Tag Archives: Washington University

Meet the Interns » Hannah

Han­nah

In today’s install­ment of our pop­u­lar “Meet the Intern” series, we’re giv­ing our howdy-dos to Han­nah, who has been a famil­iar smil­ing face around the Muse­um since the spring when her class from Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­si­ty paid us a vis­it. [Edi­to­r­i­al com­ment: She’s a smar­ty AND she has awe­some taste in dresses.]

What are you study­ing and where?
I grad­u­at­ed from Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­si­ty in St. Louis in 2012, with a BFA in paint­ing and art his­to­ry and a minor in history.

Why Camp­bell House?
I first vis­it­ed with a class on Amer­i­can cul­tur­al remem­brance and real­ly enjoyed view­ing the arti­facts in each room as wit­ness­es to the Camp­bell sto­ry. His­toric house muse­ums are my favorite sites to vis­it as a tourist, so I am enthu­si­as­tic to explore the col­lec­tion and expe­ri­ence how it relates to vis­i­tors. I’m also orig­i­nal­ly from Philadel­phia, so the Camp­bells add an impor­tant dimen­sion to how I con­tin­ue to under­stand St. Louis his­to­ry through mate­r­i­al culture.

What are you going to work on at CHM over the summer?
I am research­ing how the Camp­bell fam­i­ly has been char­ac­ter­ized through let­ters, por­traits and pho­tographs com­bined with the his­to­ry of how this infor­ma­tion has been pre­sent­ed in the muse­um. What aspects of the family’s per­son­al lives have been con­sis­tent­ly engag­ing to vis­i­tors, and where do these nar­ra­tives come from? Using this mate­r­i­al, I also plan to write an inter­dis­ci­pli­nary edu­ca­tion pro­gram that focus­es on visu­al art in the collection.

When you aren’t slav­ing away at Camp­bell House, what are you doing?
I am a gallery teach­ing intern at Saint Louis Art Muse­um, a researcher in Amer­i­can Cul­ture Stud­ies at Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­si­ty, and an artist assis­tant. I’m also study­ing Recon­struc­tion-era tourism, learn­ing how to dri­ve (and park!) in St. Louis and dream­ing up poten­tial art projects – some­times all while re-watch­ing Down­ton Abbey.

What’s your favorite thing about Camp­bell House so far?
The fam­i­ly’s oys­ter plate and in the archives, a very the­atri­cal tran­script titled “Robert Campbell’s Romance” (1948) an episode in “The Land We Live In” radio series, pro­duced by the Union Elec­tric Com­pa­ny. I like imag­in­ing the lis­ten­ers swooning…and then com­ing to the house to see if the tale was actu­al­ly true!

Favorite Sand­wich:
BLT

Favorite Book:
Cold Moun­tain – I’ve been read­ing it off and on for the past four years, because I have to start over each time to remem­ber what the sto­ry looks like! My favorite book that I’ve actu­al­ly fin­ished is A Tree Grows in Brook­lyn.

Monday Update » 6.25.12

Good After­noon! A lot has hap­pened over the last two weeks.…

Pier­re’s Hole in the Teton Val­ley, Ida­ho, the site of the 1832 Rocky Moun­tain Rendezvous.

Andy’s Back!
Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Andy made it back from his excur­sion to Robert’s old stomp­ing grounds in Wyoming and Ida­ho. We’ll do a full post of the Ren­dezvous and all the sites he vis­it­ed, but to give you a pre­view, here’s a shot of Pier­re’s Hole. Not only did Robert trade here dur­ing the ren­dezvous, but it was also the site of the famous Bat­tle of Pier­re’s Hole, in which Robert played a key role with his friend Bill Sub­lette. (Beau­ti­ful, huh?)

Camp­bell House class at Life­long Learn­ing Institute
We are pleased to announce that staff from Camp­bell House Muse­um will be teach­ing a class at Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­si­ty’s Life­long Learn­ing Insti­tute (LLI) this fall. The LLI is a col­lege-style cur­ricu­lum of cours­es for peo­ple age 55 and old­er, and they offer a range of class­es on his­to­ry (local and oth­er­wise), art, and lit­er­a­ture. This fall, Camp­bell House will be the top­ic of a four-week course. This is what we’ll be teach­ing each week:

  • Week 1: His­to­ry of the Camp­bells and the Lucas Place Neigh­bor­hood (Andy)
  • Week 2: Late 19th Cen­tu­ry Cul­ture (Shel­ley)
  • Week 3: Field trip to Camp­bell House (Andy and Shelley)
  • Week 4: Doc­u­ment work­shop (Andy and Shelley)

Inter­est­ed? Fall 2012 reg­is­tra­tion isn’t online yet,  but if you’re age 55 or old­er, send an email to shel­ley [dot] satke [at] gmail [dot] com, and we’ll send you a reminder when you can reg­is­ter. In the mean­time, learn all about the LLI here.

New Gar­den Volunteers
Have you seen how beau­ti­ful the gar­den looks? In addi­tion to the reg­u­lar bunch of vol­un­teers (par­ents of the staff!), we’ve been joined by Dan, Dan and Alex, three young men from St. Louis Arc. Dan works with Dan and Alex to teach them life skills while build­ing friend­ships in the local com­mu­ni­ty. Every Tues­day and Thurs­day they work out­side keep­ing the gar­den in tip-top shape for our guests and neigh­bors, and they’ve been doing a won­der­ful job. They’ve been a joy to work with — stop by to see their handiwork!

Do you have a green thumb? Could you lend a hand mow­ing, prun­ing and plant­i­ng? We’re always look­ing for help! Drop Andy a note at andy [at] camp­bell­house­mu­se­um [dot] org.

Jes­si­ca and Mark in front of Vir­gini­a’s gazebo.

Con­grat­u­la­tions to the Pierrons
Speak­ing of the gar­den, cheers to Jes­si­ca and Mark, who had their wed­ding cer­e­mo­ny in our gar­den on Fri­day night. The flow­ers were in full bloom, the weath­er coop­er­at­ed, and every­one had a won­der­ful evening on Jes­si­ca and Mark’s big day.

Camp­bell House is the per­fect out­door spot for a wed­ding cer­e­mo­ny. If you would like to check out the space in per­son, please email Shel­ley at shel­ley [dot] satke [at] gmail [dot] com.

Meet Kevin
Be sure to vis­it our blog tomor­row, where we’ll con­tin­ue with our pop­u­lar “Meet the Interns” series with Kevin. Talk about well-round­ed — he’s work­ing on a dou­ble major in his­to­ry and chem­istry. Tune in tomor­row to find out what he’s doing at Camp­bell House this summer!

Lucas Place in a nutshell

Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Andy with the crew at 14th and Locust, the orig­i­nal loca­tion of Gov­er­nor-then-Sen­a­tor Polk’s house. Andy is hold­ing a pic­ture of the house.

A cou­ple of weeks ago, we con­duct­ed one of our Lucas Place Walk­ing Tours, and we had a load of fun shar­ing the his­to­ry of our neigh­bor­hood with such an enthu­si­as­tic group. Why, you may ask, would any­one be inter­est­ed in the his­to­ry of this old street? Easy: Aside from its sig­nif­i­cance as the first exclu­sive neigh­bor­hood in St. Louis, the peo­ple who lived here were some of the most influ­en­tial in the region. Much of the his­to­ry of St. Louis is entwined with the peo­ple who lived here.

Back­ground

Cue this song.

In 1850, sib­lings James Lucas and Ann Lucas Hunt (sound famil­iar?) planned a res­i­den­tial devel­op­ment on farm­land they had inher­it­ed from their father. This new “sub­ur­ban” neigh­bor­hood was west of the city, and it stretched along what is now Locust Street between 13th and 16th Streets.

How was this new ‘hood exclusive?

  • They were expen­sive. $100 per front foot. Lots were at min­i­mum 25 feet wide, and nobody bought just one lot. This price exclud­ed all but the wealth­i­est of buyers.
  • It was remote, about 1 mile west of the Mis­sis­sip­pi River.

  • Lucas Place, cir­ca 1875.

    Deed restric­tions were on the prop­er­ty, and this was unusu­al back then. Among them:  hous­es were to be built 25 feet away from the street, thus pro­duc­ing front yards (hous­es were typ­i­cal­ly built right on the side­walk), and the fol­low­ing busi­ness­es were pro­hib­it­ed: gro­ceries, apothe­caries, restau­rants, and theatres.

  • Lucas Place was off­set from the exist­ing street grid with Mis­souri Park at the east end of the street, thus serv­ing as a bar­ri­er between the ele­gant homes and the hus­tle and bus­tle of the city.
  • Lots were a gen­er­ous 155 feet deep. (That’s only 5 feet shy of the width of a foot­ball field.)
  • “Place” instead of “avenue” or “street” implied an impor­tant des­ti­na­tion, which rein­forced the exclu­siv­i­ty of the homes and residents.

The tee­ny-wee­nie Lucas-How house at 1515 Lucas Place.

Build­ings

Our Camp­bell House was the first one built on the street in 1851, and it was prob­a­bly the small­est one in the neigh­bor­hood. Homes on the north side of Lucas Place were much larg­er. Case in point, #1515, the Lucas-How res­i­dence. It sat across from Robert and Vir­gini­a’s, and it was rough­ly twice as large as Camp­bell House. We have a gen­er­ous 10,000 square feet, and the Lucas-How house was prob­a­bly about 20,000 square feet. (For com­par­i­son, new homes built in 2010 came in around 2392 square feet.)

Lucas Place was the place to be, and it rep­re­sent­ed the beau­ti­ful side of our fair city. So it should come as no sur­prise that when­ev­er impor­tant guests were in town, they were parad­ed through the neigh­bor­hood. The homes of some of the most influ­en­tial men and women in St. Louis were big and pris­tine with immac­u­late­ly main­tained yards, and the whole street was lined by MARBLE side­walks. (Real­ly.) Lucas Place was a sight to see.

View of Lucas Place dur­ing a parade in 1895.

In addi­tion to the res­i­dences, some busi­ness­es that were not pro­hib­it­ed by the deed restric­tions were on the street, includ­ing the orig­i­nal home of the St. Louis Art Muse­um and Mary Insti­tute (now called Mary Insti­tute Coun­try Day School.) The first pub­lic high school west of the Mis­sis­sip­pi sat behind Camp­bell House at 15th Street and Olive, and Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­si­ty was two blocks away on Wash­ing­ton Avenue.

Who

Aside from James Lucas (#1515) and sis­ter Ann Lucas Hunt (#1706), some big muck­ety-mucks were Camp­bell neigh­bors, including:

  • Hen­ry Hitch­cock, the first dean of Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­si­ty. (#1507)
  • Amadee Valle, Mis­souri con­gress­man and friend to Abra­ham Lin­coln and Hen­ry Shaw. (#1516)
  • Gen­er­al William Har­ney, the com­man­der of the Army’s Depart­ment of the West dur­ing the Civ­il War. (#1428)
  • Trusten Polk, Gov­er­nor of Mis­souri (1856) and U.S. Sen­a­tor (1857–1863). (#1400)
  • John How, May­or of St. Louis, 1853–1857. (#1515 before James Lucas moved in.)
  • Hen­ry Kayser, city engi­neer who designed St. Louis’ first plumb­ing and sew­er sys­tems. (#1420)

View from Camp­bell House at the inter­sec­tion of Locust and 15th, look­ing east on Locust. Cir­ca 1920.

Demise

The deed restric­tions expired 30 years after the land was ini­tial­ly pur­chased from the Lucas­es. Since many of the hous­es were built in the 1850s and 1860s, the covenants were expir­ing in the 1880s and 1890s. This is when hous­es were con­vert­ed to busi­ness­es and board­ing hous­es, and the wealthy res­i­dents moved to more fash­ion­able neigh­bor­hoods far­ther west, includ­ing Port­land Place, Lafayette Square and Van­de­ven­ter Place.

The park bar­ri­er between Lucas Place and the rest of the city was removed in the 1890s, and Lucas Place was renamed Locust Street. The area evolved into an indus­tri­al neigh­bor­hood, with ware­hous­es and fac­to­ries replac­ing the hous­ing stock. Camp­bell House remained as the last home from Lucas Place.

Here are a few more notable images of Lucas Place.…

Before: The Kayser House, #1420. It was built in 1864.

After: The Kayser House short­ly before it was razed in the 1930s.

Camp­bell House, cir­ca 1930.