Amanda Roper is a public historian who has spent her career working to preserve historic places and share traditionally underrepresented stories from America’s past. She has been Director of the Lee-Fendall House Museum and Senior Manager of Public Programs & Interpretation at Woodlawn & Pope-Leighey House, both in Alexandria, Virginia.
In 2018, Amanda was recognized by the National Trust for Historic Preservation on their list of 40 Under 40: People Saving Places for her significant impact on historic preservation and her contributions to the public’s understanding of why places matter.
She is currently researching and writing a book about the history of women in preservation, and is a 2025–2026 Research Fellow at the George Washington Presidential Library at Mount Vernon. And, she also has been listening to Historically Thinking for a surprisingly long time—or so she claims.
From Gullah Geechee to Frank Lloyd Wright
Amanda’s career spans a remarkable range of historic sites:
McLeod Plantation Historic Site in Charleston, South Carolina, where she helped tell the full history of the Gullah Geechee community and the enslaved men, women, and children who lived there.
Lee-Fendall House Museum in Alexandria, Virginia, with its intertwined stories of Revolutionary-era elites, Civil War medicine, and 20th-century labor history.
Woodlawn & Pope-Leighey House, where a Frank Lloyd Wright Usonian home sits beside a Federal-style plantation mansion—two dramatically different visions of the American home.
At each site, Amanda has sought to bring visitors into conversation with the past, not simply lecture them about it.
“A good interpreter doesn’t just tell you history—they listen for it,” she says. “If people leave still talking to each other about what they saw and heard, that’s success.”
Why Public History Matters
Amanda defines public history not as focused on different kinds of subjects, or using different research methods, but as a different way of sharing it:
“It’s about the methods we use to help a public audience understand the relevance and impact of history in their own lives.”
That means blending storytelling with scholarship, and trusting interpreters to follow their curiosity while meeting visitors where they are. In her view, live interpreters are irreplaceable—even as some sites move toward standardized audio tours.
Women in Preservation: The Known and the Unknown
One of Amanda’s current research interests is the history of women in the preservation movement—both famous figures like Ann Pamela Cunningham, who founded the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association, and lesser-known women whose work preserved community landmarks and underrepresented histories.
As she puts it:
“What we save says a lot about who we are, or at least who we want to be.”
Her forthcoming book will explore how women have shaped preservation priorities over time, and how their advocacy has broadened which stories we choose to keep.
Share this post