Spring 2008
Like many of the best students in the MAHG program, Mary Browning Huntington seeks out learning opportunities year-round. In addition to her work teaching US history and government at Hunters Lane High School in Nashville, Mary volunteers as a historical interpreter at the Hermitage, the home of President Andrew Jackson.
For Mary, the extra work is a gift to herself. As a teacher in an urban public school district, she often feels "not a teacher so much as some kind of manager" who must push her students through a rigorous set of learning objectives to insure their academic success. While the school program allows little time to delve into those particulars of history that bring the reality of another time to life, work at the Hermitage exposes her to the intimate details of another historical period. She described watching a curator at the Hermitage show how elegant ceiling lighting fixtures were lowered through a pulley system when they needed to be refilled with the whale oil that powered them. The more often she works at the Hermitage, the more she can "learn the stories that bring history to life."
The Hermitage offers an unusually authentic and detailed view of the antebellum plantation. No family other than Jackson’s ever lived there; when Jackson’s adoptive son was forced to sell the property, he sold it to the state of Tennessee, which eventually conveyed it to the Ladies’ Hermitage Association to be operated as a museum. Almost all the furnishings and decor originate from the 1830s and appear much as they did in 1837, when Jackson left the Presidency and returned to the Hermitage to live. Mary notes that traditions about the Jacksons’ use of the buildings, furnishings, and grounds have been maintained and can be explained to visitors, which is not entirely the case even at Monticello, Jefferson’s historic home.
As a plantation owner, Jackson was very much a "hands-on" manager, keeping close track of Hermitage business even during his presidency. His careful record-keeping has enabled curators at the Hermitage to reconstruct life at the estate, while shedding light on his personality and fierce ambition. Through her work at the Hermitage, Mary has come to view Jackson as an authentic example of the self-made man and to understand his desire to equalize economic opportunity among the enfranchised as consistent with his own way of living.
It has also broadened her understanding of those who lead forceful lives in ambiguous times. A native of Strongsville, Ohio, Mary came to the teaching of Southern American history "with the viewpoint of an outsider." She can understand why the students at her urban school, who are predominately African-American, are reluctant to visit the home of a president who became "the largest slaveholder in this part of the state." Unfortunately, barriers to securing special bus transport from a school where parents cannot afford extra fees (eighty percent of Mary’s students receive free or reduced-cost lunches) have prevented her from arranging field trips to the Hermitage. But she tries to teach the value of examining people’s choices in the context of their times.
She can also share with her students the work that has begun in the last ten years to address the history of slavery at the site. The Ladies’ Hermitage Association has received a grant to restore the old slave quarters and has begun excavations in an attempt to locate the slave burial ground. To a large extent, Jackson kept the families of slaves working his plantation intact, so it has been possible to trace lineages of slave descendants. This ground-breaking research now taking place at the Hermitage may become the focus of Mary’s capstone project, which she is ready to begin.
Mary will travel to Georgetown this summer on a James Madison study grant, which will complete her required credits for the Masters degree. But she is already feeling nostalgic for the summers she has spent at Ashland. "As a teacher, you’re somewhat isolated in the classroom," she pointed out; even while surrounded by students, you don’t have the company of peers who can help you refine your technique. She dreams of returning for seminars at Ashland after her degree is finished, so as to reconnect with friends and "take fun classes from favorite professors" (she especially enjoys Marc Landy and Sid Milkis) "and not stress about the end-of-session exam." We hope she will find the time to do that.