Ulysses & Julia Grant: Personal History at Their Historic Home

This past summer, I had the good fortune of traveling to St. Louis, MO on vacation. While there, I managed to visit around a dozen museums and historic sites, each of which I attempted to look at not only as a visitor but also as a professional-in-training. From the Old Courthouse's continuing attempts to recreate the room in which the Dred Scott case began in the 1840's; to the Museum of Westward Expansion's decision to make their building as open non-linear as the subject it teaches; to the Scott Joplin House allowing visitors to play his ragtime hits on an old player piano; the museums of St. Louis try hard and (I think) succeed at helping their patrons feel connected to history. For me, none made that connection stronger than the Ulysses S Grant National Historic Site.

White Haven. It was painted Paris green
in the 1870's, a then-popular color.

The Grant Site is located at the location of the Grant family's home, White Haven, and the surrounding farm. The house itself was bare, a decision the museum made because they did not have enough information about how it may have been furnished. The original chicken house, ice house, and summer kitchen were also on-site, but none of those were all that special in themselves. Where the Grant Historic Site really shines is in the personal stories it tells about Grant, his wife Julia, and their children, in-laws, and slaves. Our guide was an excellent story-teller, and as we walked around the site, he told us of young Ulysses riding through driving rain to propose to Julia before he left to fight in the Mexican-American War; of him arguing with his father-in-law, Frederick Dent, about the ethics of slavery (Grant opposed, Dent owned); and of other pieces of their lives.

Excerpts from Ulysses' and Julia's
journals and letters were available to read.

After the tour, this focus on the personal side was compounded by an exhibit called An Intricate Tapestry: the Lives of Ulysses and Julia Grant, which attempted to explore "the Grants' public and private roles within the context of their time." While there was information on Grant the general and president, the highlight was the family dynamic. Explored through correspondence and other primary sources, the exhibit revealed an an intimate way the inner-workings of one of the presidential families during one of the country's most trying periods.

The Grant Historic Site gave me a good idea of just how personal an exhibit could be and one of many ways to evoke a connection to history. It will be interesting to discover more ways to bring history alive.