by Bonnie Hurd Smith
Curators are paying increasing attention to the many life stories told by historic house museums. This focus -- which preserves these properties as homes rather than turning them into shrines -- provides visitors with a fuller, more nuanced look at the past.
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When Clara Barton (1821-1860) took up residence at Glen Echo in 1897, the Maryland home served as both residence and workplace for the founder of the American Red Cross. Barton had built the house to her specifications in 1891, and it served as headquarters, dormitory, and warehouse. The modest home hummed with the activity of the staff and volunteers who supported Barton's mission. Correspondence, copying Barton's books and speeches, bookkeeping, fundraising, receiving visitors, collecting and distributing goods -- the work was endless. It was "a place for service, and that service was the joy of Barton's life; she was very mission-focused," says park ranger Susan Finta of the National Park Service, which manages the site. The Park Service's strong commitment to telling a comprehensive story of Clara Barton's unusual household typifies what visitors have come to expect in venues that interpret American history.
The stories historic houses illustrate are never one-dimensional. These sites are "the most real and powerful tools allowing for an in-depth look at people's lives," explains Longfellow National Historic Site (NHS) museum manager James M. Shea. "The house museum setting often allows the public to make unexpected and personal connections." Who lived there? What went on? What can we learn from spending time in the places where our forebears lived and worked? Moreover, the public wants to make these connections with history. As Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David McCullough observed in a recent interview: "I don't think there's any question that a hunger for history among all of us nationwide is strong and measurable ... [including] in the gathering, strong, nationwide preservation movement." At historic house museums, that public "hunger" is for the full story of the people who shaped our society -- whether they were the famous movers and shakers who lived there, or the slaves, servants, or behind-the-scenes family members who ran the households to facilitate the public work of the historically important figure.
History of Interpretation
Historic house tours have not always aimed to provide such complete information about their residents. On the contrary, in the earliest days of the historic house museum movement, tours tended to focus on one key figure -- usually the person in whose name the house was originally preserved. Mount Vernon, in Virginia, is considered the first American historic house museum; the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association was formed in 1853 to preserve the home of the nation's first president, George Washington. The association's work inspired others to save the homes of other great (usually white, male) figures from the nation's past. These early house museums were "an innovation on the cultural landscape," according to historian and scholar of historical site interpretation Patricia West, but they were presented to the public as "shrines." The preservation of these homes, and their management, was usually undertaken by descendants who determined what would be said about their ancestors. Facts could be selective and grounded in family lore as often as in actual documentation. Beyond acknowledgement of immediate family, people who lived and worked in the household were usually relegated to obscurity.
The next wave of historic house museums came at the end of the nineteenth century, as thousands of immigrants crossed to American shores. The founders of many turn-of-the-century historic house museums viewed their work as necessary to help "Americanize" newcomers. Soon after the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) was founded in 1890, for example, it actively acquired historic properties specifically to safeguard the land against the ravages of ignorance and sedition." The DAR, and other like-minded organizations, used these houses as living testimonials to upper-class, white American standards of living, behavior, and heritage.
The Colonial Revival movement of the early 1900s -- which considered life during the Colonial era to be the country's authentic heritage -- found historic houses to be the perfect vehicle to enshrine an idealized view of the past. Managers of these houses tended to be conservative women who were not suffragists, social reformers, or historians. While many women embraced the economic and political changes taking place during these years, house managers alternatively viewed their work in historic preservation as an extension of their traditional domestic role: They were saving the American home and hearth, and preserving the feminine domestic sphere as separate from the masculine public sphere. Not surprisingly, the interpretation they gave the historic houses they managed reflected their politics.
But the past few decades have seen an extraordinary transformation in how history is told, thanks to the civil rights movement, the women's movement, and scholarship on individuals, groups, and societal changes that are not simply white, upper-class, and Protestant. Many of the sites where history is told are "owned" by the public today -- either outright by virtue of the National Park Service and other federal, state, and municipal agencies, or indirectly through tax codes that support nonprofit organizations. As a result, visitors have a sense of ownership of these historic sites whether they're early Colonial settlements, battlefields, cemeteries, monuments, or historic houses. Because of the public's stake -- and also because of the new emphases in inclusive historical study -- visitors expect a balanced and democratic presentation of who and what was involved. They want history that is honest and reflective of many different perspectives and stories. And many curators agree that applying this approach to historic house museums makes them all the more engaging.
The work is challenging, however, as very few historic houses have access to the kind of primary source material that could supplement the tour. Journals, letters, or reminiscences of daily life were not always saved for future generations. Household accounts and receipts were probably discarded long ago. Still, through census and probate records, old newspaper accounts, genealogies, and local histories, helpful details can emerge. Each "find" is a thrill for those engaged in the search; each one invariably leads to more information in what is an intriguing and evolving process.
Domestic Life
This research and documentation takes time, however, even before the stories of those who lived and worked with well-known figures can be woven into the interpretive tour. But curators know these stories will illuminate the personal narrative of the key resident and will teach visitors about other interesting people they had not expected to encounter. Many museums start with what they already know and expand the story to include immediate family. At Longfellow NHS in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the role Frances "Fanny" Longfellow (1817-1861) played in her husband's literary career is a central theme of the tour. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's (1807-1882) stature as an internationally beloved poet is common knowledge to most visitors. What is not as well known is how much he "mined Fanny's intellect" for ideas, "borrowed her words," and created a home with her where they welcomed the leading intellects and artists of their day," says the museum's chief of interpretation, Nancy Jones. Fanny Longfellow "served as her husband's eyes when he could not read" due to failing health. She transcribed poetry he was writing, and helped with his voluminous translations and correspondence. In the parlor, Fanny's writing desk, her French clock, the bust made of herself in Italy, the wallpaper, and the window treatments she selected in her favorite Gothic style all make the room "hers." Fanny and Henry Longfellow had five children who survived, and their active, spirited involvement in their parents' lives is also very much a part of the Longfellow NHS tour.
Similarly, the tour of the Maggie L. Walker National Historic Site in Richmond, Virginia, features an engaging intergenerational account. Walker (1867-1934) was the first woman in America to found and serve as president of a bank. She created the St. Luke Penny Savings Bank in 1903 -- an institution that still thrives as the oldest continually African-American-operated bank in the United States. Two of Walker's employees were her employees were her sons Russell, a bookkeeper, and Melvin, a secretary. Walker also employed her daughter-in-law, Hattie, whom she "kept in the forefront" to take her place as Grand Secretary of the Order of St. Luke, according to museum interpreter Celia Suggs. All three lived with Walker in her home on East Leigh Street. They supported her work with the bank and with her many community involvements. Later, as Walker's health declined and she used a wheelchair, even more business activity took place in her home. Today, visitors will see her writing desk, meeting rooms, photographs of her business associates, community colleagues, and family members -- evidence of a full and productive place.
Along with immediate family, households of prominent historical figures tended to include domestic staff. Who they were specifically -- servant or slave; American, African, or Irish; male or female; young or middle-aged -- depended on time period, geography, and function. These stories tend to be the most difficult to document as their protagonists rarely kept diaries and journals, wrote letters, or were the subjects of obituaries and biographies. Still, it is often possible to find enough legal and contextual information to include the "downstairs" story along with the "upstairs" one in a historic house.
At the Stephen Phillips Memorial Trust House in Salem, Massachusetts, visitors learn two stories. One is about the last owners before the house became a museum, Stephen Willard Phillips (1873-1955), his wife, Anna Pingree Wheatland Phillips (1870-1938), and their son, "Stevie." Both parents were descended from generations of sea merchants, financiers, and diplomats. To learn their daily life history, visitors are treated to the finest rooms, furnishings, works of art, and personal collections that illustrate a gracious, upper-class lifestyle.
But the tour also includes the pantries, kitchen, work rooms, and carriage house where the staff worked behind the scenes to keep the house running smoothly. The staff's lives are more difficult to uncover, but several stories are emerging. Most likely, the women workers had come from Ireland to the United States in the late 1800s and probably found their positions with the Phillips family through the strong network of young Irish women who were already working in Salem's finest homes. Records indicate that one of these women, Delia Cawley (born ca. 1881) served as a waitress and was in charge of the butler's pantry. She set the table for meals, washed and ironed the linens, and arranged flowers. She had her own room, good meals, and visits from nearby friends and family in the Phillips' welcoming kitchen. Also documented is Katherine ("Caddy") Shaughnessy (1899-1962), Stevie's nurse who stayed on once Stevie was grown and became a maid to Anna Phillips in her declining years. Bridget Durgin served as a cook starting in 1919. Cornelius "Connie" Flynn, who was second-generation Irish, was the Phillips' coachman, gardener, and "outside man." Patrick F. O'Hara, also second generation, served as the family chauffeur and records show that he was employed by the Phillips family during the Great Salem Fire of 1914 when his services were invaluable for local relief work. "When we succeed at this type of holistic interpretation of the house and neighborhood," explains the museum's executive director Naomi Gray, "the visitor gets caught up in the story."
At Roseland Cottage in Woodstock, Connecticut, the home of the abolitionist, Congregationalist, and Republican Henry Chandler Bowen, an important figure in his domestic household was the governess for his ten children, Edna Dean Proctor (1838-1923), who also wrote for Bowen's newspaper, The Independent. Proctor went on to become a highly regarded poet and author, setting some of her words to music -- including her version of "John Brown's Body," written for President Lincoln in 1863. The current owner of Roseland Cottage, the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities (SPNEA), has been preserving and interpreting historic houses since its founding in 1910. Today, SPNEA continues to provide leadership in the industry through the steady reinterpretation of its twenty-five museum properties to include the stories of "others." In the case of Roseland Cottage, SPNEA is still examining family papers, manuscripts, and genealogies that will fill out the story of three generations of the Bowen family and their domestic help, including Edna Dean Proctor. "The story will change as a result of this research," promises Susan Porter, SPNEA's manager of research, and the society hopes to dedicate a new space in Roseland Cottage to tell it.
At Boston's Nichols House Museum, a different kind of household member emerges: young male boarders. Rose Standish Nichols (1872-1960), who had chosen a career for herself over marriage and children, became a renowned landscape gardener, author, suffragist, women's rights activist, lifelong pacifist, and founder of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. As a single woman living on Beacon Hill at that time, Nichols took in male boarders, usually graduate students or artists, to help with chores in the house, shopping, and to share meals. "This is what you did as a charitable Christian," explains the museum's historian William H. Pear II. Single, older women "filled their houses with other compatible people who had access to the full house and were reliable and dependable." They lived on the upper floors, and were trusted companions. One of Rose Nichols' boarders, F. Garner Ranney, went on to become the celebrated archivist and historiographer for the Episcopal diocese of Maryland.
Home and Work
Only a small number of historic houses museums are able to combine the stories of domestic life and professional work. While most house museums struggle just to present information about family members and domestic help, the third tier -- work -- can only rarely be illustrated on site in terms of dedicated work spaces or specific equipment required. Beyond the work of a writer like Longfellow, who only required a writing desk, the use of a residence as headquarters for a movement or as a place of business was not the norm in earlier times. Those that have been preserved can present an even more expanded picture about the lives of the people involved.
In contrast to the historic sites mentioned so far in this article, the Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site in Brookline, Massachusetts, had to focus from the beginning on the business side of the house and the company founded by the great landscape architect. The National Park Service (NPS) inherited virtually no information about Olmsted's family life when it acquired the property in 1980. The NPS did know that Olmsted (1822-1903) had been drawn to the Boston area because of his work on the Emerald Necklace, a series of linked parks, ponds, and parkways he designed through the city. Upon his arrival in Brookline, Olmsted immediately created a work space in the home he called "Fairsted" before he could build a new wing to house his growing staff and equipment needs. "He beat the home office concept by one hundred years," says park ranger Mark D. Swartz, by "establishing the world's first full-scale professional practice of landscape architecture. All the processes of landscape design, from drafting to printing were carried out here." At its peak, sixty people worked for Olmsted and Sons -- some externally on project sites -- including photographers, draftsmen, engineers, architects, horticulturists, office workers and apprentices. Although these workers did not reside at Fairsted, the day-to-day functioning of Olmsted's residence was completely affected by the presence of his business. "It would be impossible to separate his work from his personal life as it is," says Swartz. "He was quite driven." Meanwhile, the Park Service's research on Olmsted's family life continues as the NPS works to discover and present a comprehensive story of what took place at Fairsted.
In neighboring Boston, SPNEA's Harrison Gray Otis House in Boston has been reinterpreted to include the story of Elizabeth and Richard Mott, and their apprentice, who operated a medical practice in their home in the 1830s. The Motts, who arrived in 1832 from England, were interested in progressive health care and jointly practiced what they called "European vegetable medicine." According to SPNEA's Susan Porter, "Elizabeth, who published a book entitled The Ladies Medical Oracle (1834), focused on women and their diseases. Their treatments included various vegetable remedies that they mixed and sold and also a "vapour Bath" that Richard patented. The sister of one of the patients the Motts cured was Harriot Hunt (1805-1875), whose interest in the Motts' methods led her to move into the house and serve as their apprentice. Hunt worked in their business room and studied medicine on her own. In 1835, Elizabeth Mott returned to Europe and Richard died shortly thereafter, leaving Hunt to set up her own practice in the Otis House. Ten years later, she was refused permission to attend lectures at Harvard Medical School but nonetheless became the first woman doctor in Boston. She also became a women's rights advocate and social reformer, especially for women's health education.
Another important building in women's rights history is the Sewall-Belmont House in Washington, D.C., which is now affiliated with the National Park Service. This house served as the residence and place of work for suffragist Alice Paul (1885-1977), who lived there from 1929 until 1972 while she headed the National Woman's Party (NWP). The main house was used as a dormitory where women lived for low rent while they worked on behalf of the party. Two adjoining townhouses were added for more residential space and for offices. Everything about the house was "mission-focused," according to Jennifer Spencer, education and collections coordinator. That mission included Alice Paul's work for the Equal Rights Amendment, international women's movements, the World Women's Party, and equality language in the United Nations Charter. "Lots of women were in and out all the time," Spencer adds, noting that the NPS is "still trying to piece together what was going on in the house. What did the women think of Paul? What did she think of them? Answers will tell us much more about Alice Paul." While research continues, the house tour includes the NWP main office; Alice Paul's private office and bedroom; rooms for meetings, teas, or office work; and dormitory rooms.
Similarly, the surviving homes of Mary Baker Eddy (1821-1910) in Lynn and Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, were mission-focused and headed by a woman. In Eddy's case, the mission "became international in scope," according to senior curator Alan Lester. The discoverer of Christian Science and founder of The Christian Science Monitor required professional and domestic staff to live and work on-site "to free up Mrs. Eddy's time and thought so she could focus on the needs of the church," explains Lester. Her homes reflect their presence. In Chestnut Hill, her last residence, Eddy's staff occupied the entire third floor and much of the new wing she had built as well the cottage (no longer on the property) and gatehouse. They served as secretaries, copyists, bookkeepers, household managers, and domestic staff. "It was such an honor to serve in her household," says Lester, "that some of these people took on work that might be considered beneath their station. Their desire to serve overrode that distinction, and that's an important statement that can be made about Mrs. Eddy and her household."
Many members of Mary Baker Eddy's staff kept notes and diaries about their days at Chestnut Hill, and these inform the house's interpretation. These household workers also saved hundreds of objects and furnishings. "The workers viewed themselves as family and were very much aware that they were witnessing history in the making," explains Lester. "As a result, so much was preserved that might have been lost and recollections were written for posterity." In time, curators at the Chestnut Hill house hope to re-create the office of Eddy's long-time secretary Calvin Frye and open part of the "new" wing to visitors. Already, the tour includes Eddy's private study, parlors where she conducted meetings, and rooms where her professional "family" gathered for meals, work, or prayer.
Another such family of workers resided at what is now the Longfellow National Historic Site in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Long before the days of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the building served as headquarters for General George Washington (1732-1799) during the opening days of the Revolutionary War. Washington lived in the house from 1775 to 1776 with an entourage of military and civilian staff. Meetings, debates on strategy, making military appointments, correspondence, drafting and copying of orders, and the keeping of accounts -- all of this went on under Washington's roof in his private office, bed chamber, or formal parlors.
Ebenezer Austin, the steward at headquarters, was in residence with his wife and daughter and kept detailed records on food, drink, clothing, household furnishings, residents, and visitors. Washington's private aide and secretary, Colonel Joseph Reed, lived at the house until he was replaced by Lieutenant Colonel Robert H. Harrison. Washington's adjutant general, Horatio Gates, and his wife resided at headquarters. When Martha Washington joined her husband in December of 1775, the household increased in size to include her son, Jackie Custiss, and his wife, Nelly. Washington referred to all of these residents as his "family" because they lived and dined with him daily.
A few of the servants and slaves who supported Washington's family included Adam Foutz, French cook; Mary Kettel, washerwoman; Mrs. Morrison, kitchen-woman; Giles Alexander, tailor; and William Lee, Washington's body-servant from Virginia who accompanied him throughout the war. Many of these details only surfaced recently thanks to the dligent "digging" into eighteenth-century military records on the part of Longfellow NHS staff and volunteers. As museum manager James M. Shea describes their findings, "The Washingtons' Cambridge household appears to have been more crowded and diverse than previously thought. It tells us more about the man than we knew. Who did he bring with him and why? Who did he trust and add to his household? As much as we already know about Washington, we can tell a personal story here that no one else can."
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For many years, historic house museums in the United States were the biographical showplaces of the nation's cultural, military, and govermental leaders. Created and maintained by groups with political agendas ranging from memorializing the nation's forefathers to educating immigrants on American values to promoting an idealized Colonial past, house museums fed Americans' desire to learn more about historic figures than the history books told them -- to glimpse the personal habits and lifestyles of those who shaped the nation and its mores. House museums were valued for uniquely presenting a very personal, very physical history -- allowing the visitor to experience where the house's namesake sat down for breakfast every morning or wrote letters, for example.
Changes in approaches to American history, however, have prompted a re-evaluation and broadening of the interpretive tours of many historic houses. The previously untold stories that these house museums offer are largely unavailable elsewhere. And through telling the story of the many members of a house -- not just of its namesake -- these historic sites become truly preserved homes of the history of all Americans.