Mid-Atlantic Historic Buildings and Landscapes Survey (MAHBLS)
Program overview
Survey and documentation of historic properties and landscapes is a core research activity of CHAD in our efforts to create a cumulative record of the changing architectural and cultural landscape. This work includes cultural resource surveys, National Register of Historic Places nominations, historic zoning overlays and HABS-level recordation.
The Mid-Atlantic Historic Buildings and Landscape Survey (MAHBLS) is modeled after the Survey of London and the Historic American Building Survey/Historic American Engineering Record/Historic American Landscape Survey (HABS/HAER/HALS) by the National Park Service. Since 1981, CHAD has documented thousands of properties throughout the Delaware Valley and across the country.
The first step in any MAHBLS research project is architectural documentation through drawings, photographs, oral history and archival research.
Graduate students learn to conduct traditional fieldwork and documentary research and the process for converting hand-drawn field notes to measured drawings in AutoCAD.
As our digitization project progresses, completed documentation projects are archived in the CHAD Collection and accessible to the public for research.
MAHBLS projects come from various clients, including government agencies, local historical societies or preservation groups and private property owners. By working on real-life projects, students gain experience working with and for the community and develop advanced technical and professional skills.
National register nominations
The Downtown Harrington Historical District is an example of a prominent railroad crossroads town. It represents the development patterns associated with arrival and growth of the Delaware Railroad.
Before the construction of the railroad, the land was known as Clarks Corner, which consisted of extensive farms, timber stands and other raw materials. After studying successful railroads in Philadelphia, Wilmington and England, construction began in 1856. Commercial and industrial growth ensued in the following years with a boom in population and commerce from 1870 to 1950.
The town of Clarks Corner was renamed Harrington in honor of Samuel Harrington, whose tireless work not only led to the completion of the railroad but also promised the town decades of prosperity. Although little survives on the landscape from the town's earliest development, Harrington is still a functioning district.
The area exhibits local, regional and national trends of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. If you take a walk through the town, you’ll be sure to find homes reflecting the Romantic, Victorian, Gothic Revival, Italianate, Bungalow, Kit, Art Deco and Colonial Revival styles.
The Newark Union Church and Cemetery was built in 1845 at 8 and 20 Newark Union Public Road in Wilmington, Delaware. The church was first constructed from local fieldstone as a simple meetinghouse. A renovation in 1906 turned it into a late Gothic Revival style church with a stuccoed exterior, a gable roof and a projecting frame vestibule on the east elevation.
The meetinghouse has served as a place of worship for many religions, including Quakers, Methodists, Presbyterians, Anglicans and Non-Denominational Christians. The most significant factor of this historic site is its representation of the influence of European settlement in Northern Delaware and the past religious practices over three centuries.
The cemetery represents the evolving religious demographics of the residents North of Wilmington over several centuries. The first legible burial marker on site dates back to 1757, symbolic of the end of the Quaker era at Newark Union. Gravestones and monuments range from Romantic Era styles to Greco-Roman and Egyptian-inspired. The cemetery contains about 500 marked burials from the mid-18th century to the present.
The Cox-Phillips-Mitchell House, constructed in 1726, is a large farm complex consisting of seven historic structures: the dwelling, a circa 1740s bank barn, stable/granary, chicken coop/piggery, corncrib-granary and machine shed.
The property was listed on the National Register of Historic Places under "Criterion A" as an excellent example of the practice of remodeling agricultural complexes in Delaware during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
The Cox-Phillips-Mitchell Agricultural Complex is significant at the local level for representing these changes as they occurred specifically in Mill Creek Hundred. The period of significance begins in 1789, when William Phillips II inherited the property from his father and ends in 1960. It was listed on the National Register in March 2017.
Listed in March 2017, the Contemporary style house, known simply as "901" (pronounced nine-oh-one) to its owners, is located at 901 Mount Lebanon Road in the hilly piedmont region of Delaware. 901 was nominated under "Criterion C" for its architecture. Constructed in 1950, the house is an example of the Contemporary style that emerged after World War II in the United States, as well as an example of the organic architectural method as espoused by Frank Lloyd Wright and other early advocates of modern house design.
The horizontal orientation of the house, its organic relationship to the surrounding landscape, its rational design based on interior space and the forward-looking style of the house and its builders make 901 a significant, one-of-a-kind artifact of the post-World War II era in the state of Delaware.
901 sits on the crest of a large hill above Brandywine Creek, enjoying a long view across its wooded valley. The footprint of the one-story house resembles a half-octagon. The central, main block is flanked by two main wings, each roughly equal in size to the center block, with each bending towards the road at approximately a 45-degree angle.
While the south wing is rectangular, the northwest wing is shaped like a boot, the heel of which attaches to the main block. The northeast wing is adjoined by yet another rectangular wing, the garage section, which bends at an additional 45-degree angle so that the garage block is at a 90-degree angle to the main block of the house. With walls clad in stone, the house is topped with a very low-pitched gabled roof, significantly reducing its profile and further enhancing its decidedly horizontal orientation.
A completely new nomination was written for the Augustine Beach Hotel, first listed in 1973. This nomination focused on the beach hotel's role in 19th-century coastal entertainment and recreation.
The Augustine Beach Hotel is an imposing two-and-a-half story, six-bay, brick, Federal style, commercial structure located south of Port Penn in Delaware. It was built in 1816 and expanded in at least three building phases, including a notable circa 1870s frame dance pavilion.
Nominated to the National Register under "Criterion A" for being a highly significant local beach hotel, the Augustine used to be the centerpiece of a large bustling resort complex that included a hotel, dance hall, bathhouses, a beach, a wharf and piers. While the resort was popular with locals, this water-oriented tourist destination also attracted droves of vacationers from Philadelphia via steamboat. The Augustine Beach Hotel represents an era when the Delaware River functioned as a commercial and recreational waterway.
After two centuries, the Augustine Beach Hotel continues its nearly uninterrupted association with recreation and hospitality, operating as a bar and restaurant.
The Grantham-Edwards-McComb House (listed January 2016) is a two-and-a-half story, Federal style, brick dwelling in New Castle Hundred, Delaware. Constructed between 1804 and 1817, the dwelling was built by Isaac Grantham, which Grantham used primarily as a tenant house for his relatives.
In the 1830s a Pennsylvania Quaker farmer, Edward Edwards, purchased the property and added the substantial brick kitchen wing. After the Civil War, Colonel Henry S. McComb purchased the property and made the last substantial change to the house which further extended the brick kitchen wing. McComb's primary residence was in Wilmington, Delaware, so the dwelling once again operated as a tenant house during his tenure.
The Grantham-Edwards-McComb house was nominated under "Criterion A" and "Criterion C." The dwelling is significant under the former, as the house was associated with the historic theme of agricultural tenancy in Delaware that occurred from 1730 to 1900.
Additionally, the house was nominated under "C" as being an excellent example of Federal style architecture in rural Delaware. The National Register of Historic Places accepted the additional materials and officially amended the nomination in January 2016.
Holly Oak (listed April 2017) is a Georgian style, three-bay, two-and-a-half-story, stone and frame dwelling located three miles south of the Pennsylvania and Delaware border, in the vicinity of Claymont, Brandywine Hundred, Delaware.
Constructed by Caleb Perkins in 1774, the dwelling originally consisted of an early log portion and the current stone main core. The Perkins family owned the dwelling until 1854 but had sold off pieces of the original 154-acre parcel of land, and tenant farmers inhabited the house. Charles P. Mahoney, an iron merchant, purchased the property in 1854 but allowed the tenant, Xavier Lapier (French immigrant and flag maker by trade), to remain in the dwelling.
John H. Longstreet, president of the Philadelphia Real Estate Investment Company and the president and treasurer of the Lawndale Land Company, bought the property in 1889. Longstreet reassembled the original 154-acre tract of land that once belonged to the Perkins family, along with additional acreage, and plotted the Holly Oak subdivision in 1901. However, this subdivision never came to fruition. The rear service ell was added between 1900 and 1920, and by 1940, the stone sunroom to the southeast was constructed.
Holly Oak was nominated under "Criterion A" and "C." Under "A," the dwelling is significant for its association with the historic theme of stone construction in Brandywine Hundred, Delaware, which occurred from 1770 to 1960. Additionally, the house was nominated under "C" as an example of Federal style architecture in rural Delaware.
Coming soon.
Scenic and Historic Byways in Delaware
The Scenic and Historic Byways in Delaware program is carried out in collaboration with the Delaware Department of Transportation (DelDOT). A "byway" is a transportation route adjacent to or traveling through an area with particular intrinsic scenic, historical, natural, cultural, recreational or archaeological qualities. It is a road corridor that offers an alternative travel route to our major highways while telling a story about Delaware's heritage, recreational activities, or beauty. CHAD assists Delaware communities in preparing nominations for new byways.
This is done in several ways: (a) by preparing manuals that guide communities through the process of preparing their nomination; (b) by preparing research guides that reference the resources and places where people could learn about their road; and (c) by undertaking research and preparing nominations directly.
Other projects that fall under this program are related to heritage tourism; CHAD has especially been involved in developing heritage tourism plans and tools for Sussex County.
Additionally, under this program, a multi-year photography project re-photographing Delaware's road corridors using DelDOT's 1930s Hammond Photographic Collection was carried out.
Historic Documentation of Underrepresented Properties in Delaware
As the First State, Delaware has a long history with diverse communities, but historic documentation and preservation services are not equally available. CHAD endeavors to improve equity in documentation and historic research of Delaware’s built environment by selecting projects that meet this goal whenever possible.
For example, in partnership with the Delaware Division of Historical and Cultural Affairs and the statewide nonprofit Preservation Delaware Inc., CHAD documented the history of the DuPont "colored" schools of 1920-1931. This work includes a context study and architectural survey describing the history, current condition and significance of 84 schools, some of which are no longer standing.
In 2024, CHAD successfully assisted the Scott African Methodist Episcopal Zion (A.M.E.Z.) Church in Wilmington with obtaining inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places. The church is significant to the City of Wilmington’s religious and African American history and exemplifies the Romanesque Revival style.
Another recent National Register nomination prepared by CHAD was for the African Union Church and Cemetery of Iron Hill (now known as St. Daniel’s Community Church of Iron Hill), the oldest surviving free Black church in Delaware (constructed between 1852 and 1856). It was built as part of Peter Spencer’s African Union Church movement and played a key role in forming and sustaining the antebellum era free Black community at Iron Hill.
CHAD’s nomination of Wilmington’s St. Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Church, now New Calvary Baptist Church, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2021. It is significant to the story of Ukrainian immigration at the beginning of the 20th century and the African American community disrupted by later failed urban renewal efforts in the Southbridge neighborhood.
Laboratory for Analysis of Cultural Materials
The Laboratory for Analysis of Cultural Materials is dedicated to the study and interpretation of cultural materials from around the world.
Our current focus is on experimenting with innovative image analysis methods to characterize ceramic, stone, metal and glass materials and incorporating intangible cultural heritage into materials analysis. Ethnographic fieldwork enhances the laboratory's work.
Major goals are understanding geographic variations and changes over time in how people make and use material culture; understanding production methods, object functions, intent, and values expressed by material culture; identifying deterioration mechanisms; and developing and testing new preservation methods.
For more information, contact CHAD and laboratory director Chandra Reedy at clreedy@udel.edu.
Online tutorials and technical resources
Micro-computed tomography (micro-CT) is non-destructive so it can be applied to a ceramic sherd before sampling for thin section petrography.
3D image analysis of the resulting scans provides a wealth of information, especially about pore systems and how they relate to raw materials, processing, production methods and ceramic use functions.
Two presentations by CHAD and laboratory director Chandra Reedy on applications of micro-CT and 3D image analysis for the study of archaeological and ethnographic ceramics are available online:
Tutorial files are currently unavailable. Check back again soon.
Thin-section petrography is used to characterize and interpret stone and ceramic cultural materials.
Information is obtained regarding choices in raw materials, the possible location of material sources, fabrication methods, firing conditions, decorative techniques, possible functions of the object, the technological style of the craftsperson or workshop, the state of deterioration and possible deterioration mechanisms, and the results of testing various preservation approaches.
The Laboratory for Analysis of Cultural Materials specializes in working with contemporary methods of digital image analysis to produce quantitative data and enhanced qualitative data from thin-section petrography.
The book Thin-Section Petrography of Stone and Ceramic Cultural Materials by Chandra L. Reedy, 2008, is available from Archetype Publications, London, or Amazon.com.
Images from the accompanying CD-ROM are currently unavailable for online access. Please check back soon.
Current and recent projects
Laboratory projects fall mainly within two major research streams:
This research program develops, tests, and applies new methods for documenting, analyzing and preserving cultural materials, focusing on ceramics, stone, metals and glass.
A current major area of concentration is experiments with innovative image analysis methods for characterizing materials and improving preservation efforts.
This research program includes studies of both material culture and related intangible cultural heritage (skills, knowledge and beliefs connected with craft production and objects).
We are particularly interested in identifying technological innovation and change and in policies that promote and support traditional technologies.
Ethnographic field studies document the technical methods and cultural context of rapidly disappearing traditional craft workshops.
The study of pores in historic bricks is important for characterizing and comparing brick materials, evaluating the degree of deterioration, predicting behavior in future weathering conditions, studying the effectiveness of protective measures and analyzing potential effects of cleaning treatments.
High-resolution micro-CT coupled with 3D image analysis is a promising new approach for studying porosity and pore systems in bricks. In this research, we developed a set of protocols for creating optimal images of brick pores in micro-CT scans and for conducting 3D image analysis to extract both qualitative and quantitative data from those scans.
Machine learning and deep learning with convolutional neural networks were found to be important tools for better distinguishing pores from the surrounding matrix in the segmentation process, especially at the very limits of spatial resolution. Statistical analyses revealed which of the many parameters that can be measured are potentially most significant for characterizing the pore systems of bricks.
These significant pore variables came from a multi-staged image analysis approach and include the total volume percent occupied by pores, the percentage of those pores accessible to the surface versus isolated interior ones, a variety of statistical properties of individual pores related to their size and shape, the average number of connections that pores have to other pores, and the length, diameter, and directness of those connections.
A paper presenting the results of this study is available as an open access publication: Chandra L. Reedy and Cara L. Reedy. 2022. High-resolution Micro-CT with 3D Image Analysis for Porosity Characterization of Historic Bricks. Heritage Science 10:83.
Funding: National Center for Preservation Technology and Training (National Park Service), grant number P19AP00143.
In 2014 the laboratory, in collaboration with the Sichuan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archeology in Chengdu, China, began a series of field investigations to survey the remaining traditional pottery workshops of Sichuan Province.
Observations, interviews and collection of raw materials and products for laboratory study included many workshops throughout the province.
A startling discovery was an unusual material (a clay-coal cinder composite) not previously known to exist in China or anywhere else in the world. The firing process and kiln design are also unique and not previously documented. The most recent fieldwork on this project occurred in the Fall of 2017.
A paper detailing field and laboratory research results was published in the Materials Research Society's (MRS) journal, MRS Advances:
Funding: National Science Foundation grant #1339530; U.D. Center for Global and Area Studies; Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research
Project Participants: University of Delaware (Chandra L. Reedy, Ying Xu); Sichuan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archeology (Gao Dalun, He Ting, Wang Yangyu), University of Arizona (Pamela B. Vandiver)
An unusual material was also found in Puma Village, in Derge County. The potters add about 50% talc stone to black clay (a calcareous, carbon-rich clay).
A two-stage firing process is used, and the result is a black or silvery-gray ceramic that has a shiny, almost lustrous surface. This material is similar to modern industrial ceramics in its suitability for rapid heating with very even heat distribution, quite good for cooking and retaining heat during long meals.
A paper detailing field and laboratory research results was also published in MRS Advances:
Funding: National Science Foundation grant #1339530; UD Center for Global and Area Studies
Project Participants: University of Delaware (Chandra L. Reedy, Ying Xu); Sichuan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archeology (Gao Dalun, He Ting), University of Arizona (Pamela B. Vandiver)
This project was a collaboration with the Key Scientific Research Base of Ancient Ceramics (The Palace Museum), State Administration of Cultural Heritage, People's Republic of China.
Thin sections of Song Dynasty sherds from Ru, Jun, Ding, and Guan ceramics were studied using traditional thin-section petrography methods and digital image analysis. Using a combination of qualitative and quantitative data, the aim was to clarify some issues regarding production technology.
By carefully examining the technical progression of under-fired, correctly-fired adequate quality, correctly-fired high quality and over-fired sherds, we can identify the methods and intent of the craftsmen. Results were presented at an international conference in the Fall of 2015 at the Forbidden City and published in the symposium volume:
Funding: Key Scientific Research Base of Ancient Ceramics (The Palace Museum), State Administration of Cultural Heritage, People's Republic of China
Thin-section petrography is a crucial tool for the study of archaeological ceramics, and in recent years image analysis has emerged as a powerful enhancement of that tool.
The laboratory conducted experimental work testing the consistency and reproducibility of image analysis. We designed protocols for fast and reliable analysis of thin sections, by first using laboratory-prepared ceramic specimens of simple clay-sand systems. We then showed how those procedures could be slightly modified to accommodate more complex archaeological specimens.
Finally, we began to incorporate image analysis as a routine part of thin-section petrography to enhance qualitative and quantitative data collection.
Funding: National Science Foundation grant #1005992
Participants: Chandra L. Reedy, Jenifer Anderson, Yimeng Liu, Terry J. Reedy
Major publications:
- Reedy et al., 2014. Image Analysis in Quantitative Particle Studies of Archaeological Ceramic Thin Sections. Advances in Archaeological Practice 2(4): 252-68.
- Reedy et al., 2014. Quantitative Porosity Studies of Archaeological Ceramics by Petrographic Image Analysis. Materials Issues in Art and Archaeology X, ed. by P. B. Vandiver, W. Li, C. Maines and P. Sciau. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Vol. 1656. Doi #10.1557/opl.2014.711.