Interpreting And Incorporating African- American History At A Nineteenth Century Historic House Museum In The Twenty-First Century
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Date
2017
Department
History and Geography
Program
Master of Arts
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This item is made available by Morgan State University for personal, educational, and research purposes in accordance with Title 17 of the U.S. Copyright Law. Other uses may require permission from the copyright owner.
Abstract
Riversdale Historic House Museum in Maryland, and Arlington House, The Robert E. Lee Memorial in Virginia, two sites of America's slave past, are actively incorporating and interpreting nineteenth-century African American history in the twenty-first century. Such an approach conforms with contemporary best-practice, for as the scholar Jessica Foy Donnelly writes, “Expanding and focusing on those that have long been untold or understated will bring greater accuracy and enrichment to any historic house museum.”1 This thesis examines how Riversdale House and Arlington House, respectively, interpret and incorporate the history of their nineteenth-century African-American inhabitants for twenty-first-century visitors. Although Riversdale and Arlington House take different interpretation approaches in presenting African-American history, and one site performs better than the other, both sites utilize their exhibitions, gallery spaces, collections, public programming, and other resources to convey the histories of their African American residents. 1 AltaMira Press, 2002), 7. Jessica Foy Donnelly, Interpreting Historic House Museums (Walnut Creek, CA: