Expanding the Narratives of Domestic Staff at Historic House Museums: A Case Study of the James Whitcomb Riley Museum Home

Abstract

The James Whitcomb Riley Museum Home (JWRMH), located in Indianapolis, Indiana, is best known for interpreting the life of the famous Hoosier poet who resided at the home for the latter part of his life. The JWRMH has the opportunity to more fully incorporate the domestic staff – Katie Kindell, Dennis Ewing, and Nannie Ewing – who worked at 528 Lockerbie Street during Riley’s residence, into the story told today at the home. The JWRMH has preserved Katie Kindell’s room on the second floor of the home and the butler’s pantry next to the kitchen, places in which interpretation about the domestic staff have long been presented to visitors. Yet archival research shows that there is much more to the lives of the domestic staff than what is currently presented at the house. While Katie Kindell, the only white domestic staff member at the home, has been fairly well documented, much less was known about the home’s two Black domestic staff, Dennis Ewing and Nannie Ewing. Since Dennis Ewing and Nannie Ewing were married, a story about them being married to each other while they worked at the home has long been perpetuated. This study of the documentary record, however, has revealed that their marriage to each other occurred long after they left their employment at 528 Lockerbie Street. This study explores where this myth might have originated, why it has been perpetuated, and how Dennis Ewing and Nannie Ewing’s work and marriage history situates them into the larger story of Black Indianapolis in the early twentieth century. Additionally, exploring the ways in which architecture during the nineteenth and twentieth century isolated the domestic staff and the ways in which this has been reproduced in the site’s interpretive strategies reveals how the lives and stories of the domestic staff have been devalued. This study demonstrates that there is a great opportunity for historic institutions to expand their interpretive narratives and hopes to inspire them to be curious about all the people whose lives shaped their sites.