Hi, readers 👋🏻
This week I had the pleasure (no, really, it was so fun) of interviewing Kaitlin Calogera, founder of A Tour of Her Own. Founded in 2018, A Tour of Her Own was the first tourism company in Washington, D.C. to focus exclusively on women’s history. They specialize in women’s history tours, group experiences, leadership training, virtual presentations, author talks, and itinerary building for daily and multi-day tours. You can also read Kaitlin’s book, 111 Places in Women’s History That You Must Not Miss in Washington, D.C. Check out our great conversation below!
Interview with Kaitlin Calogera
Please note, this interview has been shortened for readability, as we chatted for about an hour and went down many rabbit holes of cool tidbits about women’s history!
You created A Tour Of Her Own in 2018 after years of seeing a lack of women’s representation in history and public spaces. Can you talk more about your idea for the tour company and how you got the idea off the ground? Why was starting this tour company important to you?
I started A Tour Of Her Own in 2018, but had been a licensed tour guide since 2015 in the DC area. I had three years of experience in the more standard and traditional tours, like Capitol Hill and Arlington National Cemetery. During this three year period, it made sense to professionalize myself into a proper business, and it was an interesting time in DC history. I started to question my own messaging on my tours. Tours tend to focus on what people can see, which is typically statues of presidents, war generals, and a lot of military memorials. This wasn’t in alignment with my own values or the character and uniqueness of Washington D.C. beyond the federal district.
I thought it was important to explore histories that weren’t centered on more traditional tours. As someone with a background in women’s athletics, women’s spaces and stories are important to me. So, I wanted to blend that mindset with my existing skill of creating tours.
Why is starting this specific type of tour company important to you? Do you feel you are filling a gap in the space?
I intentionally started this tour company with an entire team of tour guides, because I knew they would all have different perspectives and interests. But, one thing we all agree on is we want to tell honest history and a history that’s whole. It’s difficult to understand nuance and complexity in our background if you’re not getting the full picture. Why tell stories of Presidents if you’re never going to tell the stories of the relationships they had with their wives or their children?
Most Washington, D.C. tour guides work with 8th grade tour groups. It’s a privilege to work with them because you get to shape the minds of young Americans, and they will become voters in a few short years. But, the culture on tours is not always diverse and representative of people on the tours. Typically, there are 50% young girls who don’t see themselves when they come on these tours. They only see Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, and Martin Luther King, Jr. There is an element that serves me personally, but it also serves our community and our country. I felt an obligation to start this company, and I had the tools and resources to do it.
How do you determine which places and historical figures you highlight on your tours? Do you conduct research on Washington DC history to discover lesser-known historical figures or spaces?
There’s two approaches we take when building out a tour. One is looking through the lens of very specific women’s history and sites it represents. If there is a marker, a name on a building, a plaque, anything that honors a woman, we are prioritizing that because there are so few and we want to bring attention to them. We also want to honor the people who worked to make that marker or plaque happen, as the groups behind that are often women as well.
The second approach is being intentional about meeting people where they are and being interpretive. For example, the Washington Monument, most people know it and know about George Washington. We will use him as a framework and build on that by talking about Martha Washington or the Mount Vernon Ladies Association.
We try to consider different socioeconomic and political backgrounds. We talk about women from multiple political parties. There have been over 20 women who have run for President from eight different political parties, we mention them all! (PS - You can see the full list here.) In DC, it’s important to talk about the LGBTQ+ community, which I identify with, and women like Barbara Gittings who is buried in DC. We also pay tribute to the Black community as it’s integral to both DC history and American history more broadly.
Do you have any favorite places or people you cover on your tours? Why are they your favorites?
**Reader note: Kaitlin specifically chose private sites for this question.
Mansion on O Street: An amazing museum in the Dupont Circle area. It’s owned by HH Leonards who is an advocate for history, disability rights, Black history. Her story is incredible. The museum is three rowhouses that have been turned into a museum, hotel, and event space. It’s like a fun house of quirky things and hidden rooms. It’s filled with figurines, there’s a room dedicated to the Beatles, a room dedicated to the Queen of England.
There’s also a room dedicated to Rosa Parks because she moved there when she was in her 80s. Rosa Parks was attacked in her Detroit home and HH Leonards opened her house and museum to Rosa Parks. She made it her home, and they became great friends. Rosa Parks nicknamed HH Leonards Lady H. Now you can go and visit that room and see her memorabilia. It’s so unique, and women’s history is front and center.
Congressional Cemetery: I absolutely love Congressional Cemetery. I’m also a weirdo who loves cemeteries. Congressional Cemetery is special because the people who run it are very intentional about community. They have vendor fairs, craft fairs, and movie nights.
Inside the cemetery there’s a beautiful mix of history, all across the board. I seek out the women’s history present there, like Belva Lockwood and Barbara Gittings There’s a Woman’s Labor History Monument. There’s an LGBTQ section of the cemetery. Also, it’s part dog park, so you can always see dogs and puppies.
**Reader note: On November 22, A Tour of Her Own is doing an awesome walking tour in the Congressional Cemetery. You can buy tickets here + see below from promo code.
Alma Thomas: She’s an artist who started out as a DC public school teacher. She became one of the most successful artists of her time but it wasn’t until after she died that she hit the peak of her artist career. She is proof that DC history is American history. Her artwork is hanging in the MLK Public Library branch (a downtown branch of the DC library) and it’s also hanging right next door in the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
If you could tell every DC resident and tourist one place to go in DC that’s off-the-beaten path, where would you recommend?
Hillwood Estate and Gardens: It has a little bit of everything for everyone. I like the way the museum is structured. It’s the property of Marjorie Merriweather Post, who was the CEO of Post Cereal Company. I use this term loosely but the property is a bit like a Gilded Age mansion. The one thing people lose their minds about when I bring it up on tour is she built Mar-a-Lago. There’s a chapter in my book about her and I enjoy that she’s philanthropic and a bit sassy, she had four husbands, she didn’t drink alcohol and threw the best parties in town.
It’s a great place to go because you could spend one hour here, you could spend four hours. You can bring food in and eat on the grounds. They also have an amazing cafe where you can do tea time.
**Reader note: we got very off topic talking about Marjorie Merriweather Post (because she’s so interesting!!) but we agreed she needs an HBO mini series and Meryl Streep would play an older Marjorie.
If you were to write my next newsletter, which amazing women in history would you feature?
Patsy Mink! (Reader, I have already written about Patsy Mink, and you can read that issue here). She’s such a relevant figure in women’s history. She fought for state independence in Hawai’i, which we can look to as a guide for DC statehood. She’s my hero because she authored and orchestrated Title IX, which provided resources for women in sports and that drastically changed my life and people in this country. I feel like she doesn’t get credit for it and there’s harmful narratives that pull credit from her and claim it was the President at the time who is the reason we have Title IX. She’s one of the women I mentioned earlier who ran for President. Without argument, she broke barriers and was hugely influential on my life.
If you’d like to take a tour with Kaitlin, check out her website! A Tour Of Her Own also has some great public tours coming up including:
✨ A Walking Tour of the Women’s History Mile in Downtown DC (Nov. 22 from 10 AM - noon)
✨ A Walking Tour of Congressional Cemetery (Nov. 22 from 3:30 - 5 PM)
✨ Over the Rainbow: A Walking Tour of Queer Feminist History in DC (Nov. 23 from 10 AM - noon)
And Kaitlin was kind enough to give us some discount codes! Use code Eduk8tion at checkout to get a $10.00 discount and use code Micelli for 2 free tickets to one tour.
That’s all for this week, TTFN!
Love the entrepreneurial spirit! And...her #1 choice - Hillwood!
Love the interview! Kaitlin is doing incredible work here in DC with A Tour of Her Own!