Meet the Curator: Kendra Hinkle, Andrew Johnson National Historic Site

Kendra Hinkle, museum specialist and cultural resource manager, Andrew Johnson National Historic Site.

From ranger to curator

Kendra Hinkle has worked with museum collections officially since 2006, but knew long before that the path led to cultural resources — drawn less by the love of putting things in order than by the way artifacts and buildings bridge centuries and cultures, connecting us with people and times now gone.

• Education: degrees in English and history from East Tennessee State University, and later George Washington University's pilot online master's program in museum studies.
• First jobs: Tipton-Haynes state park in Johnson City, Tennessee, then the Park Service's interpretive division, rising to lead ranger at the Andrew Johnson National Historic Site visitor center.
• The turn: helping the site's curator with inventory and projects convinced Hinkle to switch fields. Two weeks of intensive curatorial training at Harpers Ferry Center, in a hands-on course built by registrar Alice Newton, included trips to Gettysburg, the Hampton house and the Smithsonian. When the curator retired, Hinkle applied — and walked straight into a Collection Management Plan project.

The work

Hinkle loves caring for finely made objects that are works of art in themselves, craftsmanship, and links to pivotal moments in history — and, admittedly, getting to go "behind closed doors," the most alluring mystery of childhood.

The favorite part is research and discovery: there's always something new to uncover, and it's gratifying when the puzzle pieces click. No two projects are alike, from exhibit planning and compliance to preventive conservation and resource protection, and Hinkle enjoys working with interdisciplinary teams to keep the collections in the best condition for future generations. "We are the stewards of our time," as Hinkle puts it.

Helping other parks has broadened the work and brought friends: projects at Moores Creek, Cumberland Gap, Tuskegee Airmen and Tuskegee Institute, Timucuan, Fort Sumter, Fort Moultrie and Charles Pinckney, Cumberland Island, Guilford Courthouse, Kings Mountain and Fort Donelson, among others.

A favorite object

The porcelain box in the Johnson collection.

A porcelain box crowned with colorful flowers under glass. By family tradition it came to Eliza Johnson in the Executive Mansion as a gift from France — filled with 40 pounds of chocolate, surely a favorite of the Johnson grandchildren living in the White House. It's on display in Eliza's bedroom in the Johnson Homestead.

Off the clock

Hinkle is a writer, poet and artist, newly into nature journaling, and happiest joining curiosity with art. Travel and photography matter hugely: the goal is all 50 states and as many national parks as possible — Idaho was state number 43, and Craters of the Moon is now a favorite — with ancient wonders abroad calling too. At home there are two dogs, Gloria and Daphne, two cats, Phineas and Banjo, a perennial bed, and an 18th-century log cabin that Hinkle's father rebuilt in the Appalachian foothills — no electricity, so weekends mean hearth cooking. "The call of the past has always been strong!"

Sources

Based on "Meet the Curator – Kendra Hinkle," National Park Service; a work of the United States government in the public domain. A personal photograph of the cabin's hearth is not reproduced.