Reconsidering Interpretation of Heritage Sites
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Reconsidering Interpretation of Heritage Sites

America in the Eighteenth Century

Anne Lindsay

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eBook - ePub

Reconsidering Interpretation of Heritage Sites

America in the Eighteenth Century

Anne Lindsay

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About This Book

Reconsidering Interpretation of Heritage Sites chronicles and problematizes the representation of the eighteenth century in museums and heritage sites while also challenging public historians to alter their perceptions of what might be possible when interpreting such sites.

Much of the history consumed at eighteenth-century historic sites is one-dimensional, white, male, heteronormative, and very focused on power and wealth. Anne Lindsay argues that this narrative may be challenged through an engagement with the everyday life of the past, creating thought-provoking and challenging experiences that will connect with the modern visitor on a deeper level. Unlike other work that has been done in the field, the book provides a constructive study that engages in a horizontal analysis of a century over a geographic region. As a result, Lindsay provides a unique opportunity for scholars and practitioners to reflect on the types and tone of messages usually conveyed about the eighteenth century.

Reconsidering Interpretation of Heritage Sites will be invaluable to scholars and practitioners working in the fields of museum and heritage studies and history. It will be particularly interesting to those who want to know more about how the lived experience of the past may be interpreted at historic sites, and how this could be used to engage with contentious histories.

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Information

Publisher
Routledge
Year
2019
ISBN
9781351332750
Topic
Art
Edition
1

1

INTERPRETING THE LIVED EXPERIENCE OF INDIVIDUALS AND FAMILIES IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

At Hampton Plantation State Historic Site in McClellanville, South Carolina, guests drive through three miles of scrub and pines in the Francis Marion National Forest to visit a rice plantation that once belonged to Harriot Pinckney Horry, daughter of Eliza Lucas Pinckney, one of the founding mothers of South Carolina. Visitors drive to a small clearing, then walk down a path to the residence, which is surrounded on three sides by thickets. The road frontage of the residence is cleared but the river façade faces more scrub stretching down to Wambaw Creek and the remains of eighteenth-century rice fields. During a 2009 visit, the tour of the residence began on the creek-side portico where guests gathered to wait for the docent. While waiting, guests had little ability to pay attention to the stunning eighteenth-century architecture or the silent beauty of the marsh and thickets because they were busy attending to the wildlife. Swarms of mosquitoes filled the air on the grounds of Hampton Plantation. Visitors were irritated. While some tried to bear the experience with a positive attitude, many others were inspired to complain to the docent when they appeared. The docent told the guests that they should think of the many slaves that lived and worked at Hampton Plantation every day, sun up to sun down, in similar conditions. White South Carolinians engaged in plantation agriculture but did not live on the plantation in all seasons because of disease and mosquitoes, conditions that slaves were not fully immune to and could not escape. The visitors were silent, the swatting of mosquitoes the only sound audible among them. In three minutes, even before the tour of the residence had begun, the docent introduced visitors to a glimpse of life by creating a relatable lived experience, shared by all in this space.1
Throughout the period of this research, 2008–2018, the struggle to add lived experience to the conversation about the past has remained constant at historic sites in all regions and of all types. While heritage tourists visit the places where people lived, the people are often missing; there is often no realistic sense of them. Similar to the “dead house” problem, a condition wherein a residence has lost all believable sense of life in any period, we lose sight of the people who not only inhabited the space, but who lived, worked, and died in the space. In addition to considering how “people” in general inhabited space, the people themselves are also significant. In 2008 at many historic sites names were recited, possessions were viewed, portraits were displayed, in some cases documents were made available, but there was very little to help visitors understand the living, breathing person behind the name or object. Those lives that were explored in eighteenth-century sites were predominately wealthy white individuals who were portrayed as drivers of progress and the possessors of wealth and influence to be revered and emulated. White men were given the most comprehensive treatment, which left almost all other historical actors out. Women, children, and servants might be mentioned at historic sites, but only in passing and only in the relation to the white man. Merely speaking the name of a woman, child, or servant does not make them people in a real sense.
When the social history turn drew attention to the actors on the bottom of the social, political, and economic hierarchy, historic sites took note; adding new names to the script without exploring their significance or the reality of their lives. They were “extras” in a story where the main character had already been determined. They functioned to hold up parts of the story and occupied expected roles in the narrative. The wife, assured a heteronormative narrative and continuation of the family name. The child, reinforced virility and legacy. The enslaved and indentured and hired labor, gave evidence of wealth and status through the ability to own and direct the labor of others. The Indians, represented the success of civilization over savagery or wilderness. Such was common at the outset of this study, and before.
Fortunately, the representation of new voices and different lived experiences has improved over the course of this study. While not universal, the development of more realistically portrayed individuals in greater variety is becoming more common. Older styles of representing ancillary voices such as special topics tours or individual “ambassadors” are no longer prevalent and function differently than they did ten years ago. The discussion of enslaved individuals and families and the lives of free people of color is the biggest part of this shift in interpretation. At the same time, while approaches have changed, emphasis continues to be placed away from women, indentured labor, children, LGBTQ voices, and in particular, Native Americans. Overall, while interpretation has improved in these areas, there is still work to be accomplished in enlivening the peopling of historic sites.

African-American Voices

The practice of enslavement and interpretation of the slave system at eighteenth- and nineteenth-century historic sites has been an ongoing conversation in public history for many years. Interpretation of enslavement underwent significant change as the historiography of public history and the larger public called for greater representation, greater transparency, and more respect for individuals and families who did not define themselves by their condition of bondage. By 2008, eighteenth-century heritage sites had conditioned visitors over generations to seek the history of enslavement and the African-American narrative separately from the dominant white narrative, typically in agricultural spaces. It was presented as an ancillary or special topic, not the primary concern of the site or the interpreters, but presented for those who were interested. It was not required, not always encouraged, and sometimes was an upcharge on a regular ticket. This development of separation within the history of a heritage site gave guests the false impression that African-American history was a lesser history or a separate history from the history that was being presented in the main tour.2 It encouraged guests to consider history not as a single narrative that represented progress through the interactions of many and complicated historical actors, such as was more evident at Hampton Plantation at the start of this chapter, but as multiple narratives that could not be understood together. The primary narrative, the white narrative, was presented as the story of American progress. The secondary narratives were presented as existing concurrently, but without impact or significance to larger American themes. This artificial view of American history denied the agency of millions of historical actors and encouraged the idea that exclusionary history was acceptable.
In 2008, the presentation of slavery at historic sites of the eighteenth century was problematic regardless of region. While it would be easy to pigeonhole this essential issue as merely Southern in nature, it was national in scope. Heritage sites throughout the country struggled with the inclusion of enslaved people and free communities in their narratives. Sites in the South wrestled with the common fact of a slave society and how to integrate it into the narrative in a sensitive way that did not vilify the white historical actors. In the North, sites largely ignored the African-American narrative because guests did not expect its presence. There was also a tendency in both regions to consider slavery as a nineteenth-century issue. The integration of African-American interpretation at eighteenth-century sites took the form of special topics tours or was presented through an ambassador approach.
As of 2008, the “special topics” approach to the discussion of enslavement and the presence of Africans and African Americans separated their experience from the primary residence and primary narrative in both urban and rural historic residence locations. The narrative of African and African-American history resided outdoors or in outbuildings, in small exhibits, sometimes in audio presentations. Frequently cities and historic sites offered special tours for those interested in the African-American narrative. These tours presented a different side of the dominant narrative described or showed guests a part of the plantation or city that was not on the main or popular tour, perpetuating the notion that this story was not the “real” history of the United States. While the existence of the tour and the content was frequently good, with docents typically very knowledgeable, these tours were optional and presented a separate history. The history presented mimicked some of the issues within the dominant narrative, but did not interact with it effectively. Like the primary tours, the secondary tours were one sided and did not represent all parts of the story. Selected historical actors were described, but without acknowledgement in large part of the interaction between the two narratives. With the separation of tours, the story of both sides was never fully contextualized for the guest—leaving both tours incomplete and ineffective. To combat the disjunction between these tours, some sites added African-American voices as ambassadors to ease the transition. In Williamsburg, it was Bristol the footman; at Mount Vernon, it was Martha Washington’s maid; at Hampton Plantation, the voice of a sharecropper could be heard; at Monticello, James Hemmings was the dominant voice; at Middleton Place, Eliza the sharecropper; and on the Freedom Trail, it was Phyllis Wheatly or Crispus Attucks. Those selected personalities introduced the idea of secondary narratives in ways that were simple and comfortable for guests to understand, without creating too troubling a confrontation with an uncomfortable past.
In 2018, numerous examples existed of revised interpretive approaches related to African-American history at historic sites, particularly in the South. Some are discussed elsewhere in this study, such as the case of Shirley Plantation. But other examples of revisioned interpretation abound, including Colonial Williamsburg and Middleton Place Plantation. And while older approaches still exist at many sites, such as historic Boston and Philadelphia, positive change has occurred. Colonial Williamsburg as a living history site presents to guests a day in eighteenth-century life. Middleton Place Plantation presents low country plantation living in a more traditional historic house museum and historic site format. Boston and Philadelphia include city walking tours and are a larger experience with less restrictive boundaries than the others. Each site shares in common an attempt to present a more inclusive history, but not all are consistent with current historiography, either with relation to public history or colonial America.

Colonial Williamsburg

Colonial Williamsburg worked over many years to develop a narrative that incorporated the African-American voice. The greatest stride in this direction was the acquisition and interpretation of nearby Carter’s Grove, where a slave quarter allowed guests to visit and learn.3 The closure and sale of Carter’s Grove in 2003 left the site with a less effective discussion of enslavement in the colonial city. By 2008, interpretation of enslavement fell into familiar patterns of segregated history. As a living history museum, costumed interpreters walked the streets and visited the businesses among the guests, giving a feel of everyday life in the eighteenth century. However, costumed African-American interpreters were few. Those that existed were not always interpreting African-American life in the city in the eighteenth century. It was never quite clear if these costumed interpreters were interpreting enslaved or free people, or what their role in the city was. The role of these costumed interpreters was more evident within residences such as the Peyton Randolph House. Craft demonstrations were similarly unclear about the role of enslaved or free black men and women within their task. The message presented to guests was that while Colonial Williamsburg was a location of racial diversity, the status attached to race in the period was less significant to understand than the dominant patriotic narrative.
The tour at the Peyton Randolph House was altered for the 2009 season to take into account the enslaved experience, perhaps to offset the loss of the Carter’s Grove slave quarter, and as part of the 30th anniversary celebration of African-American interpretation at Williamsburg. Guests were guided through the residence by African-American docents who played the role of individuals enslaved by the Randolph family. They explained the work necessary to care for a great home and family. Guests were similarly guided into the yard where slave dwellings and outbuildings were visited and discussed. While this was a compelling experience, the separate narrative did little to discuss the interaction between white and black residents at this location. Similarly, all other residences presented only the white narrative with little exception. Visitors could easily miss that enslaved people resided or worked at other residences or businesses along the main streets. The tour of the Peyton Randolph House reverted back to its usual programming after the 30th anniversary year, effectively silencing African-American voices in the residence. Guests interested in the experiences of people enslaved in Williamsburg had few options to expand their interaction with the subject.
Guests to Colonial Williamsburg who selected the “In Their Own Words” tour during the 2009 season were confronted with a very different history than the one they perhaps anticipated. The African-American docent who gave one such tour in fall of 2009 made clear to all guests that the tour was not going to be easy or pleasant.4 They would be hearing things that would be painful, horrible, and shocking. He encouraged them to understand that real history is not simple or pleasant. This docent also encouraged guests to understand both the historic area and the guest experience as a fantastic construction. He argued that the historic area had been constructed as a fantasy for white guests to enjoy. These guests were walking into homes that the majority of them would never have gained access to had they lived in the eighteenth century, partaking in entertainments that would have been out of their reach, and were being encouraged to see only what was pleasantly presented to them. They were partaking in historical fantasy, not a true representation of everyday life. Since that was what most guests in the historic area wanted and paid for, that was what they obtained. The tour used primary source documents, laminated and given to guests for perusal, and visited actual locations within the historic area to construct a very different narrative than that conveyed by other interactions at the site. The docent discussed the Middle Passage, life on plantations, slave codes, the hypocrisy of the revolutionary and religious fervor of the eighteenth century, and the experiences of several real enslaved families in Williamsburg. The most telling moment of the tour was a stop at the stocks in front of the courthouse.
At the stocks the docent paused and explained to his group that many tourists took pictures of these stocks, let their children play on them, took goofy tourist pictures, all without understanding the stocks’ true meaning. These stocks, he explained, were locations of pain and suffering. He showed where shackles could be attached for slaves to be lashed for criminal offenses. He explained th...

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