Lydia Mattice Brandt
Associate Professor
Lydia Mattice Brandt is an associate professor of art and architectural history at the University of South Carolina. Dr. Brandt has authored The South Carolina State House Grounds: A Guidebook (UofSC Press, 2021), First in the Homes of His Countrymen: George Washington’s Mount Vernon in the American Imagination (2016), and articles on American architecture in Winterthur Portfolio, The Public Historian, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (forthcoming 2021), and numerous book chapters. Her current research explores the southern plantation house in popular visual culture. She graduated from New York University and the University of Virginia.
8
Dec. 20, 2021
Episode 8: Legacies
Episode 8: "Legacies" Interpreting slavery at Mount Vernon was not part of the mission of the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association when the organization purchased the estate in the mid-nineteenth century. Over time, however, investigating the people enslaved at Mount Vernon and educating the public about their lives and legacies has become central to the Association’s work. In our final episode, we look at how interpreting slavery has become intertwined with interpreting the Washingtons at Mount Ver...
7
Dec. 20, 2021
Episode 7: Preserving
Episode 7: “Preserving” Edmund Parker never knew George and Martha Washington, but he knew Mount Vernon and the Washington Family very well. Parker was one of the many enslaved people who labored on the plantation in the nineteenth century after the Washingtons’ deaths. Later, as a free man, Parker was among Mount Vernon’s first interpreters when the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association purchased the property. In this episode, we explore what happened to the Mount Vernon landscape in the nineteenth ...