Today’s New York Times has an interesting article on how house museums are finally telling the stories of the slaves who lived there. If you visited these museums a few decades ago, you would have learned about the rich white men and women who owned the home, but not about the domestic slaves who took care of the home and the enslaved plantation workers who created the wealth used to build these American palaces.
According to the Times:
When many Americans think of slavery, they have the misconception that it was strictly an agricultural institution, with black people forced to labor on farms, picking cotton, sugar and tobacco. But historians say that by 1860 slaves made up 20 percent of the population in major cities, and in Charleston black people outnumbered whites. Urban slaves, like Ms. Katin, were forced to work night and day for wealthy families. Many of the houses where they labored were home to prominent politicians of the day, and are both popular tourist and school field-trip destinations.
“The thing about historic houses is that they play a key role in educating America in who we are as a country,” said Elon Cook Lee, a historic house consultant and the president of the Black Interpreter’s Guild. “Elementary, middle and high school students come year after year and in many cases this is their first time learning about slavery.”
The Times explains why this is important:
When Lauren Northup, director of museums for the Historic Charleston Foundation, leads a tour or when visitors listen to the self-guided audio tour of the house, they hear how the enslaved people in the house and the white family would have interacted in almost every room. The differences between the spaces where the white family lived and socialized compared to where the enslaved toiled are stark. Tourists also hear, again and again, about how every aspect of the house, which was built by a wealthy merchant, was designed to let the owners see and control the enslaved.
Most guests at the Nathaniel Russel House remark on the beauty of the mansion and its décor, Ms. Northup said, adding that she reminds them that the house was built with the purpose of “keeping people in, keeping people from seeing each other, from socializing, from talking,” she said. “It was a prison. That is what I’m trying to make people understand — you are in a beautiful prison.”
The impact on children can be profound:
Ms. Cook Lee, of the Black Interpreters Guild, said that how stories of the enslaved are told matters because when black children hear about slaves as “window dressing” or accessories to the lives of white families, the children’s own perceptions of blackness can be negatively affected.
“Kids start to think, ‘my ancestors just stood in a back corner with no thoughts’ or ‘I wish I was white because white people do so many great things and are creative and smart,’” Ms. Cook Lee said.
Historically accurate tours can give black children in particular a link to their American identity instead of a perception that they aren’t as central to the American story as their white peers. “I’ve had ancestors fight in nearly every war and that makes me feel a connection to this country,” she said.
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