Stephanie Ryberg

Cultural Landscapes Program
National Park Service

The Cultural Landscapes Program is responsible for completing both Cultural Landscape Inventories (CLIs) and Cultural Landscape Reports (CLRs) for all National Park Service land within the National Capital Region. As an intern with the program, I was responsible for completing a CLI for Lincoln Park in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Washington, D.C. The three main components of the project were to (1) research and write a detailed site history, (2) define the period of significance for the park, and (3) document all of the existing features within the park and assess both their significance and integrity. The internship gave me real-world exposure to many of the concepts and theories discussed throughout the first year of study in the Historic Preservation program, including the difficulties in determining significance and understanding the complexity of multiple layers of history.