Page xi →Acknowledgments

This book required infinite support from numerous institutions, public history practitioners, historians, family, and friends. The journey began with my parents in the 1980s. My late father, Gary, loved history and film and instilled in me a passion for both. He knew nothing of public history’s definitions or theories yet was and will always be the first public historian in my life. If my father was a muse, my mother Linda provided the foundation, work ethic, and confidence required to complete a manuscript ten years in the making. She also took me to all the free museums she could find in our community and when we traveled. When I felt overwhelmed or mentally blocked, I found shelter in the support of my husband, Robert; the smiles of our son, Jenson; and cuddles with our dogs, Lennon (bless his perfect soul) and Biscuit. To my husband, thank you for being my ride or die, twenty years legally. It’s hard to believe this book consumed half of our marriage. My brother pledged boldly and truthfully that he would never read my book. I appreciate our candid relationship, shared experience, and mostly healthy sibling rivalry, and his letting me work in his shop on extended stays in Kentucky. So many family members encouraged me along the way, including the Watkins, Robert’s family and the Kohls clan, and I am grateful for their support. My lifelong friends outside of academia—Felicia, Libby, Margaret, Julie, and Jessica—never wavered in their belief that I would complete this book. This is also true of my neighbors Mike and Mindy, who championed me over the last six years.

Strong institutions and peers along my scholarly voyage made a tremendous impact on me as both a person and a historian. I would like to thank my comrades in the history department at the University of South Carolina, many of whom were in my cohort and/or endured unfounded imposter syndrome and a volatile market alongside me: Rochelle Outlaw, Candace Cunningham, Robert Greene, Caitlin Mans Sharpe, Kate McFadden, Megan Bennett, and Brian Robinson. They provided friendship and intellectual support when I was at my most vulnerable and inspired me often. I am thankful to have met Erin Holmes and my southern feminist historian soulmate Jennifer “Bingo” Gunter, both of whom are my biggest cheerleaders and help me make sense of academic life, womanhood, and southernness. I am especially grateful to my dissertation committee, Wanda Henricks, Robert Weyeneth, and Susan Courtney, all of whom gave me tremendous guidance Page xii →when I first began this project. Wanda was an invaluable resource on Black women’s history and critical to the evaluation of Historic Columbia’s content and tour as a predominantly white institution. Susan’s South on Film course gave me unique training and prepared me to look at the visual text The Birth of a Nation in new ways. Bob brought his sharp preservationist eye as a committee member and continues to be a wonderful mentor in his retirement through the National Council on Public History. I am indebted to Allison Marsh for her guidance and friendship as committee chair and my longtime adviser. She taught me the kind of academic public historian I want to be—an active practitioner and a caring mentor who guides students toward being the best public historians they can be. I would like to thank the University of South Carolina Press and acquisitions editor Ehren Foley, who spent years supporting me in completing the project and expediting publication as tenure and promotion loomed. Anonymous peer reviewers from the fields of public history and Reconstruction dramatically improved this manuscript as well. Bruce Baker, in particular, offered thoughtful and detailed feedback that infinitely strengthened the book.

In the midst of assaults on history education and an ever-shrinking market, I managed to land in Duquesne University’s history department in 2017, which provided me overwhelming support for the book and a public history program with institutional partnerships that make it a joy to be a practitioner. Most vital has been my departmental mentor, Jay Dwyer, who read the manuscript draft cover to cover. His keen editorial skills brought a complicated intersectional conversation far outside of his field of Latin American history to publication quality. My chair, John Mitcham, not only reviewed my book proposal but also solicited course releases and released funds to help me bring the final project to fruition. A fellow southerner (though it took me about six months to convince the Georgian that my upper South origins were legit), John made his devotion to this project clear when he started bringing me Duke’s mayonnaise, not well-stocked in Pittsburgh, from his trips home. My public historian colleague Stephanie Gray cheered me on at every phase of the publishing process, asked smart questions, and helped me think out ideas, organize, and stick to writing schedules. She is a delightful partner in building a nationally recognized public history program. The book also would not be possible without the generous support of my dean, Kris Blair in the McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts, and the Wimmer Family Foundation, which funds pre-tenure research. Four graduate assistants from Duquesne provided excellent aid in manuscript tasks that emerged. Amanda Seim, Sydney Yates, and Deanna Berryman worked diligently to find Reconstruction museums in the past and present. Amanda also edited and finalized the transcriptions of docent Page xiii →oral histories that I had only partially transcribed for the dissertation. In addition Deanna tracked down permissions for images used in the book and provided historiographical research and analysis for post-reviewer revisions. Glenna Van Dyke assisted in contacting docent narrators and transferring ownership of their oral histories to the Department of Oral History at the University of South Carolina Libraries. I would also like to thank our department administrative assistants, Kelly Kovalsky and Sam Hicks-Gandy, who handled payments for research trips, student workers, and images for the book and in general make my job easier every day. Special thanks to Sam, who gifted me a tiara when I completed peer-review revisions. I happily wore it to announce publication and my teaching award and have tucked it away to honor Stephanie’s future book milestones.

Of course, no historian succeeds without the aid provided by archivists. The staff of the South Caroliniana Library, including Graham Duncan and Nathan Saunders, director of the Department of Oral History Andrea L’Hommedieu, and Libby Shortt, formerly of the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library and Museum, proved no exception. I would like to thank the public historians and docents who shared their time and skills with me at Wilson homes across the South: the Presidential Library and Museum, the boyhood home in Augusta, and S Street. Research at these sites would not have been possible without funding from the Institute for Southern Studies and Institute for African American Research at the University of South Carolina.

Most important, I am filled with gratitude that docents of the Museum of the Reconstruction Era (MoRE) at the Woodrow Wilson Family Home, who turned an exhibit into an experience, disclosed their stories to me. I especially would like to acknowledge Heather Bacon-Rogers for her continued friendship and updates about the MoRE and Historic Columbia. Any criticism docents may perceive in this work reflects on my shortcomings as their trainer. I must recognize the MoRE interpretive and exhibit teams circa 2014 as well: Ann Posner, James Quint, Fielding Freed, Sarah Blackwell, John Sherrer, and Robin Waites. They taught me a great deal about working with volunteers, how to use the MoRE in education and programming, and the preservation history of Wilson’s childhood home. Similar to the visitors and docents of the MoRE, I, too, was taught a Dunning School interpretation in AP US history by my favorite high school teacher, who also happened to worship Woodrow Wilson. As such I am incredibly thankful that Robin, Historic Columbia’s visionary leader, gave me the opportunity to work on this revolutionary historic house museum, took my expertise seriously, and paid me appropriately. Greater still, she offered the docents and me the chance to correct our miseducation and complicate the history of “great men.” She will be sorely missed after her retirement in June 2024. Page xiv →