Tara Dudley

Assistant Professor
A group of people gathers outside a historic stone building with an exterior staircase on a sunny day, listening to a person speaking at the base of the stairs. Trees and greenery surround the area.
Book cover with an old map of Austin, Texas, in sepia tones. Title reads “Reckoning with the Past: Slavery, Segregation, and Gentrification in Austin” by Rowena Houghton Dasch and Tara A. Dudley.
Book cover titled Building Antebellum New Orleans: Free People of Color and Their Influence by Tara A. Dudley, featuring an old sepia photograph of historic buildings and fences with two large signatures at the bottom.
A woman stands in a dimly lit, worn room with exposed brick walls, holding a camera and looking out of a dirty window. An open cardboard box sits on the floor beside her.
re-writing american architecture
display in mebane
display in mebane
display of work
three people around a bucket in a historical room
Tara speaking
chase centennial exhibition
tara being interviewed
tara in an interview setting
behind the scenes of ancestral artistry

Assistant Professor Tara A. Dudley teaches interior design history and architectural history courses. In her research and scholarship, she engages untold histories and works to demystify the process, paths, and methods of marginalized contributors to the built environment and reassert their historic agency with an emphasis on African American craftspeople, builders, and architects in the US South. Her work reflects an interdisciplinary approach to the study of cultural resources with a focus on nineteenth-century American design, African American architectural history, historic preservation, and material culture. She is the author of the award-winning book Building Antebellum New Orleans: Free People of Color and Their Influence (University of Texas Press, 2021). She has contributed book chapters illuminating untold stories of American architecture including an essay on the Mason family of Austin, freedom colony founders and stonemasons, to the co-edited volume Rewriting American Architecture: Contesting the Myths of National Culture (University of Texas Press, 2026). Her in-progress works include a biography on the life and work of African American architect John Saunders Chase. She has partnered with the Neill-Cochran House Museum to guide restoration of and develop interpretive programming for the only intact slave quarters building in Austin which is located on the museum grounds. Dr. Dudley is a 2025 recipient of the Mellon Foundation New Directions Fellowship.

Dr. Dudley served as a senior architectural historian for Austin-based preservation consulting firm HHM & Associates, Inc. for two decades and continues to consult on preservation projects nationwide. She is well-versed in the integration of scholarly inquiry and professional practice and has expertise in the preparation of historic furnishings reports, National Register of Historic Places nominations, historic resource surveys, and interpretive planning for historic sites. She has served on the City of Austin Historic Landmark Commission and as chair of the Texas State Board of Review, the advisory committee that advises the State Historic Preservation Officer regarding National Register nominations.

 

EDUCATION

  • Doctor of Philosophy, Architecture, The University of Texas at Austin, 2012
  • Master of Science in Architectural Studies (Historic Preservation), The University of Texas at Austin, 2003
  • Bachelor of Arts (Art History), Princeton University, 1999

PUBLICATIONS + PROJECTS

BOOKS

Reckoning with the Past: Slavery, Segregation, and Gentrification in Austin (with Rowena Houghton Dasch), Austin: Neill-Cochran House Museum, November 2021  

Building Antebellum New Orleans: Free People of Color and their Influence, Austin: University of Texas Press, August 2021  

  • 2024 Society of Architectural Historians Spiro Kostof Award
  • 2022 Summerlee Book Prize in Nonfiction, Center for History and Culture of Southeast Texas and the Upper Gulf Coast
  • 2022 Category Winner: Architecture and Urban Planning, Association of American Publishers PROSE Award
  • 2022 Best Book Prize Southeast Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians (SESAH)
  • 2022 The University of New Mexico School of Architecture and Planning on the Brinck Award

“There Is Something Else to be Done”: The Life and Career of John Saunders Chase (1925-2012) (manuscript in progress; under contract with UT Press)    

BOOK CHAPTERS

“Slavery and Sovereignty in Stone: The Mason Family of Austin, Texas”, chapter in Rewriting American Architecture: Contesting the Myths of National Culture, edited by Charles Davis II, Kathryn Holliday, and Joanna Merwood-Salisbury, University of Texas Press, September 2026 

“A Very Valuable Man”: Enslaved Builders and the Making of Texas,” in The Power of Place: Defining Material Culture in Pre-1900 Texas, The Lower South, and the Southwest, The David B. Warren Symposium, Volume 8, Houston: The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 2022 

ARTICLES

EXHIBITIONS

SELECT PROFESSIONAL REPORTS

  • East Austin History Resource Survey Update, in progress
  • Historic Context for the Trask House and Kitchen, with Page (now Stantec) for the Austin Convention Center Expansion Project, Austin, Texas, 2026
  • National Register District Nomination, San Bernard Street, Austin, Texas, 2026
  • Interpretive and Signage Plan for the Oakwood Cemetery Historic Colored Grounds, Austin, Texas, 2025
  • Rural Texas African American Community Connections, Research, and Evaluation Guides for Texas Department of Transportation, Phase I, 2024
  • Great River Road Historic Context Study, St. John the Baptist Parish, Louisiana, 2024*
  • African American Heritage Survey, San Antonio, Texas, 2023*
  • Historic Furnishings Report, Wick House, Morristown National Historical Park, Morristown, New Jersey, 2022*
  • “Creating Community: A Geographical Approach to Inclusive History at Oakwood Cemetery,” 3-D modeling project, Austin, Texas, 2022
  • Historic Furnishings Report for Slave Quarters Building at the Washington and Mary Hill House, Neill-Cochran House Museum, Austin, Texas, 2022
  • Historic Furnishings Report for the Jacob Ford, Jr. Mansion, Morristown National Historical Park, Morristown, New Jersey, 2022
  • Historic Furnishings Reports for the MLK Birth Home, Ebenezer Baptist Church, and Fire Station No. 6, Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historical Park, Atlanta, Georgia, 2021
  • Historic Context Study of the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transit (HART) Rail Line, Honolulu County, O‘ahu, Hawai‘i, in progress
  • National Register Nomination, Naval Aviation Supply Depot Personnel Camp Quonset Hut 33, Pearl City, Hawai'i, 2019
  • Local Historic District Application and Design Guidelines for the Robertson Hill Local Historic District, Austin, Texas, 2019
  • Lower Waller Creek Historic Context Study, Waller Creek Conservancy, 2018
  • Brownsville Historic Resources Survey and National Register District Nomination, Brownsville, Texas, 2018
  • National Register District Nomination, Kingsville Downtown Historic District, Kingsville, Texas, 2018
  • National Register Nomination, Cambridge Tower, Austin, Texas, 2018
  • National Register District Nomination for Boston National Historic Site, Boston, Massachusetts, 2017
  • Historic Furnishings Report, Hampton National Historic Site, 2017
  • Historic Furnishings Report, Show Barn, Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park, 2017.
  • Historic Resources Survey of East Austin, 2016.
  • Historic Furnishings Report, White House Aides and Communications Complex, Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park, 2016.
  • Combined Historic Structure and Historic Furnishings Report, Secret Service Command Post, Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park, 2014-2015
  • Historic Furnishings Report and Implementation Plan, Portion of Landscape Design Office, Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site, 2010-2011
  • Historic District Design Guidelines for Leesville, Lake Charles, and Crowley, Louisiana, 2011.
  • Interpretive Brochure Development for “Shadowland Café,” West, Texas, 2011.
  • Historic Furnishings Report for Bunker Hill Granite Lodge, Boston National Historical Park, 2009-2011
  • Historical Interpretive Marker, Visitors Center Exhibit, and Docent Manual Project, Tule Springs Ranch at Floyd Lamb State Park, Las Vegas, Nevada, 2011
  • Interpretive Plan and Interior Rehabilitation of Interior of Foreman’s House, Las Vegas, Nevada Tule Springs Ranch, Floyd Lamb Park, 2008 – 2009
  • Historical Interpretive Program in Response to a Natural Disaster for Naval Air Station Pensacola, Pensacola, Florida, 2007

SELECT CONFERENCES AND SYMPOSIA PRESENTATIONS

  • “Black Builders: An Interdisciplinary Process to Contextualize Race in the Built Environment,” Texas Chapter of the American Society Landscape Architects Annual Conference, April 2025
  • “Community Collaboration: Addressing Highway Construction and African American Historic Places,” panelist, Texas Historical Commission Real Place Conference, April 2025
  • "Building Self and Community Identity: Research Methods in Urban History” on the “Pre-Emancipation and Post-Emancipation Roots” panel, Center for Africanamerican Urban Studies and the Economy (CAUSE) 30th anniversary conference “The Future of Black Urban History: Beyond the Crossroads,” April 2025
  • “Working Together: Raising the Profile of Black Austin History,” panelist, Texas Association of Museums Annual Meeting, April 2025
  • “Enslaved Master Builders of Texas” on the “Enslaved Plantation Life in Texas” panel, Witte Museum Conference on Texas “Ode to Juneteenth: Slavery in Texas,” December 2024
  • “African American Heritage Sites 101: Recognizing, Researching, and Evaluating,” workshop panelist, Texas Historical Commission Real Places Conference, April 2024
  • “Engaging Interpretation: Recognizing, Researching, and Evaluating African American Heritage Sites,” panelist, Texas Historical Commission Real Places Conference, February 2023
  • “Masonic Rights: The Mason Family and Architecture in Travis County, Texas,” Vernacular Architecture Forum annual meeting, May 2022 
  • “‘A Very Valuable Man’: Enslaved Builders and the Making of Texas,” 2021 David Warren Symposium on American Material Culture and the Texas Experience: “The Power of Place: Defining Material Culture in Pre-1900 Texas, the Lower South, and the Southwest,” Bayou Bend House and Gardens, Houston, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, pending February 2021
  • “Cherchez les femmes, recherchez les femmes,” in “Race, Health, and the Environment” session, Southern Historical Association, November 2020
  • “‘Austin’s most prosperous colored men’: Freedmen Builders and Craftsmen in Austin, Texas, 1870-1900,” on “Finding Late 19th Century African American Builders, Architecture, and Landscapes: A Texas Case Study” panel, Southeast Society of Architectural Historians, panel chair and presenter, October 2020
  • “Rediscovering African American Builders in Austin’s Black Settlements,” on “The State of Black Architecture in Historic Black Settlements” panel, Vernacular Architecture Forum Virtual Conference, May 2020
  • “National Register Listings and the African American Experience,” Conservation Society of San Antonio Symposium, February 2020
  • “Free People of Color and the Architecture of Antebellum New Orleans,” Making New Orleans Home: A Tricentennial Symposium, March 2018, “Creating Home: 300 Years of Builders and Architects in New Orleans” Architecture Panel
  • University of Texas at Arlington David Dillon Symposium “Equity + Freedom's Footprint in Dallas Freedman's Towns,” November 2017, Panelist: Heritage and Preservation
  • “Gens de couleur libres and the Social History of Architecture in Tremé,” Williams Research Center Annual Symposium “Perspectives on New Orleans Architecture: Past, Present, Future,” February 2016.
  • “Revealing the contributions of the gens de couleur libres to New Orleans’ antebellum architecture: a new a new approach,” Louisiana Historical Association Annual Meeting, March 2015
  • “The gens de couleur libres and the architecture of antebellum New Orleans: a new approach,” Society of Architectural Historians Annual Conference, April 2014
  • “The Influence of the gens de couleur libres on the architecture of Antebellum Louisiana,” SAH Annual Conference, April 2006

HISTORICAL TOURS

  • 2025 Preservation Austin Homes Tour, Free Walking Tour “Legacy of John S. Chase: Lott Lumber Company and the Keystone Addition,” April 2025 
  • “Defining Community: The African American Diaspora in East Austin,” AASLH Annual Meeting, September 2017
  • East Austin: Gentrification, transitioning neighborhoods, displaced cultural memories, walking tour for University of Texas Department of American Studies and Michener Center, Harry Ransom Center, January 2017
  • African American History in East Austin. Jane Jacobs/ Jane’s Walk USA local neighborhood tour. April 2016.
  • “Palimpsests of Color: Transition, Gentrification, and Hidden History in Austin’s Black Neighborhoods,” Society of Architectural Historians Annual Conference, April 2014
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Contact

Office: WMB 6.112

AREAS OF INTEREST
  • Nineteenth Century American Architecture
  • Nineteenth Century Interior Design and Material Culture
  • Historic Preservation
  • African-American Architectural History
COURSES TAUGHT

Interior Design History I and II
African American Experiences in Architecture
American Architecture

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Gregory W. Smith

Lecturer

Tekena Koko

Lecturer
2021-2023 Emerging Scholar in Design Fellow

Smilja Milovanovic-Bertram

Associate Professor