Interview with Art Mattingly

November 5, 2010

Jessica (camera woman): Okay.

Kelli (interviewer): Alright, this is for HP 100 class, um, I have Art Mattingly here. It’s
November 5, 2010 and I will interview him on the beginnings of HP.

Mattingly: It’s nice to be here. (Laughs)

Kelli: Ok, what we have to start…what was your professional background? What got you to this
point?

Mattingly: Well, I am a traditionally trained historian. Um, I have a masters- an undergraduate

degree from here at Southeast Missouri State and I got a master’s degree from the University of
Missouri history department and at that day at time you didn’t specialize in a master’s program,
you just got a general background. I left the master’s program there and went to Kansas City,
Missouri and taught high school and, um, the years have run together so don’t hold me to the
exact years or dates, that is bad for a historian not to remember dates, but in my case I taught
there for a while and at the time, there was tremendous enrollment and universities couldn’t get a
lot of staff to do it. So, I was asked to come back to this school and teach for my master’s degree.
So, I came back and taught for several years and went back for my PhD except I had one in the
field of military history, which was unusual, but beyond that I was a trained historian. But I was
always interested in local history. I was interested in things than just the history. I was interested
in buildings and I was interested in things like that, so I came here and taught bringing back with
me this interest in things than just traditional history. If that makes any sense.

Kelli: And that kind of goes with the next question. What led you to Southeast and what did you
do. We just covered what did you do before you started the HP program. Now, ok, since you
kind of already answered that, what specific reasons, were there any specific reasons for starting
all that?

Mattingly: The HP program?

Kelli: Sorry. Yeah. At Southeast?

Mattingly: I always felt, as a teacher, um, because when I started teaching here American history
was required in every department. You had to take five hours of American history. It did not
matter what degree you were pursuing. It’s what you had to do. There were a lot of students I
came in contact with that liked history, but they didn’t want to into the classroom and teach.
Well, that was something that kind of germinated in my mind and I thought for a number of
years. And I became personally interested in oral history and I liked to get out and interview
people and talk to them and find out what they did with their life and why they made the choice
that they made and what events in their lives caused them to make changes. I came to the
conclusion that there were people out there who would pursue history classes if we offered them
something that the traditional avenue. And at that time, if you were a history person and if you
were interested in history, you would either get a B.A. or you had to into social studies. There
really wasn’t much else. In addition to that, I have always liked to travel and I have always liked
to go to various places: museums, historic sites…. And one of the things that occurred to me as I
traveled were that there were people in these places that, at these museums, at these historic sites,
that were well-meaning people, but they didn’t have a good background in history. And they
might know this pen that Aunt Lucy used to write whatever, but in terms of the events of that
community or the events of the world, they couldn’t bring those together and provide what I
consider an education. Teaching in a different sense. So, these things kind of came together and
out of that came, um, the nutty idea that what we should do is offer some classes, perhaps even a
degree that would offer individuals interested in history that didn’t want to teach. There is
nothing wrong with the formal teaching, but who might want to pursue a degree that would offer
the opportunity to teach in a different format. Like in a museum, like at a historic site, like
serving as director of a downtown district. Those are all, in my view, the way to teach and the
way to bring people into their past. So, with that kind of idea germinating and bubbling up from
time to time, that’s how I came to it.

Kelli: Well, how many historic preservation…. How many schools provide an HP, um….

Mattingly: That’s bit of a question to ask because that is one of the questions that was asked
constantly of us in the initial stages, and all the way through, even when we went to the state to
appeal their…. They initially turned the program down and we had to go to Jefferson City to
appeal it, but that is story for another day. Um, at the time we were working on this, I guess there
were only three degree programs. Now, there were programs offered you the option to study
architecture for example in a historic perspective, but that was a graduate program and all of
those programs were housed in architecture schools. The three programs, um, and I think there
were three, there may have been two but three is a better number. Those three programs were not
housed in history departments; they were housed in a design program for example. I don’t know
what the other two were. My thinking was, and the people that ultimately came on board with
this, my thinking was of you were going to do historic preservation or public history, you needed
to have a grounding in history. You need to be able to do historic research, you need to be able to
so these things. So, to answer your question, there were three programs, none of which were
housed in a history department. We felt ours was a unique avenue. That we would have it housed
in the history department if we could get them to go along with it, and that would be based on
historical research and we would try to provide to those students who came to us the opportunity
to work in a variety of fields that traditionally would not be educated. Okay?

Kelli: Yeah, because that’s what I was wondering because now there are maybe nine in the
whole country.
Mattingly: Is that right? Are they undergrad or are they master’s? They’re all undergrad? Well,
we were well ahead of those. Um, you may get to this at some point, but there was a unique
program in ours’ and I want to be sure that we touch on. But go ahead.

Kelli: Okay, well, and then it kind of talked about what led to Southeast’s approval of the HP
program because I know you said you had a lot of challenges.

Mattingly: We had a lot, a lot of challenges. And that is probably a diplomatic way of putting it.
Um, from the very beginning those of us, Mr. Bob White, Dr. Frank Nichol, the dean of at the
time applied arts Art Roster- those of us sat around and it was our view that this program that we
were working on should be a interdisciplinary program. That while it was housed in the history
department it would call on other disciplines to provide training for people who were going out
to work, for example, in a museum. Obviously you need a history background, but you may also
need interior design, a course that is in that general area so that you have some background in
that area. The same is true of English. We would have the English department ultimately write a
program, of course, that was for our degree program. So, initially we believed that is needed to
be an interdisciplinary degree program. When it came to the history department there were a lot
of classes that the history department- at that time it was a traditional department, I mean it was
very traditional- to try to get a class, for example, of military history was a struggle. So, to
suggest to our collogues that we needed a class that focused on local history was real challenge.
And I’m not going into all of the issues, but it was a real struggle. And we had a struggle within
the history department, it was a struggle to get its approval, it was a struggle to get it out of the
university community to approve, and once we won that battle, it was a struggle to get the
university to advance on the state and ask for approval. Oh my, yes, a lot of hoops. I don’t want
to hurt anybody or get anyone upset, but it was very difficult. And once it was sent to the state
they turned us down flat. Said no way. They said how many of these programs are there in the
country? See? How many? Well, there are not that many, does that mean we should not have it?
Because there are not that many? We think there is a need. People who work in these fields need
this kind of training. Don’t want to get carried away here, but when they turned us down we
asked permission to come back and ask that we could make a formal presentation. And that is
what we did. And I will never forget sitting in this man’s office, the chair of the Department of
Higher Education, sitting in his chair, legs crossed, and he was not very receptive to us at all. We
made it, we said, “look, give us a chance, if we don’t turn out a sufficient number of graduates
over time then okay, we would understand if you closed the degree program down, but there was
a need.” So they gave us approval. And that was the start of the battle.

Kelli: Yeah, the start of the battle. How long did that actually take? What was the process?

Mattingly: You mean to get this?

Kelli: Yeah.
Mattingly: Oh my. I would say two years. My wife, you would have to talk to her because there
were sleepless nights and you know. And we would have to go before the department with the
proposal for a course in this degree. People were not happy about that.

Kelli: That’s a lot of work.

Mattingly: A lot of work. A lot, but we made it.

Kelli: And you were saying earlier that your first students were special to you.

Mattingly: Very special. Um, early on in this, once the degree was approved, one of the things I
wanted to do was to have a project that would involve the early comers so that they would buy
into the program. So that they feel apart of this initial character. And one of the things we toyed
with- there was an announcement in the paper that the government would give away a log house.
And the reason they were giving it away was they were building a lake in northeast Missouri that
ultimately became Truman Lake, I think. All you had to do was come get it. It was yours and you
could do whatever you wanted with it. Well, that was not possible, totally impossible to do
because it would require us to either a) move it out to the river and float it down the Mississippi,
which would have made a good program on national television or something. It was just not a
practical idea for us, but we never gave up the idea to get something that would involve the early
students. One afternoon I was sitting in my office and in came one of my students in HP. He was
breathless. He said “you’ve got to stop whatever you are doing and come NOW and see this
house that I have found.” Because these early students would get out on their own and wander
around the countryside. All sorts. I said I cannot go right now, but we’ll go. The short of the long
is he showed me a log house. I happened to know the persons who owned the house. I had grown
up across the street from the individual. Over a period of time we opened negotiations with these
people, and they agreed to donate the house to the university. The university had to find a place
for it. Um, once the university found a place for it and I asked the students in the spring semester
of my HP 100 class, I asked them if they would give up a summer and volunteered- they would
get college credit- to help dismantle, tag and move this house. And they agreed. And that starts
the beginning of the Hunter House.

Kelli: Okay. That was one of our questions.

Mattingly: Which saddens me greatly because if I had known where it is today and what what
has happened to it, I would have never moved it. Because it’s not what I had in mind at all and
it’s one the sad things in my life. I’m sorry about the house.

Kelli: It sounds like you had good intentions, though.

Mattingly: Oh, we wanted to. The house was to be the centerpiece for those interested in historic
site administration, who were interested in museum work, who were interested in period
costume, who were interested in teaching elementary school. What we wanted to do was bring
elementary schools- have part of their curriculum to bring them to this house and involve them in
the different crafts that were used in the 1850s. The house was built by slaves before the Civil
War. They had Cyprus timber and it was a magnificent house. So, that was our vision for the
house, it was to be the centerpiece. We were going to move a smokehouse in, a barn, all these
things. But in order to do these things, unfortunatly, you have to have money. The historic
preservation program was housed in the history department, and as part of the history department
all of the money we got for the program had to come from whose budget?

Kelli: History.

Mattingly: And people in the history department loathed to give money to the preservation
program that they felt necessary for their library books and their this and their that, which was
perfectly understandable. So, here we are, two or three of us trying to get money to some of the
things we did. We moved the house without any help whatsoever from this university. All of
things we got because we went out to the people and asked “would you help us?” Getting the
Cyprus tree because one of the main foundation logs was gone. We found a man who gave us a
Cyprus tree. We found a man who cut trees down professionally and hauled them out. He
brought in a big machine that cut the Cyprus tree down. Hauled it out for us. We brought it to
where the Hunter House is today. The loge, just the log, the log was over 16 feet long. The
problem was that most saw mills do not cut anything longer that eight feet or ten feet. We had to
find a mill that would essentially custom cut it for us. We could then use chip and so it would
look like original. That is one story.

Kelli: Yeah. Okay, we kind of covered the inspiration for the Hunter Log House. When you talk
about who planned this it basically just you and two others?

Mattingly: Well, there was myself, Bob White, a woman who lived in Jackson who had a degree
form the university who was looking for taking classes in the masters program. Not preservation,
we barely had a preservation program at that time. Her name was Lucritia Drum and she was so
important to us because she knew a lot of people in the community. And she would go out to
them and say would you do this, would you do that, would you help us? Penzol Construction, for
example, came out and shot footings for us so we would have the exact positions and accurate
holes. And she did things like that. And Art Rosser who was industrial technical education also
helped us. But what I would do is I would in the Friday afternoons ask the students to meet here,
or at that time we didn’t have offices in this building. We were kind of a stepchild. We were
across the street in one of the houses.

Kelli: Okay.

Mattingly: It was wonderful. That was the best, worst mistake that they ever made. That was
great for us. Because on one day someone would make a big bowl, pot of soup and bring it in
and put it on the stove. When you had time in between classes you would come in- couches
there. Students would come in and sit and talk about what projects they were working on. It was
wonderful. Where was I? So, we were able to get help by asking people to help us and then I
would take the students down to the Hunter House on Saturday and before we would go we
would sit around a table like this and I would say this is what we are going to do today. And this
is what everybody must watch what everybody else is doing because we don’t want anybody
hurt. In this whole process of taking the house apart, tag it, moving it and putting it back
together, we never got so much as one mashed finger.

Kelli: Wow.

Mattingly: Not a single problem. So, the students would go some afternoons and the history
department gave me a class that had a day designated, and the students would sign up- get
college credit for it and we would go down and work on the house that day. So that’s part of how
we did it. We would spend the weekend working on the house. Um, I made no distinction on
working on the house, whether you were man, woman or child you would do the same thing.
Okay? And I shall never forget one spring say we were upstairs in the house taking off the wall
coverings and I heard a young lady scream to the high heavens. And guess what she found
behind the wall? Snakes nest.

(Laughter)

Mattingly: Black snakes. So we caught them and carried them out of the house and into the field
so they wouldn’t have to kill them because black snakes are very good. I mean they really are,
you know? I know, I don’t like snakes particularly either, but I want you to know we back down
there the next weekend. They were back. They were back. But my point here is that everyone in
the program was treated equally and it made no difference. We all wore hard hats, we all wore
gloves, we all wore boots. We all did the same things. I worked right along. I swept, I had
difficulties like everyone else, but we made no distinguishes. It was wonderful.

Kelli: Sounds like it.

Mattingly: It was wonderful, Yeah. And I couldn’t have done it if they hadn’t have done it. That
was the key to it and again it was an opportunity for them, too. For this program and these people
who were in the program. When I see them occasionally they always say “what about my
house?”

Kelli: Aww. Yeah.

Mattingly: And I have to tell them it’s not in great shape. That’s the way things go.

Kelli: So mainly, the lack of funding.

Mattingly: Lack of funding because the university wouldn’t provide any. They’re more generous
with the program now than they ever were. I mean all you have to do is look at the history
department and what’s going on. But then it was extremely difficult. And the problem became
how do we perpetuate ourselves because the pool of people interested in historic preservation in
southeast Missouri is not very big. And after a couple of years you’re going to exhaust that pool.
So one of my really tough fights was to find a way to let people know that we existed. Because
you don’t know we exist there isn’t much of a chance of getting people in to participate in the
program. So one of the big fights was to get a mailing list of high school seniors across the
United States that were interested in history in some area they thought they were interested in.
Maybe outdoors work, forestry, maybe the park service. Then I would send them a letter. And
we began to get inquiries back from people. Well, I want you to come to campus so I can talk
with you. Bring your mom, bring your dad, bring one of your parents with you because I want to
meet them and talk with them. That’s how we began to build the program. People began to find
out about us. And as a part of this degree program, one of the things I insisted on having a was a
semester internship. That was required of everybody regardless of what part of historic
preservation you were going to be in. They had to give up a year here on campus to go some
place and practice the area that they felt like they were interested in. Museum work, site
administration, historic downtown, whatever that was what they were going to have to do. Now,
it’s pretty common to have internships, but 30 years ago this was a new kind of thing and it gave
me an opportunity, at my expense, to travel wherever these interns were and personally visit
them as well as the people who were running it. So I got to see the country. But it was also
important because it let you know that at some point in your internship, that during your summer
you would get a visit by someone, usually me, in the program. And the site where you were
working knew that I was going to come and visit. You wouldn’t know, but they would know. I
didn’t want the intern to know. So it was a way to visit and know how the intern was doing and
how things were going. It was also publicity because the place where the student was would see
me, see the kind of product we were working on. If they did good work they might even get a job
there one day. And they might be willing to take another intern or two as timed progressed. It
worked out very well. And I got to see many place and we got students all over the United
States. Just great.

Kelli: Well, now, with the lost interest, or with the Hunter Home not going the way you planned,
did that affect your decision to leave?

Mattingly: That was part of it. You have to understand that when I left I had spent almost ten
years trying to get this program and I was simply burned out. Just burned out. Because I would
go out with my own push-lawnmower from my house and try to the grass around the Hunter Log
House. We didn’t have anything to sustain us with the house. No money to really expand the
program. We couldn’t get additional faculty and so it was difficult. I had a meeting with the
Provost at one point and he said to me if you will increase your enrolment by so many we’ll get
you another faculty member. We increased it by twice that many, but we still got no help
because they did not see us as a viable product, and I kept saying “yes, but we are a program that
bring people from all over the United States. The only program you’ve got on campus that brings
that many people is football, but we bring academics from all over the United States. This is a
premier program, there isn’t many like this. You need to pursue it. You need to examine this.”
But it all fell on deaf ears.

Kelli: Aww.

Mattingly: And I finally got to the point where it burned me out. The greatest ten years I had in
teaching I had in the preservation program in spite of all the heartaches I had. Because I loved
the students I worked with. My colleagues never understood that, but I am very selfish. I am the
one who got the rewards from it, and that was good. That was very rewarding, but at the same
time I had felt that I had lost my way. That I was not any good in HP 100 anymore. I was simply
burned out. I couldn’t do the job that I thought I needed to do for the students. So….

Kelli: Well, if you were looking back is there anything you would change? As far as developing
the HP program.

Mattingly: I think that I would have kept it the way it was. I mean, I’m sure that I should have
done…. I tried to make it a broad area with number of things. That may have been too broad. It
may have been too much for the number of faculty, but by the same token, it offered a broader
draw to bring in students. And that was one of the things that I always had to be concerned about
because I need to know how many people were going to be in each fall because I would compare
that to the students in the B.S. program and the B.A. program to try to justify my existence and
program. But I am sure there are things that I should have done differently. I with I could have
been a better communicator. I wish I could have been a better- I hesitate to use this word, but I
wish I had been a better politician. So I could have gotten money to help my students. It wasn’t
me, it didn’t matter to me, it mattered to you. It mattered to the people in the classes. There was a
lot of things we could have done. I think it’s my fault that I didn’t do a better job of selling the
program, of selling the advantages the program had for prospective students.

Kelli: I imagine it’s hard to start any kind of program. It’s hard to know how to do everything.

Mattingly: Well, it is. It’s hard to know when you have to teach so many hours. I would teach
one HP class and the rest of the time I would teach a graduate seminar or teach an upper level
class. So, it was really hard, but I enjoyed it until I burnt myself out. I really enjoyed it.

Kelli: Well, have you had much involvement with Southeast or the HP program?

Mattingly: No. When I left I left. Um, it is not a secret that when I got ready to retire the person
they hired to take my place I was opposed to. Not Dr. Hoffman, now, not him. There was
somebody that came before Dr. Hoffman. And this fellow did not last long, but my feeling
was…. Is it time? Okay, just let me end this by saying when I left my feeling was I needed to get
away so people would not be looking over my replacement’s shoulder to see if it was alright with
me. I needed to give this person an opportunity, give him free reign, and so they would have a
chance to do whatever they wanted to do and put their stamp on the program.
Kelli: Yeah, okay, give them a fair chance.

Mattingly: Sure, because, you know, I said I was leaving and that was it. So I left and I don’t
come back. I don’t show up very much.

(Laughter)

Kelli: What was- you said earlier, that you wanted to squeeze in here?

Mattingly: Well, the one thing I wanted to make sure we got in here was the- and I have already
mentioned it- I squeezed it in earlier and that was the internship because I felt very strongly
about that. And that was one of the things we had a tough fight about. How to accredit it that and
that sort of thing because we just didn’t have that on this campus at that time. And that presented
a real problem. Thanks for coming back to it though, I really appreciate it.

Kelli: Well, I think we got all but one question I was going to ask you. What kind of things have
you done?

Mattingly: I traveled.

Kelli: You traveled?

Mattingly: I traveled. And, um, I go…. Do you have time for one little story?

(Laughter)

Mattingly: My wife and I were in Montana last two summers ago and there is a town in Montana
called Virginia City. There is also one in Nevada. The one in Montana was a gold town. So my
wife and I one afternoon were staying in a town on the Madison River. We drove over to
Virginia City and it is essentially a ghost town. But the historical society has tried to save the
town, the buildings. I don’t think they’ll be able to. What they have done is that on the weekends
they have a first-person interpretation there, and when I was there I went through there. One of
the ladies I started talking to wouldn’t get out of her first-person role and I said to her “I
understand what you are doing, but I’d like to talk to you about the academic aspects of this
program. Could you step out of your role as first-person and visit with me?” She said “yeah, I
guess so,” and she did and it was very interesting thing because they are trying to do this on a
shoestring, which they will not be able to do because the buildings are as we speak falling down.
And that is really unfortunate, but when I do travel I try to visit historic places and museums and
things like that. It’s in my blood, unfortunately.

Kelli: Yeah. (Laughter)

Mattingly: I never will be out of it, and that’s alright, but my heart hurts for the house.
Kelli: Yeah, when we were developing the questions, we thought we need to go out there and
look at this house.

Mattingly: Did you go?

Kelli: We have not. No, because, we need it.

Jessica: We defiantly will now.

Mattingly: You really need to go, I mean, there is blood, sweat and tears in that house. Not only
from the slaves that originally cut the timber and put the house up, but the other slaves that came
along in the 20th century and moved it. And I dare not say this on the thing, but often times in the
summer we would stop at a watering hole and sit down and critique what we had done that day.
What mistakes have we made? And everyday before we would go we would sit around and talk
about what we were going to do today. How are we going to do this, how are we going to do
that. Who is designated to take the photographs today? Who designated to do the video? And
that kind of thing. And we always looked after each other. So it became almost a family and it
was an experience I will cherish always. It’s been a pleasure. It was nice to talk about it. I don’t
get to talk about it too much. My wife says shut up.

(Laughter)

Kelli: I think we can talk on and on and on.

Mattingly: I know we could. It’s alright if you ever need to talk again let me know.

Kelli: Yeah. I’m glad we picked you. This was Jessica’s idea to do HP. I was just sitting back for
the ride. We had different categories to pick from. So I’m glad we ended up going this way.

Mattingly: That’s good. I’m glad that it’s worked out. So what is your plan?

Jessica: We are creating a website.

Mattingly: Oh, you are?

Jessica: So, um, whenever- we’ll give you the address if you like. We’ll have the video on there.
We’ll also have a transcribed version of it as well.

Mattingly: Do you- well I guess I should ask Steve, but do you have the VHS of moving the log
house?

Kelli: I don’t…. He had talked about it, but I don’t know.

Mattingly: See, I don’t have it.

Kelli: Hmmm.
Mattingly: Lucritia Drum had a copy of it at her house. She has now passed away. So I don’t
know what had happened to it. Now, Dr. Nichol might have it, but I don’t know. But it is
something you will all find extremely interesting. Okay? Thanks for inviting me, I appreciate it.

Kelli: Thank you. You get to eat Panera.

Mattingly: Yeah, soon.