The Friends of the Tanner House and University of Pennsylvania Receive Mellon Foundation Grant for a Community-Led Preservation Plan

The Friends of the Tanner House and the Center for the Preservation of Civil Rights Sites (CPCRS) at the University of Pennsylvania Stuart Weitzman School of Design have received a grant from the Mellon Foundation to support a planning, community engagement, and capacity building process for the rehabilitation of the Henry Ossawa Tanner House, the former residence of the acclaimed African American artist.

The grant project, entitled Henry Ossawa Tanner House: Annunciating a Community Cultural Platform with Holistic Preservation, will support community arts and cultural programming to create a holistic preservation planning process for the Tanner House. The Friends of the Tanner House, which have been active at the site since December 2021, will lead the project. Friends of the Tanner House member Christopher R. Rogers will direct the project, engaging a cohort of Philadelphia cultural workers and community partners to participate in the art-centered participatory planning process. CPCRS will provide project management, research, administration of consultants and contractors, and produce a preservation plan.

This grant is made possible through the Mellon Foundation’s Humanities in Place program, which supports “a fuller, more complex telling of American histories and lived experiences by deepening the range of how and where our stories are told and by bringing a wider variety of voices into the public dialogue.”

“The cultural significance of the Tanner House is enormous, and our understanding of it continues to unfold,” says Randall Mason, faculty director of the Center for the Preservation of Civil Rights Sites. “The Friends of the Tanner House are thinking about preservation in exciting new ways, and we are honored to be working in support of this effort. This project embodies many of the values at the heart of CPCRS’s mission.”

“Saving the Tanner House is a signature means by which we can preserve and champion the feeling, purpose, and presence of the rich Tanner family legacy contextualized within the everyday ongoing tradition of Black freedom dreaming in North Philadelphia,” says Christopher R. Rogers, Friends of the Tanner House Co-Coordinator. Rogers describes this project as “an incredible opportunity for cultural organizing informed by the brilliance and strivings of the Strawberry Mansion neighborhood with local community partners.”

To date, the Friends of the Tanner House, supported by CPCRS, Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia, Justin Spivey/WJE, and others, have done preliminary organizing and work to stabilize the site, build public awareness, and advocate for its reuse as a community-serving facility. The Friends are also working closely with the current owner/family estate administrator Michael Thornton to shepherd the property through a tangled title process, which currently has limited public funding opportunities for the urgent stabilization of the home.

The Friends, in consultation with Thornton, are anticipating non-profit ownership for the House in its next life as a community cultural asset. In 2022, the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia agreed to serve as the temporary local fiduciary sponsor for the Friends of the Henry Ossawa Tanner House until their 501(c)3 is established. The Friends of the Tanner House are currently fundraising for the remaining $70,000 for emergency roof stabilization that would allow for future preservation and design work to continue. Mellon support will be devoted to community collaboration and planning, while capital funding for stabilization remains an urgent need. Please consider a donation and stay connected with the Friends of the Tanner House at: https://savethetannerhouse.org/

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Friends of the Tanner House (https://savethetannerhouse.org/)

The Friends of the Tanner House was formed in 2021 by local African-American preservation advocates who are leading the Tanner House advocacy campaign. Friends of the Tanner House members include community advocates such as (in alphabetical order): Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter, Award-Winning Philadelphia- based Artist, 2021 Frieze Impact Prize Award Winner, 2022 Corina Mehiel Fellow; Deborah Gary, President, DHEx Enterprises, and Co-Founder, Society to Preserve Philadelphia African American Assets (SPPAAA); Tyler A. Ray, Republican Leader for the 16th Ward, Docent & Historical Researcher for Church of the Advocate; Judith Robinson, Historic Preservationist, Community Advocate, Real Estate Broker; Christopher R. Rogers, Former Program Director, Paul Robeson House & Museum & Ph.D Candidate, University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education; and Jacqueline Wiggins, Wiggins Tours and More, Longtime African-American Preservation Advocate in Philadelphia. 

Center for the Preservation of Civil Rights Sites

Founded in Fall 2020, the Center for the Preservation of Civil Rights at the University of Pennsylvania Stuart Weitzman School of Design is an academic partner working with organizations engaged in varied aspects of remembering, studying, and stewarding the legacy of civil rights histories in the United States. CPCRS undertakes research, teaching, and fieldwork to explore issues and solutions and raise awareness of civil rights histories. CPCRS helps organizations make and manage heritage sites marking profound stories of the American experience. Taking a critical perspective to historical scholarship, preservation practice and pedagogy is essential to our work. CPCRS focuses on 19th and 20th-century Black experiences—located in Philadelphia and Alabama—recognizing that important civil rights histories and legacies draw on many other experiences in the US.

CPCRS is currently led by Faculty Director Randall Mason, a professor in the Graduate Program in Historic Preservation at Penn who, from 2014 to 2017, directed PennPraxis, the applied research, engagement, and consulting and arm of the Weitzman School. Mason also leads the Urban Heritage Project. Amber Wiley recently joined the Penn faculty as Presidential Associate Professor in the Graduate Program in Historic Preservation and will assume leadership of CPCRS in July of 2023 as the Matt and Erika Nord Director.

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation is the nation’s largest supporter of the arts and humanities. Since 1969, the Foundation has been guided by its core belief that the humanities and arts are essential to human understanding. The Foundation believes that the arts and humanities are where we express our complex humanity, and that everyone deserves the beauty, transcendence, and freedom that can be found there. Through our grants, we seek to build just communities enriched by meaning and empowered by critical thinking, where ideas and imagination can thrive. Learn more at mellon.org.