1 00:00:07,050 --> 00:00:11,270 Claire Bown: Hello and welcome to The Art Engager podcast with me, Claire Bown. 2 00:00:14,370 --> 00:00:18,510 I'm here to share techniques and tools to help you engage with your audience 3 00:00:18,600 --> 00:00:21,990 and bring art objects and ideas to life. 4 00:00:23,220 --> 00:00:24,840 So let's dive into this week's show. 5 00:00:28,410 --> 00:00:31,710 Hello and welcome back to the Art Engager podcast. 6 00:00:32,070 --> 00:00:37,350 I'm Claire Bown, and today we're exploring what it takes to design and lead guided 7 00:00:37,350 --> 00:00:43,710 experiences in places shaped by powerful and complex figures from the past. 8 00:00:44,550 --> 00:00:49,740 I'm joined by Brandon Dillard, director of historic interpretation and audience 9 00:00:49,740 --> 00:00:52,440 engagement at Monticello in Virginia. 10 00:00:52,890 --> 00:00:56,700 And Kelsie Paul, director of Learning and Visitor Experience 11 00:00:56,730 --> 00:00:58,170 at the Frick Pittsburgh. 12 00:00:59,474 --> 00:01:04,455 Monticello is the historic home of Thomas Jefferson, third president of 13 00:01:04,455 --> 00:01:09,345 the United States and principal author of The Declaration of Independence. 14 00:01:09,615 --> 00:01:14,445 It is also a site where hundreds of people were enslaved during his lifetime. 15 00:01:15,225 --> 00:01:19,725 Clayton at the Frick Pittsburgh was the home of industrialist, Henry 16 00:01:19,725 --> 00:01:24,854 Clay Frick, whose wealth was built in coal and steel and whose name, 17 00:01:24,945 --> 00:01:29,265 particularly in Pittsburgh, remains closely associated with a violent labor 18 00:01:29,265 --> 00:01:31,725 conflict in the late 19th century. 19 00:01:33,014 --> 00:01:37,035 In our conversation, we look at how both institutions have reimagined 20 00:01:37,095 --> 00:01:41,925 their guided experiences in response to those complicated legacies. 21 00:01:43,514 --> 00:01:47,505 Brandon traces the long evolution of interpretation at Monticello, 22 00:01:47,775 --> 00:01:51,705 including how the history of slavery and Jefferson's relationship with 23 00:01:51,705 --> 00:01:56,384 Sally Hemmings moved from the margins of their tour to the center of it. 24 00:01:57,344 --> 00:02:02,085 Kelsie shares the redesign of Clayton's longstanding house tour into what 25 00:02:02,085 --> 00:02:04,875 is now called 'Gilded, Not Golden'. 26 00:02:05,145 --> 00:02:09,134 I also had the chance to experience this tour for myself when I was in 27 00:02:09,134 --> 00:02:14,234 Pittsburgh last year, and she talks about the process, one that involved 28 00:02:14,234 --> 00:02:19,875 research advisory, input, community response, and a great deal of 29 00:02:19,875 --> 00:02:22,484 conversation within the organization. 30 00:02:23,924 --> 00:02:29,115 We talk about moving from lecture style guiding to facilitating dialogue and 31 00:02:29,115 --> 00:02:35,325 conversations about hiring for empathy and investing seriously in guide training 32 00:02:35,595 --> 00:02:41,265 about supporting guides to navigate disagreement, and about what it means 33 00:02:41,265 --> 00:02:46,605 to hold space for complexity when visitors sometimes with sharply opposing 34 00:02:46,605 --> 00:02:49,305 perspectives, share the same room. 35 00:02:50,055 --> 00:02:55,635 Brandon and Kelsie also speak honestly about what it took to make those changes. 36 00:02:55,875 --> 00:03:00,315 The many long internal conversations, the resistance they 37 00:03:00,315 --> 00:03:04,545 encountered, the restructuring of teams, and the recognition 38 00:03:04,695 --> 00:03:07,125 that this work is never finished. 39 00:03:08,295 --> 00:03:13,185 Finally, we also reflect on how this work sits within the present moment. 40 00:03:13,605 --> 00:03:20,355 In 2026, the United States marks the 250th anniversary of the Declaration 41 00:03:20,385 --> 00:03:25,845 of Independence, and institutions like Monticello are thinking carefully 42 00:03:26,025 --> 00:03:28,755 about what that milestone asks of them. 43 00:03:29,955 --> 00:03:35,145 So if you are working with complicated histories, thinking about redesigning 44 00:03:35,145 --> 00:03:41,535 a tour or reflecting on the civic role of museums in times of polarization, 45 00:03:41,745 --> 00:03:46,455 I think you'll find lots and lots of useful insights in this episode. 46 00:03:46,845 --> 00:03:47,475 Enjoy. 47 00:03:50,940 --> 00:03:54,420 Hi, Kelsie and Brandon, welcome to The Art Engager Podcast. 48 00:03:55,649 --> 00:03:56,255 Brandon Dillard: Thank you for having us. 49 00:03:57,705 --> 00:04:00,255 Claire Bown: So I wonder if you could both briefly introduce 50 00:04:00,255 --> 00:04:02,715 yourselves and where you are working. 51 00:04:02,715 --> 00:04:05,595 Let's start with Brandon, and then we'll move to Kelsie. 52 00:04:06,454 --> 00:04:06,724 Brandon Dillard: Sure. 53 00:04:06,724 --> 00:04:09,994 My, my name is Brandon Dillard and I am the director of Historic 54 00:04:09,994 --> 00:04:13,804 Interpretation and Audience Engagement at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello, 55 00:04:13,804 --> 00:04:15,304 which is in Central Virginia. 56 00:04:15,965 --> 00:04:18,365 It's a historic house museum and plantation. 57 00:04:18,515 --> 00:04:21,635 And Thomas Jefferson was the third president of the United States 58 00:04:21,635 --> 00:04:24,064 and the author of the American Declaration of Independence. 59 00:04:24,814 --> 00:04:28,115 I've been here for 16 years and I've done all kinds of jobs over those 60 00:04:28,115 --> 00:04:32,194 16 years, but my role now is to really help the institution think 61 00:04:32,194 --> 00:04:34,115 about how we talk about the past. 62 00:04:35,015 --> 00:04:37,835 And so I spend a lot of time thinking about audiences and how 63 00:04:37,835 --> 00:04:41,184 people think about public memory and how people think about history. 64 00:04:41,934 --> 00:04:45,104 I'm also, from the American South, from a long line of 65 00:04:45,104 --> 00:04:47,324 American southern storytellers. 66 00:04:47,684 --> 00:04:52,124 I'm a enrolled citizen of Cherokee Nation, so my whole life has been spent 67 00:04:52,124 --> 00:04:56,984 thinking about identity and memory and race and what that means, and just to 68 00:04:56,984 --> 00:05:01,154 really, uh, prove that I actually mean that I'm interested in all that stuff, 69 00:05:01,154 --> 00:05:03,974 i'm also back in school yet again. 70 00:05:04,004 --> 00:05:10,004 I took two gap decades over my educational career, but I'm working on a PhD at the 71 00:05:10,004 --> 00:05:14,324 University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill in American Studies with a focus 72 00:05:14,324 --> 00:05:16,124 on indigenous memory and public history. 73 00:05:16,861 --> 00:05:18,021 Kelsie Paul: I am Kelsie Paul. 74 00:05:18,051 --> 00:05:22,191 I am the Director of Learning and Visitor Experience at the Frick Pittsburgh. 75 00:05:22,381 --> 00:05:27,401 We are a museum campus on the east end of, Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania. 76 00:05:27,761 --> 00:05:29,831 Uh, we have a lot going on over there. 77 00:05:29,831 --> 00:05:31,271 We're about a 10 acre campus. 78 00:05:31,271 --> 00:05:32,801 We have three museums. 79 00:05:33,011 --> 00:05:36,971 Um, we have an art museum, a car and carriage museum, and then our Historic 80 00:05:36,971 --> 00:05:41,201 House Museum, which is Clayton, which was the historic home of Henry Clay 81 00:05:41,201 --> 00:05:45,041 Frick, who was a well-known industrialist in Pittsburgh during the gilded age of 82 00:05:45,041 --> 00:05:46,931 the second half of the 19th century. 83 00:05:47,291 --> 00:05:49,991 And so we interpret a lot of different things. 84 00:05:50,031 --> 00:05:52,431 But for the purpose of our conversation today, I'll primarily 85 00:05:52,431 --> 00:05:54,231 be talking about our work in Clayton. 86 00:05:54,601 --> 00:05:56,551 As the director of Learning at the Frick. 87 00:05:56,601 --> 00:06:01,671 I oversee all of the educational programming and initiatives on our site. 88 00:06:01,671 --> 00:06:03,921 I have an incredible team that helps me do that. 89 00:06:04,281 --> 00:06:08,031 Um, we program for learners all the way from the teeny tiny pre-K 90 00:06:08,031 --> 00:06:09,901 all the way up to senior adults. 91 00:06:10,091 --> 00:06:12,341 And that also includes our interpretation program. 92 00:06:12,341 --> 00:06:12,491 So. 93 00:06:13,271 --> 00:06:16,481 I'm fairly new to my role as the department head, but I've been 94 00:06:16,481 --> 00:06:18,881 in the education department for the full eight and a half years 95 00:06:18,881 --> 00:06:20,051 that I've been at the Frick. 96 00:06:20,051 --> 00:06:23,961 And before this I was, our manager of interpretation, which meant that 97 00:06:23,961 --> 00:06:29,511 I directly oversaw our, oversaw our interpretive programs and initiatives. 98 00:06:29,511 --> 00:06:32,691 I trained and hired all of our guides, our front facing interpreters, 99 00:06:32,961 --> 00:06:37,281 and I was the program lead for the project that created our current 100 00:06:37,471 --> 00:06:40,321 public tour offering in Clayton, which we call 'Gilded, Not Golden'. 101 00:06:40,321 --> 00:06:42,301 And you'll probably hear me talk a lot about today. 102 00:06:42,601 --> 00:06:48,631 Um, and, uh, you know, like Brandon, you know, I spend a lot of time thinking about 103 00:06:48,931 --> 00:06:54,091 how we make the past accessible to the people of the present, um, how we make 104 00:06:54,091 --> 00:06:56,281 that feel relevant to our current lives. 105 00:06:56,491 --> 00:07:00,421 And how we just have more honest conversations about 106 00:07:00,421 --> 00:07:02,401 the complexities of the past. 107 00:07:02,431 --> 00:07:05,911 Um, and that is a big part of what we do in Clayton and guides a lot 108 00:07:05,911 --> 00:07:07,441 of our thinking across our campus. 109 00:07:08,341 --> 00:07:10,441 Claire Bown: Thank you both for introducing yourselves 110 00:07:10,441 --> 00:07:11,791 so wonderfully there. 111 00:07:11,841 --> 00:07:17,201 I have to say that I met you both last year, May, 2025 at the American 112 00:07:17,201 --> 00:07:18,821 Alliance Museums Conference. 113 00:07:19,241 --> 00:07:24,281 You did a fantastic presentation there, um, called In the Shadow of Imperfect Men. 114 00:07:24,401 --> 00:07:25,571 I seem to recall. 115 00:07:25,961 --> 00:07:28,241 And the theme of that conference was about trust. 116 00:07:28,241 --> 00:07:33,551 So you know, the ideas that museums are these amazingly trusted institutions and 117 00:07:33,551 --> 00:07:38,381 how we can kind of continue to grow that trust or get it back when it's lost. 118 00:07:38,381 --> 00:07:43,791 And I think for your presentation you talked about how you kind of engender that 119 00:07:43,791 --> 00:07:45,681 trust with your audience, your public. 120 00:07:45,781 --> 00:07:49,441 And especially when the name of your institution and the subjects 121 00:07:49,681 --> 00:07:53,401 of your interpretation have a bit of a complicated legacy. 122 00:07:54,151 --> 00:07:54,511 Now. 123 00:07:54,946 --> 00:07:58,906 I'd love to talk about that today in terms of your guided programs. 124 00:07:58,956 --> 00:08:03,326 So maybe we could start by talking about and giving a little bit of 125 00:08:03,326 --> 00:08:08,006 an introduction to the individuals at your respective sites. 126 00:08:09,206 --> 00:08:11,216 So Brandon, would you like to go first? 127 00:08:12,746 --> 00:08:18,926 Brandon Dillard: I think there's probably, uh, no one in the lexicon of American 128 00:08:18,926 --> 00:08:24,956 letters or the historic figures of the United States who gets people to be 129 00:08:24,956 --> 00:08:29,186 more involved in a conversation about contested history than Thomas Jefferson. 130 00:08:29,336 --> 00:08:32,066 Uh, obviously I'm biased about that because I've worked here for such 131 00:08:32,066 --> 00:08:36,326 a long time, but Thomas Jefferson, he was the author of the American 132 00:08:36,326 --> 00:08:37,676 Declaration of Independence. 133 00:08:37,676 --> 00:08:42,536 He wrote the National Creed for the United States, and he is so 134 00:08:43,196 --> 00:08:47,096 well known and largely regarded for his political messaging. 135 00:08:47,126 --> 00:08:52,451 You know, this man, his rhetoric said that government should be representative. 136 00:08:52,511 --> 00:08:56,651 It should be for the people, and it should be based on human rights, and that that 137 00:08:56,651 --> 00:09:01,241 is a rhetoric that is laudable and that we have aspired towards for 250 years. 138 00:09:01,961 --> 00:09:03,621 Thomas Jefferson was also an enslaver. 139 00:09:04,011 --> 00:09:08,061 He kept more than 600 human beings captive throughout the course of his life. 140 00:09:08,121 --> 00:09:12,861 Monticello itself was a place where those enslaved people were forced to labor 141 00:09:12,951 --> 00:09:15,501 for the benefit of his white family. 142 00:09:16,251 --> 00:09:17,751 And Jefferson wrote about slavery. 143 00:09:17,751 --> 00:09:21,411 He called it wrong, but Jefferson also wrote about the differences of people 144 00:09:21,411 --> 00:09:23,031 based on the colors of their skin. 145 00:09:23,451 --> 00:09:27,891 He wrote about his suspicions about a racial hierarchy, and of course, 146 00:09:27,891 --> 00:09:32,151 Jefferson was also responsible for some of the first early musings about legal 147 00:09:32,151 --> 00:09:35,841 policy in the United States that would dispossess native peoples of their land. 148 00:09:36,651 --> 00:09:37,791 So it's really complicated. 149 00:09:37,971 --> 00:09:41,601 Um, people have a lot of different ideas about who Jefferson was and 150 00:09:41,601 --> 00:09:43,401 who they want Jefferson to be. 151 00:09:43,671 --> 00:09:48,861 And so people come here and on the same tour, we will have people who 152 00:09:48,861 --> 00:09:52,731 are there because they adore Thomas Jefferson, love Thomas Jefferson, 153 00:09:52,731 --> 00:09:56,061 and they, they want to hear this story about what a great hero he was. 154 00:09:56,721 --> 00:09:59,511 At the same time, we'll have people who hate Thomas Jefferson and 155 00:09:59,511 --> 00:10:00,921 they're not there to hear about him. 156 00:10:00,921 --> 00:10:03,321 They're there to hear about the lives of the people who were held 157 00:10:03,321 --> 00:10:04,701 in bondage on the plantation. 158 00:10:05,121 --> 00:10:08,421 And we've spent the last several decades making sure that we elevate 159 00:10:08,421 --> 00:10:09,591 the stories of enslaved people. 160 00:10:09,591 --> 00:10:11,601 We talk about the Hemmings family, the Hubbard family, the 161 00:10:11,601 --> 00:10:13,101 herns, the faucets, and more. 162 00:10:14,636 --> 00:10:17,576 And then there's a whole host of people who are like Thomas Jefferson. 163 00:10:17,576 --> 00:10:18,506 Yeah, he was important. 164 00:10:18,506 --> 00:10:19,316 He did something. 165 00:10:19,316 --> 00:10:21,446 I'm not sure what, maybe he invented the light bulb. 166 00:10:21,446 --> 00:10:22,796 Maybe he wrote the Constitution. 167 00:10:22,796 --> 00:10:23,276 I don't know. 168 00:10:23,276 --> 00:10:24,626 I got dragged here and I'm here. 169 00:10:25,016 --> 00:10:26,606 Uh, and that's, that's okay too, right? 170 00:10:26,606 --> 00:10:29,936 We wanna make sure that everybody who's there gets something outta the experience. 171 00:10:30,056 --> 00:10:33,266 And we've been doing a lot of survey work for a long time. 172 00:10:33,266 --> 00:10:36,416 And one of the things that we also know about the people who visit our site 173 00:10:36,866 --> 00:10:41,006 is that on any given program, about half the people will self-identify 174 00:10:41,006 --> 00:10:44,246 as liberal, and half of them will self-identify as conservative. 175 00:10:44,666 --> 00:10:48,746 And in a moment of intensely divisive politics in the United States of America, 176 00:10:49,106 --> 00:10:54,866 where the algorithm of our online lives is increasingly putting us in echo chambers. 177 00:10:55,196 --> 00:10:59,906 This kind of in-person activity with people who you disagree with fundamentally 178 00:10:59,906 --> 00:11:02,126 politically, is increasingly rare. 179 00:11:02,516 --> 00:11:06,116 And so not only is it about the ideas of the past and the public 180 00:11:06,116 --> 00:11:09,776 memory, and I would argue this is always true, it is also about. 181 00:11:10,031 --> 00:11:13,451 The world in which we live and the world that we hope to create for the future. 182 00:11:13,871 --> 00:11:16,331 And we are trying to make sure that when people come with all those 183 00:11:16,331 --> 00:11:19,511 different ideas, we can have a fruitful conversation together that 184 00:11:19,511 --> 00:11:21,941 is honest, complicated, and nuanced. 185 00:11:23,591 --> 00:11:27,126 Claire Bown: And Kelsie, would you like to talk a little bit about, the 186 00:11:27,131 --> 00:11:31,536 Frick and, uh, about the complicated individuals associated with it? 187 00:11:32,196 --> 00:11:32,676 Kelsie Paul: Yes. 188 00:11:32,676 --> 00:11:36,726 We have our own complicated man, who is kind of at the center of our story. 189 00:11:36,726 --> 00:11:41,991 So, but a man that I think is more regionally recognized than 190 00:11:41,991 --> 00:11:43,311 perhaps nationally recognized. 191 00:11:43,311 --> 00:11:44,421 You know, Henry Clay Frick. 192 00:11:44,641 --> 00:11:46,801 Some people might recognize him as an art collector. 193 00:11:46,801 --> 00:11:48,811 If you've been to the Frick Collection in New York City, you 194 00:11:48,811 --> 00:11:50,731 might recognize him in that context. 195 00:11:50,971 --> 00:11:55,111 Um, but in Pittsburgh, Frick's name is synonymous with industry. 196 00:11:55,361 --> 00:11:59,261 He was one of many leading industrialists who made their home 197 00:11:59,261 --> 00:12:02,471 and made their start in Pittsburgh in the second half of the 19th century. 198 00:12:02,741 --> 00:12:07,436 He made his fortune primarily in Coke, which is a byproduct of coal. 199 00:12:07,586 --> 00:12:10,196 Um, and then segued that into the steel industry. 200 00:12:10,196 --> 00:12:14,066 Worked with Andrew Carnegie, and the complexity of his legacy 201 00:12:14,066 --> 00:12:17,486 in Pittsburgh really relates to his relationship to labor. 202 00:12:17,766 --> 00:12:21,946 Pittsburgh is still largely a blue collar town and steel is still 203 00:12:21,946 --> 00:12:24,316 synonymous with our city's identity. 204 00:12:24,316 --> 00:12:27,256 There's a reason our football team is called the Steelers, right? 205 00:12:27,536 --> 00:12:31,136 And so even though the steel making landscape looks quite different in 206 00:12:31,136 --> 00:12:34,906 Pittsburgh than it did at its height, during the Gilded Age Frick's name 207 00:12:34,906 --> 00:12:39,796 is still synonymous with that, and in particular, a particularly violent and 208 00:12:39,796 --> 00:12:44,326 bloody and contentious labor dispute that took place in the summer of 1892. 209 00:12:44,656 --> 00:12:49,666 And so in previous iterations of our tours of Clayton Frick's family 210 00:12:49,666 --> 00:12:55,811 home, which we ran for about 30 years, somewhat unchanged, that 211 00:12:55,811 --> 00:12:59,741 was part of the story, but it was certainly not the center of the story. 212 00:12:59,981 --> 00:13:02,891 The idea with previous tours of Clayton was that, hey, this 213 00:13:02,891 --> 00:13:04,241 is this guy's family home. 214 00:13:04,241 --> 00:13:06,041 We're gonna interpret this as a family home. 215 00:13:06,041 --> 00:13:09,221 We're gonna talk about him as a family man and the lives of his family here. 216 00:13:09,581 --> 00:13:10,031 Um. 217 00:13:10,306 --> 00:13:13,156 It was not a focus on his professional life. 218 00:13:13,406 --> 00:13:17,276 When we redid our Clayton tour, we realized that had to change. 219 00:13:17,526 --> 00:13:21,786 And partially why that had to change was because we got very valid. 220 00:13:22,096 --> 00:13:25,516 You wanna call it critique, you wanna call it just response from 221 00:13:25,546 --> 00:13:30,796 primarily folks in our community and in Pittsburgh at large that said, I'm not 222 00:13:30,796 --> 00:13:34,666 interested in hearing what Henry Clay Frick's fancy life was like, right? 223 00:13:34,666 --> 00:13:36,556 I am, I'm not interested in that. 224 00:13:36,556 --> 00:13:40,756 I wanna understand why this guy did what he did, and I wanna understand 225 00:13:40,756 --> 00:13:42,376 what that means for us more at large. 226 00:13:42,376 --> 00:13:45,616 And so we realized that we needed to be taking that head on. 227 00:13:45,646 --> 00:13:49,106 And so, our tour now, which we call 'Gilded, Not Golden'. 228 00:13:49,716 --> 00:13:52,086 Really seeks to contextualize frick, right? 229 00:13:52,116 --> 00:13:56,136 We're trying to understand who Henry Clay Frick was, but also who he was 230 00:13:56,136 --> 00:13:59,976 within the industrial capitalist system that was growing and being 231 00:13:59,976 --> 00:14:04,626 born at the end of the 19th century, which we're all still living in now 232 00:14:04,626 --> 00:14:06,516 and is very relevant to our lives now. 233 00:14:06,706 --> 00:14:11,926 And so, we have reworked the way that we interpret Frick to have 234 00:14:11,926 --> 00:14:15,966 more of those honest conversations with our visitors to say yes, let's 235 00:14:15,966 --> 00:14:17,256 talk about Frick as a family man. 236 00:14:17,256 --> 00:14:20,196 Let's talk about what was happening with inside the walls of this 237 00:14:20,196 --> 00:14:22,626 family's home in the summer of 1892. 238 00:14:22,956 --> 00:14:25,671 But let's make sure that we're also talking about what was happening publicly. 239 00:14:25,896 --> 00:14:29,256 Let's talk about the decisions that Henry Clay Frick made and the 240 00:14:29,256 --> 00:14:32,406 ripple effect of those decisions all the way to the present day. 241 00:14:32,696 --> 00:14:37,171 And then we sort of give our visitors the space to say, you get to feel 242 00:14:37,171 --> 00:14:39,181 however you want to feel about that. 243 00:14:39,181 --> 00:14:44,161 It's not our responsibility to force you to make a moral judgment on Frick 244 00:14:44,161 --> 00:14:46,171 or on the people of the past in general. 245 00:14:46,391 --> 00:14:51,881 Our responsibility is to tell you as complete of a story as we can, um, and 246 00:14:51,931 --> 00:14:56,101 then you decide how you wanna make meaning of that and how you wanna sort of bring 247 00:14:56,101 --> 00:14:58,591 that into your understanding of the past. 248 00:14:58,621 --> 00:15:02,161 And that, that was a big shift for us over the last four to five years. 249 00:15:02,401 --> 00:15:06,161 Um, but it's a shift that has largely been very welcomed. 250 00:15:06,161 --> 00:15:09,341 We have seen our audience and Clayton grow as a result of it. 251 00:15:09,611 --> 00:15:13,481 And by and large, we have people who are telling us, Hey, thank you for 252 00:15:13,481 --> 00:15:16,631 having these more honest conversations and helping me to understand him. 253 00:15:16,931 --> 00:15:20,831 We still have some people who say, you're being really harsh on the guy whose 254 00:15:20,831 --> 00:15:22,901 name is on the front of your building. 255 00:15:23,416 --> 00:15:25,796 And to that we say we're not trying to be harsh. 256 00:15:25,796 --> 00:15:29,876 We're trying to be honest, and we're trying to have a more complex conversation 257 00:15:30,146 --> 00:15:34,826 about the totality of who he was as a person rather than just one aspect of it. 258 00:15:35,921 --> 00:15:39,011 Claire Bown: And given the complex and complicated histories of both of those 259 00:15:39,011 --> 00:15:42,101 individuals and the fact that you've mentioned Brandon, you were mentioning 260 00:15:42,101 --> 00:15:45,831 that, you know, you can have people in your guided tours who have very 261 00:15:45,831 --> 00:15:48,111 opposing views on the same subject. 262 00:15:48,111 --> 00:15:51,081 And Kelsie, you were talking about the fact that you wanted to move 263 00:15:51,081 --> 00:15:55,621 away from a certain kind of content delivery of a certain view, a 264 00:15:55,621 --> 00:15:57,781 certain perspective of Frick's life. 265 00:15:58,101 --> 00:16:03,021 And I'd really love to kind of dig into the process behind re-imagining 266 00:16:03,021 --> 00:16:05,661 your guided experiences, because I'm sure some of the things you're 267 00:16:05,661 --> 00:16:09,301 talking about will resonate with lots of people listening . So can you tell 268 00:16:09,301 --> 00:16:11,551 me a little bit about the process? 269 00:16:11,551 --> 00:16:15,091 What were the sort of questions that were guiding you early on? 270 00:16:15,811 --> 00:16:18,211 Kelsie Paul: We are about, I would say at this point we're about 271 00:16:18,211 --> 00:16:19,831 five years into this process. 272 00:16:19,931 --> 00:16:25,031 The real watershed moment for us was 2020, and that's for a 273 00:16:25,031 --> 00:16:26,081 couple of different reasons. 274 00:16:26,081 --> 00:16:27,821 Certainly it had to do with the pandemic. 275 00:16:27,821 --> 00:16:31,031 The fact that we had, you know, we had to shut our doors like everyone else did. 276 00:16:31,451 --> 00:16:34,001 It gave us a moment to kind of pause and reflect on the 277 00:16:34,001 --> 00:16:35,321 work that we had been doing. 278 00:16:35,591 --> 00:16:39,371 But 2020 was also an interesting reflective point for us as an institution 279 00:16:39,371 --> 00:16:43,091 because it was the 30th anniversary year of Clayton being open to the public. 280 00:16:43,151 --> 00:16:46,601 And so it was a natural time for us to just sort of be looking back at 281 00:16:46,601 --> 00:16:49,571 what we had done and thinking about what we wanted to do in the next 30. 282 00:16:49,991 --> 00:16:55,631 Um, but really what it came down to was as the pandemic was starting to wind down 283 00:16:55,631 --> 00:16:59,591 and we were starting to think about what reopening our campus was going to look 284 00:16:59,591 --> 00:17:03,971 like, and particularly what reopening Clayton to the public was gonna look like. 285 00:17:05,141 --> 00:17:10,421 It felt impossible to us to just open the house back up and just 286 00:17:10,421 --> 00:17:13,481 go back to the way that we had been doing things for 30 years. 287 00:17:13,481 --> 00:17:18,131 And when I, what I mean by that is that it felt disingenuine given all of the 288 00:17:18,131 --> 00:17:22,451 conversations that, you know, people were having about social justice and 289 00:17:22,631 --> 00:17:26,741 reform and the way we talk about race and the way that we talk about our past 290 00:17:26,741 --> 00:17:28,151 and our country and all of these things. 291 00:17:28,391 --> 00:17:33,866 It felt disingenuous to us to open that house back up and just go back to talking 292 00:17:33,866 --> 00:17:35,696 about the fancy furniture in this house. 293 00:17:35,696 --> 00:17:38,836 And to be talking about this rich family in the 19th century. 294 00:17:39,156 --> 00:17:40,956 We felt like we weren't, we couldn't do that. 295 00:17:41,186 --> 00:17:44,816 And so we actually kept Clayton closed longer than the rest of the campus. 296 00:17:44,816 --> 00:17:47,396 The rest of the campus opened up and we kept Clayton closed. 297 00:17:47,616 --> 00:17:50,526 And it gave us the opportunity to start having these conversations. 298 00:17:50,556 --> 00:17:55,176 And so the decision was made to sort of take our previous iteration, our 299 00:17:55,176 --> 00:17:58,026 original iteration of the Clayton Public Tour and basically throw it 300 00:17:58,026 --> 00:17:59,796 out the window and start from scratch. 301 00:18:00,156 --> 00:18:02,346 Um, and, we started the process. 302 00:18:02,346 --> 00:18:05,736 We eventually were lucky and lucky enough to get some grant funding to help us kind 303 00:18:05,736 --> 00:18:10,476 of take that work to the next level, which allowed us to hire, um, two incredible 304 00:18:10,476 --> 00:18:14,606 interpretive consultants Michelle Moon and Rainey Tisdale to come in and help us 305 00:18:14,606 --> 00:18:18,356 guide our thinking because as a staff, we had never done something like that before. 306 00:18:18,686 --> 00:18:21,626 Um, we assembled an advisory board of, I think. 307 00:18:21,666 --> 00:18:27,796 12 to 14 scholars, historians, artists, writers, museum professionals, 308 00:18:27,986 --> 00:18:29,366 to help us with our thinking. 309 00:18:29,486 --> 00:18:33,296 And then we just started going out into the museum community and reaching out 310 00:18:33,296 --> 00:18:37,406 to people who were working at sites that we admired for their interpretation. 311 00:18:37,406 --> 00:18:39,446 Brandon is included in that group. 312 00:18:39,746 --> 00:18:42,656 And we just started talking about what was possible. 313 00:18:42,656 --> 00:18:47,666 And alongside that, we had some really difficult but honest conversations 314 00:18:47,666 --> 00:18:52,141 with our staff internally, particularly the people who were, giving our 315 00:18:52,141 --> 00:18:56,711 tours, about why this was necessary and why this change needed to happen. 316 00:18:56,711 --> 00:19:00,521 That was a difficult process, and those conversations happened over 317 00:19:00,521 --> 00:19:03,311 the course of about two years over and over and over again. 318 00:19:03,701 --> 00:19:06,631 And that was probably the hardest part of the process. 319 00:19:06,631 --> 00:19:10,441 Um, and to give some extra context, at the time that we started this, we had 320 00:19:10,441 --> 00:19:16,331 about 40 part-time tour guides who were giving tours in Clayton, some of whom 321 00:19:16,331 --> 00:19:19,901 had been there for 10, 15, 20 years. 322 00:19:20,231 --> 00:19:25,541 And so we were asking them to suddenly do something fundamentally different 323 00:19:25,541 --> 00:19:27,851 than what they had been hired to do. 324 00:19:27,971 --> 00:19:31,391 And of course, we couldn't tell them what the end was gonna look like, right? 325 00:19:31,391 --> 00:19:32,411 We were in the middle of it. 326 00:19:32,411 --> 00:19:35,531 I couldn't tell them what the end result was going to be. 327 00:19:35,531 --> 00:19:38,411 And so it was a leap of faith on their part that I fully 328 00:19:38,411 --> 00:19:40,091 feel I have to recognize. 329 00:19:40,361 --> 00:19:43,421 As the process developed, some of those folks recognized that 330 00:19:43,421 --> 00:19:45,011 where we were going was not. 331 00:19:45,266 --> 00:19:46,976 For them and they chose to leave. 332 00:19:47,156 --> 00:19:51,356 Um, others stuck around and had had to relearn how to be a tour guide. 333 00:19:51,356 --> 00:19:55,856 Giving a tour, um, now in Clayton is a totally different experience 334 00:19:55,856 --> 00:19:56,976 than it what it was before. 335 00:19:56,976 --> 00:20:00,946 They had to learn, not only new content and new ways of telling 336 00:20:00,946 --> 00:20:05,206 stories, but they had to learn how to be facilitators, not just lecturers. 337 00:20:05,206 --> 00:20:08,716 And that was probably the hardest part of this process. 338 00:20:08,956 --> 00:20:12,786 Um, but yeah, it took us about two years to get the tour 339 00:20:12,786 --> 00:20:14,136 to where we wanted it to go. 340 00:20:14,296 --> 00:20:19,646 We launched it in May of 2023, and then really considered it in 341 00:20:19,646 --> 00:20:23,186 a prototype phase for about a year where we were still trying things out. 342 00:20:23,186 --> 00:20:24,566 We were still adjusting things. 343 00:20:24,786 --> 00:20:26,166 Yeah, I mean the work is never done. 344 00:20:26,166 --> 00:20:29,166 Also we're always reevaluating it and we're always checking in to make 345 00:20:29,166 --> 00:20:30,606 sure that it's still resonating. 346 00:20:30,816 --> 00:20:33,546 Um, but it was a long process, but worth it in the end. 347 00:20:35,676 --> 00:20:39,096 Claire Bown: Brandon, do you wanna jump in there and tell us about your experiences? 348 00:20:39,531 --> 00:20:40,041 Brandon Dillard: Sure. 349 00:20:40,041 --> 00:20:42,261 And I wanna begin with a couple of caveats. 350 00:20:42,261 --> 00:20:46,731 The first is that there is never a moment of my professional career that I do not 351 00:20:46,731 --> 00:20:51,231 understand the great privilege of the size of the organization where I work, 352 00:20:51,381 --> 00:20:53,451 and the funding for that organization. 353 00:20:54,051 --> 00:20:57,821 And, our longevity is, uh, for a historic house museum. 354 00:20:57,821 --> 00:20:59,981 You know, we've been here since 1923. 355 00:21:00,011 --> 00:21:02,861 We've been offering tours for more than a century, so 356 00:21:02,861 --> 00:21:04,541 obviously over a hundred years. 357 00:21:04,631 --> 00:21:05,951 That has changed quite a bit. 358 00:21:06,371 --> 00:21:10,301 And, uh, the second is just to say that I stand on the shoulders of giants. 359 00:21:10,331 --> 00:21:13,721 Like there is no way that I would have been able to fall into the great work 360 00:21:13,721 --> 00:21:18,161 that I get to do if it hadn't been for literally generations of people 361 00:21:18,161 --> 00:21:22,601 prior to me ever coming here who have been dedicating their lives to making 362 00:21:22,601 --> 00:21:26,531 sure that this story was told in a way that was engaging and complex. 363 00:21:27,431 --> 00:21:31,676 So that being said I want to underscore something that Kelsie just said, 364 00:21:31,676 --> 00:21:33,416 which is that the work is never done. 365 00:21:33,506 --> 00:21:37,196 And I think even though Monticello has been doing this for a hundred years, 366 00:21:37,226 --> 00:21:40,646 and we have changed our programming quite a bit, especially over the last 367 00:21:40,646 --> 00:21:43,886 three, four decades, it never stops. 368 00:21:43,946 --> 00:21:47,726 And one of the pillars of our strategic plan, one of our organizational values 369 00:21:47,726 --> 00:21:49,166 is continuous improvement, right? 370 00:21:49,166 --> 00:21:51,476 That's built into who we are as an institution. 371 00:21:52,136 --> 00:21:52,916 So it's constant. 372 00:21:52,966 --> 00:21:54,826 And you know, I mentioned survey work earlier. 373 00:21:54,826 --> 00:21:56,956 I believe evaluation is a big piece of that. 374 00:21:57,316 --> 00:22:02,006 But to, to tell the, the key changes in monticello's interpretive history. 375 00:22:02,486 --> 00:22:04,826 Some of it started way before I was even born. 376 00:22:05,066 --> 00:22:08,486 Uh, the first tour guides at Monticello, they were African American men. 377 00:22:09,176 --> 00:22:10,316 They worked for gratuities. 378 00:22:10,976 --> 00:22:14,426 And there's a long, complicated history that you can put together through 379 00:22:14,426 --> 00:22:17,876 the pieces of the archive and through community engagement and talking with 380 00:22:17,876 --> 00:22:21,836 people who, uh, their families remember when, you know, their grandfathers worked 381 00:22:21,836 --> 00:22:26,986 here at Monticello and it's obvious that the tours that were led in the 382 00:22:26,986 --> 00:22:31,836 twenties, thirties, and forties by they were called hosts were really engaging. 383 00:22:32,346 --> 00:22:38,556 And the reason I know this is because in the 1950s, Monticello followed the 384 00:22:38,826 --> 00:22:44,526 field of public history throughout the United States broadly, and, um, began to 385 00:22:44,526 --> 00:22:47,091 quote 'professionalizing' unquote, right? 386 00:22:47,091 --> 00:22:49,731 Which means that they started to focus on a more decorative arts 387 00:22:49,731 --> 00:22:51,441 themed material culture theme. 388 00:22:51,561 --> 00:22:54,531 And they switched the way that, uh, interpretation was done, and they 389 00:22:54,531 --> 00:22:59,871 switched from a staff of tour guides made up of African American men to a staff 390 00:22:59,871 --> 00:23:01,341 of tour guides made up of white women. 391 00:23:02,091 --> 00:23:05,181 And you can see where this is actually written into some of 392 00:23:05,181 --> 00:23:06,501 the archives very explicitly. 393 00:23:06,561 --> 00:23:08,931 Like we're talking about race and gender directly and some 394 00:23:08,931 --> 00:23:09,831 of the makeup of the people. 395 00:23:09,831 --> 00:23:11,001 This is 75 years ago. 396 00:23:11,001 --> 00:23:12,681 Obviously this would never be done today. 397 00:23:13,371 --> 00:23:17,511 But my favorite part about this shift is that there are a lot of 398 00:23:17,511 --> 00:23:21,141 complaints that you can also see from visitors who thought that the tours 399 00:23:21,141 --> 00:23:25,186 were boring, uh, because they focused on, you know, art and furniture. 400 00:23:25,186 --> 00:23:28,041 Now, and if anyone is listening to this and you're a curator, you're 401 00:23:28,041 --> 00:23:30,381 somebody who works in material culture, please understand that. 402 00:23:30,381 --> 00:23:31,401 I love stuff, okay? 403 00:23:31,401 --> 00:23:33,261 I am not making fun of stuff. 404 00:23:33,591 --> 00:23:36,666 But I do think there's a way to talk about the past and there's a 405 00:23:36,666 --> 00:23:38,796 way to talk about material culture. 406 00:23:39,126 --> 00:23:43,276 And I think that the 1950s to the 1970s way of doing that is a 407 00:23:43,276 --> 00:23:47,506 way that that dominated how house museums worked for a long time. 408 00:23:47,596 --> 00:23:51,436 And I think a lot of people can remember being on one of those tours 409 00:23:51,436 --> 00:23:54,886 that just seemed to never, ever end where they heard about every 410 00:23:54,886 --> 00:23:57,196 detail of every doilie in the house. 411 00:23:57,856 --> 00:24:01,366 And I'm not making fun of the people who were the tour guides in the 412 00:24:01,366 --> 00:24:02,866 fifties to the seventies either. 413 00:24:03,571 --> 00:24:06,481 Uh, I think that it's important to note that everybody who's ever been a tour 414 00:24:06,481 --> 00:24:10,501 guide at Monticello does it because they love history, every generation, right. 415 00:24:10,501 --> 00:24:12,121 They do it because they love history. 416 00:24:12,391 --> 00:24:14,761 They can make more money doing something else, right? 417 00:24:14,881 --> 00:24:18,861 And that's just a reality of the field is that even those who pay the 418 00:24:18,861 --> 00:24:21,141 best don't pay as well as other jobs. 419 00:24:21,921 --> 00:24:25,131 Over time, that began to shift and it began to shift more, 420 00:24:25,221 --> 00:24:27,501 more, uh, of a natural attrition. 421 00:24:27,891 --> 00:24:31,821 More men began to take on the job, and by the late 20th century, it 422 00:24:31,821 --> 00:24:35,991 was mostly a group of retired people who were working for an hourly wage, 423 00:24:35,991 --> 00:24:38,451 and they did it because they were interested in history and, and many 424 00:24:38,451 --> 00:24:42,531 of them were incredible tour guides, which is true all the way back and some 425 00:24:42,531 --> 00:24:44,391 probably were not, which is also true. 426 00:24:44,421 --> 00:24:44,781 Right? 427 00:24:44,851 --> 00:24:45,811 That's just a piece of it. 428 00:24:46,621 --> 00:24:50,551 But the biggest piece I think of the narrative history at Monticello has 429 00:24:50,551 --> 00:24:52,801 been the way that we interpret slavery. 430 00:24:53,371 --> 00:24:55,951 I share all that back history because I think it's really important for us 431 00:24:55,951 --> 00:25:00,301 to imagine how those black men talked about slavery with white visitors in 432 00:25:00,301 --> 00:25:02,161 the 1920s and thirties in Virginia. 433 00:25:02,701 --> 00:25:05,671 I can find very little evidence of this in the archives, but I 434 00:25:05,671 --> 00:25:10,381 can find that conversations about the quote 'servants' took place. 435 00:25:10,621 --> 00:25:12,161 It was part of their narrative. 436 00:25:12,161 --> 00:25:13,601 So it, it did happen. 437 00:25:14,021 --> 00:25:18,341 And what I wouldn't give to know the kinds of innuendo and nonverbal 438 00:25:18,341 --> 00:25:25,511 communication within this milieu of lost cause southern public memory, which is 439 00:25:25,511 --> 00:25:29,901 this time period when after the Civil War, white Southerners are trying to 440 00:25:29,901 --> 00:25:33,441 rewrite the past as though slavery wasn't that bad, and it became the dominant 441 00:25:33,441 --> 00:25:34,851 way that people thought about the past. 442 00:25:34,851 --> 00:25:39,051 And so a plantation like Monticello would become influenced by that. 443 00:25:39,471 --> 00:25:41,901 And so much the same throughout the 20th century. 444 00:25:42,771 --> 00:25:44,961 Thomas Jefferson as an enslaver. 445 00:25:45,441 --> 00:25:47,241 Always known, never debated. 446 00:25:47,871 --> 00:25:51,621 Thomas Jefferson also fathered children with a woman he held in bondage. 447 00:25:51,681 --> 00:25:52,911 Her name was Sally Hemmings. 448 00:25:53,451 --> 00:25:57,021 She had, uh, six children that we know of at least, and those 449 00:25:57,021 --> 00:25:58,761 children were fathered by Jefferson. 450 00:25:59,091 --> 00:26:03,381 And that is something that goes back in the historical record to 1802 when the 451 00:26:03,381 --> 00:26:04,761 man was present in the United States. 452 00:26:05,631 --> 00:26:09,621 But Monticello as an institution did not talk about that until the late 1990s. 453 00:26:09,681 --> 00:26:14,751 As a matter of policy, A DNA test in 1998 showed that there is a genetic 454 00:26:14,751 --> 00:26:17,541 link between the descendants of Sally Hemings and the descendants 455 00:26:17,541 --> 00:26:18,891 of the male Jefferson line. 456 00:26:19,461 --> 00:26:22,461 That in conjunction with all of the statistical evidence and the fact 457 00:26:22,461 --> 00:26:25,341 that Thomas Jefferson wrote down where he was every single day, and we 458 00:26:25,341 --> 00:26:28,311 know he was the only male, Jefferson definitively with Sally Hemmings 459 00:26:28,311 --> 00:26:31,131 exactly nine months before she gave birth to all of her known children. 460 00:26:31,521 --> 00:26:33,831 It means that most historians would say Jefferson was the 461 00:26:33,831 --> 00:26:34,881 father of those children. 462 00:26:35,931 --> 00:26:40,671 And that's been a requirement for us to discuss on tour since the year 2000. 463 00:26:41,001 --> 00:26:45,171 So for 26 years, this has been a piece of what we talk about, and that's the 464 00:26:45,171 --> 00:26:47,061 big public piece that people know about. 465 00:26:47,061 --> 00:26:50,211 And it was a sea change in our interpretation, but I would say 466 00:26:50,211 --> 00:26:53,301 an even more important piece happened some years prior. 467 00:26:53,391 --> 00:26:58,851 In 1993, when two scholars at Monticello, Diane Swan Wright, and Cinder Stanton 468 00:26:58,851 --> 00:27:03,261 began the Getting Word African American oral history project, where they began 469 00:27:03,261 --> 00:27:07,011 searching out descendants of people who descended from those who were enslaved 470 00:27:07,011 --> 00:27:09,951 here, so that they could record their oral histories so that we would have 471 00:27:09,951 --> 00:27:14,361 a better archive of those things, that the enslave would not write down 472 00:27:14,721 --> 00:27:16,491 the daily lives of enslaved people. 473 00:27:17,571 --> 00:27:20,031 Incidentally, the archive didn't actually fill that out for us. 474 00:27:20,661 --> 00:27:24,381 And, uh, the Vice President of research here at Monticello today himself 475 00:27:24,381 --> 00:27:27,741 a descendant, Andrew Davenport, says that it's more an archive of 476 00:27:27,741 --> 00:27:29,271 freedom than an archive of slavery. 477 00:27:29,871 --> 00:27:32,691 'cause the descendants of people who were enslaved here would share stories 478 00:27:32,691 --> 00:27:37,101 of their lives after slavery and their families and generations after 479 00:27:37,101 --> 00:27:41,271 generations fighting to achieve those very ideals that Jefferson espoused 480 00:27:41,271 --> 00:27:42,561 in the Declaration of Independence. 481 00:27:43,161 --> 00:27:46,701 Uh, the Getting Word project has since developed from an oral history project 482 00:27:46,701 --> 00:27:50,721 into the Getting Word African-American History Department, and it's a huge 483 00:27:50,721 --> 00:27:54,741 part of our research here, which informs our interpretation and research-Backed 484 00:27:54,741 --> 00:27:56,331 interpretation is key to what we do. 485 00:27:56,361 --> 00:27:59,331 We have an archeology department, we have a papers department, we have historians 486 00:27:59,331 --> 00:28:04,701 on site, and all of this works in tandem to try and tell a more nuanced story. 487 00:28:05,365 --> 00:28:08,035 , Became conversations that people were having on the street. 488 00:28:08,215 --> 00:28:10,615 Which means that people would come and take a tour and they would, they would 489 00:28:10,615 --> 00:28:14,425 demand that we connect this legacy of race-based slavery to a legacy of 490 00:28:14,425 --> 00:28:15,865 racism in the United States today. 491 00:28:16,675 --> 00:28:19,195 And so we had those conversations and we would encourage people 492 00:28:19,195 --> 00:28:20,245 to have those conversations. 493 00:28:20,245 --> 00:28:22,885 And just like Kelsie said, we're not providing any kind 494 00:28:22,885 --> 00:28:25,255 of moral guidance on this. 495 00:28:25,255 --> 00:28:28,555 We are sharing facts so that people can then develop their own. 496 00:28:29,350 --> 00:28:34,420 Opinions about how they feel that these histories inform who we are today. 497 00:28:34,450 --> 00:28:38,200 We just share the histories and we try to share them as honestly as possible. 498 00:28:38,680 --> 00:28:42,580 We began offering a facilitated dialogue program around that same time. 499 00:28:42,650 --> 00:28:45,920 We worked with the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience, which 500 00:28:45,920 --> 00:28:47,600 we are a member site to have training. 501 00:28:47,960 --> 00:28:51,920 We did much exactly what Kelsie outlined for their programming, 502 00:28:51,920 --> 00:28:53,150 and we continue to do it today. 503 00:28:53,390 --> 00:28:56,540 We worked with external experts, we worked with internal experts, and 504 00:28:56,540 --> 00:28:59,960 the one thing I'll say that is a real echo of what, uh, happened at 505 00:28:59,960 --> 00:29:03,110 the Frick is we closed too in 2020. 506 00:29:03,410 --> 00:29:08,150 Uh, the pandemic was catastrophic for tourist sites, and we used that 507 00:29:08,150 --> 00:29:10,400 time to restructure our guide team. 508 00:29:10,760 --> 00:29:15,980 And prior to the pandemic, we had some five or six full-time guides, 509 00:29:15,980 --> 00:29:17,900 and then like 70 part-time guides. 510 00:29:18,410 --> 00:29:21,320 Uh, after the pandemic we began to focus on full-time. 511 00:29:21,935 --> 00:29:23,705 Guides who do this as a profession. 512 00:29:23,795 --> 00:29:27,185 And so now we have 17 full-time guides. 513 00:29:27,575 --> 00:29:30,605 We have some 40 part-time guides 'cause it's still a lot of seasonal hours. 514 00:29:30,995 --> 00:29:34,655 But those full-time guides are people with graduate level degrees, often 515 00:29:34,655 --> 00:29:35,685 in public history or museology. 516 00:29:36,485 --> 00:29:39,875 And these are people who dedicate their lives to studying this work. 517 00:29:40,505 --> 00:29:42,875 That doesn't mean that they're automatically better than the 518 00:29:42,875 --> 00:29:44,045 part-time guides who do it. 519 00:29:44,045 --> 00:29:47,345 And as retired people, there are great guides who come from all 520 00:29:47,345 --> 00:29:51,005 walks of life, but it does mean that they are constantly working 521 00:29:51,005 --> 00:29:53,225 on that improvement professionally. 522 00:29:53,375 --> 00:29:55,055 It's their life, it's what they do. 523 00:29:55,145 --> 00:29:57,995 And I think that creates a level of nuance at our site 524 00:29:58,025 --> 00:29:59,825 that is hard to find elsewhere. 525 00:29:59,915 --> 00:30:01,865 And it's something of which I think we're all really proud. 526 00:30:03,305 --> 00:30:07,005 Claire Bown: And you're both talking there about navigating these changes. 527 00:30:07,105 --> 00:30:11,605 With your guide teams, knowing that guided experiences in both of your 528 00:30:11,605 --> 00:30:16,855 locations can probably surface powerful responses from people from time to time. 529 00:30:17,395 --> 00:30:20,965 So how do you support guides in navigating these moments? 530 00:30:20,995 --> 00:30:24,935 Now, we know, I was just reading some research today that we tend to 531 00:30:24,935 --> 00:30:30,605 overestimate how badly contentious conversations will go in our heads. 532 00:30:30,875 --> 00:30:34,785 So how do we support the guides who are there facilitating these 533 00:30:34,785 --> 00:30:37,635 conversations in your historic spaces? 534 00:30:38,368 --> 00:30:38,518 Kelsie Paul: Oh boy. 535 00:30:38,908 --> 00:30:44,048 Well, it starts from the hiring process for us. 536 00:30:44,098 --> 00:30:49,438 I feel like it's important to note in our case, you know, the ways in which. 537 00:30:50,158 --> 00:30:55,378 'Gilded Not Golden' as an experience, necessitates a different 538 00:30:55,378 --> 00:30:58,498 type of skillset as a guide. 539 00:30:58,918 --> 00:31:03,928 And it's, to Brandon's point, it's not about one being better than the other. 540 00:31:03,928 --> 00:31:08,008 It's just that I have very honest conversations at the 541 00:31:08,008 --> 00:31:09,838 interview phase with folks. 542 00:31:09,898 --> 00:31:13,588 You know, I'll say that, we have all paid guides, we don't have any volunteers, so, 543 00:31:13,888 --> 00:31:19,178 um, that does change the nature of who we can, you know, get to do this work. 544 00:31:19,488 --> 00:31:23,148 But I, at the interview phase, I have very honest conversations with prospective 545 00:31:23,148 --> 00:31:25,698 guides about what this tour is. 546 00:31:26,538 --> 00:31:30,738 I'm very honest with them that it's not easy, it's not an easy job. 547 00:31:30,738 --> 00:31:32,988 First of all, being a tour guide, one of the hardest jobs in the 548 00:31:32,988 --> 00:31:37,908 world I've done it is it doesn't get enough credit as a difficult job. 549 00:31:38,298 --> 00:31:41,808 Um, and so that's baseline, you know, if you're gonna get into it. 550 00:31:41,808 --> 00:31:45,168 But I have honest conversations about the fact that these tours are 551 00:31:45,738 --> 00:31:50,238 mentally and sometimes emotionally and physically exhausting to give. 552 00:31:50,238 --> 00:31:54,378 Our tour guides give usually at minimum, three tours a day. 553 00:31:54,618 --> 00:31:57,648 And 'Gilded, Not Golden' Tours are scheduled to be 75 minutes long. 554 00:31:57,648 --> 00:31:58,128 Like that. 555 00:31:58,173 --> 00:31:59,853 They are long tours. 556 00:32:00,213 --> 00:32:04,083 Um, so we have those honest conversations up front, but we've also changed what 557 00:32:04,083 --> 00:32:06,603 we look for in potential candidates. 558 00:32:06,663 --> 00:32:09,993 Um, we really are looking for people at this point. 559 00:32:10,538 --> 00:32:14,318 Who are naturally gifted communicators. 560 00:32:14,568 --> 00:32:18,468 We look for people who, yes, if they are interested in history and if 561 00:32:18,468 --> 00:32:22,008 maybe they know a little bit about Pittsburgh history, that's a plus for us. 562 00:32:22,098 --> 00:32:26,408 Um, but what I've always said when hiring guides is I can teach you the content. 563 00:32:26,408 --> 00:32:27,968 I can teach anybody the content. 564 00:32:28,268 --> 00:32:32,948 I can't teach you to have an innate ability to craft a story for someone. 565 00:32:33,248 --> 00:32:34,688 Um, I can give you tips and tricks. 566 00:32:34,688 --> 00:32:38,258 I can, you know, I can sort of help mold you as a storyteller. 567 00:32:38,498 --> 00:32:42,488 Um, but there are a lot of people in this world who just innately have that ability. 568 00:32:42,758 --> 00:32:47,288 Um, and we also look honestly for less people who necessarily have 569 00:32:47,288 --> 00:32:49,208 experience doing this already. 570 00:32:49,258 --> 00:32:50,938 That's not like an end all, be all for us. 571 00:32:50,938 --> 00:32:54,088 Like, if you've never given a tour in a historic house, I'm not automatically 572 00:32:54,088 --> 00:32:55,378 throwing your resume out, right? 573 00:32:55,648 --> 00:32:59,128 Um, we wanna talk to you, we wanna understand how you look at the past. 574 00:32:59,128 --> 00:33:01,948 We wanna understand how you might talk about it with people. 575 00:33:02,188 --> 00:33:03,718 Um, so that's first and foremost. 576 00:33:03,718 --> 00:33:06,808 But then as far as you know, the support that we give them. 577 00:33:07,603 --> 00:33:09,583 It's integrated all through their training. 578 00:33:09,773 --> 00:33:13,193 They shadow tours, they talk to other veteran guides. 579 00:33:13,193 --> 00:33:14,723 They watch them happen. 580 00:33:14,993 --> 00:33:19,613 We give them very concrete strategies around, how to craft a good question, 581 00:33:19,613 --> 00:33:21,713 how to respond to that question. 582 00:33:21,973 --> 00:33:25,683 And we give them a lot of guidance around, when to shut the conversation 583 00:33:25,683 --> 00:33:27,093 down, to be totally honest. 584 00:33:27,133 --> 00:33:31,033 And I will say, like to your point, Claire, it doesn't happen as often as, 585 00:33:31,033 --> 00:33:32,943 you know, we prepare for it to happen. 586 00:33:32,943 --> 00:33:34,173 It's very rare. 587 00:33:34,473 --> 00:33:39,403 Um, but we give them a lot of tips and tricks and tools in their toolbox for, 588 00:33:39,673 --> 00:33:41,863 um, how to move a conversation along. 589 00:33:41,923 --> 00:33:47,923 And we empower our guides to truly be the facilitators, which means that 590 00:33:47,923 --> 00:33:52,843 they are empowered to understand that it is their responsibility to guide 591 00:33:52,843 --> 00:33:57,103 this entire experience for their entire group, not just for the loudest or the 592 00:33:57,103 --> 00:33:58,903 most contentious or whatever it is. 593 00:33:59,183 --> 00:34:01,073 And then of course, you know, we do have. 594 00:34:01,608 --> 00:34:05,768 Like a built-in procedure around it, when it does happen that you've got 595 00:34:05,768 --> 00:34:11,038 someone who is very loudly and very perhaps angrily or negatively sort 596 00:34:11,038 --> 00:34:12,388 of impacting the tour experience. 597 00:34:12,388 --> 00:34:13,678 We have procedures around that. 598 00:34:13,998 --> 00:34:18,198 And it kind of comes down to like, the door is always open for you to exit. 599 00:34:19,098 --> 00:34:22,838 Um, you know, and so empowering guides to invite folks to leave 600 00:34:22,838 --> 00:34:23,828 if they're not interested. 601 00:34:24,008 --> 00:34:26,768 I think that has hap, I can count on one hand like the number 602 00:34:26,768 --> 00:34:28,088 of times that has happened. 603 00:34:28,388 --> 00:34:31,838 Um, but I think it really does come to down to empowerment and support. 604 00:34:31,838 --> 00:34:36,188 And I really try to make it clear to my guides, you know, even in my role 605 00:34:36,188 --> 00:34:39,458 as a, as the department head, you know, to kind of two steps removed from them, 606 00:34:39,458 --> 00:34:44,708 um, of saying like, I wanna hear anytime something like this happens and I wanna 607 00:34:44,708 --> 00:34:48,338 talk to you about it, and I wanna check in with you afterwards and if you wanna 608 00:34:48,338 --> 00:34:52,388 talk about it, because it can be a really, like emotionally charged, like 609 00:34:52,478 --> 00:34:56,858 off-putting, feeling like even if you just wanna download to me what happened 610 00:34:56,858 --> 00:34:59,048 because it was, you know, intense. 611 00:34:59,288 --> 00:34:59,918 That's fine. 612 00:35:00,188 --> 00:35:03,678 Um, and so it always comes from a place of, we are here 613 00:35:03,678 --> 00:35:04,848 to support you through that. 614 00:35:04,848 --> 00:35:09,598 And we also we don't subscribe to the idea of like, the customer is always right. 615 00:35:09,598 --> 00:35:14,638 We believe that there is a level of like decorum and respect that needs 616 00:35:14,638 --> 00:35:18,058 to happen from the guide to the visitors, to the staff, to whatever. 617 00:35:18,298 --> 00:35:22,558 Um, and so, we try to, to give our staff the sort of support 618 00:35:22,558 --> 00:35:24,088 that they need if they need it. 619 00:35:24,088 --> 00:35:27,208 But it doesn't happen very often, but it does have to be built in from the 620 00:35:27,208 --> 00:35:29,818 beginning, um, when you are hiring them. 621 00:35:32,543 --> 00:35:35,353 Brandon Dillard: Kelsie, I, I find myself nodding along as usual to 622 00:35:35,353 --> 00:35:36,553 everything that you're saying. 623 00:35:36,663 --> 00:35:40,743 And a little personal background before I just echo everything you said is I'm 624 00:35:40,743 --> 00:35:44,343 a first generation college student with a degree in philosophy, so that means 625 00:35:44,343 --> 00:35:46,503 I was a bartender for about 20 years. 626 00:35:46,953 --> 00:35:51,633 Uh, I spent a lot of time in the service industry and, uh, over the years, 627 00:35:51,633 --> 00:35:57,453 I, I learned the ethos of service that I think guides my career today. 628 00:35:57,723 --> 00:36:01,143 And so one of the things that you mentioned is just because you 629 00:36:01,143 --> 00:36:04,083 have done this work before doesn't necessarily mean that you're 630 00:36:04,083 --> 00:36:05,673 gonna be the person that I hire. 631 00:36:05,943 --> 00:36:07,263 Uh, sometimes yeah. 632 00:36:07,293 --> 00:36:12,048 But, but it's really more about performance in the interview and I 633 00:36:12,048 --> 00:36:15,198 find that often the people who make the best guides are people who come 634 00:36:15,198 --> 00:36:19,248 from service, people who come from teaching, uh, classroom teaching, K 12. 635 00:36:19,248 --> 00:36:26,388 You know, there's this sense of engagement that is key to all of this. 636 00:36:26,448 --> 00:36:29,838 And so to, to underscore that, some of the stuff that you said, again, 637 00:36:30,318 --> 00:36:33,768 uh, during the hiring process, the key thing we look for is empathy. 638 00:36:34,128 --> 00:36:37,578 Can you show that you have empathy for people who disagree with you? 639 00:36:37,638 --> 00:36:41,628 Can you show that you have empathy for people who don't have the same level 640 00:36:41,628 --> 00:36:44,748 of education that you do, who come from a different part of the world, 641 00:36:45,138 --> 00:36:49,558 or who lived in a different time and whose lives were very different. 642 00:36:49,558 --> 00:36:51,868 The, how can we have those kinds of conversations? 643 00:36:51,958 --> 00:36:54,088 And I think empathy is key to all of that. 644 00:36:54,598 --> 00:36:58,203 Uh, and it's much harder to have empathy for someone who you very much 645 00:36:58,203 --> 00:37:01,533 disagree with than it is to have empathy for someone who you do agree with. 646 00:37:02,013 --> 00:37:04,923 Uh, you also noted that all your guides are paid, so are ours. 647 00:37:04,923 --> 00:37:08,823 I think that that is a very important piece of interpretation and I listen 648 00:37:08,823 --> 00:37:13,413 to a lot of museum professionals talk about how, uh, there are challenges 649 00:37:13,413 --> 00:37:17,233 with getting varied groups of people, you know, people with, uh, different 650 00:37:17,233 --> 00:37:20,173 kinds of backgrounds, uh, people with different racial identities, 651 00:37:20,173 --> 00:37:21,703 different socioeconomic backgrounds. 652 00:37:22,033 --> 00:37:26,633 Of course there are if we are seeking only volunteers, uh, and that doesn't 653 00:37:26,633 --> 00:37:32,523 really say anything about, the institution as much as it is a reflection of 654 00:37:32,523 --> 00:37:36,543 the long economic processes and the intersections of race and power, right? 655 00:37:36,543 --> 00:37:38,013 Which, uh, like is obvious. 656 00:37:38,073 --> 00:37:40,743 So of course if you pay your guides, you're gonna attract 657 00:37:40,743 --> 00:37:42,963 different kinds of people, and I think that's really important. 658 00:37:44,098 --> 00:37:50,038 Uh, our training program is, it's really one of a kind and I feel good gushing 659 00:37:50,038 --> 00:37:52,978 about it because I didn't create it, so I don't feel like I'm bragging. 660 00:37:53,308 --> 00:37:56,998 Uh, but I will talk briefly about the people who did, who are no longer at 661 00:37:56,998 --> 00:38:02,738 Monticello, but our training program was created by, Gary Sandling and Lanaya Grim. 662 00:38:02,838 --> 00:38:05,418 And they created this training program that invests in our 663 00:38:05,418 --> 00:38:08,688 guides in a way that I've never heard of at another institution. 664 00:38:08,718 --> 00:38:12,648 We require a hundred hours of training before a guide ever leads a tour. 665 00:38:12,978 --> 00:38:16,548 It's equally split between technique and content. 666 00:38:16,578 --> 00:38:18,828 People think that it's just gonna be constant lecturing 667 00:38:18,828 --> 00:38:19,908 on the historical figures. 668 00:38:19,908 --> 00:38:20,748 It's really not. 669 00:38:21,108 --> 00:38:23,118 We recommend what books you should read. 670 00:38:23,118 --> 00:38:28,648 We recommend, conversations about how to determine what books you should read. 671 00:38:29,068 --> 00:38:32,068 And we, we have conversations about what does it mean in 672 00:38:32,068 --> 00:38:34,108 this digital age to find truth. 673 00:38:34,198 --> 00:38:35,788 That's one of our interview questions. 674 00:38:35,788 --> 00:38:39,208 So you read something online and you wanna find out if it's true or not. 675 00:38:39,208 --> 00:38:40,078 What do you do? 676 00:38:40,228 --> 00:38:44,278 And this teaches us about historical literacy and it teaches us about the 677 00:38:44,278 --> 00:38:50,438 kinds of, curiosity that underscore the work of a great tour guide, right? 678 00:38:50,438 --> 00:38:54,338 If you are not a curious person who likes people, this is not the right job for you. 679 00:38:54,608 --> 00:38:56,318 You could still find a job in a museum. 680 00:38:56,348 --> 00:38:59,858 There's plenty of museum jobs where you can do other work that you don't have 681 00:38:59,858 --> 00:39:04,208 to be, you know, working with everybody from eight to 80 from all over the world. 682 00:39:04,208 --> 00:39:07,538 But if that sounds like it's not fun to you, you shouldn't be a tour guide. 683 00:39:08,168 --> 00:39:12,878 Uh, and then finally, you know, to really get to your point, Claire, 684 00:39:12,878 --> 00:39:16,778 the, the conversation about support, those are the foundations upon 685 00:39:16,778 --> 00:39:18,853 which the support is built right. 686 00:39:18,853 --> 00:39:21,673 And if those foundations are not in place, then the support can't be there. 687 00:39:22,153 --> 00:39:23,623 But our support is ongoing. 688 00:39:23,683 --> 00:39:27,403 And a good example of this is we just had a couple of round tables 689 00:39:27,403 --> 00:39:31,303 last week where we invited the entire interpretive staff to come together 690 00:39:31,393 --> 00:39:33,073 and we facilitated a dialogue. 691 00:39:33,073 --> 00:39:39,133 We used the arc of dialogue model, and we were working through some of the national 692 00:39:39,133 --> 00:39:42,823 dialogues in the United States right now about the interpretation of the past. 693 00:39:43,093 --> 00:39:44,323 And that's not all, right. 694 00:39:44,323 --> 00:39:46,783 We were also just talking about the politically divisive 695 00:39:46,783 --> 00:39:47,893 times in which we lived. 696 00:39:47,953 --> 00:39:53,593 And we do this in a way that we recognize it's political, but it is never partisan. 697 00:39:54,218 --> 00:39:59,108 We are quite clear that we don't want to have contemporary partisan 698 00:39:59,108 --> 00:40:03,098 conversations, but we have to have conversations that involve the ways 699 00:40:03,098 --> 00:40:04,868 that people feel about politics. 700 00:40:04,928 --> 00:40:08,888 And so allowing our guides to get together and process some of that 701 00:40:08,888 --> 00:40:12,488 stuff with each other makes them better at hearing whatever might 702 00:40:12,488 --> 00:40:15,218 come from any group at any time. 703 00:40:15,698 --> 00:40:19,718 And Charlottesville, Virginia, uh, this is where Monticello is located. 704 00:40:20,138 --> 00:40:25,598 People probably know like this is a place that that has had a, a troubled few years. 705 00:40:25,598 --> 00:40:30,238 You know, in 2017 there was a, a white supremacist attack in Charlottesville 706 00:40:30,238 --> 00:40:35,503 that was hurt around the world and our guides processed that, right? 707 00:40:35,503 --> 00:40:36,973 They had feelings about that. 708 00:40:37,033 --> 00:40:41,203 And there was the need to have a conversation about what does it mean 709 00:40:42,043 --> 00:40:46,453 when something that was supposedly, you know, set off by a conversation about 710 00:40:46,453 --> 00:40:50,023 public memory, because it was about the removal of historical statues. 711 00:40:50,503 --> 00:40:52,213 Uh, what does that mean for people? 712 00:40:52,273 --> 00:40:55,423 And you know, we had to have conversations about what is the difference between 713 00:40:55,423 --> 00:40:57,373 a monument and a historic site? 714 00:40:57,673 --> 00:40:59,353 And they're very different things, right? 715 00:40:59,353 --> 00:41:02,533 And what is our obligation as a historic site searching truth? 716 00:41:03,283 --> 00:41:08,263 So those kinds of conversations between guides, I think are the most 717 00:41:08,263 --> 00:41:10,273 important support from the top down. 718 00:41:10,513 --> 00:41:12,043 Our president was at that round table. 719 00:41:12,043 --> 00:41:14,473 Jen Kaminsky was there, vice President Steve White was there. 720 00:41:14,953 --> 00:41:21,373 And at the same time, knowing that even from the highest levels of the hierarchy, 721 00:41:21,373 --> 00:41:25,063 the people who are actually gonna say the most useful and supportive things are 722 00:41:25,063 --> 00:41:26,683 the other people who do the same work. 723 00:41:27,083 --> 00:41:28,763 , Claire Bown: Great reflections there, I think, which will be 724 00:41:28,793 --> 00:41:30,833 really useful for anyone listening. 725 00:41:31,163 --> 00:41:34,523 Uh, you mentioned, I think both of you at the start, that this work 726 00:41:34,523 --> 00:41:36,783 is never done it's never finished. 727 00:41:37,213 --> 00:41:40,553 Are there some things that you've learned along the way? 728 00:41:40,553 --> 00:41:43,853 Are there some things that you would've done differently? 729 00:41:44,183 --> 00:41:48,493 Can you reflect back now and sort of think about the process and what you 730 00:41:48,493 --> 00:41:49,813 might have done in a different way? 731 00:41:52,723 --> 00:41:53,173 Kelsie Paul: Oh gosh. 732 00:41:53,173 --> 00:41:53,983 How much time do you have? 733 00:41:56,913 --> 00:41:57,663 I think. 734 00:41:58,758 --> 00:42:05,268 That one of the things that we talked about early on after we had launched 735 00:42:05,268 --> 00:42:09,648 the new tour and we were kind of in that immediate reflective moment of looking 736 00:42:09,648 --> 00:42:12,648 back at the previous two years and, and talking about how we did things. 737 00:42:13,428 --> 00:42:19,358 We had a lot of conversations about the fact that we actually wish that we 738 00:42:19,358 --> 00:42:23,898 had been or we look back and think we should have been perhaps like a little 739 00:42:23,898 --> 00:42:30,528 firmer with our part-time guide staff about where this direction was headed. 740 00:42:30,668 --> 00:42:33,938 You know, I mentioned that we had some really intentional conversations, 741 00:42:34,188 --> 00:42:38,108 about why, and we brought our seats, we brought our data about the ways in which, 742 00:42:38,268 --> 00:42:40,488 historic house museums are a dime a dozen. 743 00:42:40,488 --> 00:42:45,108 It is a struggling industry, um, from a business sustainability standpoint. 744 00:42:45,108 --> 00:42:49,068 Historic house museums like Clayton are drains on institutions if they can't 745 00:42:49,338 --> 00:42:53,008 support themselves with their own, you know, visitorship and things like that. 746 00:42:53,058 --> 00:42:57,318 We tried to make the argument that this was as much of a sort of like 747 00:42:57,498 --> 00:43:01,398 socio-cultural tradition in terms of a decision in terms of making sure 748 00:43:01,398 --> 00:43:05,983 that we were staying relevant, um, in sort of our current moment, but 749 00:43:05,983 --> 00:43:09,013 it was also a business decision and we tried to have these conversations 750 00:43:09,013 --> 00:43:10,723 with our guide staff about that. 751 00:43:11,083 --> 00:43:15,113 But I think in our effort to be empathetic with them in terms of 752 00:43:15,113 --> 00:43:18,383 like what we were asking them to do and like our understanding that, 753 00:43:18,383 --> 00:43:22,103 hey, like change is hard always, you know, like it is always hard. 754 00:43:22,103 --> 00:43:25,013 And again, like I, I said it earlier, like recognizing that we 755 00:43:25,013 --> 00:43:27,773 were really asking them to kind of jump into the unknown with us. 756 00:43:27,773 --> 00:43:29,723 We had a lot of empathy around that. 757 00:43:30,023 --> 00:43:33,753 But I do think that there was probably a point where we needed to draw the 758 00:43:33,753 --> 00:43:35,643 hard line in the sand and say like. 759 00:43:36,058 --> 00:43:39,058 The train is leaving the station, you are invited to get on the train with 760 00:43:39,058 --> 00:43:40,978 us, or you are welcome to get off. 761 00:43:41,198 --> 00:43:45,188 And so I, I think we look back at that as just saying, you know, I think that 762 00:43:45,188 --> 00:43:48,848 was probably like a lack of confidence on our end as a staff, as a leadership 763 00:43:48,848 --> 00:43:52,208 staff of just not, you know, having gone through this process ourselves. 764 00:43:52,208 --> 00:43:54,818 So we look back on that and kind of think like maybe we could have been a 765 00:43:54,818 --> 00:43:56,948 little bit more decisive in that respect. 766 00:43:56,948 --> 00:44:02,718 But as far as the whole process goes, there's very little that we would change. 767 00:44:02,748 --> 00:44:03,198 Um. 768 00:44:03,803 --> 00:44:08,843 We are incredibly grateful for all of the people who helped guide us along the way, 769 00:44:08,843 --> 00:44:13,193 who were willing to give us their time and their expertise and their energy, um, 770 00:44:13,403 --> 00:44:15,983 to help us kinda shape what this became. 771 00:44:16,303 --> 00:44:19,743 And as far as like what we're thinking about next 'Gilded Not 772 00:44:19,743 --> 00:44:23,853 Golden' was designed as part of an interpretive plan for Clayton. 773 00:44:24,083 --> 00:44:28,793 So it is our sort of guiding interpretive principle that we now apply to our 774 00:44:28,793 --> 00:44:30,923 other museums and across our site. 775 00:44:31,343 --> 00:44:35,853 Um, but it is designed to be a living document, which means that, it is 776 00:44:35,853 --> 00:44:38,133 never, it's not really set in stone. 777 00:44:38,133 --> 00:44:41,433 It's designed to be flexible to allow us to meet the moment. 778 00:44:41,793 --> 00:44:46,583 Um, and so, you know, 'Gilded, Not Golden' in particular, we will always 779 00:44:46,583 --> 00:44:50,973 be watching it closely and we're always paying attention to what conversations 780 00:44:50,973 --> 00:44:54,033 our guides are having as part of the tour. 781 00:44:54,213 --> 00:44:56,193 What is resonating with people. 782 00:44:56,493 --> 00:45:00,753 And what that means is that we are constantly on our toes a little bit 783 00:45:00,753 --> 00:45:05,613 to make sure that we are shaping the tour, but also preparing the 784 00:45:05,613 --> 00:45:07,833 guides to have those conversations. 785 00:45:07,863 --> 00:45:11,823 Um, you know, Brandon touched on this just a minute ago, this idea that, you sort 786 00:45:11,823 --> 00:45:15,453 of have to be able to anticipate what the current moment is gonna necessitate and 787 00:45:15,453 --> 00:45:18,633 then you have to keep training the guides and you have to keep giving them the 788 00:45:18,633 --> 00:45:20,913 resources and the tools that they need. 789 00:45:20,913 --> 00:45:25,493 So a specific example that I have you know, is that part of what happens 790 00:45:25,493 --> 00:45:29,873 to Frick in 1892 as a part, as like fallout from this labor dispute that 791 00:45:29,873 --> 00:45:33,353 he's involved in, is that there is an assassination attempt on his life, 792 00:45:33,593 --> 00:45:35,603 um, that summer that he survives. 793 00:45:35,873 --> 00:45:41,728 I. Quite frankly, didn't think that I was going to have to give a lot of 794 00:45:41,728 --> 00:45:46,078 resource and time to my guides about how to talk about political killings 795 00:45:46,078 --> 00:45:50,128 in this country, um, until about two years ago when we started having 796 00:45:50,128 --> 00:45:51,928 them happen, like fairly regularly. 797 00:45:52,168 --> 00:45:56,668 Um, both political figures and private citizens, business people, you know, like 798 00:45:56,668 --> 00:45:59,368 very close ties to what happened to Frick. 799 00:45:59,368 --> 00:46:03,028 And so, we have to be prepared at any moment to bring the guides together 800 00:46:03,028 --> 00:46:06,598 and have conversations and give them tools to talk about it because if 801 00:46:06,598 --> 00:46:09,688 we don't, the visitors will, like, the visitors will bring it up. 802 00:46:09,748 --> 00:46:14,278 Um, and I never wanna send my guides into a situation where they feel 803 00:46:14,278 --> 00:46:18,178 like they are kind of on their heels and can't meet that moment. 804 00:46:18,388 --> 00:46:23,228 Um, and so that is a challenge, but it has to happen. 805 00:46:23,478 --> 00:46:26,298 As sort of like a quality control feature on the tour itself. 806 00:46:26,298 --> 00:46:30,288 Like we're really proud of the tour and, and what it does and what it stands for 807 00:46:30,288 --> 00:46:31,848 and what it's done for our institution. 808 00:46:32,028 --> 00:46:33,708 You know, we've won some awards for it. 809 00:46:33,708 --> 00:46:34,968 All of that stuff is great, right? 810 00:46:34,968 --> 00:46:39,348 But it means nothing if we can't maintain the quality and we 811 00:46:39,348 --> 00:46:40,698 can't maintain the relevance. 812 00:46:40,698 --> 00:46:43,518 And so that is what I mean when I say that. 813 00:46:43,518 --> 00:46:45,708 Like the work will never be done with 'Gilded, Not Golden', and we will 814 00:46:45,738 --> 00:46:48,048 always have to be reevaluating it. 815 00:46:48,198 --> 00:46:52,008 And then of course we'd like to sort of do something similar in our other spaces 816 00:46:52,013 --> 00:46:56,028 and, and make sure that we're bringing aspects of that tour experience into 817 00:46:56,028 --> 00:46:59,538 our other spaces as well, which is an ongoing effort for us for the future. 818 00:47:02,073 --> 00:47:04,638 Brandon Dillard: Y you know, I've been sitting here racking my brains about 819 00:47:04,638 --> 00:47:08,778 trying to find something, uh, that's useful to say for other people because 820 00:47:08,778 --> 00:47:12,708 of course there, there's so much that I wish I had done differently. 821 00:47:13,128 --> 00:47:16,068 Uh, there's so many things that I've seen the institution do that now, in 822 00:47:16,068 --> 00:47:18,498 retrospect, I would say, oh, I wish we'd done that a little differently. 823 00:47:18,558 --> 00:47:18,948 Um. 824 00:47:20,988 --> 00:47:25,338 But I think, you know, Monticello is a place where 825 00:47:27,018 --> 00:47:30,288 it's big, which is a privilege. 826 00:47:30,738 --> 00:47:32,898 It's also big, which has its disadvantages. 827 00:47:32,988 --> 00:47:35,628 Uh, you know, we're not nimble, we don't make quick decisions, 828 00:47:36,378 --> 00:47:37,788 and sometimes that's really good. 829 00:47:37,848 --> 00:47:39,453 Um, but I think that. 830 00:47:41,163 --> 00:47:44,673 To something Kelsie just said, you know, this ongoing support is necessary. 831 00:47:44,673 --> 00:47:47,613 You know those round tables, they're scheduled at Monticello, like every month. 832 00:47:47,613 --> 00:47:48,993 We get people together constantly. 833 00:47:48,993 --> 00:47:52,593 We have to, but what does that actually mean for our interpretation? 834 00:47:52,593 --> 00:47:54,033 What does it mean for our exhibit space? 835 00:47:54,213 --> 00:47:59,808 In 2026, this is the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States 836 00:47:59,808 --> 00:48:03,753 of America, which just to remind all of the listeners means that 837 00:48:03,753 --> 00:48:07,653 it's the 250th anniversary of Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence. 838 00:48:07,713 --> 00:48:10,743 Like that is the moment that the United States of America begins. 839 00:48:10,743 --> 00:48:15,483 And so at Monticello, we've been thinking about this moment for a very long time, 840 00:48:15,633 --> 00:48:20,463 a very long time, years and years, and I think that we have some really 841 00:48:20,463 --> 00:48:22,473 exciting programming focused on this. 842 00:48:22,473 --> 00:48:25,623 And one of the things that I'm really proud of is that we've been planning 843 00:48:25,623 --> 00:48:30,143 this programming for years, which means that it's not a response to the political 844 00:48:30,143 --> 00:48:33,773 moment, but it turns out to fit really well to the contemporary political 845 00:48:33,773 --> 00:48:38,033 moment where we have a tour right now called Founding Friends, Founding Foes. 846 00:48:38,063 --> 00:48:41,303 That is a tour that focuses on the relationship between Thomas Jefferson 847 00:48:41,303 --> 00:48:45,233 and John Adams, the third and second presidents who were, uh, famously 848 00:48:45,233 --> 00:48:50,133 friends and famously political not friends is a nice way of putting it. 849 00:48:50,193 --> 00:48:55,263 Uh, they disagreed on a lot of points, but they have this beautiful correspondence 850 00:48:55,263 --> 00:48:58,773 that we can read today and get insights into the ways that both men thought 851 00:48:58,773 --> 00:49:02,373 and the ways that both men eloquently and civilly disagreed with one another. 852 00:49:03,393 --> 00:49:07,503 And in a moment when our politics has become rancorous to a point that there 853 00:49:07,503 --> 00:49:12,603 is no civil discourse, it's just moral certainty and screaming at one another, 854 00:49:12,633 --> 00:49:17,193 usually in all caps from behind the safety of a computer screen, it seems 855 00:49:17,193 --> 00:49:20,823 that, uh, people really want this kind of conversation and they need to be 856 00:49:20,823 --> 00:49:25,263 reminded of this civic virtue and this value that democracy requires discourse. 857 00:49:27,033 --> 00:49:28,473 All that is to say. 858 00:49:30,723 --> 00:49:36,183 I think that over the years we've all been pretty guilty of that. 859 00:49:36,973 --> 00:49:41,083 I think a lot of people are really upset and mad and have been for a long time. 860 00:49:41,563 --> 00:49:45,003 And I think that, whether that's a combination of social media or political 861 00:49:45,003 --> 00:49:48,873 divisiveness, or the aftermath of a pandemic or any number of things 862 00:49:48,873 --> 00:49:52,683 that you want to talk about in a world that is constantly changing. 863 00:49:52,683 --> 00:49:56,418 And we're dealing with things like climate change while we're watching 864 00:49:56,468 --> 00:49:59,558 you know, children grow up as digital natives who don't know the difference 865 00:49:59,558 --> 00:50:03,398 between fact and fiction, although they're better at it than like older people. 866 00:50:03,943 --> 00:50:09,868 I, I think that it's a moment for us to remember the importance of just, we 867 00:50:09,868 --> 00:50:11,698 do this work because we love this work. 868 00:50:12,718 --> 00:50:16,138 And sometimes I wish that we would focus on that more. 869 00:50:16,588 --> 00:50:20,218 That the love of this work comes from the need to be inspired by 870 00:50:20,218 --> 00:50:21,538 the things that happened before. 871 00:50:21,928 --> 00:50:26,728 The need to remember that calamity is a part of being human. 872 00:50:28,018 --> 00:50:32,528 And this is not to downplay the the challenges of our times, which are great. 873 00:50:34,223 --> 00:50:37,523 I wouldn't want to downplay the challenges of the late 18th century 874 00:50:37,523 --> 00:50:41,033 in the United States, either nor would I want to downplay the challenges of 875 00:50:41,033 --> 00:50:44,303 the mid 19th century and for Native American people in this country. 876 00:50:44,303 --> 00:50:49,253 Those challenges have been ongoing for five centuries and for black people those 877 00:50:49,253 --> 00:50:52,853 challenges have been ongoing since the dawn of the transatlantic slave trade. 878 00:50:52,853 --> 00:50:53,063 Right? 879 00:50:53,063 --> 00:50:58,223 These conversations are integral to who we are, but can we take 880 00:50:58,223 --> 00:51:00,293 inspiration from 'em in a way that. 881 00:51:01,073 --> 00:51:03,533 Will lead us to really create a better future. 882 00:51:03,893 --> 00:51:07,643 And I think, yes, I wish that over the years I've been able to 883 00:51:07,643 --> 00:51:08,903 lean into that a little bit more. 884 00:51:08,903 --> 00:51:13,613 Sometimes, uh, sometimes it gets me down, but I think that it has 885 00:51:13,613 --> 00:51:15,173 to necessarily get everybody down. 886 00:51:15,173 --> 00:51:16,763 If it's not, you're not really paying attention. 887 00:51:17,273 --> 00:51:19,673 But I think that we can use that as a real strength. 888 00:51:19,673 --> 00:51:22,643 And I would like to see us do that more because I think people need it. 889 00:51:22,733 --> 00:51:25,703 And I think that when people go to a historic site, they say they go 890 00:51:25,703 --> 00:51:28,853 to learn, but there's all kinds of research that shows us no, they don't. 891 00:51:29,483 --> 00:51:32,603 They go 'cause they wanna be affirmed in something that they already believe. 892 00:51:32,993 --> 00:51:36,653 And is there a way that we can still deliver that nuanced truth, that we 893 00:51:36,653 --> 00:51:42,203 can still talk about this complicated version of a fraught past that 894 00:51:42,203 --> 00:51:46,583 nonetheless meets that need and that affirmation and that can do both 895 00:51:46,583 --> 00:51:48,053 of those things at the same time. 896 00:51:48,623 --> 00:51:51,533 And again, I think the answer is yes, people are far more complex than 897 00:51:51,533 --> 00:51:53,933 pundits would want us to believe and. 898 00:51:54,668 --> 00:51:59,198 When people come to Monticello and I see people who will openly identify 899 00:51:59,198 --> 00:52:02,408 one way politically or the other and then completely latch onto the 900 00:52:02,408 --> 00:52:05,498 part of the narrative that should contradict what they want to hear about. 901 00:52:05,708 --> 00:52:11,438 I'm reminded time and time again that people have capacity within them 902 00:52:12,188 --> 00:52:17,138 and that each one of us, my boss, is fond of saying, can be a founder. 903 00:52:17,618 --> 00:52:20,408 And I think that's right, and I think we have to remember that, and I hope 904 00:52:20,408 --> 00:52:22,118 Monticello does that more in the future. 905 00:52:23,768 --> 00:52:27,158 Claire Bown: I think that's, uh, some very wise words to end on. 906 00:52:27,258 --> 00:52:30,288 I'd love to tell people, we'll put some links in the show notes for 907 00:52:30,288 --> 00:52:33,438 everyone, but how can people find out more about you and your work? 908 00:52:33,448 --> 00:52:34,728 Kelsie, would you like to start? 909 00:52:35,463 --> 00:52:35,943 Kelsie Paul: Oh gosh. 910 00:52:35,943 --> 00:52:40,103 Well, you can certainly find out, everything you would wanna know about our 911 00:52:40,103 --> 00:52:44,243 work at the Frick and with Clayton, on our website, you know, frick pittsburgh.org. 912 00:52:44,573 --> 00:52:49,673 And honestly, the best way to get ahold of me is I am happy to talk to anyone, 913 00:52:49,723 --> 00:52:52,303 who wants to about this type of work. 914 00:52:52,543 --> 00:52:54,663 And, can reach me via email. 915 00:52:54,693 --> 00:52:56,673 My contact information is on our website. 916 00:52:56,943 --> 00:53:01,143 Because I, I consider that a sort of a way to pay it forward. 917 00:53:01,173 --> 00:53:04,623 I mentioned the fact that, you know, this work that we've done at the Frick that 918 00:53:04,623 --> 00:53:09,043 we're very proud of, it didn't happen in a silo and it didn't happen alone. 919 00:53:09,043 --> 00:53:11,803 There were so many people, Brandon included, who, were 920 00:53:11,803 --> 00:53:12,853 willing to chat with us. 921 00:53:12,853 --> 00:53:16,703 And so, I take that very seriously to just be a sounding board 922 00:53:16,703 --> 00:53:17,873 or to be able to give advice. 923 00:53:17,953 --> 00:53:21,793 So I'm happy to talk to anybody who wants to about this type of work. 924 00:53:21,793 --> 00:53:22,663 I am on LinkedIn. 925 00:53:22,693 --> 00:53:25,873 I'm not as good at LinkedIn as Brandon is, but I am there. 926 00:53:27,908 --> 00:53:28,718 Brandon Dillard: Uh, thank you for that. 927 00:53:28,728 --> 00:53:28,948 Kelsie. 928 00:53:29,078 --> 00:53:30,728 I look like I'm good at LinkedIn. 929 00:53:30,728 --> 00:53:34,268 I'm not actually, so, uh, if you do find me on LinkedIn and send me a 930 00:53:34,268 --> 00:53:36,938 message, please don't be offended if I don't respond for a while. 931 00:53:36,968 --> 00:53:40,268 I'm not all that good at technology in general, but I do try to keep some updates 932 00:53:40,268 --> 00:53:42,098 on LinkedIn about our ongoing work. 933 00:53:42,468 --> 00:53:44,658 I would echo the same thing, uh, that Kelsie said. 934 00:53:44,658 --> 00:53:47,268 monticello.org is the best place to find out information 935 00:53:47,268 --> 00:53:48,798 about our ongoing programs. 936 00:53:48,978 --> 00:53:51,468 We have a social media presence that's pretty strong, Monticello. 937 00:53:51,468 --> 00:53:53,118 You can follow us on Facebook or Instagram. 938 00:53:53,498 --> 00:53:57,338 And, uh, I will plug this one personal thing that I'm very excited about. 939 00:53:57,338 --> 00:54:00,698 The 250th anniversary is a time that people are just interested 940 00:54:00,698 --> 00:54:02,048 in the past in a different way. 941 00:54:02,438 --> 00:54:03,488 And for Native American. 942 00:54:03,848 --> 00:54:06,938 People, that's a really complicated conversation. 943 00:54:06,968 --> 00:54:11,408 How do we commemorate the two 50th of a country that's built on lands that 944 00:54:11,408 --> 00:54:13,838 were taken from, uh, native people? 945 00:54:14,198 --> 00:54:19,178 And so one of the projects that I'm really honored to have been working on is I 946 00:54:19,178 --> 00:54:22,178 played a small part in the development of an exhibit that will be opening soon 947 00:54:22,178 --> 00:54:25,778 at the Museum of the Cherokee people in, uh, Cherokee, North Carolina. 948 00:54:26,108 --> 00:54:29,198 So if anyone is interested in learning about a Cherokee perspective 949 00:54:29,198 --> 00:54:31,988 on the American Revolution and the founding of the United States, uh, 950 00:54:32,018 --> 00:54:34,748 go check out that exhibit and you can, uh, find the Museum of the 951 00:54:34,748 --> 00:54:37,128 Cherokee people online at motcp.org. 952 00:54:38,678 --> 00:54:41,398 And again to echo Kelsie, like I'll talk to anybody. 953 00:54:41,638 --> 00:54:44,608 I think the best thing we do at Monticello is collaborative work, 954 00:54:44,608 --> 00:54:45,688 and I think it's really important. 955 00:54:45,688 --> 00:54:48,778 So, uh, yeah, LinkedIn and, and, shoot me an email. 956 00:54:48,838 --> 00:54:49,618 I'm easy to find. 957 00:54:50,398 --> 00:54:50,698 Claire Bown: Brilliant. 958 00:54:50,788 --> 00:54:54,898 Um, that just leaves me time to thank you both for coming on the podcast today. 959 00:54:55,858 --> 00:54:56,788 Kelsie Paul: Thank you so much. 960 00:54:57,268 --> 00:54:57,838 Brandon Dillard: Yeah, thank you. 961 00:54:57,838 --> 00:54:58,378 It was a pleasure. 962 00:55:00,788 --> 00:55:03,018 Claire Bown: So a huge thank you to Brandon and Kelsie 963 00:55:03,038 --> 00:55:04,418 for being on the show today. 964 00:55:04,748 --> 00:55:09,998 You can find out more about their work, Monticello, the Frick Pittsburgh, 965 00:55:10,268 --> 00:55:14,078 and the 'Gilded, Not Golden' Tour via the links in the show notes. 966 00:55:14,798 --> 00:55:19,418 If you've enjoyed this episode or if any previous episodes of The Art 967 00:55:19,538 --> 00:55:24,248 Engager have supported your practice, please consider supporting the podcast. 968 00:55:24,698 --> 00:55:29,168 You can become a friend of the podcast on Patreon, or you can pick up a copy 969 00:55:29,168 --> 00:55:36,008 of my book, The Art Engager Reimagining Guided Experiences in Museums Available 970 00:55:36,008 --> 00:55:38,498 now, wherever you buy your books. 971 00:55:39,008 --> 00:55:39,938 That's it for today. 972 00:55:39,938 --> 00:55:43,358 Thank you so much for listening, and I'll see you next time. 973 00:55:46,748 --> 00:55:50,468 Thank you for listening to The Art Engager podcast with me, Claire Bown. 974 00:55:52,088 --> 00:55:55,868 You can find more art engagement resources by visiting my website, 975 00:55:56,258 --> 00:56:00,938 thinking museum.com, and you can also find me on Instagram at Thinking 976 00:56:00,938 --> 00:56:05,288 Museum, where I regularly share tips and tools on how to bring art 977 00:56:05,288 --> 00:56:07,928 to life and engage your audience. 978 00:56:09,098 --> 00:56:13,328 If you've enjoyed this episode, please share with others and subscribe to the 979 00:56:13,328 --> 00:56:16,118 show on your podcast player of choice. 980 00:56:17,048 --> 00:56:20,078 Thank you so much for listening, and I'll see you next time.