The winter issue of The Public Historian included an interview with Azie Mira Dungey the creator of the “Ask A Salve” web series. Dungey was a living history first person interpreter at George Washington’s Mount Veron, where she portrayed Caroline Branham an enslaved housemaid. The web series draws on her experience working at Mount Vernon and some of the questions visitors asked when she was in character as Caroline Branham.
“Ask A Slave” and the corresponding interview with Dungey highlights some of the things public historians need to consider when designing historic site programming. Living history sites are in a unique position to facilitate difficult conversations around race relations and the history of slavery. “Ask A Slave” approaches these difficult conversations as satire while commenting on important issues in a humorous way.
Here’s the first episode of the web series. The rest the first season of the series can be found here.