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PROPOSAL FOR THE INCLUSION ON THE WORLD HERITAGE LIST AND FUTURE

RESTORATIONS

INTRODUCTION

MAIN PURPOSE

Within studies with the Cultural Heritage Conservation class taken with Universidad de San

Ignacio Loyola in Cusco, exploring the United Nations Educational, Science and Cultural Organization

(UNESCO) has led to the study of historical sites within the United States which surface as potential

candidates for inclusion into UNESCO’s World Heritage list. In the state of Connecticut, one such site,

the Freeman Houses, fulfills more than one of the criteria for Cultural Heritage according to UNESCO’s

guidelines. The site possesses strong and important history for the American people, and a testimony to

critical cultural groups at a turning point of human rights in the United States.

The goals of this project are to highlight the importance of the Freeman Houses, illustrate

reasoning for the qualifications to UNESCO’s World Heritage list, to provide basic information on

restorations, and propose a plan to highlight the necessity for organizations to invest in further proposals

to be made on behalf of the Freeman House inclusion to UNESCO’s Cultural Heritage.

OVERVIEW

The Freeman Houses, located in Bridgeport, Connecticut, are what remain of what was known as

“Little Liberia” - one of the first neighborhoods where free blacks settled in the 1800’s. Owned by sisters

Mary and Elizabeth Freeman, the houses were both lived in and rented out by the free, working, black

women in the mid-nineteenth century. The women worked all their lives, never married, and were

successful and independent prior to the abolition of slavery and the end of the American Civil War. The

property that Mary Freeman earned over her life is estimated at a value between $30,000 and $50,000.

The structure is a testimony to the success of minority women who worked for the rights of all races,

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