Sarah Johnson's Mt. Vernon with Scott E. Casper

Mount Vernon's historical status was secured by George Washington's ownership, but its full history cannot be told without examining the other people who lived here. Sarah Johnson, first living enslaved at Mount Vernon and later emancipated, saw the change in Mount Vernon from family home to national treasure.  We discuss this story with Scott E. Casper, author of  Sarah Johnson's Mount Vernon: The Forgotten History of an American Shrine.    And we also discuss Scott Casper's favorite place, the American Antiquarian Society and its amazing collections and programs.  

Transcript

WEBVTT
 
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 Hello, everyone,
 
 00:00:02.017 --> 00:00:02.677
 and welcome to the
 
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 Revolution 250 podcast.
 
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 Rev 250 is a consortium of
 
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 70 organizations in
 
 00:00:08.303 --> 00:00:10.185
 Massachusetts planning ways
 
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 to commemorate the
 
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 beginnings of American independence.
 
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 And one of our partner
 
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 organizations from the very
 
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 beginning has been the
 
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 American Antiquarian
 
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 Society in Worcester.
 
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 I'm really happy to have
 
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 with us Scott E. Casper,
 
 00:00:21.094 --> 00:00:23.315
 who is the president of the AAS,
 
 00:00:23.376 --> 00:00:28.314
 been president since 2020.
 
 00:00:28.314 --> 00:00:30.094
 AAS was in 1990 when you
 
 00:00:30.135 --> 00:00:30.914
 were a fellow with the
 
 00:00:30.934 --> 00:00:32.134
 American Antiquarian Society.
 
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 So why don't we start off
 
 00:00:32.795 --> 00:00:33.615
 just talking a little bit
 
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 about the American Antiquarian Society,
 
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 what you do and how the
 
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 treasures you have to tell
 
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 the story of the American Revolution.
 
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 Well, thanks so much, Bob.
 
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 I'm delighted to be here,
 
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 and AAS is delighted to be
 
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 a partner of REV250.
 
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 The American Antiquarian Society was,
 
 00:00:52.460 --> 00:00:52.841
 in fact,
 
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 founded in some ways out of the
 
 00:00:54.643 --> 00:00:56.944
 American Revolution by Isaiah Thomas,
 
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 who was a patriot printer
 
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 during the 1770s, and in 1775,
 
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 he moved his press to Worcester
 
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 because he was being
 
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 threatened with potential
 
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 dismantling of his press or
 
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 closing of his press by the
 
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 British authorities.
 
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 So he moves to Worcester in 1775,
 
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 continues publishing his newspaper,
 
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 The Massachusetts Spy,
 
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 becomes really the largest
 
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 publisher in America in the
 
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 1780s and 1790s.
 
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 And then in the early 19th century,
 
 00:01:25.843 --> 00:01:27.525
 turns his attention to
 
 00:01:27.644 --> 00:01:29.945
 preserving the materials of
 
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 the American past,
 
 00:01:30.887 --> 00:01:31.808
 especially the printed material.
 
 00:01:32.867 --> 00:01:35.790
 And that collection, his collection,
 
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 becomes the founding basis
 
 00:01:37.570 --> 00:01:39.393
 of the American Antiquarian Society,
 
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 which was incorporated by
 
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 the Commonwealth in 1812.
 
 00:01:44.635 --> 00:01:47.337
 So for more than for more than 200 years,
 
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 we've been sharing the
 
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 stories of America's past.
 
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 Our collection
 
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 includes the largest
 
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 collection of American
 
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 printed materials before 1820 anywhere.
 
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 By our estimate,
 
 00:02:02.192 --> 00:02:03.334
 we have in our collections
 
 00:02:08.981 --> 00:02:11.043
 roughly two thirds of what
 
 00:02:11.082 --> 00:02:12.743
 was printed in what's now
 
 00:02:12.783 --> 00:02:14.944
 the United States before 1820,
 
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 as well as major
 
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 collections from the rest
 
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 of the 19th century.
 
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 The largest collection of
 
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 American newspapers before 1876,
 
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 the actual printed copies, books,
 
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 pamphlets, broadsides, ephemera,
 
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 you name it.
 
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 And this goes back to Isaiah
 
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 Thomas's vision,
 
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 which was to collect everything.
 
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 Not just the highlights,
 
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 but the stuff of ordinary life.
 
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 Those pamphlets that
 
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 circulated all over the colonies.
 
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 The broadsides announcing this or that.
 
 00:02:49.525 --> 00:02:50.985
 So we have all of that as
 
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 well as graphic arts
 
 00:02:51.986 --> 00:02:54.127
 materials and manuscript collections.
 
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 Four and a half million
 
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 objects in our collections at this point.
 
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 And who's allowed to use it?
 
 00:03:02.013 --> 00:03:02.653
 anyone.
 
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 And we emphasize that.
 
 00:03:05.776 --> 00:03:07.396
 We give a certain number of
 
 00:03:07.477 --> 00:03:08.717
 fellowships each year,
 
 00:03:08.758 --> 00:03:09.578
 which are funded
 
 00:03:09.638 --> 00:03:11.299
 opportunities for people to do research.
 
 00:03:11.759 --> 00:03:12.479
 But beyond that,
 
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 anybody can come and use
 
 00:03:14.401 --> 00:03:15.901
 our collections if they
 
 00:03:15.942 --> 00:03:17.704
 have a research project
 
 00:03:17.963 --> 00:03:20.284
 that seems to suggest the
 
 00:03:20.324 --> 00:03:21.286
 advantage of using them.
 
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 We have scholars from all
 
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 over the country and all over the world,
 
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 as well as right here in Worcester.
 
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 We also have artists who use
 
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 our collections.
 
 00:03:30.692 --> 00:03:31.832
 several of our fellowships
 
 00:03:31.932 --> 00:03:33.413
 each year are earmarked for
 
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 creative and performing
 
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 performing artists we have
 
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 young people we have
 
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 college students
 
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 occasionally high school
 
 00:03:41.420 --> 00:03:42.260
 students who come in
 
 00:03:42.622 --> 00:03:45.243
 working on projects a lot
 
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 of people over the years
 
 00:03:46.465 --> 00:03:47.806
 have come here to work on
 
 00:03:47.945 --> 00:03:50.687
 genealogy projects now that
 
 00:03:51.147 --> 00:03:52.188
 ancestry.com and
 
 00:03:52.248 --> 00:03:53.871
 familysearch.org are out there
 
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 You're a genealogist,
 
 00:03:55.551 --> 00:03:58.253
 but those websites actually
 
 00:03:58.854 --> 00:04:01.056
 digitized a lot of our collections.
 
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 If you're using familysearch.org,
 
 00:04:02.776 --> 00:04:06.159
 you're actually using KS collections.
 
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 But anybody's welcome.
 
 00:04:07.600 --> 00:04:09.141
 And that's important to us,
 
 00:04:10.242 --> 00:04:13.064
 that this is a resource for
 
 00:04:14.105 --> 00:04:15.606
 anyone's research to do
 
 00:04:16.086 --> 00:04:17.487
 research into the histories
 
 00:04:17.949 --> 00:04:19.470
 that we might not even have
 
 00:04:19.529 --> 00:04:20.971
 imagined could be told.
 
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 Right.
 
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 Right, right.
 
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 And you also do seminars.
 
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 You have seminar series and programs,
 
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 teacher programs.
 
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 We do.
 
 00:04:29.125 --> 00:04:31.745
 So this summer, we have three seminars.
 
 00:04:31.766 --> 00:04:33.526
 We've already completed our
 
 00:04:33.607 --> 00:04:35.646
 seminar in American visual culture,
 
 00:04:35.706 --> 00:04:37.007
 which was on disability in
 
 00:04:37.047 --> 00:04:37.747
 visual culture.
 
 00:04:38.247 --> 00:04:40.007
 Next month is our seminar in
 
 00:04:40.028 --> 00:04:41.028
 American print culture,
 
 00:04:41.108 --> 00:04:42.588
 which is about narrative
 
 00:04:42.627 --> 00:04:44.608
 migration and multilingual print culture.
 
 00:04:45.069 --> 00:04:46.649
 And then at the beginning of August,
 
 00:04:46.990 --> 00:04:48.250
 we have a seminar,
 
 00:04:48.550 --> 00:04:50.331
 a K-12 teacher institute
 
 00:04:50.790 --> 00:04:53.353
 connected to our NEH funded
 
 00:04:53.432 --> 00:04:54.812
 program called Historic
 
 00:04:54.913 --> 00:04:55.874
 Children's Voices.
 
 00:04:57.093 --> 00:04:58.033
 We have cataloged and
 
 00:04:58.055 --> 00:04:59.334
 digitized roughly 15,000
 
 00:04:59.334 --> 00:04:59.795
 pages of material
 
 00:05:01.776 --> 00:05:04.997
 created by 19th century American children,
 
 00:05:05.317 --> 00:05:06.997
 not for but by children,
 
 00:05:07.377 --> 00:05:10.978
 which includes manuscripts, diaries,
 
 00:05:11.538 --> 00:05:14.779
 as well as handwritten amateur newspapers,
 
 00:05:15.259 --> 00:05:16.480
 printed books printed on
 
 00:05:16.540 --> 00:05:18.139
 young people's press is
 
 00:05:18.560 --> 00:05:19.540
 wonderful material,
 
 00:05:19.901 --> 00:05:23.322
 which is now available, open access,
 
 00:05:23.382 --> 00:05:24.982
 thanks to the age grant and
 
 00:05:25.021 --> 00:05:26.862
 a lot of hard work by a lot of our staff.
 
 00:05:27.202 --> 00:05:28.783
 So 25 teachers from around
 
 00:05:28.822 --> 00:05:29.983
 the country will be coming
 
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 here to Worcester
 
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 to work with that material
 
 00:05:32.545 --> 00:05:34.047
 to think about how it might
 
 00:05:34.086 --> 00:05:35.408
 be incorporated into their
 
 00:05:35.488 --> 00:05:36.949
 classrooms so that young
 
 00:05:36.990 --> 00:05:38.372
 people today can listen to
 
 00:05:38.391 --> 00:05:40.935
 the voices of young people 150 years ago.
 
 00:05:41.394 --> 00:05:41.915
 That is great.
 
 00:05:41.975 --> 00:05:42.617
 What a great idea.
 
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 What a great collection to
 
 00:05:43.757 --> 00:05:45.560
 have or material to have.
 
 00:05:47.060 --> 00:05:47.201
 Now,
 
 00:05:47.442 --> 00:05:49.744
 a lot of your work as a scholar has
 
 00:05:49.764 --> 00:05:50.865
 been on the history of the
 
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 book and the history of print culture.
 
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 It feels that way to me.
 
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 This is where I first
 
 00:06:00.894 --> 00:06:02.735
 learned about American
 
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 print culture in many ways.
 
 00:06:04.137 --> 00:06:05.317
 I came here as a research
 
 00:06:05.377 --> 00:06:06.218
 fellow when I was a
 
 00:06:06.278 --> 00:06:08.761
 graduate student in 1990
 
 00:06:08.761 --> 00:06:12.142
 and was introduced both to the field of
 
 00:06:12.863 --> 00:06:13.704
 print culture and the
 
 00:06:13.745 --> 00:06:15.305
 history of the book and to
 
 00:06:15.326 --> 00:06:18.449
 the community of people who work on that.
 
 00:06:18.848 --> 00:06:20.790
 I think when I think about this place,
 
 00:06:20.850 --> 00:06:22.432
 the American Antiquarian Society,
 
 00:06:23.132 --> 00:06:24.593
 I think about both the
 
 00:06:24.653 --> 00:06:26.415
 collections and the community.
 
 00:06:26.774 --> 00:06:29.718
 And that community includes our amazing,
 
 00:06:29.858 --> 00:06:31.119
 extraordinary staff,
 
 00:06:31.459 --> 00:06:32.399
 as well as the other
 
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 researchers who've worked
 
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 here over the years.
 
 00:06:34.762 --> 00:06:36.262
 And this really has been for
 
 00:06:36.343 --> 00:06:38.324
 decades a hub for the study
 
 00:06:38.365 --> 00:06:39.706
 of American print culture.
 
 00:06:40.245 --> 00:06:42.427
 So I indeed have worked on that
 
 00:06:43.088 --> 00:06:44.149
 for much of my career,
 
 00:06:44.170 --> 00:06:46.494
 and this is where it started.
 
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 It's a wonderful place, too, to be in.
 
 00:06:51.040 --> 00:06:53.083
 The building itself is terrific,
 
 00:06:53.142 --> 00:06:54.786
 and the grounds are wonderful, so it's
 
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 I'm sure you can't either.
 
 00:07:01.543 --> 00:07:01.923
 I can't.
 
 00:07:01.963 --> 00:07:03.024
 As you can tell,
 
 00:07:03.963 --> 00:07:06.024
 our campus is about 110 years old.
 
 00:07:06.545 --> 00:07:08.444
 The society is about 210 years old.
 
 00:07:08.966 --> 00:07:10.485
 And it's a wonderful
 
 00:07:10.526 --> 00:07:11.625
 collection of buildings,
 
 00:07:12.045 --> 00:07:13.547
 including the library itself,
 
 00:07:13.646 --> 00:07:14.547
 which is marvelous,
 
 00:07:15.047 --> 00:07:17.168
 and several houses that are
 
 00:07:17.208 --> 00:07:18.627
 available for researchers
 
 00:07:18.788 --> 00:07:20.108
 to rent rooms so that they
 
 00:07:20.127 --> 00:07:21.749
 can basically roll out of
 
 00:07:21.809 --> 00:07:23.108
 bed and into the library,
 
 00:07:23.769 --> 00:07:24.689
 as well as administrative
 
 00:07:24.730 --> 00:07:25.569
 offices and so on.
 
 00:07:26.975 --> 00:07:28.858
 We're talking with Scott E. Casper,
 
 00:07:28.898 --> 00:07:30.139
 who is the president of the
 
 00:07:30.178 --> 00:07:31.901
 American Antiquarian Society,
 
 00:07:32.742 --> 00:07:36.386
 and tremendous archive of materials.
 
 00:07:36.925 --> 00:07:37.906
 And let's talk a little bit
 
 00:07:37.927 --> 00:07:40.228
 about other work that you have done,
 
 00:07:40.309 --> 00:07:41.050
 because as I said,
 
 00:07:41.069 --> 00:07:42.370
 you do a history of the book.
 
 00:07:42.692 --> 00:07:44.213
 A lot of your scholarly work
 
 00:07:44.913 --> 00:07:46.394
 seems to look at history,
 
 00:07:46.454 --> 00:07:47.737
 but not simply looking at history,
 
 00:07:47.776 --> 00:07:49.038
 but how we remember it or
 
 00:07:49.117 --> 00:07:50.119
 how it's recorded.
 
 00:07:50.682 --> 00:07:50.983
 You know,
 
 00:07:51.002 --> 00:07:52.865
 you have a terrific book on 19th
 
 00:07:52.904 --> 00:07:54.586
 century biographies and how
 
 00:07:54.646 --> 00:07:55.665
 Americans in the 19th
 
 00:07:55.706 --> 00:07:56.867
 century were creating a
 
 00:07:58.288 --> 00:07:59.269
 sense of themselves through
 
 00:07:59.309 --> 00:08:00.970
 biographies of other Americans.
 
 00:08:01.911 --> 00:08:02.531
 Exactly, Bob.
 
 00:08:02.550 --> 00:08:04.072
 I think that's the through
 
 00:08:04.132 --> 00:08:06.454
 line of my entire scholarly
 
 00:08:06.514 --> 00:08:09.055
 career is I think about how
 
 00:08:09.196 --> 00:08:10.536
 Americans in the past
 
 00:08:11.057 --> 00:08:12.158
 thought about the past.
 
 00:08:13.038 --> 00:08:15.600
 So beginning with my work on biography,
 
 00:08:15.839 --> 00:08:17.521
 which really tried to...
 
 00:08:18.461 --> 00:08:20.182
 Imagine what Americans in
 
 00:08:20.202 --> 00:08:22.283
 the 19th century thought
 
 00:08:22.524 --> 00:08:25.165
 biographies ought to be or ought to do.
 
 00:08:25.826 --> 00:08:26.286
 Today,
 
 00:08:26.466 --> 00:08:28.346
 we think about biographies in
 
 00:08:28.406 --> 00:08:29.028
 several ways.
 
 00:08:29.288 --> 00:08:31.569
 Some of it is biography is a
 
 00:08:31.588 --> 00:08:32.669
 way to learn about history
 
 00:08:33.009 --> 00:08:35.230
 or biography is a way to
 
 00:08:35.311 --> 00:08:37.392
 learn about the psychology
 
 00:08:37.491 --> 00:08:38.173
 of the person whose
 
 00:08:38.212 --> 00:08:39.373
 biography you're reading.
 
 00:08:40.514 --> 00:08:41.674
 In the 19th century,
 
 00:08:41.754 --> 00:08:42.495
 particularly at the
 
 00:08:42.534 --> 00:08:44.135
 beginning of the 19th century,
 
 00:08:44.735 --> 00:08:47.638
 biography was predominantly thought
 
 00:08:48.317 --> 00:08:49.198
 in the United States,
 
 00:08:49.639 --> 00:08:53.962
 thought to be a tool of instruction,
 
 00:08:54.322 --> 00:08:56.485
 whether it was instruction for character,
 
 00:08:56.644 --> 00:08:58.225
 instruction for patriotism,
 
 00:08:58.527 --> 00:08:59.807
 instruction for history.
 
 00:09:00.307 --> 00:09:01.528
 And it's over the course of
 
 00:09:01.548 --> 00:09:03.471
 the 19th century that we
 
 00:09:03.571 --> 00:09:05.392
 see the emergence and
 
 00:09:05.611 --> 00:09:07.193
 ultimately the dominance of
 
 00:09:07.254 --> 00:09:09.075
 the idea that the
 
 00:09:09.696 --> 00:09:10.917
 biographer's major
 
 00:09:10.976 --> 00:09:14.298
 responsibility is to their subject,
 
 00:09:14.458 --> 00:09:15.980
 to understand what made
 
 00:09:16.041 --> 00:09:17.201
 their subject tick.
 
 00:09:17.903 --> 00:09:19.046
 Earlier on,
 
 00:09:19.105 --> 00:09:21.552
 I think that the responsibility
 
 00:09:21.592 --> 00:09:22.936
 of the biographer was
 
 00:09:22.956 --> 00:09:25.423
 thought to be primarily to the reader.
 
 00:09:27.614 --> 00:09:29.355
 So what I trace in that book
 
 00:09:29.895 --> 00:09:31.037
 is the emergence of these
 
 00:09:31.096 --> 00:09:33.219
 different strands as we see
 
 00:09:33.259 --> 00:09:35.321
 them in biographies themselves,
 
 00:09:35.801 --> 00:09:37.722
 in criticism of biographies
 
 00:09:37.783 --> 00:09:39.063
 that appeared in newspapers
 
 00:09:39.124 --> 00:09:41.145
 and magazines and also in
 
 00:09:41.706 --> 00:09:42.827
 readers experiences.
 
 00:09:42.908 --> 00:09:44.188
 So I spent a lot of time
 
 00:09:44.229 --> 00:09:46.370
 with readers diaries and
 
 00:09:46.551 --> 00:09:47.912
 other material from readers
 
 00:09:48.231 --> 00:09:49.754
 to figure out what.
 
 00:09:50.554 --> 00:09:52.700
 ordinary Americans imagined
 
 00:09:53.041 --> 00:09:54.605
 when they were reading biographies.
 
 00:09:55.547 --> 00:09:57.171
 And that was work that the
 
 00:09:57.191 --> 00:09:59.355
 American Antiquarian Society inspired.
 
 00:10:02.346 --> 00:10:05.148
 So I worked on that for about 10 years.
 
 00:10:06.349 --> 00:10:07.249
 And then I turned my
 
 00:10:07.328 --> 00:10:10.211
 interest to how historic
 
 00:10:10.350 --> 00:10:12.633
 sites and the people at
 
 00:10:12.673 --> 00:10:14.693
 historic sites imagined the
 
 00:10:14.734 --> 00:10:16.274
 past and presented the past,
 
 00:10:16.335 --> 00:10:17.515
 really with a focus on
 
 00:10:17.895 --> 00:10:19.317
 George Washington's Mount Vernon,
 
 00:10:20.136 --> 00:10:21.437
 which I ultimately came to
 
 00:10:21.518 --> 00:10:23.259
 see as other people's Mount
 
 00:10:23.278 --> 00:10:23.980
 Vernon as well.
 
 00:10:24.620 --> 00:10:24.820
 Right.
 
 00:10:25.100 --> 00:10:25.240
 Yeah.
 
 00:10:25.500 --> 00:10:26.561
 And you had spent a lot of
 
 00:10:26.600 --> 00:10:27.501
 time at Mount Vernon
 
 00:10:27.542 --> 00:10:28.722
 leading teacher workshops
 
 00:10:28.783 --> 00:10:30.063
 and being engaged with it.
 
 00:10:30.224 --> 00:10:31.424
 And your book,
 
 00:10:32.365 --> 00:10:33.905
 Sarah Johnson's Mount Vernon,
 
 00:10:33.946 --> 00:10:34.947
 The Forgotten History of an
 
 00:10:34.986 --> 00:10:35.767
 American Shrine,
 
 00:10:35.807 --> 00:10:36.687
 really looks at it as a
 
 00:10:37.307 --> 00:10:38.769
 19th century site whose
 
 00:10:38.808 --> 00:10:40.330
 history is being shaped by
 
 00:10:40.370 --> 00:10:42.110
 these people working there
 
 00:10:42.150 --> 00:10:43.932
 telling the stories of Mount Vernon,
 
 00:10:43.972 --> 00:10:45.653
 a place people came to see
 
 00:10:45.693 --> 00:10:46.774
 because of its connection
 
 00:10:46.835 --> 00:10:48.195
 with one person who had
 
 00:10:48.235 --> 00:10:49.416
 lived there and who created it,
 
 00:10:49.796 --> 00:10:50.517
 George Washington.
 
 00:10:52.037 --> 00:10:52.639
 Exactly.
 
 00:10:52.981 --> 00:10:55.072
 And I really pick up the story
 
 00:10:56.477 --> 00:10:58.679
 at Washington's death and
 
 00:10:58.899 --> 00:11:00.942
 look at the enslaved and
 
 00:11:00.981 --> 00:11:02.602
 then free community of
 
 00:11:02.763 --> 00:11:04.904
 African-Americans who over
 
 00:11:04.965 --> 00:11:05.926
 the course of the 19th
 
 00:11:05.966 --> 00:11:08.187
 century played as much of a
 
 00:11:08.248 --> 00:11:10.188
 role as anyone else in
 
 00:11:10.328 --> 00:11:11.750
 shaping the Mount Vernon
 
 00:11:12.211 --> 00:11:14.893
 that visitors came to see.
 
 00:11:15.714 --> 00:11:17.575
 And I was able to piece
 
 00:11:17.634 --> 00:11:20.076
 together the story of that
 
 00:11:20.256 --> 00:11:21.759
 African-American community
 
 00:11:23.145 --> 00:11:24.067
 from, I hope,
 
 00:11:24.667 --> 00:11:26.528
 some degree their own perspective,
 
 00:11:26.607 --> 00:11:28.950
 not perspective of white
 
 00:11:29.049 --> 00:11:30.390
 visitors or of the white
 
 00:11:30.431 --> 00:11:32.331
 people who owned the property,
 
 00:11:33.172 --> 00:11:34.653
 trying to figure out what
 
 00:11:34.692 --> 00:11:37.014
 the experience of Black
 
 00:11:37.235 --> 00:11:38.535
 families and a Black
 
 00:11:38.596 --> 00:11:40.456
 community were in this space.
 
 00:11:41.096 --> 00:11:42.798
 I've come over the years to
 
 00:11:42.977 --> 00:11:46.500
 see Mount Vernon as a Black community
 
 00:11:47.461 --> 00:11:48.801
 where the property happened
 
 00:11:48.841 --> 00:11:50.881
 to be owned by a fairly
 
 00:11:50.942 --> 00:11:52.241
 small number of white people.
 
 00:11:52.542 --> 00:11:53.202
 But even in George
 
 00:11:53.243 --> 00:11:54.623
 Washington's own lifetime,
 
 00:11:54.923 --> 00:11:56.283
 the number of Washingtons
 
 00:11:56.503 --> 00:11:57.764
 and white employees and
 
 00:11:57.803 --> 00:11:59.344
 servants on that site was
 
 00:11:59.403 --> 00:12:00.624
 dwarfed by the number of
 
 00:12:00.683 --> 00:12:02.264
 enslaved African-Americans.
 
 00:12:02.664 --> 00:12:03.684
 And that continued to be the
 
 00:12:03.725 --> 00:12:05.865
 case through the 19th century,
 
 00:12:06.405 --> 00:12:07.865
 both in slavery and then
 
 00:12:08.145 --> 00:12:09.907
 after the Civil War in freedom.
 
 00:12:10.687 --> 00:12:12.909
 So I really was trying to
 
 00:12:13.090 --> 00:12:16.193
 find a community whose
 
 00:12:16.774 --> 00:12:18.115
 story had not been told.
 
 00:12:18.135 --> 00:12:19.898
 These were not the
 
 00:12:19.937 --> 00:12:21.038
 descendants of George
 
 00:12:21.078 --> 00:12:22.421
 Washington's enslaved people.
 
 00:12:22.721 --> 00:12:23.361
 They were not the
 
 00:12:23.402 --> 00:12:24.302
 descendants of Martha
 
 00:12:24.342 --> 00:12:25.504
 Washington's enslaved people.
 
 00:12:25.924 --> 00:12:27.466
 They were people who were
 
 00:12:27.506 --> 00:12:29.750
 brought to Mount Vernon
 
 00:12:29.970 --> 00:12:32.293
 first by Bushrod Washington,
 
 00:12:32.653 --> 00:12:35.256
 who was George's nephew,
 
 00:12:35.376 --> 00:12:36.597
 Justice of the Supreme Court,
 
 00:12:36.818 --> 00:12:38.340
 and who inherited what we
 
 00:12:38.400 --> 00:12:39.361
 think of as the core of
 
 00:12:39.422 --> 00:12:41.303
 Mount Vernon because George
 
 00:12:41.344 --> 00:12:43.206
 Washington's will, through his will,
 
 00:12:44.787 --> 00:12:46.107
 manumitted the enslaved
 
 00:12:46.128 --> 00:12:47.208
 people who belonged to him.
 
 00:12:47.229 --> 00:12:49.171
 The enslaved people who had
 
 00:12:49.191 --> 00:12:50.672
 been enslaved to Martha
 
 00:12:50.711 --> 00:12:52.373
 Washington continued to be
 
 00:12:52.433 --> 00:12:54.254
 enslaved to her grandchildren.
 
 00:12:54.654 --> 00:12:56.157
 So the subsequent Washington
 
 00:12:56.177 --> 00:12:58.798
 owners brought a new community,
 
 00:12:59.919 --> 00:13:01.301
 even though the visitors to
 
 00:13:01.341 --> 00:13:02.942
 Mount Vernon often thought
 
 00:13:03.001 --> 00:13:04.644
 they were looking at George
 
 00:13:04.683 --> 00:13:05.845
 Washington's enslaved people.
 
 00:13:05.865 --> 00:13:07.086
 So that was the story I
 
 00:13:07.125 --> 00:13:08.767
 wanted to tell in Sarah
 
 00:13:08.807 --> 00:13:09.707
 Johnson's Mount Vernon.
 
 00:13:11.048 --> 00:13:12.009
 And you have these two
 
 00:13:16.715 --> 00:13:18.716
 meeting this woman and who
 
 00:13:18.756 --> 00:13:19.937
 tells her story at
 
 00:13:20.298 --> 00:13:21.359
 different points in her life.
 
 00:13:21.399 --> 00:13:22.900
 And you were able to discern
 
 00:13:22.921 --> 00:13:24.261
 that this was Sarah Johnson,
 
 00:13:24.282 --> 00:13:26.624
 the same person by doing
 
 00:13:26.683 --> 00:13:28.905
 census research and looking
 
 00:13:28.946 --> 00:13:29.687
 in other places.
 
 00:13:30.408 --> 00:13:30.947
 Exactly.
 
 00:13:31.087 --> 00:13:34.650
 So I first encountered Sarah,
 
 00:13:34.751 --> 00:13:35.852
 although I didn't know it,
 
 00:13:36.332 --> 00:13:37.813
 in a book written by
 
 00:13:38.794 --> 00:13:43.999
 a northern tourist in 1865
 
 00:13:43.999 --> 00:13:45.019
 who was going around the
 
 00:13:45.078 --> 00:13:46.940
 South basically to document
 
 00:13:46.961 --> 00:13:47.880
 the defeated South.
 
 00:13:49.162 --> 00:13:50.243
 And he stopped at Mount
 
 00:13:50.263 --> 00:13:51.383
 Vernon and he talked about
 
 00:13:51.964 --> 00:13:52.803
 at Mount Vernon,
 
 00:13:53.565 --> 00:13:55.446
 his name is John Townsend Trowbridge.
 
 00:13:55.466 --> 00:13:56.667
 He's a northern abolitionist
 
 00:13:56.726 --> 00:13:57.668
 writer and novelist.
 
 00:13:58.028 --> 00:13:59.548
 He writes in his book about
 
 00:13:59.609 --> 00:14:02.071
 the South about meeting a
 
 00:14:02.091 --> 00:14:04.131
 20-year-old young woman at
 
 00:14:04.192 --> 00:14:05.932
 Mount Vernon who talks with
 
 00:14:05.952 --> 00:14:08.095
 him about her experience.
 
 00:14:08.855 --> 00:14:10.255
 And he has quotes from her.
 
 00:14:10.895 --> 00:14:12.897
 And I realized a few years later,
 
 00:14:12.996 --> 00:14:15.437
 working with the US Census for 1870,
 
 00:14:15.437 --> 00:14:16.918
 that that was Sarah.
 
 00:14:17.379 --> 00:14:18.379
 And then if you go back,
 
 00:14:18.639 --> 00:14:20.240
 you can find Sarah's birth
 
 00:14:20.600 --> 00:14:21.801
 in the diary of the
 
 00:14:21.860 --> 00:14:23.120
 Washington who owned the place.
 
 00:14:23.621 --> 00:14:25.142
 You go all the way to her death,
 
 00:14:25.322 --> 00:14:27.143
 which is in the letters of
 
 00:14:27.322 --> 00:14:29.423
 the superintendent who
 
 00:14:29.464 --> 00:14:30.183
 works for the Mount Vernon
 
 00:14:30.224 --> 00:14:31.225
 Ladies Association.
 
 00:14:31.705 --> 00:14:33.385
 In between, you can trace
 
 00:14:33.846 --> 00:14:35.187
 her and her family's and her
 
 00:14:35.227 --> 00:14:37.071
 community's story over the
 
 00:14:37.071 --> 00:14:38.592
 75 years of her life.
 
 00:14:38.613 --> 00:14:39.715
 I actually start a little
 
 00:14:39.794 --> 00:14:41.697
 earlier with her family and
 
 00:14:42.217 --> 00:14:43.821
 go into the 20th century.
 
 00:14:43.941 --> 00:14:45.702
 It's an extraordinary story
 
 00:14:46.745 --> 00:14:47.986
 of people who...
 
 00:14:48.927 --> 00:14:50.729
 didn't just maintain Mount Vernon,
 
 00:14:50.928 --> 00:14:52.070
 they built their own
 
 00:14:52.149 --> 00:14:54.812
 community in slavery and in freedom.
 
 00:14:55.272 --> 00:14:56.452
 And that, to me,
 
 00:14:56.913 --> 00:14:57.874
 is the more fascinating
 
 00:14:57.913 --> 00:14:59.355
 story of Mount Vernon as
 
 00:14:59.394 --> 00:15:01.176
 really a microcosm of the
 
 00:15:01.297 --> 00:15:03.638
 changes in African-American
 
 00:15:03.697 --> 00:15:05.639
 life across the 19th century.
 
 00:15:05.960 --> 00:15:08.160
 So I see Mount Vernon not
 
 00:15:08.181 --> 00:15:09.721
 just as an 18th century place,
 
 00:15:10.062 --> 00:15:11.583
 but also as a 19th century one.
 
 00:15:11.943 --> 00:15:12.104
 Yeah.
 
 00:15:12.984 --> 00:15:14.365
 We're talking with Scott Casper,
 
 00:15:14.404 --> 00:15:15.666
 who is the president of the
 
 00:15:15.706 --> 00:15:16.625
 American Antiquarian
 
 00:15:16.667 --> 00:15:18.246
 Society and the author of,
 
 00:15:18.307 --> 00:15:19.048
 among other books,
 
 00:15:19.447 --> 00:15:21.028
 Sarah Johnson's Mount Vernon,
 
 00:15:21.048 --> 00:15:22.610
 The Forgotten History of an
 
 00:15:22.669 --> 00:15:23.750
 American Shrine,
 
 00:15:24.591 --> 00:15:26.331
 which tells us it's interesting.
 
 00:15:26.611 --> 00:15:28.533
 We all are looking for those
 
 00:15:28.653 --> 00:15:30.533
 voices and how to recover them.
 
 00:15:31.075 --> 00:15:32.294
 And you've managed to do it.
 
 00:15:32.455 --> 00:15:34.115
 And it's striking looking at
 
 00:15:34.176 --> 00:15:36.498
 this African-American community.
 
 00:15:36.738 --> 00:15:37.857
 And it partly is because it
 
 00:15:37.958 --> 00:15:39.019
 is Mount Vernon that we're
 
 00:15:39.078 --> 00:15:40.460
 able to get so much information.
 
 00:15:44.101 --> 00:15:44.682
 a lot else.
 
 00:15:44.741 --> 00:15:46.582
 And then so she starts off
 
 00:15:46.682 --> 00:15:49.585
 enslaved to John Augustine Washington,
 
 00:15:50.044 --> 00:15:52.187
 who owns owns the place.
 
 00:15:52.626 --> 00:15:53.927
 Civil War disrupts that.
 
 00:15:53.947 --> 00:15:54.707
 But then she becomes an
 
 00:15:54.748 --> 00:15:55.908
 employee of the Mount
 
 00:15:55.928 --> 00:15:57.789
 Vernon Ladies Memorial Association.
 
 00:15:58.309 --> 00:15:58.750
 Exactly.
 
 00:15:58.830 --> 00:15:59.990
 She comes back after the
 
 00:16:00.030 --> 00:16:01.451
 Civil War with her husband,
 
 00:16:01.851 --> 00:16:04.452
 who had been the butler before the war.
 
 00:16:05.114 --> 00:16:08.174
 And my best my best guess,
 
 00:16:08.515 --> 00:16:09.635
 because we don't have the records,
 
 00:16:10.176 --> 00:16:10.557
 is that
 
 00:16:11.778 --> 00:16:12.119
 She,
 
 00:16:12.519 --> 00:16:15.120
 who was just a teenager when the war
 
 00:16:15.160 --> 00:16:17.423
 breaks out, and he, the butler,
 
 00:16:17.803 --> 00:16:19.586
 somehow reconnect either
 
 00:16:19.625 --> 00:16:21.226
 during the war or right after the war,
 
 00:16:21.307 --> 00:16:22.028
 and they marry.
 
 00:16:22.609 --> 00:16:24.009
 And they come back to Mount
 
 00:16:24.049 --> 00:16:25.971
 Vernon as employees of the
 
 00:16:26.011 --> 00:16:29.495
 Ladies Association in 1865.
 
 00:16:29.495 --> 00:16:31.317
 She remains there through
 
 00:16:31.557 --> 00:16:32.658
 her first husband's death.
 
 00:16:32.918 --> 00:16:33.778
 She remarries.
 
 00:16:33.879 --> 00:16:36.241
 She remains an employee until 1892.
 
 00:16:36.961 --> 00:16:39.585
 So for 27 years, you know,
 
 00:16:39.605 --> 00:16:41.726
 she had been born there in 1844.
 
 00:16:41.726 --> 00:16:44.830
 So really for 48 years of her life,
 
 00:16:45.931 --> 00:16:47.152
 except for those years of the Civil War,
 
 00:16:47.673 --> 00:16:49.014
 she's at Mount Vernon.
 
 00:16:49.855 --> 00:16:50.235
 That's
 
 00:16:51.111 --> 00:16:53.893
 That's longer than George
 
 00:16:53.972 --> 00:16:56.533
 Washington was at Vernon.
 
 00:16:57.494 --> 00:16:58.674
 So you think about these
 
 00:16:58.875 --> 00:17:00.195
 African-American employees
 
 00:17:00.554 --> 00:17:01.676
 who spend their lives there.
 
 00:17:01.975 --> 00:17:03.035
 But the next part of her
 
 00:17:03.096 --> 00:17:05.237
 story is that she purchases
 
 00:17:05.336 --> 00:17:06.297
 land of her own.
 
 00:17:07.377 --> 00:17:08.637
 Second husband is a
 
 00:17:08.678 --> 00:17:10.179
 landowner in the neighborhood.
 
 00:17:10.878 --> 00:17:13.000
 And in 1892,
 
 00:17:13.000 --> 00:17:15.779
 she retires or resigns from Mount Vernon,
 
 00:17:16.260 --> 00:17:17.480
 which is a good reminder
 
 00:17:17.800 --> 00:17:20.781
 that she was not attached
 
 00:17:20.862 --> 00:17:23.083
 to the place in the way
 
 00:17:23.103 --> 00:17:24.603
 that visitors might have assumed.
 
 00:17:25.123 --> 00:17:26.123
 To the extent that she was
 
 00:17:26.182 --> 00:17:28.403
 attached to the place as a free woman,
 
 00:17:28.804 --> 00:17:30.924
 that was by her choice and
 
 00:17:31.125 --> 00:17:32.605
 on her timetable.
 
 00:17:33.244 --> 00:17:34.385
 And then when she
 
 00:17:35.781 --> 00:17:37.781
 chose to move on, she did.
 
 00:17:37.882 --> 00:17:40.542
 And she lived 28 more years after that,
 
 00:17:40.883 --> 00:17:42.883
 remaining in contact with
 
 00:17:43.083 --> 00:17:45.084
 Mount Vernon and its community,
 
 00:17:45.723 --> 00:17:47.884
 but not employed full-time there.
 
 00:17:49.064 --> 00:17:49.984
 That's amazing.
 
 00:17:50.065 --> 00:17:52.005
 And you found other people too.
 
 00:17:52.125 --> 00:17:54.244
 And there's Edmund Parker, Andrew Ford,
 
 00:17:54.265 --> 00:17:55.865
 these other people you
 
 00:17:55.945 --> 00:17:57.385
 found at Mount Vernon who
 
 00:17:57.425 --> 00:17:58.865
 were actually part of it.
 
 00:17:58.885 --> 00:18:00.267
 And there's the photograph
 
 00:18:00.287 --> 00:18:01.866
 of Edmund Parker at the gate.
 
 00:18:02.027 --> 00:18:02.507
 It was kind of a
 
 00:18:05.384 --> 00:18:07.204
 As they're visiting the place,
 
 00:18:07.244 --> 00:18:08.984
 you want to get some authenticity.
 
 00:18:09.144 --> 00:18:10.846
 And he, as Sarah Johnson,
 
 00:18:10.885 --> 00:18:13.286
 also offered this connection.
 
 00:18:14.307 --> 00:18:14.707
 Yeah.
 
 00:18:14.846 --> 00:18:16.406
 And the connection of the
 
 00:18:16.606 --> 00:18:18.688
 African-American man who is
 
 00:18:18.748 --> 00:18:20.228
 the guard at Washington's
 
 00:18:20.347 --> 00:18:23.588
 tomb begins with Edmund
 
 00:18:23.648 --> 00:18:25.430
 Parker in the 1870s.
 
 00:18:25.490 --> 00:18:27.589
 The Ladies Association hires him.
 
 00:18:27.829 --> 00:18:29.471
 He's Sarah's uncle.
 
 00:18:30.171 --> 00:18:31.691
 So he's born in the late 1820s.
 
 00:18:33.892 --> 00:18:35.452
 And before the Civil War,
 
 00:18:35.752 --> 00:18:36.794
 there certainly had been
 
 00:18:36.933 --> 00:18:38.513
 African-American men who
 
 00:18:38.554 --> 00:18:39.474
 worked on the property,
 
 00:18:39.535 --> 00:18:40.775
 some of whom had met
 
 00:18:40.836 --> 00:18:41.756
 visitors to the tomb.
 
 00:18:42.276 --> 00:18:44.057
 The Ladies Association hires
 
 00:18:44.156 --> 00:18:46.798
 Edmund Parker to do just that.
 
 00:18:47.499 --> 00:18:49.460
 And that becomes a symbol
 
 00:18:50.240 --> 00:18:52.901
 and a job that continues
 
 00:18:53.101 --> 00:18:54.842
 into the mid 1960s.
 
 00:18:55.001 --> 00:18:56.962
 A series of black men,
 
 00:18:57.403 --> 00:18:59.044
 typically older black men,
 
 00:18:59.664 --> 00:19:01.586
 are hired by the Ladies Association
 
 00:19:02.445 --> 00:19:05.429
 to play what I think of as a role.
 
 00:19:05.449 --> 00:19:09.913
 And that role exemplifies a
 
 00:19:09.993 --> 00:19:13.537
 kind of ongoing loyalty to
 
 00:19:13.616 --> 00:19:15.078
 Washington and his memory.
 
 00:19:15.479 --> 00:19:17.361
 That's a message the Ladies Association,
 
 00:19:17.842 --> 00:19:19.723
 I think, is seeking to send.
 
 00:19:19.743 --> 00:19:22.547
 They're careful about whom
 
 00:19:22.586 --> 00:19:23.708
 they hire for that role.
 
 00:19:24.619 --> 00:19:25.119
 Typically,
 
 00:19:25.359 --> 00:19:27.721
 typically men who have some
 
 00:19:27.840 --> 00:19:29.601
 family connection to people
 
 00:19:29.641 --> 00:19:30.901
 who had been enslaved at
 
 00:19:30.941 --> 00:19:32.340
 Mount Vernon before the war,
 
 00:19:32.942 --> 00:19:34.682
 typically men who are older.
 
 00:19:35.622 --> 00:19:37.701
 And then in 1965,
 
 00:19:37.701 --> 00:19:39.643
 when the last of those men retires,
 
 00:19:39.663 --> 00:19:41.663
 the Ladies Association does
 
 00:19:41.762 --> 00:19:43.804
 not replace him with another black man.
 
 00:19:43.824 --> 00:19:45.243
 And I think that also tells
 
 00:19:45.324 --> 00:19:46.943
 part of the story about
 
 00:19:47.624 --> 00:19:50.904
 changing ideas about the past.
 
 00:19:51.365 --> 00:19:52.105
 Right, right.
 
 00:19:52.757 --> 00:19:54.419
 And we're talking with Scott Casper,
 
 00:19:54.459 --> 00:19:55.499
 president of the American
 
 00:19:55.538 --> 00:19:57.800
 Antiquarian Society and author of,
 
 00:19:57.861 --> 00:19:58.541
 among other books,
 
 00:19:58.582 --> 00:20:00.022
 Sarah Johnson's Mount Vernon,
 
 00:20:00.042 --> 00:20:01.443
 The Forgotten History of an
 
 00:20:01.483 --> 00:20:02.265
 American Shrine.
 
 00:20:03.105 --> 00:20:04.707
 And we'll back up just a bit
 
 00:20:04.807 --> 00:20:06.167
 because you make the point
 
 00:20:06.228 --> 00:20:07.449
 that around the time Sarah
 
 00:20:07.489 --> 00:20:08.769
 Johnson is retiring,
 
 00:20:08.890 --> 00:20:10.510
 things are changing at
 
 00:20:11.011 --> 00:20:12.212
 Mount Vernon in the country.
 
 00:20:12.232 --> 00:20:13.874
 You know, with the arrival of trolleys,
 
 00:20:13.894 --> 00:20:14.494
 they think they're going to
 
 00:20:14.515 --> 00:20:16.155
 get a different class of people.
 
 00:20:16.715 --> 00:20:17.676
 But also there's a change in
 
 00:20:17.717 --> 00:20:19.858
 racial attitudes happening in this period,
 
 00:20:19.878 --> 00:20:22.280
 the rise of Jim Crow and segregation.
 
 00:20:27.142 --> 00:20:28.253
 late 19th, early 20th century.
 
 00:20:29.980 --> 00:20:31.500
 that's absolutely the case.
 
 00:20:32.741 --> 00:20:35.323
 When Sarah Johnson retires,
 
 00:20:35.383 --> 00:20:37.203
 or by now she's remarried
 
 00:20:37.265 --> 00:20:38.384
 and her last name is Robinson.
 
 00:20:38.424 --> 00:20:39.766
 When Sarah retires,
 
 00:20:41.146 --> 00:20:43.028
 the superintendent of Mount Vernon,
 
 00:20:43.307 --> 00:20:45.108
 whose name was Harrison Howell Dodge,
 
 00:20:45.789 --> 00:20:47.250
 writes a letter describing
 
 00:20:47.490 --> 00:20:49.011
 what he wants in her replacement.
 
 00:20:49.711 --> 00:20:51.732
 And above the words,
 
 00:20:52.233 --> 00:20:54.595
 something like a woman to do X, Y, and Z,
 
 00:20:54.894 --> 00:20:57.017
 he writes with a little carrot,
 
 00:20:57.277 --> 00:20:58.076
 the word white.
 
 00:20:58.637 --> 00:20:58.938
 So he's
 
 00:20:59.498 --> 00:21:02.321
 for a white housekeeper to
 
 00:21:02.362 --> 00:21:03.743
 replace this black
 
 00:21:03.784 --> 00:21:04.625
 housekeeper who's been
 
 00:21:04.644 --> 00:21:05.886
 there for seven years.
 
 00:21:06.646 --> 00:21:09.691
 Over those next several decades,
 
 00:21:10.092 --> 00:21:11.594
 what you might describe as
 
 00:21:12.134 --> 00:21:14.657
 the physical workforce at Mount Vernon,
 
 00:21:14.978 --> 00:21:16.138
 the people who are doing the
 
 00:21:18.048 --> 00:21:19.108
 physical labor of
 
 00:21:19.189 --> 00:21:21.830
 maintaining the farm remain
 
 00:21:21.971 --> 00:21:22.830
 African-American,
 
 00:21:22.851 --> 00:21:24.632
 while the people who are
 
 00:21:25.392 --> 00:21:29.253
 most connecting with visitors are white,
 
 00:21:29.673 --> 00:21:31.413
 except for the black man
 
 00:21:31.453 --> 00:21:34.355
 who's the guard at Washington's Trolley.
 
 00:21:34.695 --> 00:21:36.175
 So you see, in a sense,
 
 00:21:36.516 --> 00:21:38.317
 Jim Crow coming to Mount
 
 00:21:38.376 --> 00:21:40.817
 Vernon in the early decade,
 
 00:21:41.018 --> 00:21:42.259
 the end of the 19th century,
 
 00:21:42.558 --> 00:21:43.898
 the early decades of the Trolley.
 
 00:21:44.420 --> 00:21:45.059
 As you mentioned,
 
 00:21:45.079 --> 00:21:47.540
 the Trolley is the other big change.
 
 00:21:48.700 --> 00:21:52.806
 Before 1892, between 1850 and 1892,
 
 00:21:52.806 --> 00:21:53.707
 the largest number of
 
 00:21:53.767 --> 00:21:54.909
 visitors to Mount Vernon
 
 00:21:55.449 --> 00:21:56.871
 came by steamboat.
 
 00:21:58.113 --> 00:21:59.074
 And to do that,
 
 00:21:59.755 --> 00:22:02.097
 you had to set aside the bulk of a day
 
 00:22:03.528 --> 00:22:05.189
 And the visitors were really
 
 00:22:05.388 --> 00:22:07.371
 on site at Mount Vernon
 
 00:22:07.830 --> 00:22:08.932
 only for a few hours,
 
 00:22:08.971 --> 00:22:10.553
 from about mid-morning
 
 00:22:10.613 --> 00:22:11.854
 until about 2.15 in the
 
 00:22:11.933 --> 00:22:12.894
 afternoon when the
 
 00:22:12.914 --> 00:22:14.055
 steamboat came to take them back.
 
 00:22:14.736 --> 00:22:16.176
 Once the trolley comes,
 
 00:22:16.257 --> 00:22:18.097
 and the trolley service
 
 00:22:18.157 --> 00:22:18.999
 from Washington and
 
 00:22:19.098 --> 00:22:20.440
 Alexandria to Mount Vernon
 
 00:22:20.980 --> 00:22:23.101
 launches in September 1892,
 
 00:22:23.101 --> 00:22:25.782
 it's possible for visitors
 
 00:22:26.263 --> 00:22:27.364
 to take the trolley and
 
 00:22:27.443 --> 00:22:29.425
 come at all hours of the day.
 
 00:22:31.028 --> 00:22:32.191
 basically from nine in the
 
 00:22:32.230 --> 00:22:34.175
 morning until five in the afternoon.
 
 00:22:34.896 --> 00:22:36.781
 That means that for the employees,
 
 00:22:37.624 --> 00:22:39.326
 they will be under visitors eyes
 
 00:22:40.483 --> 00:22:42.585
 many more hours there'll be
 
 00:22:42.785 --> 00:22:43.905
 fewer hours to get other
 
 00:22:43.965 --> 00:22:45.487
 work done I don't think
 
 00:22:45.547 --> 00:22:47.748
 it's a coincidence that the
 
 00:22:47.887 --> 00:22:50.690
 same week in september that
 
 00:22:50.710 --> 00:22:52.049
 the trolley comes to mount
 
 00:22:52.109 --> 00:22:54.592
 vernon is when sarah gives
 
 00:22:54.711 --> 00:22:56.893
 notice that she tends to
 
 00:22:56.952 --> 00:22:58.213
 leave because at this point
 
 00:22:58.673 --> 00:22:59.473
 her life is going to be
 
 00:22:59.534 --> 00:23:01.955
 changed by just that many
 
 00:23:02.016 --> 00:23:03.276
 more visitors and the
 
 00:23:03.316 --> 00:23:04.636
 trolley the trolley is
 
 00:23:04.696 --> 00:23:05.317
 really the main
 
 00:23:06.018 --> 00:23:06.837
 thoroughfare to mount
 
 00:23:06.877 --> 00:23:08.239
 vernon from 1892 until the 1930s
 
 00:23:10.289 --> 00:23:11.911
 when the George Washington
 
 00:23:11.971 --> 00:23:14.511
 Parkway is built on
 
 00:23:14.612 --> 00:23:16.192
 essentially the same route
 
 00:23:16.313 --> 00:23:18.213
 as the trolley route.
 
 00:23:18.814 --> 00:23:20.335
 Since then, it's been automobile traffic.
 
 00:23:20.795 --> 00:23:21.576
 Right, right.
 
 00:23:22.756 --> 00:23:26.458
 And so Sarah leaves and things do change.
 
 00:23:26.498 --> 00:23:28.599
 And then you mentioned in 1965,
 
 00:23:28.599 --> 00:23:30.701
 there's another change
 
 00:23:30.760 --> 00:23:33.281
 happening with the staff.
 
 00:23:34.311 --> 00:23:35.252
 Yeah,
 
 00:23:35.292 --> 00:23:36.394
 that's the point at which Mount
 
 00:23:36.413 --> 00:23:39.316
 Vernon does not replace its
 
 00:23:39.395 --> 00:23:41.096
 last African-American guard
 
 00:23:41.196 --> 00:23:43.318
 at the tomb with somebody
 
 00:23:43.598 --> 00:23:45.180
 to play quite that same role.
 
 00:23:46.441 --> 00:23:47.701
 I don't have evidence.
 
 00:23:47.741 --> 00:23:48.623
 I never was able to find
 
 00:23:48.682 --> 00:23:50.943
 evidence about why that was the case.
 
 00:23:51.984 --> 00:23:52.905
 I think it probably has
 
 00:23:52.925 --> 00:23:55.688
 something to do with people
 
 00:23:55.827 --> 00:23:57.608
 recognizing that kind of
 
 00:23:57.669 --> 00:23:59.590
 racial portrayal as something...
 
 00:24:01.231 --> 00:24:01.893
 out of the past,
 
 00:24:02.012 --> 00:24:03.973
 not really as relevant to a
 
 00:24:04.035 --> 00:24:05.375
 world of the civil rights
 
 00:24:05.435 --> 00:24:06.517
 movement and so on.
 
 00:24:07.237 --> 00:24:09.459
 It takes several decades, I think,
 
 00:24:09.499 --> 00:24:10.900
 for Mount Vernon to
 
 00:24:11.161 --> 00:24:13.402
 incorporate Black history
 
 00:24:13.623 --> 00:24:15.663
 into its presentation to
 
 00:24:15.683 --> 00:24:17.506
 the extent now it's part of
 
 00:24:17.625 --> 00:24:19.887
 almost everything that Mount Vernon does.
 
 00:24:20.367 --> 00:24:22.170
 I believe the first tour,
 
 00:24:22.190 --> 00:24:23.290
 I think it was called at
 
 00:24:23.330 --> 00:24:24.832
 the time that the Slave
 
 00:24:24.912 --> 00:24:26.053
 Life Tour or something like
 
 00:24:26.093 --> 00:24:29.894
 that was started in the 19...
 
 00:24:29.894 --> 00:24:34.837
 70s by a Black woman who was an employee,
 
 00:24:34.877 --> 00:24:36.038
 a guide at Mount Vernon.
 
 00:24:36.078 --> 00:24:37.680
 So Mount Vernon had hired
 
 00:24:37.720 --> 00:24:39.862
 somebody who was part of
 
 00:24:39.961 --> 00:24:40.882
 the longtime
 
 00:24:41.163 --> 00:24:42.604
 African-American community in
 
 00:24:42.644 --> 00:24:43.443
 the neighborhood.
 
 00:24:44.065 --> 00:24:45.826
 Some of her descendants, I'm sorry,
 
 00:24:45.846 --> 00:24:47.267
 some of her ancestors had
 
 00:24:47.287 --> 00:24:49.268
 been people freed by the
 
 00:24:49.307 --> 00:24:50.788
 terms of Washington's will.
 
 00:24:51.308 --> 00:24:54.391
 And so that tour begins in the 70s.
 
 00:24:54.811 --> 00:24:56.593
 It's really in the last 15
 
 00:24:56.593 --> 00:24:59.194
 years that Mount Vernon has worked to
 
 00:25:00.214 --> 00:25:03.538
 incorporate the lives of enslaved people,
 
 00:25:03.557 --> 00:25:05.859
 specific enslaved people,
 
 00:25:05.940 --> 00:25:07.240
 not just generic ones,
 
 00:25:07.721 --> 00:25:10.263
 into its entire presentation.
 
 00:25:10.324 --> 00:25:12.746
 And certainly you can see that now.
 
 00:25:13.185 --> 00:25:14.626
 And you mentioned something earlier, Bob,
 
 00:25:14.666 --> 00:25:15.827
 that I think is really important.
 
 00:25:16.469 --> 00:25:17.088
 Mount Vernon
 
 00:25:18.170 --> 00:25:20.070
 may be the best documented
 
 00:25:20.191 --> 00:25:21.571
 American 18th century
 
 00:25:21.632 --> 00:25:23.432
 plantation that exists
 
 00:25:23.692 --> 00:25:24.834
 because George Washington
 
 00:25:25.653 --> 00:25:26.734
 kept all the records.
 
 00:25:27.795 --> 00:25:28.935
 We know people's names.
 
 00:25:31.637 --> 00:25:34.378
 Mount Vernon today has an
 
 00:25:34.459 --> 00:25:36.099
 open access database of the
 
 00:25:36.140 --> 00:25:37.201
 enslaved people who were
 
 00:25:37.221 --> 00:25:39.761
 there in Washington's time.
 
 00:25:40.142 --> 00:25:41.823
 We can do that kind of work.
 
 00:25:43.913 --> 00:25:44.993
 lots of scholars are trying
 
 00:25:45.013 --> 00:25:45.953
 to do that work for many
 
 00:25:46.013 --> 00:25:46.934
 other sites as well.
 
 00:25:47.115 --> 00:25:47.775
 Right.
 
 00:25:48.335 --> 00:25:49.894
 We're talking with Scott Casper,
 
 00:25:49.934 --> 00:25:51.036
 President of the American
 
 00:25:51.076 --> 00:25:53.195
 Antiquarian Society and
 
 00:25:53.395 --> 00:25:55.516
 author of Sarah Johnson's Mount Vernon,
 
 00:25:55.557 --> 00:25:58.076
 Forgotten History of an American Shrine.
 
 00:25:59.497 --> 00:26:00.136
 It is fascinating.
 
 00:26:00.218 --> 00:26:02.238
 Washington was a great record keeper,
 
 00:26:02.258 --> 00:26:05.419
 also a very demanding owner
 
 00:26:05.679 --> 00:26:06.999
 as well as a demanding general.
 
 00:26:07.118 --> 00:26:08.479
 It's one reason he knew what
 
 00:26:08.558 --> 00:26:09.740
 everyone should be doing
 
 00:26:10.259 --> 00:26:11.559
 all the time on his farm.
 
 00:26:12.835 --> 00:26:13.655
 So it benefits us.
 
 00:26:13.675 --> 00:26:14.435
 It might not have been such
 
 00:26:14.476 --> 00:26:16.298
 a benefit to the enslaved
 
 00:26:16.337 --> 00:26:17.638
 people or the soldiers,
 
 00:26:17.898 --> 00:26:21.181
 but Washington was, yeah.
 
 00:26:21.540 --> 00:26:24.022
 Now, you mentioned that Trowbridge,
 
 00:26:24.063 --> 00:26:24.883
 the abolitionist,
 
 00:26:24.923 --> 00:26:26.364
 writes an account of
 
 00:26:26.523 --> 00:26:27.704
 meeting Sarah Johnson.
 
 00:26:28.085 --> 00:26:29.026
 But you also say that the
 
 00:26:29.105 --> 00:26:30.426
 story that the African
 
 00:26:30.446 --> 00:26:32.248
 Americans would tell would
 
 00:26:32.387 --> 00:26:34.690
 also satisfy kind of an
 
 00:26:34.750 --> 00:26:36.371
 idea of the Old South.
 
 00:26:36.510 --> 00:26:38.271
 What kind of a master was Washington?
 
 00:26:39.992 --> 00:26:42.594
 a story that can appeal to
 
 00:26:42.653 --> 00:26:44.454
 people with very different
 
 00:26:44.615 --> 00:26:46.435
 sensibilities or ideologies?
 
 00:26:48.176 --> 00:26:48.836
 Absolutely.
 
 00:26:49.616 --> 00:26:51.478
 I think that the African
 
 00:26:51.518 --> 00:26:54.118
 Americans who talked with
 
 00:26:54.479 --> 00:26:56.019
 white visitors in the 19th
 
 00:26:56.059 --> 00:26:59.162
 century were experts in
 
 00:26:59.362 --> 00:27:01.021
 calibrating their stories
 
 00:27:01.623 --> 00:27:04.943
 to what the visitors came to hear.
 
 00:27:06.204 --> 00:27:07.305
 So, for example, in the 1830s,
 
 00:27:10.656 --> 00:27:11.398
 Oliver Smith,
 
 00:27:12.040 --> 00:27:13.023
 who had been brought there by
 
 00:27:13.064 --> 00:27:15.999
 Bushrod Washington in 1802,
 
 00:27:15.999 --> 00:27:17.559
 is talking with somebody he
 
 00:27:17.640 --> 00:27:20.261
 must have recognized as an abolitionist.
 
 00:27:20.801 --> 00:27:22.242
 And this is somebody who's
 
 00:27:22.323 --> 00:27:25.085
 writing a piece for the Liberator,
 
 00:27:25.125 --> 00:27:27.366
 the famous abolitionist
 
 00:27:27.406 --> 00:27:28.708
 newspaper of the 1830s.
 
 00:27:29.347 --> 00:27:30.509
 And to that visitor,
 
 00:27:31.249 --> 00:27:32.710
 Oliver Smith talks about
 
 00:27:33.371 --> 00:27:34.872
 members of his family and
 
 00:27:34.932 --> 00:27:37.093
 community having been sold away.
 
 00:27:37.394 --> 00:27:41.776
 He talks about what a horrific thing
 
 00:27:42.636 --> 00:27:44.038
 enslavement was.
 
 00:27:44.678 --> 00:27:45.878
 With other visitors,
 
 00:27:46.578 --> 00:27:48.220
 he does not disabuse them
 
 00:27:48.579 --> 00:27:50.760
 of their notion that he had
 
 00:27:50.800 --> 00:27:54.102
 been there when Washington died.
 
 00:27:54.201 --> 00:27:56.323
 He was mourning Washington.
 
 00:27:56.344 --> 00:27:58.845
 So we see this throughout
 
 00:27:58.964 --> 00:28:00.244
 the 19th century.
 
 00:28:01.665 --> 00:28:03.166
 Edmund Parker is another great case.
 
 00:28:03.326 --> 00:28:06.468
 Day after day after day at the tomb for
 
 00:28:06.468 --> 00:28:09.887
 30 plus years,
 
 00:28:10.587 --> 00:28:13.650
 he tells the story of Washington's death.
 
 00:28:13.710 --> 00:28:16.090
 He tells the story of the
 
 00:28:16.171 --> 00:28:17.832
 tomb and the family,
 
 00:28:18.031 --> 00:28:18.932
 the Washington family
 
 00:28:18.972 --> 00:28:20.272
 members who've been at that tomb.
 
 00:28:20.833 --> 00:28:22.094
 And he, as far as we know,
 
 00:28:22.473 --> 00:28:24.234
 barely ever says a word
 
 00:28:24.654 --> 00:28:26.977
 about his own experience as
 
 00:28:27.237 --> 00:28:29.458
 the father of more than 10 children,
 
 00:28:29.917 --> 00:28:30.898
 as somebody who had
 
 00:28:30.999 --> 00:28:32.359
 actually run away from
 
 00:28:32.400 --> 00:28:34.240
 Mount Vernon to work for
 
 00:28:34.259 --> 00:28:35.621
 the Union Army during the Civil War.
 
 00:28:35.760 --> 00:28:36.761
 He doesn't tell that story.
 
 00:28:37.221 --> 00:28:38.922
 as far as we know, to tourists.
 
 00:28:39.202 --> 00:28:41.423
 But on his deathbed in 1898,
 
 00:28:41.423 --> 00:28:43.644
 a Washington Post reporter
 
 00:28:43.743 --> 00:28:44.923
 comes to visit him,
 
 00:28:45.544 --> 00:28:47.444
 and he tells the whole thing.
 
 00:28:47.944 --> 00:28:50.586
 He tells about how slavery
 
 00:28:51.066 --> 00:28:53.226
 was a terrifying institution.
 
 00:28:53.686 --> 00:28:56.666
 Your mind was terrified all the time,
 
 00:28:56.767 --> 00:28:58.028
 and it robbed you of the
 
 00:28:58.087 --> 00:28:59.367
 opportunity for education.
 
 00:29:00.107 --> 00:29:00.709
 All of that.
 
 00:29:00.729 --> 00:29:03.969
 So they know whom they're talking to.
 
 00:29:06.993 --> 00:29:11.919
 what is okay to say given
 
 00:29:13.299 --> 00:29:14.621
 the person to whom they're
 
 00:29:14.661 --> 00:29:17.462
 speaking and given the role
 
 00:29:17.502 --> 00:29:19.045
 they have and the job they have.
 
 00:29:19.065 --> 00:29:21.727
 Because they're receiving monthly pay.
 
 00:29:21.826 --> 00:29:23.067
 This is their work site.
 
 00:29:23.749 --> 00:29:25.851
 And I think they are mindful
 
 00:29:26.211 --> 00:29:28.133
 of staying in their
 
 00:29:28.192 --> 00:29:29.973
 employer's good graces.
 
 00:29:31.009 --> 00:29:32.191
 At the same time,
 
 00:29:32.570 --> 00:29:33.550
 they have lives of their own.
 
 00:29:34.112 --> 00:29:34.311
 Right.
 
 00:29:34.632 --> 00:29:37.693
 It's amazing to think about Frederick,
 
 00:29:38.013 --> 00:29:39.095
 Ralph Ellison or someone
 
 00:29:39.154 --> 00:29:40.935
 else making that same point
 
 00:29:41.036 --> 00:29:44.096
 about this way we talk or
 
 00:29:44.156 --> 00:29:45.198
 the way we present.
 
 00:29:45.817 --> 00:29:46.219
 That's right.
 
 00:29:46.558 --> 00:29:46.719
 Yeah.
 
 00:29:46.778 --> 00:29:47.419
 I mean,
 
 00:29:47.459 --> 00:29:49.661
 you could describe it in today's
 
 00:29:49.820 --> 00:29:51.981
 parlance as versions of code switching.
 
 00:29:53.323 --> 00:29:55.144
 This is what's going on all
 
 00:29:55.203 --> 00:29:57.724
 the time at Mount Vernon in
 
 00:29:57.744 --> 00:29:58.645
 the 19th century.
 
 00:29:59.006 --> 00:29:59.185
 Right.
 
 00:30:00.090 --> 00:30:00.851
 And you also tell the story
 
 00:30:00.871 --> 00:30:02.011
 about during the Civil War
 
 00:30:02.112 --> 00:30:02.971
 when Mount Vernon is
 
 00:30:03.032 --> 00:30:04.593
 visited both by Union
 
 00:30:04.653 --> 00:30:06.453
 soldiers and Confederate soldiers,
 
 00:30:06.574 --> 00:30:07.634
 and there's a way the
 
 00:30:07.755 --> 00:30:09.256
 ladies make sure they're
 
 00:30:09.296 --> 00:30:10.556
 not taking sides.
 
 00:30:11.336 --> 00:30:11.817
 Exactly.
 
 00:30:11.896 --> 00:30:13.837
 They require the Ladies Association,
 
 00:30:14.077 --> 00:30:15.239
 which has just taken over
 
 00:30:15.298 --> 00:30:16.278
 the property from John
 
 00:30:16.318 --> 00:30:17.220
 Augustine Washington III,
 
 00:30:18.220 --> 00:30:20.201
 They require that soldiers
 
 00:30:20.300 --> 00:30:21.721
 who come onto the property
 
 00:30:22.281 --> 00:30:23.903
 leave their weapons on the
 
 00:30:23.962 --> 00:30:25.544
 outside of the property and
 
 00:30:25.584 --> 00:30:27.085
 that if they're wearing uniforms,
 
 00:30:27.345 --> 00:30:28.826
 they cover those uniforms
 
 00:30:29.185 --> 00:30:31.027
 with a shawl or a cape or
 
 00:30:31.067 --> 00:30:33.348
 something else so that the
 
 00:30:33.429 --> 00:30:34.650
 Ladies Association and
 
 00:30:34.690 --> 00:30:36.651
 Mount Vernon can remain a
 
 00:30:37.250 --> 00:30:39.011
 kind of neutral and sacred
 
 00:30:39.071 --> 00:30:41.493
 ground to Americans on both
 
 00:30:41.594 --> 00:30:43.194
 sides because both the
 
 00:30:43.295 --> 00:30:44.394
 Union and the Confederacy
 
 00:30:44.434 --> 00:30:44.996
 thought of George
 
 00:30:45.036 --> 00:30:47.277
 Washington as their founding father.
 
 00:30:47.676 --> 00:30:48.038
 That's right.
 
 00:30:48.498 --> 00:30:50.019
 And the ladies who were made
 
 00:30:50.119 --> 00:30:52.202
 up of elite women from both
 
 00:30:52.282 --> 00:30:53.163
 northern and southern
 
 00:30:53.243 --> 00:30:56.288
 states had a real stake in
 
 00:30:56.548 --> 00:30:58.230
 maintaining Mount Vernon's
 
 00:30:59.092 --> 00:31:02.215
 national image and reputation.
 
 00:31:05.594 --> 00:31:06.996
 And you tell the story about
 
 00:31:07.036 --> 00:31:09.317
 when Sarah Johnson remarries,
 
 00:31:09.498 --> 00:31:10.619
 that her dress,
 
 00:31:11.000 --> 00:31:11.820
 there's a connection with
 
 00:31:11.840 --> 00:31:13.142
 the Illinois Society,
 
 00:31:13.323 --> 00:31:14.703
 and you have the wedding
 
 00:31:14.743 --> 00:31:16.046
 invitation that was sent.
 
 00:31:16.546 --> 00:31:19.328
 It's an amazing story in her scrapbook.
 
 00:31:20.250 --> 00:31:20.611
 I would...
 
 00:31:22.054 --> 00:31:23.715
 That wedding invitation may
 
 00:31:23.776 --> 00:31:26.439
 have been the most moving
 
 00:31:26.578 --> 00:31:29.143
 thing I found in doing the research.
 
 00:31:29.222 --> 00:31:31.566
 So Sarah is a widow at this point.
 
 00:31:31.625 --> 00:31:32.126
 It's 1888.
 
 00:31:33.508 --> 00:31:36.412
 And she has met the man, William Robinson,
 
 00:31:36.432 --> 00:31:37.854
 who will become her second husband.
 
 00:31:38.535 --> 00:31:39.876
 And they're planning the wedding.
 
 00:31:40.436 --> 00:31:42.898
 And clearly the Mount Vernon ladies,
 
 00:31:42.959 --> 00:31:43.999
 that is the elite white
 
 00:31:44.019 --> 00:31:46.500
 women who own and manage Mount Vernon,
 
 00:31:47.280 --> 00:31:48.321
 know about her wedding.
 
 00:31:48.662 --> 00:31:49.883
 They write letters to one
 
 00:31:49.942 --> 00:31:52.865
 another and to the superintendent, Dodge,
 
 00:31:52.984 --> 00:31:54.045
 about this wedding.
 
 00:31:54.705 --> 00:31:56.787
 One of the ladies provides
 
 00:31:56.826 --> 00:31:58.387
 the material for the dress,
 
 00:31:58.428 --> 00:32:00.249
 the yellow fabric for her dress.
 
 00:32:00.888 --> 00:32:02.650
 And then in one of the other
 
 00:32:02.690 --> 00:32:04.050
 ladies' scrapbooks,
 
 00:32:04.191 --> 00:32:06.292
 Mrs. Margaret Sweet of Maine,
 
 00:32:07.212 --> 00:32:08.594
 In her scrapbook about Mount
 
 00:32:08.634 --> 00:32:10.415
 Vernon is preserved the
 
 00:32:10.476 --> 00:32:13.919
 engraved invitation to Sarah's wedding.
 
 00:32:14.859 --> 00:32:17.602
 And in Mrs. Sweet's handwriting,
 
 00:32:17.942 --> 00:32:19.544
 there is the handwritten note,
 
 00:32:19.923 --> 00:32:21.905
 longtime housekeeper at Mount Vernon.
 
 00:32:22.366 --> 00:32:25.028
 So we get a sense that this
 
 00:32:25.670 --> 00:32:27.550
 black woman who had been
 
 00:32:27.711 --> 00:32:28.932
 connected with the ladies
 
 00:32:28.992 --> 00:32:30.473
 for more than 20 years by now,
 
 00:32:31.193 --> 00:32:34.557
 had invited them to her wedding.
 
 00:32:35.478 --> 00:32:37.599
 They had a relationship that
 
 00:32:37.619 --> 00:32:39.261
 I would describe as more
 
 00:32:39.321 --> 00:32:41.423
 than just employer and employee.
 
 00:32:42.365 --> 00:32:44.185
 She was the one who served
 
 00:32:44.246 --> 00:32:45.287
 them most directly when
 
 00:32:45.307 --> 00:32:47.628
 they came for their council
 
 00:32:47.648 --> 00:32:48.789
 meetings twice a year.
 
 00:32:50.022 --> 00:32:52.864
 they think of her as somebody,
 
 00:32:53.064 --> 00:32:55.125
 a valued member of this community.
 
 00:32:55.846 --> 00:32:57.866
 They go to her for advice
 
 00:32:58.146 --> 00:32:59.867
 about what this place,
 
 00:32:59.928 --> 00:33:00.988
 what this room looked like
 
 00:33:01.248 --> 00:33:02.348
 before the Civil War,
 
 00:33:02.409 --> 00:33:05.190
 because she was there before and so on.
 
 00:33:05.529 --> 00:33:07.111
 So the story of her wedding
 
 00:33:07.290 --> 00:33:08.471
 really gives you a sense of
 
 00:33:08.511 --> 00:33:09.451
 this whole community,
 
 00:33:09.811 --> 00:33:12.814
 including the fact that Sarah's
 
 00:33:13.473 --> 00:33:13.794
 neighbors,
 
 00:33:13.834 --> 00:33:15.234
 her African-American neighbors
 
 00:33:15.335 --> 00:33:16.115
 from the surrounding
 
 00:33:16.134 --> 00:33:17.976
 community came to celebrate with her,
 
 00:33:18.215 --> 00:33:19.537
 which reminds us that Mount
 
 00:33:19.557 --> 00:33:22.137
 Vernon is not just a national site,
 
 00:33:22.458 --> 00:33:23.798
 but also very much part of
 
 00:33:23.838 --> 00:33:25.160
 a local landscape,
 
 00:33:25.259 --> 00:33:26.759
 a local black landscape
 
 00:33:27.119 --> 00:33:29.422
 that most visitors never saw.
 
 00:33:30.942 --> 00:33:31.742
 It's an amazing story.
 
 00:33:31.782 --> 00:33:33.143
 We're talking with Scott Casper,
 
 00:33:33.282 --> 00:33:35.324
 author of Sarah Johnson's Mount Vernon,
 
 00:33:35.364 --> 00:33:37.704
 Forgotten History of an American Shrine,
 
 00:33:38.526 --> 00:33:40.467
 which is a great book, as well as,
 
 00:33:40.626 --> 00:33:41.007
 you know,
 
 00:33:41.027 --> 00:33:42.087
 you've also wrote a great book
 
 00:33:42.107 --> 00:33:42.867
 called Constructing
 
 00:33:45.439 --> 00:33:47.359
 in 19th century America and
 
 00:33:47.380 --> 00:33:48.740
 have co-edited a number of
 
 00:33:48.861 --> 00:33:50.903
 books on the history of the
 
 00:33:50.942 --> 00:33:52.644
 book and the history of print culture.
 
 00:33:52.663 --> 00:33:54.404
 And so I'm wondering now
 
 00:33:54.444 --> 00:33:55.605
 that you're at one of the
 
 00:33:55.645 --> 00:33:56.925
 real centers for the study
 
 00:33:56.945 --> 00:33:57.686
 of print culture,
 
 00:33:57.727 --> 00:33:58.507
 if you have some new
 
 00:33:58.567 --> 00:33:59.807
 project or if simply
 
 00:33:59.887 --> 00:34:01.409
 running the AAS is enough
 
 00:34:01.449 --> 00:34:02.589
 to keep anyone busy.
 
 00:34:03.848 --> 00:34:05.490
 My project is making sure
 
 00:34:05.509 --> 00:34:06.170
 that the American
 
 00:34:06.210 --> 00:34:07.349
 Antiquarian Society
 
 00:34:07.690 --> 00:34:09.610
 continues to do for
 
 00:34:10.570 --> 00:34:11.911
 generations of scholarship
 
 00:34:12.012 --> 00:34:13.172
 now and into the future
 
 00:34:13.791 --> 00:34:15.313
 what it has done for me
 
 00:34:15.693 --> 00:34:16.932
 over my career and has done
 
 00:34:16.952 --> 00:34:19.233
 for so many other people, which is to be-
 
 00:34:20.134 --> 00:34:21.914
 a vital collection that's
 
 00:34:21.994 --> 00:34:23.635
 accessible to more and more
 
 00:34:23.675 --> 00:34:25.275
 people access is really
 
 00:34:25.315 --> 00:34:26.416
 important to us thinking
 
 00:34:26.476 --> 00:34:28.336
 about digitization projects
 
 00:34:28.478 --> 00:34:29.797
 as well as as physical
 
 00:34:30.077 --> 00:34:32.119
 access to the materials and
 
 00:34:32.179 --> 00:34:33.980
 that these materials be
 
 00:34:34.039 --> 00:34:36.300
 available to generations of
 
 00:34:36.380 --> 00:34:38.702
 researchers to come from as
 
 00:34:38.722 --> 00:34:40.501
 wide a variety of
 
 00:34:40.623 --> 00:34:42.242
 backgrounds as possible I
 
 00:34:42.262 --> 00:34:43.143
 mean that to me is
 
 00:34:44.503 --> 00:34:46.045
 the project right now.
 
 00:34:46.927 --> 00:34:48.590
 I have small things I work on.
 
 00:34:49.431 --> 00:34:51.313
 I'm still teaching K-12
 
 00:34:51.353 --> 00:34:53.114
 teachers every summer at Mount Vernon.
 
 00:34:53.235 --> 00:34:54.757
 I teach at Bear Book School
 
 00:34:54.836 --> 00:34:55.557
 every other year.
 
 00:34:55.577 --> 00:34:57.521
 I have little essay projects,
 
 00:34:57.621 --> 00:35:00.264
 but really my focus is
 
 00:35:01.306 --> 00:35:02.387
 ensuring that this place
 
 00:35:03.307 --> 00:35:05.329
 remains what it has been and
 
 00:35:05.389 --> 00:35:06.969
 remains and becomes that
 
 00:35:07.650 --> 00:35:09.090
 for more and more people
 
 00:35:09.451 --> 00:35:11.472
 who might over its first
 
 00:35:11.512 --> 00:35:13.353
 two centuries not have felt
 
 00:35:13.413 --> 00:35:14.672
 as though this was the place for them,
 
 00:35:14.974 --> 00:35:16.813
 might not have known about
 
 00:35:16.873 --> 00:35:18.414
 the breadth of our collections.
 
 00:35:18.755 --> 00:35:20.195
 The fact that we have the
 
 00:35:20.335 --> 00:35:22.336
 deepest collection of material,
 
 00:35:22.597 --> 00:35:23.858
 early Hawaiian printed
 
 00:35:23.898 --> 00:35:25.898
 materials anywhere outside
 
 00:35:25.918 --> 00:35:26.878
 the Hawaiian islands.
 
 00:35:27.800 --> 00:35:28.519
 People don't know that.
 
 00:35:28.860 --> 00:35:29.880
 We have extraordinary
 
 00:35:29.940 --> 00:35:30.860
 collections for
 
 00:35:31.001 --> 00:35:33.762
 African-American history and scholarship.
 
 00:35:33.782 --> 00:35:35.083
 A lot of people don't know that.
 
 00:35:35.423 --> 00:35:37.244
 So getting the word out
 
 00:35:37.385 --> 00:35:38.326
 about our collections,
 
 00:35:38.786 --> 00:35:40.246
 making the connection with
 
 00:35:40.606 --> 00:35:42.307
 communities that might be interested,
 
 00:35:42.789 --> 00:35:44.750
 that's our work and that's really
 
 00:35:45.764 --> 00:35:46.445
 That's my project.
 
 00:35:46.826 --> 00:35:47.467
 That's terrific.
 
 00:35:47.967 --> 00:35:49.869
 You also have the Cherokee Phoenix,
 
 00:35:49.889 --> 00:35:52.112
 the newspaper of the... We do.
 
 00:35:52.211 --> 00:35:54.675
 We have perhaps the best run
 
 00:35:54.695 --> 00:35:56.257
 of the Cherokee Phoenix anywhere,
 
 00:35:56.777 --> 00:35:57.878
 which was the newspaper
 
 00:35:58.960 --> 00:35:59.900
 created in the late 1820s
 
 00:35:59.920 --> 00:36:00.382
 that really helped...
 
 00:36:03.385 --> 00:36:05.106
 assert Cherokee national
 
 00:36:05.166 --> 00:36:06.146
 sovereignty in the late
 
 00:36:06.867 --> 00:36:08.628
 1820s and that continued
 
 00:36:08.668 --> 00:36:10.208
 publication after the
 
 00:36:10.650 --> 00:36:11.929
 Cherokee Nation moved to
 
 00:36:12.190 --> 00:36:13.891
 what was then called Indian Territory.
 
 00:36:14.931 --> 00:36:15.552
 So yes,
 
 00:36:15.592 --> 00:36:17.813
 we have newspapers published in
 
 00:36:17.914 --> 00:36:20.436
 Cherokee language, in German, French.
 
 00:36:20.976 --> 00:36:22.476
 We acquired a newspaper
 
 00:36:22.516 --> 00:36:24.418
 published in Welsh last year.
 
 00:36:24.878 --> 00:36:26.460
 It's a remarkable collection,
 
 00:36:26.559 --> 00:36:27.739
 two and a half million
 
 00:36:28.701 --> 00:36:31.583
 American newspapers before
 
 00:36:31.583 --> 00:36:34.125
 1900 from every part of
 
 00:36:34.184 --> 00:36:35.565
 what's now the United States,
 
 00:36:35.987 --> 00:36:38.407
 as well as the Caribbean,
 
 00:36:39.688 --> 00:36:40.369
 another part of our
 
 00:36:40.409 --> 00:36:41.371
 collection that people may
 
 00:36:41.411 --> 00:36:42.150
 not know about.
 
 00:36:42.170 --> 00:36:44.432
 So if you're if you're
 
 00:36:44.532 --> 00:36:46.213
 interested in the printed
 
 00:36:46.253 --> 00:36:48.076
 material of the pre 20th
 
 00:36:48.115 --> 00:36:49.416
 century American past,
 
 00:36:50.456 --> 00:36:51.557
 you could do no better than
 
 00:36:51.617 --> 00:36:52.599
 to to come here.
 
 00:36:54.126 --> 00:36:54.387
 Thank you.
 
 00:36:54.427 --> 00:36:55.806
 We've been talking with Scott Casper,
 
 00:36:55.847 --> 00:36:57.068
 who is the president of the
 
 00:36:57.188 --> 00:37:00.371
 American Antiquarian Society in Worcester,
 
 00:37:00.411 --> 00:37:01.811
 Massachusetts, one of the great,
 
 00:37:02.492 --> 00:37:04.492
 great treasures in North
 
 00:37:04.532 --> 00:37:05.974
 America for the study of history.
 
 00:37:06.014 --> 00:37:06.875
 So thank you, Scott,
 
 00:37:06.954 --> 00:37:08.556
 both for doing this and for
 
 00:37:09.076 --> 00:37:09.936
 talking to us today.
 
 00:37:10.536 --> 00:37:11.498
 Bob, thank you so much.
 
 00:37:11.538 --> 00:37:12.378
 It's been a real pleasure.
 
 00:37:13.920 --> 00:37:14.940
 And so thank you.
 
 00:37:14.981 --> 00:37:16.681
 And I want to thank Jonathan Lane,
 
 00:37:16.742 --> 00:37:18.563
 our producer, the man behind the curtain.
 
 00:37:19.164 --> 00:37:20.186
 And our listeners.
 
 00:37:20.246 --> 00:37:21.889
 We have listeners all over the world.
 
 00:37:21.909 --> 00:37:23.451
 We do a lot in Massachusetts,
 
 00:37:23.510 --> 00:37:24.932
 but in far-flung places.
 
 00:37:25.012 --> 00:37:25.793
 So today,
 
 00:37:25.813 --> 00:37:27.275
 if you're one of these places and
 
 00:37:27.295 --> 00:37:28.617
 want some of our Revolution 250 swag,
 
 00:37:30.170 --> 00:37:31.652
 send Jonathan Lane an email,
 
 00:37:31.711 --> 00:37:33.974
 jlane at revolution250.org.
 
 00:37:34.835 --> 00:37:35.795
 And let's see.
 
 00:37:35.835 --> 00:37:36.396
 So this week,
 
 00:37:36.476 --> 00:37:37.956
 I want to thank folks in Frankfurt,
 
 00:37:38.117 --> 00:37:39.157
 on Maine, in Hess,
 
 00:37:39.297 --> 00:37:41.900
 and here in Massachusetts, in Foxborough,
 
 00:37:42.001 --> 00:37:44.643
 Lynn, and Brighton, and in Coolidge,
 
 00:37:44.702 --> 00:37:47.304
 Arizona, High Springs, Florida, Louisburg,
 
 00:37:47.405 --> 00:37:48.306
 North Carolina,
 
 00:37:48.766 --> 00:37:50.467
 and all places between and beyond.
 
 00:37:50.507 --> 00:37:51.387
 Thanks for joining us.
 
 00:37:51.467 --> 00:37:52.588
 And now we'll be piped out
 
 00:37:52.768 --> 00:37:53.469
 on the road to Boston.