NPRO Studio, Natchez
What images does the phrase “Pilgrimage Garden Club” conjure up for you? If you thought little old ladies, hoopskirts, and recipes for aspic, you probably wouldn’t be alone. But you’d also be missing an important part of the story—that’s the side that Katie Wood Kirchhoff is dying to tell.
Kirchhoff is an expert on American material culture, expertise that earned her the position of director and curator of historic properties for the Pilgrimage Garden Club, which has owned and operated two of Natchez’s iconic historic landmarks—Longwood and Stanton Hall—since the nineteen-thirties.
Dynamic and outspoken, Kirchhoff is devoted to interpreting American history through the lens of material culture. Kirchhoff is concentrating on raising the interpretive standard of the tours at Longwood and Stanton Hall by letting the homes’ material culture illustrate the history that surrounds them. Drawing on meticulous research of historic newspaper articles, probate inventories, and the like, Kirchhoff has revamped tours at both properties to focus on historic objects, inviting visitors to consider what they reveal about the way people lived.
Tours at the properties won’t only focus on the ones who wore the hoopskirts, either. A primary goal of Kirchhoff’s approach is to expand the conversation beyond the homes’ owners. “We want to talk about the entire house community,” said Kirchhoff, noting that the constellation of buildings at Longwood speaks volumes, not just about original owners Haller and Julia Nutt, but also about the community of people—free and enslaved—who served them. “Southern history can be a loaded term,” she noted. “But when you approach it through objects, you offer a conversation where anyone can bring their background and their beliefs and feel comfortable.”
This year, the Pilgrimage Garden Club will hold the inaugural Save the Hall Ball, a gala event supporting preservation efforts at both properties. The black tie event will take place Saturday, March 21, in conjunction with Pilgrimage’s Historic Natchez Tableaux. The event will offer an open bar, cocktail buffet by Chef Bingo Starr, and Atlanta-based dance band Anita onstage. Tickets ($100 per person or $250 per couple including reserved seating for the Tableaux) are available by calling Lindsay Shelton at (800) 647-6742.
