaders through his annual short course program in historic preservation, co-sponsored by the Institute of Government and the then Division of Archives and History. The intensive ten-day course that was offered biennially between 1966 and 1977, brought guest lecturers and students from all over the country, and was critical to the still fledgling historic preservation movement.In 1976 Stipe joined the faculty of the School of Design at North Carolina State University where he developed a specialized curriculum combining elements of community design policy, historic preservation law, and landscape and townscape conservation. Out of his teaching at the School of Design, came a legacy of design professionals and preservationists who continue to shape communities in North Carolina and other states through the preservation of landscapes and cultural values. He was awarded emeritus status in 1989.Mr. Stipe's impact was worldwide through his work as Chairman of the National Trust's International Committee and with the United States Committee of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (US/ICOMOS). Through the years, he was an organizer and speaker at many international meetings and symposiums on historic preservation, including delivering a keynote address in 1976 at the First Anglo-American Conference on Historic Preservation. Robert Stipe's editing and writing are central to his national impact on historic preservation policy and education. He edited two definitive works on historic preservation in the United States, The American Mosaic: Preserving a Nation's Heritage (1987) and A Richer Heritage: Historic Preservation in the Twenty-First Century (2003). Both books serve as basic texts in historic preservation degree programs throughout the United States. Moreover, he conceived and edited the publication series of the US/ICOMOS, Historic Preservation in Foreign Countries. Throughout his career Mr. Stipe received many awards. During the 1970s he received the Ruth Coltrane Cannon Award for Distinguished Service, Preservation North Carolina, 1973, and was elected fellow of the UNESCO Council on Monuments and Sites, and received the Secretary of the Interior's Conservation Service Award, 1978. Additionally, he received the Louise du Pont Crowninshield Award for Superlative Lifetime Achievement in Historic Preservation, National Trust for Historic Preservation, 1988; and finally for his book, A Richer Heritage, the Antoinette Forrester he was given the Downing Award for "the outstanding publication devoted to historical issues in the preservation field," Society of Architectural Historians, 2005.

Stipe, Robert E.

Robert Edwin Stipe

North Carolina. Department of Cultural Resources.

University of North Carolina (1793-1962). Institute of Government..

Division of Archives and History

North Carolina State University

School of Design

College teachers

Preservation

Processing by Fran Tracy-Walls, with the assistance of Steven Lord, volunteer. Finding aid by Fran Tracy-Walls, with revisions, August 2019, for publication in Discover Online Catalog (DOC).