This need to preserve the past is significant in that many held on to specific historical moments as socially and economically ideal. Preservationists sought to maintain historic buildings to elicit memories of past achievements; Conservationists sought to maintain the natural landscape to recall a sense of tradition and American virtue, as per the rugged frontier. The Hudson Fulton Celebration was influenced by both of these impulses, and looked back to previous centuries in order to educate immigrants and children about American values.

The beginning of the twentieth century saw a wave of immigration. The Society aimed to preserve its historic spaces not only to reinforce American values, but also to teach them to immigrants. Buildings and monuments could relay history to the illiterate and to immigrants not fluent in English. Through the preservation of history, the Society aimed to foster “interest in and respect for the history of the country, its honored namesand visible memorials.”  Chancellor H. M. MacCracken of New York University commended the Society for its mission to educate, claiming, “scenic and historic objects teach patriotism and nourish moral sentiments, while they care also in some measure for the aesthetic nature.” [viii] Awareness of history and solidifying the present were thought to improve American citizenry, as all would participate in collective memory.

The education goal was also achieved by publishing free journals and holding free lectures in order to disseminate information about the Society, and historical spaces around the State and their significance. New York sculptor and active ASHPS member Henry Kirke Bush-Brown claimed, “no matter how well a story can be told in words, there yet remains something unexpressed, which form and color alone can portray.” [ix] With this sense of importance attributed to tactile and visual experiences of learning, the Society worked to enhance public knowledge of the various existing public spaces and the ones they sought to create. The Society aimed to educate all about historic precedents and values, for its members held the belief that “history was the currency that would buy a healthy future for the city: homogenous social relations and a respectful and responsible citizenry.” [x]

In addition to preservation and education, the Society aimed to create new public works, in efforts to imprint the contemporary moment into an historical past, into memory. New public monuments and buildings essentially serve as record of the present. History is not simply a finite event, but is rather continuously developing, a series of episodes that is transformed by contemporary perspectives of the past. ASHPS did not function as a rejection of contemporary society, but rather, as complementary to modern social developments. The Society thus invested in creating new parks for recreation and to foster good health. It maintained newly developed public spaces, like Central Park, Battery Park, and City Hall Park. [xi] It sponsored the erection of suitable historical memorials and bestowed appropriate names upon new thoroughfares, bridges, parks, reservoirs and buildings. ASHPS worked not only to create lasting civic memory from the present, but also to create perspective of the past. Preservation of historic buildings and parks was to enhance American ideals and community, not to recall the pejorative moments in American history. Thus, members of the Society advocated the destruction of the Tweed Courthouse, which was strongly tied to corruption, and the post office, which was associated with corrupt politicians. [xii]

The Society was successful in many of its endeavors since its incorporation by the New York State Legislature in 1895. Its charter explicitly laid out the Society’s purposes and functions, including the acquisition and control of memorable and picturesque places throughout the State, in order to improve them and make them more accessible to the public. It succeeded in enacting these foresaid goals through the time of the Hudson Fulton Celebration. Its achievements include the rehabilitation of Stony Point Battlefield, in Stony Point. Furthermore, in 1900,members of the Society joined with people from New Jersey to create the Palisades Park Commission, which secured the creation of the present Palisades Interstate Park. [xiii]

The preservation of City Hall and its park in the 1890s was a major issue on the Society’s agenda. It was a site of New York’s power and identity. It was host to protests against the British government during the American Revolution, to prisons of martyred patriots, and the public reading of the Declaration of Independence, during which George Washington was present. [xiv] City Hall was also renowned as a work of architecture. By 1893, the city proposed transferring City Hall from City Hall Park to Bryant Park. Green zealously fought with the city to maintain the park’s location. However, by the end of the nineteenth century there was increased competition for public space, and City Hall faced destruction especially because of its central location.

Preservationists emphasized the importance of location and argued for the physical precision of the site; new developments could only be added to City Hall Park if they did not compromise the historic meaning of the building and park. Proponents of the City Beautiful movement, which advocated the use of historic markers for decorative rather than useful purposes, opted for the demolition of larger structures to create more space for newer necessities. City Beautiful supporters also worked for the convergence of urban beautification with city planning, essential in preventing social chaos; they successfully had the Martyr’s Prison demolished in order to expand the subway stations by the Brooklyn Bridge. A stone plaque marked the previous site of the Prison.

The Society aimed to protect the many landscapes' natural beauty from deteriorating; the Preservation movement thus interconnects with the American Conservation movement. This movement essentially sought the protection of the nation’s physical elements. In its seventeenth annual report, ASHPS acknowledged the similarities between the two ideologies. It reported:

The American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society, as such, is not primarily concerned with the conservation of material resources although it recognizes and sympathizes with such conservation. Its primary object…is the preservation of natural scenery and historical landmarks. But landmark conservation and the conservation of natural resources are frequently so intimately connected that they cannot be dissociated. [xv]

When forest fires ravaged the Adirondacks in the early twentieth century, ASHPS joined various other organizations and people, many of which were proponents of the Conservation movement like Gifford Pinchot, to prevent destruction by fire. In its sixteenth annual report, the Society reported anumber of preventive measures to which it would give its full support, including:

…as many fire lookout stations as necessary; the establishment of additional intermediate stations for supplies and fire extinguishing paraphernalia; the organization of a reserve fire-fighting force; an increase of the number of patrolmen or rangers, to be permanently employed, under civil service regulations, with graduated pay… [xvi]

In addition to the Adirondacks, the Society worked to protect the Palisades. Companies that held territory in the Palisades were blasting sections of the rock off to use for pavement, and the entire rocky horizon began to shorten. The Interstate Palisades Park Commission raised money to purchase the land from the companies. J.P. Morgan contributed $125,000 to fund this preservation project. [xvii] The Commission worked not only to protect the park for its historical significance, but also to make it useful and accessible to the public. Driveways were created connecting the base of all the cliffs, so that people could enter the park from all points. This restoration was linked to the Hudson Fulton Celebration of 1909; trustees and other leaders of the plan constantly referred to the importance of the Hudson River as not only a source of industrial and maritime power, but also as a mark of great historic prestige and significance. The River alluded to memories of Hudson’s discovery, of Fulton’s invention, of American progress and growth. Reverend Howard C. Robbins attributed American advancement to the divine, and said:

We bless Thee for the records of creation, graven in these ancient Palisades…We bless Thee for commerce and industry, for science, literature and government, and for all the arts of the peace. In particular, we adore Thy mercy for the invention of which this river was the witness. We thank Thee that Thou didst put into the heart of Thy servant Robert Fulton the great device whereby the ends of the earth are brought together, and the brotherhood of nations is made manifest, and the coming of Thy kingdom is advanced. [xviii]

Robbins touched upon many themes of the Hudson Fulton Celebration. Since Hudson’s discovery, New York, and the rest of the country, greatly advanced economically and politically. The country became a democratic sovereign, it began trading internationally, and its domestic industries, like the steel industry, flourished. One goal of the Celebration is to commemorate the country’s progress, for it became “a civilization that rivals any part of the world [xix] ” in the three hundred years following Fulton’s discovery.

Furthermore, the notion that God provided Fulton with the means to cross the Hudson, and thus the means to progress, alludes to Manifest Destiny, the idea that America was destined to expand westward. However, as the Hudson Fulton Celebration honored achievements and history of New York, Robbins describes a destiny specific to the state. He attributed New York’s achievement to a Divine will, and thus suggested a purpose in New York’s progress.

Robbins claimed that the entire world not only benefited but was also brought together by Fulton’s steamboat. The Celebration also worked to incorporate the diversity of nationalities of New York, and thus acknowledged different nations of the world in its events, especially the naval parade, which showcased domestic and foreign naval ships. With improved water transport, oceans separating countries were conquered; people transcended physical boundaries to develop new national identities.

Governor Charles E. Hughes of New York held the importance of the river lay not only in its commercial development, but also in “the memories of our heroes of war and peace…this beautiful valley is forever invested with the charm of the story of the vicissitudes of early settlements, of the struggle by which liberty was won, and of the marvelously expanding life of a free people.” [xx] The Hudson River bestowed significance to its surroundings.

Dr. George F. Kunz, a trustee of the Hudson Fulton Celebration and president of American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society, acknowledged economic efficiency as a way of historical preservation; reducing the amount of waste would aid in the river’s health. He suggested the spirit of Henry Hudson in the protection of these important rivers and parks, for if he were to “sail up the river at night, casting anchor off Spuyten Duyvil, the early morning light would reveal to his the same outlook to the westward, the same Palisades, upon which his eye rested when he first sailed up the great river.” In complementing modernity with history, Dr. Kunz then emphasized the juxtaposition of the constantly evolving city with the permanent Palisades.

If Henry Hudson directed his gaze to the southeast, he would see the greatest city of a great continent, a city destined to be the greatest city in the world, a city whose growth is so rapid that twenty years from now the population will be almost as dense opposite where we are standing as it is below that point. [xxi]

The dedication of the Palisades Park, integrated into the two-week long Hudson-Fulton Celebration of 1909, corresponded to the Preservation movement, as modernity and change were presented simultaneously with history and tradition. The Celebration commemorated past achievement and future progress. The Hudson-Fulton Celebration echoed ideals of preservation, as it sought to educate illiterate people, immigrants, and children, in order to instill national values, and to reinforce them by preserving public spaces, like parks, monuments, and buildings.