Making History

When your childhood home is just 20 minutes from Appomattox, Virginia – where the Civil War ended – it’s perhaps no surprise that an interest in American history is in your blood.

“My hometown of Lynchburg, Virginia, in the Blue Ridge Mountains, was such an easy place to grow up and fall in love with history,” says Amelia Golcheski, executive director of the Cashiers Historical Society (CHS). “Monticello is only an hour away, and Thomas Jefferson’s retreat home is right outside Lynchburg, so the area is just immersed in history.”

As a child, Amelia’s parents encouraged her and her sisters to be interested in the world around them and to explore. Above all, her parents emphasized education. “Our family vacations were usually to museums or art galleries,” explains Amelia.

Her passion for history began in middle school, when she decided she would study history in college. At Agnes Scott, she became interested in Southern history after taking a class with a professor who specialized in the modern American South. “She left a big imprint on me,” says Amelia.

Her first job out of undergrad was working as a guide at Jefferson’s Monticello. “It was incredible and made me want to work in a museum forever,” says Amelia. “To be able to take all those kinds of heady things I learned about in books and translate them to a general audience was really lovely. And I felt like it was important work".

"Believe me, I know there are people doing way more important things than talking about Thomas Jefferson and his legacy in American history, but I was at Monticello when the Ferguson unrest happened (in 2014 in Missouri), so that was a major moment. It was interesting to be immersed in Jefferson and our founding creed, which is so exclusionary, and be living a moment of racial reckoning in this country. It was pretty powerful to get to have those conversations with people about race in America.”

Another benefit of interacting with the public: it forced her out of her natural introverted inclination. “I’m not naturally someone who ever wants to talk in front of people, but it was great training for my current job at CHS.”

Role at CHS and PhD

Amelia was recruited to lead the Cashiers Historical Society in 2023, when she was working on her doctorate. Her dissertation focused on the role of Appalachian women after President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty. She examined how women became breadwinners by transitioning from unpaid care labor in the home to paid work in schools, clinics, and childcare facilities.

“It made me realize that everyone is important when we talk about history; there is no one person or group responsible for advancing society. One of the biggest takeaways of my research was realizing that the history of America looks different when you value the unpaid work women do that allows society to function.”

As the executive director at CHS, Amelia has overseen the publication of two books about the history of Cashiers, directed a symposium on the history of tourism on Cashiers' economy, developed a program on holiday traditions in southern Appalachia, and curated an exhibit on the High Hampton Inn. She is passionate about local history and making that history widely accessible to the public.

As part of her role at CHS, Amelia is at the helm of several fundraisers, including the annual Cashiers Designer Showhouse, the Society’s biggest fundraiser for 29 years.

“I'm really proud of how the organization has grown in the last three years,” says Amelia. “It's transformed from focusing on programming in the summer months to being a year-round museum and resource.”

The CHS staff has been intentional about offering field trips and working with local teachers to bring students to campus and develop classroom projects. Additionally, CHS started “Holidays at the Historical Society,” a candlelit tour of the Zachary-Tolbert House, to discuss what winter was like in Cashiers Valley in the 19th century. CHS also extended its monthly Mountain Heritage Lecture Series from three months to eight months a year.

All of this work is possible because of the team at CHS, including Director of Events and Showhouse Coordinator Lauren Carmichael, and Director of Operations and Visitor Experience Lindsay Garner Hostetler. “Both are wonderful, collaborative colleagues who share an equally big vision for CHS,” says Amelia.

Another way CHS has grown is by developing new exhibits. Previously, to learn Cashiers history, you needed to take a guided tour at CHS, because interpretive signage was sparse on campus. In the last two years, two permanent exhibits have opened: “Let No One Be A Stranger Here: High Hampton Inn” and "The Making of Modern Cashiers, and At the Crossroads of Time: Cashiers in the American Story.”

Last summer, the team also opened a temporary exhibit, “Campfires & The Embers of Youth: The History of Summer Camps in Western North Carolina.”

“I'm thrilled to say it won the American Association of State and Local History's

Award of Excellence,” remarks Amelia. “This is a national award given by our field's largest professional organization, and we are the historical site to receive it in North Carolina this year. It has been so fun and rewarding to expand CHS's reach—the future is bright at Cashiers Historical Society!”

BIO

Amelia Golcheski

Executive Director, Cashiers Historical Society

Hometown: Lynchburg, VA

Education: B.A. in History, Agnes Scott College; M.A. in Public Humanities, Brown University; Ph.D. in Appalachian Women’s Labor History, Emory University.

Family: Rescue mix Penny; parents Bob and Debbie; one older sister, Kate; and one younger sister, Mary Ellen.

Hobbies: Walking along the Cashiers Ramble with Penny (“terrible underbite, sassy attitude, sweetest dog”), hiking, playing tennis, experimenting with new recipes, and hosting dinner parties for friends.

Her Book of the Year: Lady Tremaine, by Rachel Hochhauser— a retelling of Cinderella.