Historic house museums draw people in. Is it their smell, their creaks, their memories, their familiarity? Despite concerns about the popularity of historic house museums, they continue to fascinate visitors. Some people are drawn in by the decorative arts, others by the feeling of communing with past generations in a historic place. For me, the historic house is an opportunity to show visitors a complex past. It was not a static, hyper-staged, and siloed experience. The lived reality was—and continues to be—much more complicated.
One example: James Monroe’s Highland, a historic site located in Charlottesville, Virginia. As the former property of the fifth US President, James Monroe, Highland is located within a short distance from two other presidential sites: Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello and James Madison’s Montpelier. In many ways, Highland may appear familiar: a former plantation nestled in the hills of central Virginia, now interpreted as a history museum that welcomes visitors on presidential pilgrimages. However, once you move past its tree-lined driveway and through the museum shop, Highland differs significantly from its sister sites in that the Monroe family plantation house does not dominate the landscape. That house burned to the ground, most likely in late 1829. Yet for decades an extant Monroe-era structure was interpreted as James Monroe’s home.
I told you: it is complicated. But what if we embraced the complicated in order to showcase how and why we revise public histories by asking new research questions. We are always learning new things about the past, and that’s good. As we learn more, we are also obligated to share these new discoveries to our public. That is currently what we are doing at Highland: telling new, more truthful stories about a place with a complicated historical and institutional history.
Reinterpretation: Why was it needed?
Archeologists often conduct their work within the public’s eye to share their work and show how we learn about the past. Photo from James Monroe’s Highland, 2015.
In 2012, Highland welcomed a new Executive Director, Dr. Sara Bon-Harper, who made new discoveries about the site. Using a multidisciplinary approach, Dr. Bon-Harper identified the standing Guesthouse as a structure separate from the Monroe family home. It stood approximately 20 feet from the Monroe family house and thus remained standing after the catastrophic fire. This same work also discovered the previously unknown archaeological remains of the Monroe family home.
- Archaeological excavation revealed that the Monroe family home was entirely destroyed by fire. There was no remnant wing left standing, as had been previously interpreted to visitors.
- Archival documents, including correspondence from James Monroe, indicated that two enslaved craftsmen, Peter Mallory and George Williams, had constructed a “new house” on the property in 1818.
- Architectural history revealed the Guesthouse was constructed in the early 19th century, almost two decades after the Monroe family house was completed in 1799. Examination of the Guesthouse’s eastern eaves also showed that it was not attached to another structure when constructed.
- Dendrochronology (tree-ring dating) provided the final pieces of the research puzzle. It confirmed when the wood used to build the structure was cut—proving that it was the “new house” that Peter Mallory and George Williams built in 1818.
With these findings, Highland began a site-wide reinterpretation to educate visitors and correct inaccurate information about the site’s complexities. Highland, as a well-visited presidential site, had both an obligation and an opportunity to revise its physical narrative and highlight the site’s social histories—an important trend also happening at Highland’s regional and national sister sites. Historic sites and museums need to reorient their site perspectives after years of privileging white, male, elite versions of the past—the historical realities were much more complex. Much of this reorientation is being done in collaboration with descendant communities, grassroots organizations, and cultural institutions that are also focused on the historical roots of contemporary social, environmental, and racial injustice. (Look for more on Highland’s community engagement in my second blog installment for Clio and the Contemporary).
Reinterpretation: How was it done?
In August 2021, the original 1818 Guesthouse floors were revealed after years under laminate and oilcloth. Photo by Maria DiBenigno, 2021.
In order to unravel Highland’s complicated site history, reinterpretation was required. This was achieved through new exhibits featuring interpretive themes and was guided by the Highland Council of Descendant Advisors, a group of individuals whose ancestors were enslaved at Highland by James Monroe and later property owners. For the initial phase of reinterpretation, the work was completed in-house by Highland staff. For Phase 2, which we are hoping to complete in Fall 2023, was done in collaboration with a design firm and local fabricators.
In addition to exhibit panel creation and new curation of Highland’s collections, we shifted from a guided house tour to a self-paced visitor experience. This change was necessitated by current museum trends as well as ongoing COVID-19 pandemic conditions. The new exhibits work to extend the museum experience beyond the visit. We want our visitors to ask new questions about their own knowledge of the past: what do we take for granted as historical givens, and how can we work with others to uncover new ways of knowing?
Reinterpretation: What has it done?
Embracing a complicated site narrative creates space for better visitor experiences. At Highland, we show how historic house museums can be dynamic research spaces. We do not already know everything there is to know about Highland’s histories. In fact, each new research discovery creates additional questions, and we encourage similar critical thinking among our visitors and colleagues.
Highland’s reinterpretation fomented five topics for dialogue and debate among our visiting public—these are by no means exhaustive, rather they are what we have observed since the installation of Highland’s Phase 1 exhibits. These topics range from Highland-specific to broader themes within the realm of historic house museums.
- Accurate interpretation of Guesthouse’s usage: Simply put, the Guesthouse’s five interior, upper-level spaces accurately display either their use as guest rooms or exhibit important context and orientation to the site’s complicated narratives. This allows visitors to better understand the Guesthouse within Highland’s historical built environment.
- Transformed understanding of James Monroe: Before the 2016 research announcements, the small cottage Guesthouse contributed to Monroe’s public persona as the humble country cousin to his more cosmopolitan neighbor, Thomas Jefferson. Nothing could be further from the truth. Now, we speak to Monroe’s sophistication and Francophile tastes. We look to his political career as evidence of his worldliness and deft diplomacy. Now that we can definitively say “Monroe did not sleep here,” we have new ways to understand a historical figure sometimes referred to as “the forgotten Fifth.”
- Link interior and exterior interpretation: For much of its history, the historic house museum as a genre maintained interior and exterior interpretation as separate and distinct spheres. However, this is not an accurate representation. Especially on historic plantations, where enslaved labor fueled every aspect of daily life, the interior practice (dining, entertaining, resting, writing, reading, educating, dressing) was tied to exterior labor (farming, gardening, livestock raising, spinning, blacksmithing, milling, and on and on…). At Highland, we work to keep inside and outside as part of the same conversation. These were intertwined historical experiences that existed simultaneously in the same physical spaces.
- Historic sites are active and changing, not static and fixed: it is important to show that what we once thought about Highland was wrong. History museums have long been a trusted source of historical information. However, for long stretches of time, the information presented at historic sites and museums was not always accurate or expansive. By detailing how we learn more about Highland’s built environment and communities, free and unfree, we demonstrate to visitors that history is a process and revision is necessary. I hope that more historic house museums embrace their complicated histories and publicly display how their interpretation changes based on new research—and how new questions are asked about previously known evidence.
- Bring Highland’s histories into the contemporary moment: The legacies of enslavement and plantation farming affect and infect our present-day landscape. Environmental racism, generational wealth disparity, land dispossession, ongoing threats from emboldened white supremacists—these issues directly tie the past to the present and must inform our future decision making. We can and should address contemporary inequities at our 19th century site. It is important for visitors to see how specific site histories fit into larger and ongoing narratives about the United States.
At Highland, we will continue to embrace the site’s complicated historical and institutional narratives to teach visitors about the past and reorient interpretation to share a fuller, more truthful past.
Want to know more about Highland’s ongoing reinterpretation? Check out The Highland Reading List.
Featured Image: A Birdseye View of Highland, photo by Gene Runion, 2022.
[1] “Highland 2020 Interpretative Plan,” James Monroe’s Highland, accessed August 14, 2023, https://highland.org/highland-2020-interpretive-plan/.
[2] “James Monroe’s Highland,” James Monroe’s Highland, video, 16:43, posted June 11, 2021, https://youtu.be/FjspLQtHuu8.
[3] John Garrison Marks, “History Museums and Trust,” American Association for State and Local History Blog, published February 7, 2022, https://aaslh.org/history-museums-and-trust/.
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