Matheson History Museum to host Curator Talk on Chains of Steele exhibit on Sept. 16

Press release from the Matheson History Museum

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – The Matheson History Museum is hosting a curator talk with the Curator of Exhibitions, Willett Hancock, on Wednesday, September 16, at 7 p.m. to share about his year and a half of research and curating of Chains of Steele: Money, Power, and Influence.

Utilizing unique documents stored in the museum’s archive, Chains of Steele examines two ancestors of Gainesville’s Matheson family, Augustus and Augusta Steele, and the ways that they interacted with and benefited from the institution of American slavery.

Augustus was born in 1792 in Massachusetts, and at the time of his birth, slavery was outlawed in that state. At the time of his death, he was a devoted Confederate official, advocate for slavery, and enslaver. The exhibit looks at what choices brought him to that point and how he benefited from those choices.

His only child, Augusta, was part of the last generation that grew up supported by the institution of slavery. She turned 18 in 1865, the year that emancipation reached Florida and the rebellion collapsed. The ways that her life went on afterwards tell us something about the long-lasting impacts slavery had on our history.

This original exhibition features Matheson Family photos rarely on display, excerpts from the family’s papers, and a memorial to the people the Steeles enslaved with the first biographies ever written about these individuals.

Registration: https://mathesonmuseum.networkforgood.com/events/104519-curator-talk

Willett Hancock

Willett Hancock graduated from Santa Fe College in 2019 and the University of Florida in 2022 with a double major in History and Political Science. While living in Gainesville, he developed both a love of the history of North Central Florida and an awareness of its present limitations.

He wrote his undergraduate thesis on the Union Academy, the first legal, public school for Black education in Alachua County in the Reconstruction era. Willett started as the curator of exhibitions at the Matheson in May 2024 and is currently pursuing his Master’s in Museum Studies at the University of Florida. Since coming to the Matheson, Willett has curated four exhibits and two displays, including Weaving a Community: 30 Years at the Matheson History Museum, Alachua’s Queer History, and now Chains of Steele: Money, Power, and Influence.

This program is sponsored in part by Visit Gainesville/Alachua County, FL and the City of Gainesville.