Alexandra Kennon
Oakley House at Audubon State Historic Site in St. Francisville.
Though John James Audubon only lived and worked there for a few months in the summer of 1821, the story of Oakley House in St. Francisville is often told from his perspective. Part of the reason for this, besides the enduring fame of the Birds of America series he worked on there, is that Audubon was a prolific journaler—writing down all of his experiences, not sparing any thoughts or opinions. Biases and limitations aside, it makes for interesting reading.
A new tour of Oakley House curated and led by Interpretive Ranger Michaela Brown, who came to Oakley in October 2022 after completing her Masters in Anthropology at Tulane, looks beyond Audubon’s journals to the lives of the multiple generations of women who were responsible for running and operating the plantation. Brown is diligent about not only bring to life stories from the lives of the Pirrie women, including Lucretia and her daughter Eliza—who was Audubon's student—but also to elevate the experiences of the enslaved women who also resided at Oakley. These include Silvia Freeman, who was one of multiple generations of women who served as cooks, and continued in that role even after the Civil War as the plantation transitioned from slavery to tenant farming.
Brown is diligent about not only bring to life stories from the lives of the Pirrie women, including Lucretia and her daughter Eliza—who was Audubon's student—but also to elevate the experiences of the enslaved women who also resided at Oakley.
This kind of historical research and presentation isn’t easy; navigating primary documents often in the form of letters or journals written by those who lived in the house, filling in the extensive gaps of the experiences of those who could not or did not write, and then presenting it all to contemporary visitors in a way that is engaging. Brown, with her Tulane anthropology education and background in theatre, is uniquely up to the task—from the tour’s first stop, her lively presentation and excitement about her ongoing research was contagious, captivating everyone in the tour group I joined on a July afternoon, even a young boy who looked to be around six.
From the first stop, Brown had us thinking about history in new ways. We giggled as she read Audubon’s judgemental thoughts about the women of Oakley House, from Eliza’s plainness to Lucretia’s stubbornness. Then, we became more contemplative as she reminded us to consider Audubon’s biases, and the context in which he was writing—would he have ever before encountered a woman running her own household? Might his disdain for Lucretia, who eventually fired him just a few months into his post for his disrespect towards her, have had something to do with inherent 1800s misogyny? And beyond that, Brown reminded the group to consider that the entire home was built and operated by enslaved individuals, whose lives were as full and complex as either Audubon’s or Lucretia’s, even where records are lacking. From an archeaological discovery of an 1855 metal coin charm at the site of the cook's cabin, likely once worn by Silvia as she carried on the African tradition of wearing a coin with her birth year as a necklace, to Eliza's secret love letters that conclude in romantic tragedy, The Women of Oakley presents an old property in a new—and fascinating—light.
The Women of Oakley tour will be offered on August 12 and September 9 at 11:30 am, 1:30 pm, and 3:30 pm. $10 adults, $8 seniors, $6 students.
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