When you watch Ariana Makau, founder of Nzilani Glass Conservation, at work, it is not hard to be awestruck. There is an assuredness as she walks through the various steps required to glaze and restore a historic window, a fluid certainty that emphasizes the importance of safety and deliberate action to the students seated before her.

In summer 2021, a group of people gathered at the Odd Fellows Building in Astoria, Oregon, as part of the first majority-women HOPE Crew project. Makau, who is the second person in the world—and the first woman—to receive a master’s degree in Stained Glass Conservation from the Royal College of Art in London, was one of an all-female-led team that focused on training this crew on the restoration of the Odd Fellows windows over a two-week period in July.

HOPE Crew, which stands for Hands-on-Preservation Experience, is a program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation dedicated to empowering a new, younger, more diverse generation of preservationists in the training and practice of historic trades. The project in Astoria was part of a partnership with the National Trust’s campaign for Where Women Made History, which in addition to emphasizing women’s history within the American story, seeks to recognize that women are essential to all facets of preservation.

Making History at the Odd Fellows Building

In December 1922, a fire began in Astoria that destroyed up to 30 blocks in the center of the city. Following that devastation, where up to 2,500 residents lost their homes, the city started rebuilding with the Odd Fellows Building. Originally designed by architect Charles T. Diamond to be a fraternal lodge, the structure transformed over time into a community space that housed a series of nonprofit organizations.

In 2017, the Odd Fellows Building went up for sale, and a year later three women—Andrea Mazzarella, Nancy Mazzerella Tish, and Jessamyn West—scraped together more than $400,000, with community support, to purchase the site and maintain the four women-owned businesses (including one where West was an owner and executive director) from possible eviction by another prospective buyer.

A key structure in this Main Street community, the Odd Fellows Building received a grant in 2019 as part of the Partners in Preservation: Main Streets program that focused on sites of women’s history. Then in 2020, to mark the centennial of women’s suffrage, it received a paint donation from Benjamin Moore to refresh the building’s exterior. In both cases, the Odd Fellows Building was selected because it emphasized the role women play in the work of preservation, from the places being saved to the people saving them.

In this way, the project’s importance extends beyond this single building and becomes part of a broader conversation about the importance and future of historic trades. Because as preservationists look to the future, a troubling statistic has become apparent: The number of skilled workers in the preservation trades is dropping.

In September 2021, the Preservation Priorities Task Force, a joint partnership between the National Preservation Partners Network and the National Trust, released an issue brief focused on Preservation Trades and Workforce Development. The brief states that there is a clear labor shortage when it comes to having experienced craftspeople “that are often needed for historic preservation projects, such as window restoration, plaster repair, and carpentry, and that the average age of workers skilled in preservation trades is rising.”

This generational transition is a future barrier to the work of historic preservation. Over the years the Preservation Trades Network has been a strong voice and advocate for those working in historic trades. In addition, other organizations have developed programs—from the National Trust’s HOPE Crew, to HistoriCorps, to the National Park Service’s apprenticeship programs and recent partnership with Preservation Maryland on the Campaign for Historic Trades—to not only train people, but also expand the opportunities and remove barriers to this work.

And in an already struggling sector, the number of women is even lower. According to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, prior to the pandemic women made up a mere 3.4 percent of construction trades workers. Yet the opportunities for women in this field are significant given that the gender pay gap in the construction industry is much narrower than the national average. Plus, with the infrastructure bill’s recent passage and its potential to create jobs and projects, the Odd Fellows experience offers a glimpse of what a female-led historic trades field could look like.

Restoring the Windows at Odd Fellows

University of Oregon student and HOPE Crew participant Brittany Hobbs said of the project, “I think that creating a space, especially for women, is so important, so nurturing, and so needed in both the trades, and for the future of preservation.” Hobbs emphasized the value of having a training that was specifically designed with a woman’s perspective in mind, rather than a standard training that happened to welcome female participants. That shift, she said, “made all the difference.”