Today we’d like to introduce you to Rowena Dasch.
Hi Rowena, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I’m originally from Houston, a 6th generation native Texan. My dad was a lawyer and my mom a historian. They put a major emphasis on the importance of a good education, and education followed us whenever we traveled. Every summer, we traveled to a different part of the United States for a week or so. Museums, historic sites, and national parks were at the center of every trip.
Fast-forwarding to high school, I had the opportunity as a Junior to spend a year in Barcelona. That was incredible, but from a formational standpoint the most important thing I did that year was take an art history course that followed the traditional survey (ancient to modern) but told entirely through the Iberian peninsula. It was an incredible course, and I walked away wanting to share American history and culture the same way I had been exposed to Spanish history and culture. That propelled me through my undergraduate degree at Princeton and then through my MA and PhD at UT-Austin.
Life took a bit of a left turn at this point. My husband and I had come to Austin for me to attend grad school, and we always assumed that we would move when I finished and/or he went to business school. Instead, we fell in love with Austin and 21 years later…we’re still here!
The Neill-Cochran House Museum was looking for a director just as I was emerging from my PhD program. I’ve always seen myself as a cultural historian using the platform of the visual arts as my medium. It was, therefore, a relatively easy transition away from art history and into public history. Because we are a small, privately funded museum, we have a strong entrepreneurial spirit, are nimble, and embrace experimentation. Over the past eight years, we have developed an active rotating exhibition program and completely overhauled the interpretive framework of the Museum. We have welcomed visual and performing artists of all types and become a community gathering space for all Austinites.
As we continue to learn more about our site and its place within Austin history, we share that knowledge with the public and follow the truth wherever it might lead.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It never would have occurred to me as a child that I would end up running a historic house museum but looking back, it is no surprise that I ended up at a historic site. When I told my family I wanted to apply to graduate school for art history, my grandmother looked at my mother and said, “You know, this is all your fault.” If it is my parents’ “fault” for sending me down this path (and I have to agree with my grandmother that it is!), I am grateful to them for instilling in me the power of place and the value of knowing and understanding the past.
For the NCHM, the path has not been rocky but it has been uphill. As a small, independent museum in Austin, unaffiliated with city, state, or university, it can be challenging to get the word out. Our attendance continues to grow, but there remain days when it feels like we are on the inside of a snow globe, silenced no matter how loudly we shout, unable to break through the glass barrier.
Still, over the past five years, we have welcomed more than 30,000 people to our site and have broadened our audience well beyond educated history buffs (though we do love educated history buffs!).
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
The Neill-Cochran House Museum is one of Austin’s oldest residences and the site of the only slave quarters building still standing intact in the city. We share Austin history from the city’s beginnings up through the Great Depression through the eyes of the many people who lived, worked, or visited here. It’s one thing to learn the facts of history but another thing entirely to bring those facts to life and to see them through the lives of those touched by them. We consider it our job to connect our visitors…and hopefully our community at large…to history in a way that allows us to recognize the past for all its beauty and its pain so that we can build a better future.
We also see ourselves as a community resource. We are the only greenspace left between UT and Shoal Creek, and we are happy to be able to provide our neighbors a safe off-leash community space to bring their dogs. Beyond that, we have become a site contemporary artists can display their work and a venue for the performing arts. We opened to artists during COVID when spaces to display and perform were few and far between, and we will continue to collaborate with artists as we move into (hopefully) a post-pandemic world.
We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from when you were growing up?
When I was really young – maybe eight or so? – my family went to Yosemite NP and did a Ranger hike through the Merced River, walking through the water. I don’t think my feet have ever been so cold, but I’ll never forget the stunning scenery and how much fun we all had slipping our way along over the river rocks.
Pricing:
- Adults $8
- Seniors/Students $6
- Children 12 and under FREE
Contact Info:
- Email: rhdasch@nchmuseum.org
- Website: nchmuseum.org
- Instagram: neillcochran
- Facebook: nchmuseum
- Youtube: Neill Cochran
Image Credits:
Rowena Houghton Dasch: Credit Andrea Perry; Logo: Credit NCHM; Neill-Cochran House Museum: Credit NCHM; WEST Austin Studio Tour: Credit NCHM If These Walls Could Talk Performance: Credit Karen Casey
