The President's House memorial (in progress), 6th and Market Streets, Philadelphia, May, 2010

 

            It doesn’t surprise me that the “interpretive text” for the President’s House memorial is taking longer to construct than the building that will enclose this monumental story.  Nor that the first draft (briefly on display at the Independence Visitor Center and currently posted at http://www.ushistory.org/presidentshouse/plans/eisterhold/01-history-lost-and-found-1.htm) has elicited conflicting reviews (too concerned with slavery, too dominated by well-known figures like Washington and Adams) and rare consensus (that it is  “unimaginative”).  Writing crafted by committee is often mediocre, in part because during the process vivid, often opposing, views are compromised to the duller middle.  And this particular project is constrained by a marketing agenda separate from its historical one; you can sense the rush to reassure visitors in the carefully balanced presentation that ironically seeks to “brand” Philadelphia even while it aims to liberate the stories of Washington’s nine slaves:  Moll, Austin, Richmond, Giles, Paris, Christopher Sheels, Joe Richardson, Oney Judge, and Hercules.  

            But there is judgement evident in any narrative, whether overtly stated or conveyed through what the text emphasizes, downplays, frames and omits.  As a writer, what I found most revealing in the interpretive text draft is the persistent use of passive voice to tell the story of slavery in colonial Philadelphia:  History is lost to these Africans, who were kidnapped and transported to America and given new names and forced to learn a new language.  The agent is missing in these constructions, either because the agent is unknown or (still) is unacknowledged.

            The words we choose to tell the story of our flawed first president – and of our flawed democracy – enclose and connect our unfinished business and unsettled feelings just as tangibly as bricks and mortar do.  As National Park Service archaeologist Jed Levin says, “History isn’t just what happened long ago.  We make history by fashioning a story that future generations will tell about who we are now.”

President's House Project Plan

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