Jane Barton Griffith
Author – Activist – Historical Preservationist
Jane Barton Griffith was the co-director from 1970 to 1973 of the American Friends Service Committee’s humanitarian projects in South Vietnam which included a Rehabilitation Center where Vietnamese were trained to make prosthesis for war-injured Vietnamese civilians. As a Quaker pacifist organization located in a fierce combat zone, the Center treated injured people from both sides of the conflict. The program included medical visits to prisoners, and in 1973 Jane secretly photographed political prisoners, mostly women, who had been severely tortured. When Jane returned from Vietnam, Amnesty International sponsored her on a speaking tour in the US and Europe and her photographs were widely published nationally and internationally. Jane continued to work in the US for AFSC’s Northern California office.
Jane’s later career included directing historic restoration projects and working for international nonprofit agencies. She served as the Chief Curator and Restoration Officer of the US Treasury and Department of Justice, and an advisor to the White House on restoration. She was awarded a Presidential Design medal by President William Clinton, and was appointed by the governor of New Jersey, Christie Todd Whitman, as director of historic buildings including the State House and Governor’s Mansion.
Jane has also held positions at the World Wildlife Fund, National Gallery of Art, National Trust for Historic Preservation, UNICEF, and the Center for International Policy, as well as the Asian Art Museum in Stockholm, Sweden. Jane was asked to create a national nonprofit for autism, now called Autism Speaks. She has traveled to more than fifty countries.
She is the author of numerous articles, museum catalogues, and three books: two cookbooks, “The Berkshire Cookbook” and “Knead It” and a large format art book, Shibori, about Japanese textiles which has been in continuous print since 1983 with a total of 25,000 copies to date. Harmony Books contracted with Jane for background research in Vietnam for Francis FitzGerald’s Introduction to the English translation of “Last Night I Dreamed of Peace: Diary of Dang Thuy Tram”, and to write 330 footnotes for the diary.
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US Treasury Building
For eight years, I was the Chief Curator and Preservation officer of the US Treasury building, a federal landmark building next to the White House. My mission included restoring the Cash Room (site of an inaugural ball), historic offices occupied by Samuel Chase who frequently met with President Lincoln in his offices over civil war matters, and other historic spaces. In one historic space, original hand painted ceilings, covered for 40 years were exposed and restored. Rooms which temporarily serve as a temporary White House for President Johnson until Mary Todd Lincoln moved out of the White House were restored to the 1860’s era. All original Treasury furniture, paintings and decorative objects were registered.
N.J. Historic Buildings
The NJ State house was the third oldest state house building in the country. My responsibilities included conducting a conservation assessment on the NJ State House dome which involved building the largest scaffolding in the US to stabilize and repair the dome. Originally the home, called Morven, of a signer of the Declaration of Independence, the NJ Governor’s mansion housed several governors and their families. After restoration, mansion was opened to the public as a museum and historic house.
Maine Hodgson House
Hodgson Prefabricated, Portable Houses were the first in the US. They are not to mistaken for preassembled homes like Sears houses. There were three Hodgson houses barged out to Cranberry Isles. Two remain, including mine.
Jane Barton Griffith 