Hercules Posey & the President’s House

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson
and I'm Holly Frye. We have mentioned the Restoring Truth
Insanity to American History Executive Order a few times on
the show since it was first issued on March twenty
seventh of twenty twenty five. That's the executive order stating

(00:32):
that the US government's policy is to restore federal sites
dedicated to history to quote solemn and uplifting public monuments
that remind Americans of our extraordinary heritage, consistent progress toward
becoming a more perfect union, an unmatched record of advancing liberty, prosperity,
and human flourishing. So signs and other materials deemed to

(00:57):
be in violation of that order started to be removed
from federally managed sites last year, and the most sweeping changes,
I think have been at the President's House site at
Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia. In May, federally managed
sites were given September deadlines to address material that was

(01:19):
thought to violate this executive order. At least thirteen pieces
of information were flagged at the President's House site, When
the public found out about this, there were protest rallies,
complaints from tourists, legal filings, there was a resolution from
the Philadelphia City Council that condemned the whitewashing and suppressing

(01:39):
of history, and at least to the public, it seemed
like the administration had backed off after all of this pushback,
but then workers showed up without notice on January twenty
second of twenty twenty six They disabled the video screens
at the site and they took down all of the displays,
so not just the ones that had those piece of

(02:00):
information that had been fagged. Everything was taken down. So
February sixteenth of this year was the Washington's Birthday federal
holiday also called President's Day, and on that day, Federal
District Court Judge Cynthia Roof ordered that the site be
restored by that Friday, February twentieth. This episode was completely

(02:24):
written but not recorded yet when she made that decision,
so I have been revising it every day since then.
It feels like long story short. As of February twenty fourth,
four of the five video monitors at the site are
working again, and the one that is not working was
not working before There are also two types of signs

(02:47):
at the President's house. One is illustrated glass panels that
have like a brief quote or explanatory text, and the
others are metal panels that are a lot more text heavy.
All but one of the glass pan panels are back up.
The one that's not up needs repairs to its mounting bolts.
But most of the metal panels, which are the ones

(03:08):
that contain the most factual detail, are not back up.
They were not really removable, and some of them were
pried off with crowbars, so now there's a whole process
that is required to get them mounted again.

Speaker 1 (03:23):
I am not an.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
Expert, but I think this would be hard to do
in the middle of the winter. We have had repeated
snowstorms and blizzards where I live and also in Philadelphia
over the last couple of months, and there are adhesives
that have to cure to get these things back in place.
So Judge Thomas Hardiman of the Third Circuit Court granted

(03:43):
a partial stay, saying that these signs that are not
back up don't need to be put back up at
this time, but what is already back up needs to
stay there. And then the government's appeal of Roof's decision
is ongoing. So today's episode was inspired by the material
that was removed from the President's House site about slavery

(04:05):
and the people who were enslaved there, including the cook hercules.
We are also going to talk about how this site
became part of a national park and became the first
official slavery memorial on federal property.

Speaker 1 (04:21):
After the US Constitution went into effect in seventeen eighty nine,
the federal government briefly operated out of New York City. Then,
on July sixteenth, seventeen ninety, after intense debate and compromise,
President George Washington signed the Residence Act, which established a
site on the Potomac River as the permanent home for

(04:42):
the nation's capital. That would of course become Washington, d c.
The Act also designated Philadelphia as the temporary capital. It
would be that for ten years while the permanent capital
was being built.

Speaker 2 (04:56):
The Philadelphia County Courthouse had been completed the year before
that became Congress Hall, where the Senate and the House
of Representatives met. Philadelphia City Hall, which was also basically
brand new house. The Supreme Court and then the Executive
Branch was headquartered in a three story mansion known as
the Robert Morris House, named for the financier who had

(05:18):
owned it and lived in it until offering it for
the president's use. Presidents George Washington and John Adams and
their families lived and conducted executive branch business in this house.

Speaker 1 (05:31):
Washington and Adams both had household and personal staff at
the President's House, and for George Washington that included nine
enslaved people that we know of. Their names were Christopher Shiels, Giles, Onna, Judge, Austin,
Paris Mall, Joe Richardson, Hercules, and Hercules's son Richmond. At

(05:54):
this point, George Washington did not break up enslaved families
by selling people away from one another, but the people
that he took to the President's House were separated from
family and friends at his Virginia home of Mount Vernon
for months at a time.

Speaker 2 (06:10):
In April of seventeen ninety one, while George Washington was
on a tour of the Southern States, US Attorney General
Edmund Randolph came to the President's house and told First
Lady Martha Washington that three of his enslaved staff had
claimed their freedom under Pennsylvania's Gradual Abolition Act of seventeen eighty.

(06:31):
Randolph said he thought it was possible that some of
Washington's staff might try to do the same thing. The
law had a provision freeing enslaved people who were brought
into Pennsylvania by non residents after they had been there
for six months. Washington's chief secretary, Tobias Lear, wrote to
him about this conversation and asked for direction on what

(06:52):
to do. Washington wrote back, saying he'd had a conversation
with Randolph about this, and he thought they were in
slightly different situations. Randolph had taken an oath of citizenship
in Pennsylvania to practice law there, while Washington's residence in
the Commonwealth was incidental as an officer of the government.

(07:13):
Washington said he was not sure how this would affect
the situation, and that leers should quote take the best
advice you can on the subject. If according to that advice,
it would be possible for Washington's enslave staff to be
free after six months, they should be sent back to
Mount Vernon ahead of that deadline, unless Martha Washington chose

(07:34):
to keep them in Philadelphia. Washington went on to say, quote,
at any rate it might, if they conceived they had
a right to it, make them insolent in a state
of slavery. As all except Hercules and Paris are dower negroes,
it behooves me to prevent the emancipation of them, Otherwise
I shall not only lose the use of them, but

(07:55):
may have them to pay for So.

Speaker 1 (07:58):
That term dour references the fact that most of the
enslaved people who were with them in Philadelphia were part
of the estate of Martha's late first husband, Daniel Parke Custis.
Custis had died intestate and his estate was being held
in trust for his children, with Martha allowed to use
some of its value for as long as she lived.

(08:20):
The Custis estate included almost three hundred enslaved Africans, so
what Washington was saying was that if anyone who was
part of the Custis estate was freed because of his actions,
he would lose their labor, and he would have to
compensate the estate for their loss.

Speaker 2 (08:38):
In this letter, Washington went on to say, quote, if
upon taking good advice, it is found expedient to send
them back to Virginia, I wish to have it accomplished
under pretext that may deceive both them and the public.
Later in the letter, he again stressed the need for secrecy,
saying quote, I request that these sent and this advice

(09:01):
may be known to none but yourself and Missus Washington.

Speaker 1 (09:06):
Oh George.

Speaker 2 (09:07):
They were not really expecting that people would be reading
everything the President wrote in the future when he wrote
that down, I don't think.

Speaker 1 (09:15):
Yeah, I like the idea of writing a letter that's like, hey,
keep this on the DL, not knowing.

Speaker 2 (09:21):
Not just keep it on the DL, but like literally
deceive everyone.

Speaker 1 (09:25):
Yeah, well that's kind of what I mean. But yes,
let's let's not We're gonna FIBURUNI this one. Everybody'd be
cool not knowing that we would all read a whole
of this, like, oh George. So it was true that
Attorney General Randolph and President Washington were in different situations.
When Randolph became a citizen of Pennsylvania, the enslaved people

(09:46):
he had brought with him from Virginia were freed because
Pennsylvania citizens could only own registered Pennsylvania enslaved people, which
the people he was enslaving were not. For Washington, the
issue was that six month limit, which his incidental residence
in Pennsylvania did not exempt him from.

Speaker 2 (10:07):
For the most part, Washington dealt with this limit by
having his enslaved staff leave or be taken from Pennsylvania periodically.
They could travel with him or the First Lady. They
could be sent on errands across the river in New Jersey,
or they could be entrusted to travel back and forth
to Mount Vernon on business for the President. That was

(10:27):
the case for Austin, who died as a result of
this work. In December of seventeen ninety four. He had
some kind of an accident while crossing a river in Maryland.
He fell from his horse, and he later died of
his injuries. He was survived by a wife and five children, Billy, Timothy, Elvie, Jenny,
and Eliza. He was also on a judge's half brother.

Speaker 1 (10:51):
One person was also sent back to Mount Vernon permanently.
That was Christopher Shields, who knew how to read, and
he was back at Mount Vernon by j January of
seventeen ninety two. It's possible that the Washingtons were concerned
that his literacy made it more likely that he would
learn about the gradual abolition law if he stayed in
Philadelphia over the course of his presidency, Washington also replaced

(11:15):
some of the enslaved workers in Philadelphia with white, indentured
servants who were unaffected by that abolition law.

Speaker 2 (11:22):
One of the people who was periodically cycled out of
Philadelphia was Hercules, Washington's cook, and we will talk about
him after a sponsor break. We don't know exactly when
George Washington's enslaved cook, Hercules was born. According to his

(11:47):
New York City death record, he was sixty five when
he died in eighteen twelve, so that would have put
his birth in seventeen forty seven. Hercules was enslaved by
Washington's neighbor, John Poe, and some of the later records
of Hercules' life give his name as Hercules Posey.

Speaker 1 (12:07):
John Posey was in debt to George Washington, and in
seventeen sixty nine he gave Washington twenty six people as
a repayment of those debts. One of them was Hercules,
who would have been in his late teens or maybe
twenty years old at that point. He is known to
have piloted a barge that Posey operated across the Potomac River,

(12:27):
and then to have trained under the other enslaved kitchen
staff at Mount Vernon.

Speaker 2 (12:32):
Hercules married a woman named Alice, who was part of
the Custis estate. They had three children, Richmond in seventeen
seventy seven, Eve in seventeen eighty two, and Delia in
seventeen eighty five. Of course, this marriage was not legally recognized,
and since Alice was part of the Custis estate, that
meant Richmond, Eve, and Delia were all considered to belong

(12:54):
to the estate as well.

Speaker 1 (12:56):
Alice died in seventeen eighty seven and in nine Hercules
was taken to Philadelphia to work as the cook in
the President's House. He asked to bring eleven year old
Richmond with him, but his daughters, who would have been
about eight and five, stayed behind at Mount Vernon. At
the President's house, Richmond did things like scullery work in

(13:17):
the kitchen, cleaning the chimneys, and running errands.

Speaker 2 (13:21):
Living at the President's house would have been really crowded
and without much privacy. The President's family included the first
Lady and two of her grandchildren who the Washingtons were raising.
There were also other enslaved staff who we've already talked about,
and about fifteen free white servants, and also Washington's office staff,

(13:43):
including Tobias Lear and his wife. They all lived there.
A smokehouse was extended to create a slave quarters for
the men who worked in the stables, and they probably
had like the most room and living space of all
the enslaved workers. Mal who mostly looked after the grandchildren,
and Ona, who was Martha's maid, probably slept on mats

(14:04):
in the children's rooms by their beds. Hercules and Richmond
probably shared a space in the attic which had been
divided for the men. One side of the attic was
for enslaved black servants and the other was for free
white servants who lived on site. Christopher Shields probably also
lived in the attic while he was there.

Speaker 1 (14:25):
As for Hercules' work, it went way beyond just cooking.
He managed everyone who worked in the kitchen, including both
enslaved and free servants. He planned the menus, and he
made the arrangements for acquiring all the ingredients for official dinners,
especially these could be huge, elaborate, multi course meals. He

(14:45):
developed relationships with the farmers, the butchers, spice sellers, merchants
and the like in Philadelphia, many of whom would have
been free black people. At this point, there were far
more free than enslaved people among philadelai His black population,
and he was connected to basically anyone in the food chain.
In general, Hercules and other enslaved cooks had an enormous

(15:09):
influence on the development of American cuisine.

Speaker 2 (15:13):
Hercules role and the Washington's trust in him afforded him
some privileges. He was allowed to sell the leftovers also
called slop from the kitchen, and he got to keep
the money. Martha Washington's grandson, George Washington Park Custis, wrote
a biography of the first President, and in it he
said that Hercules earned between one hundred and two hundred

(15:35):
dollars a year doing this, and that he spent most
of it on fine clothing. He wrote, quote and making
his toilet. His linen was of unexceptionable whiteness and quality.
Then black silk shorts, ditto waistcoat, ditto stockings, shoes highly
polished with large buckles covering a considerable part of the foot.

(15:56):
Blue cloth coat with velvet collar and bright metal buttons.
A long watchchain dangling from his fob, A cocked hat,
a gold headed cane completed the grand costume of the
celebrated dandy, for there were dandies in those days of
the President's kitchen. During his off hours, Hercules wore those

(16:17):
clothes around town. Again, in Custus's words, quote, many were
not a little surprised on beholdings so extraordinary a personage,
while others who knew him would make a formal and
respectful bow that they might receive in return the salute
of one of the most polished gentlemen and the various
dandy of nearly sixty years ago. Custus described Hercules as

(16:41):
quote highly accomplished, a proficient and the culinary art as
could be found in the United States. He went on
to say, quote, the chief cook gloried in the cleanliness
and nicety of his kitchen under his iron discipline. Woe
to his underlings if speck or spot could be discovered
on the table or dressers, or if the utensils did

(17:03):
not shine like polished silver. With the luckless whites who
had offended in these particulars, there was no arrest of punishment,
for judgment and execution went hand in hand. The steward,
and indeed the whole household treated the chief cook with
much respect as well for his valuable services as for
his general good character and pleasing manners. In May of

(17:28):
seventeen ninety one, so about six weeks after George Washington
and Tobias Lear discussed what to do about the Gradual
Abolition Law, Washington was preparing to return to Mount Vernon
for the summer. Enslaved people from the President's house were
being sent ahead to prepare for his arrival and to
skirt that six month provision in the law. On June fifth,

(17:50):
Tobias Lear wrote Washington a letter saying that someone had
insinuated to Hercules that the reason he was being sent
to Mount Vernon so early was to keep him from
spending six months in Pennsylvania and securing his freedom. So
Hercules was upset about this. To quote from the letter, quote,
he appeared to be extremely unhappy, and although he made

(18:14):
not the least objection to going, yet he said he
was mortified to the last degree to think that a
suspicion could be entertained of his fidelity or attachment to you.
And so much did the poor fellow's feelings appear to
be touched that it left no doubt of his sincerity,
and to show him that there were no apprehensions of

(18:35):
that kind entertained of him. Missus Washington told him he
should not go at that time, but might remain till
the expiration of six months and then go home to
prepare for your arrival there. He has accordingly continued here
till this time, and tomorrow takes his departure for Virginia.
Staying beyond this six month window would have made Hercules

(18:58):
eligible for freedom, but it doesn't appear that he pursued it.
There are many possible reasons for this. One may have
been it would have separated him from his children, who
at that point were six, nine and twelve years old.
So Hercules and his son Richmond continued to work at
the President's house, with regular trips back to Mount Vernon

(19:20):
or elsewhere, so they weren't there for more than six months. Then,
in the summer of seventeen ninety six, Richmond was accused
of stealing money from a white servant named James Wilkes
at Mount Vernon. There doesn't seem to be a surviving
account of exactly what happened, but Wilkes was paid seven
dollars from the household accounts to reimburse him Washington wrote

(19:44):
a letter to William Pearce, the farm manager at Mount Vernon,
that said quote, I hope Richmond was made an example
of for the robbery he committed on Wilkes's saddlebags. I
wish he may not have been put upon it by
his father, although I never had any suspicion of the
honest of the latter. For the purpose of a journey together,
this will make a watch without its being suspected by

(20:06):
or intimated to them necessary. After this, Hercules and Richmond
both remained at Mount Vernon rather than being taken back
to Philadelphia. They were also effectively demoted from the work
they had been doing in the kitchen and the house
to doing physical labor outside. A few months later, on
February twenty second, seventeen ninety seven, which was George Washington's birthday,

(20:31):
Hercules liberated himself from slavery and escaped from Mount Vernon.
Washington tried to have him found, including questioning people or
having people questioned around Philadelphia about his disappearance. They logically
thought he might have gone there to try to secure
his freedom. Apparently, the loss of Hercules was so grievous
that Washington considered purchasing someone else to replace him, even

(20:56):
though this happened after a September ninth, seventeen eighty six
left to John Mercer, in which Washington said he did
not mean to quote possess another slave by purchase, and
said that he had wanted some plan by which slavery
could be abolished. Washington did include a parenthetical unless some
particular circumstance should compel me to do it, So maybe

(21:18):
the loss of Hercules counted as particular circumstance. Regardless, visitors
to the President's House and Mount Vernon after this remarked
that the food was not as good, or having a
meal that was particularly delicious somewhere else said that Hercules
might have prepared it. In seventeen ninety seven, Louis Philippe,

(21:40):
future King of France, also visited Mount Vernon, and one
of his servants asked one of Hercules's daughters if she
was upset that she would never see her father again,
and she reportedly answered him quote, no, sir, I'm very
glad for he is free now. Hercules eventually moved to
New York, where he lived in an air that's part

(22:00):
of Chinatown today. He's listed in City directories from eighteen
oh seven, eighteen oh eight, eighteen ten, and eighteen twelve,
with his occupation listed as laborer and cook. He died
on May fifteenth, eighteen twelve, and was buried at Second
African Burying Ground.

Speaker 1 (22:18):
Hercules was considered a fugitive for the first few years
after his escape, but by the time of his death
he had been formally freed. One of the terms of
George Washington's will was that the one hundred twenty three
people who were his property would be freed upon Martha's death.
George Washington died on December fourteenth, seventeen ninety nine. A

(22:41):
year later, Martha signed a deed of manumission to free
those one hundred twenty three people, and that went into
effect on January first of eighteen oh one. And she
did this because she did not feel safe surrounded by
more than one hundred enslaved people who would be freed
if she died.

Speaker 2 (23:00):
Washington's will did not, however, affect any of the people
who were part of the Custis estate, and that meant
there were a lot of families who after this had
some members who were free and others who remained enslaved.
This included Hercules's three children. When Martha died in eighteen
oh two, her granddaughter, Elizabeth park Custus law inherited Hercules's

(23:23):
son to Richmond, and Eleanor Park Custis inherited his daughters,
Delia and Eve.

Speaker 1 (23:29):
Hercules was not the only enslaved person to have worked
at the President's House and escaped from bondage. The other
was on a Judge, also known as Onie. She escaped
from the President's House in seventeen ninety six. Washington was
absolutely furious about this, and he put intense effort into
trying to find her, since she was part of the

(23:51):
Custis estate. She was not freed when Hercules was, but
she also gave interviews in which she said that the
family didn't really try to bother her anymore after George
Washington's death. We actually talk more about this in the
second part of our two part episode on the White
House at its Legacy, which came out in twenty twenty.
That episode is a little bit obsolete now because the

(24:14):
east wing of the White House was demolished in twenty
twenty five.

Speaker 2 (24:18):
There is a striking eighteenth century portrait that for a
long time everybody thought was of Hercules. It shows a
black man wearing white, including a tall hat that resembles
a chef's toque, but more recent research has concluded that
this is not Hercules, and it's also not a chef's hat.
Those did not come into use until the eighteen twenties.

(24:41):
This portrait is most likely the work of British painter
Joshua Reynolds, and it might depict someone from the island
of Dominica who had fled to England before France claimed
that island in seventeen seventy eight. There is at least
one other portrait of someone from Dominica wearing a similar hat.
Hercules and on a Judge were two of the enslaved

(25:04):
people whose stories have been told at the President's House
site at Independence National Historical Park. We're going to talk
more about that after we pause for a sponsor break.
Now we will move on to the story of the

(25:25):
President's House at Independence National Historical Park. After the end
of George Washington's presidency, his successor, John Adams, and John's
wife Abigail, who were opposed to slavery, lived at the
President's House in Philadelphia. When Adams and his family and
staff moved out in eighteen hundred. The Robert Morris House

(25:45):
became a hotel. That hotel later closed, and the interior
of the building was gutted in eighteen thirty two. Eventually
all that was left of it was one wall, which
in nineteen forty seven four an exterior wall of a
store in what had become a commercial.

Speaker 1 (26:04):
Part of Philadelphia. In nineteen forty eight, Congress passed legislation
establishing independence National Historical Park quote, for the purpose of preserving,
for the benefit of the American People, as a National
Historical Park, certain historical structures and properties of outstanding national
significance located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and associated with the American

(26:28):
Revolution and the founding and growth of the United States.
This legislation also empowered the Secretary of the Interior to
enter into cooperative agreements with the City of Philadelphia, and
required these agreements to contain provisions that no changes or
alterations would be made to the property except by mutual

(26:48):
agreement of the parties involved.

Speaker 2 (26:51):
So it does not seem like anybody realized that any
of the original Robert Morris House was still standing when
this happened. So the former site of the President's House
was not included in the initial conservation plans. In nineteen
fifty one, that one remaining wall was demolished, along with
other structures around it, to create a green space known

(27:14):
as Independence Mall. A lot of historic buildings are in
this area, including Congress Hall, Old City Hall, and Independence Hall,
where the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were signed.
Franklin Court and the site of Benjamin Franklin's home are
also nearby, and they're part of the park. But in

(27:37):
the midst of all this history, the President's House became
a public restroom. Skipping ahead a little bit, between nineteen
ninety three and nineteen ninety seven, Independence National Historical Park
held a series of sixteen public meetings to create a
general management plan for the park. At these meetings, there

(27:58):
were not really a lot of calls for the park
to interpret slavery or the history of Philadelphia's free black community,
but also the people who came to the meetings were
mostly white. When the park conducted an ethnographic assessment of
the communities around it, ethnographer Seth Alowe talked to black
residents who said they did not feel represented at the

(28:20):
park and felt they had no cultural connections to it.
Later interviews with visitors to the park also found that
black visitors generally said the stories that the park was
telling just weren't relevant to them. Roughly forty percent of
the people living in Philadelphia in the nineteen nineties were black,
and that is still true today. So while Independence National

(28:41):
Historical Park had a lot of relevance to some parts
of the nation's history, it really was not connecting to
a significant number of the people in the immediate area.
The master plan that followed these meetings also didn't include
anything for the President's House. Again, people had thought that
nothing was left of it when the park was created,
But then in two thousand and two, Edward Lawler Junior

(29:04):
published an article about the President's House in the Pennsylvania
Magazine of History and Biography, including information on people having
been enslaved at the President's House. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported
on this, and then soon after that there was a
lot of public awareness of the fact that George Washington

(29:24):
had brought enslaved people to the President's House. In addition
to that, the year before, plans had gotten underway to
build a new site for the Liberty Bell. According to
this newly published research. The entrance to the new Liberty
Bell Center was going to be almost on top of
what had been a slave quarters at the President's House.

(29:46):
The Liberty Bell, which is symbolic of freedom and independence
and was used as an emblem of the abolition movement,
practically sitting on top of the slave quarters.

Speaker 1 (29:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (29:59):
So, at this point people started demanding that the realities
of slavery be incorporated more fully into Independence National Historical Park.
The Avenging the Ancestors Coalition was founded to advocate for
a prominent slavery memorial at the park, one that specifically
memorialized the people who had been enslaved at the President's House.

(30:21):
There were protests and petitions and advocacy campaigns. To be
very clear, this was an effort to get the park
to reflect a real, non whitewashed version of history, one
that was deeply relevant to a lot of the surrounding community,
not an effort to replace facts with a distorted narrative

(30:45):
or to push a false ideology rather than the truth.
In its report on the two thousand and three appropriations
Bill for the Department of the Interior, the House Appropriations
Committee urged the National Park Service to quote appropriately commemorate
the concerns raised regarding the recognition of the existence of
the mansion and the slaves who worked in it during

(31:06):
the first years of our democracy, and it instructed the
director of the National Park Service to submit a rapport
detailing the actions taken at the park to address and
resolve that issue. The people who were working on the
interpretive signs for the new Liberty Bell Center got some
community input to try to make those signs more inclusive,

(31:28):
and the park also started working on a plan for
interpreting the President's House site. That public restroom that had
been built where the house used to be had been
demolished for the creation of the new Liberty Bell Center,
so the question was what should replace it. This was
particularly important since people would walk through this area to

(31:49):
get to the Liberty Bell, and the Liberty Bell got
an estimated two million visitors a year when the new
center opened.

Speaker 1 (31:58):
What followed was year of work by historians and other experts,
with public meetings and public forums and other opportunities for
transparency and feedback along the way. By two thousand and four,
preliminary designs for the site included five guiding themes, one
the House and the people who lived and worked there,

(32:19):
two the Executive Branch of the US Government. Three the
system and Methods of Slavery, four African American Philadelphia, and
five the Move to Freedom.

Speaker 2 (32:32):
Almost two hundred and fifty people representing at least twenty
seven different organizations, attended a public forum about the site
on October thirtieth, two thousand and four. This was after
many other public meetings and opportunities for input had already happened.
At this time, there was also an opportunity for public comments,

(32:54):
whether or not somebody was able to attend this specific meeting.
Theme emerged after this public forum and comment period, which
was History Lost and Found and this theme would explore
how the presence of slavery at the President's House had
been lost to public memory and then how it had
been found again. And five cultural values were also established

(33:18):
to guide work at the site. Those were identity, Memory, agency, dignity,
and truth. In two thousand and five, the Organization of
American Historians and the National Park Service cooperated on a
site review at Independence National Historical Park, with the OAH
delivering a report on the existing interpretation at the park

(33:41):
and the future plans. So a lot of this process
was incredibly contentious. A clear direction forms about the focus
on slavery, but there were also people who thought the
site should include more on the architecture of the President's House,
or the achievements of George Washington and John Adams, or

(34:02):
the decisions and the policies that were made in the
first years of the federal government. There were disagreements among
various experts who were part of the project and among
different agencies. All of this was also running alongside ongoing
public activism and involvement.

Speaker 1 (34:21):
Finally, in two thousand and six, the Park Service and
the City of Philadelphia entered into an agreement specifying that
the President's House site's focus would be on slavery and freedom,
including the people who were enslaved there. The Park Service
also agreed to consult the City of Philadelphia about changes
to the park in line with the legislation that had

(34:43):
established Independence National Historical Park in nineteen forty eight.

Speaker 2 (34:48):
The plans that evolved for the President's House site were
much bigger and a lot more expensive than what was
originally envisioned, especially after archaeological work in two thousand and
seven revealed the remains of the kitchen and other structures
from the house. A decision was made to enclose that
site under glass so that it could be preserved for

(35:09):
visitors to see. So this involved raising a lot more
money to pay for everything. That money came primarily from
donations and the City of Philadelphia. Construction started in two
thousand and nine, and an exhibit plan was created in
twenty ten, which was followed by yet another public meeting
to discuss it.

Speaker 1 (35:30):
The President's House site was dedicated in twenty ten. Its
full title is The President's House, Freedom and Slavery in
the Making of a New Nation. This is an open
air site with brick walls, doorframes, and window frames suggesting
the outline of a structure, and low walls and pavers
inside suggesting the outlines of the interior rooms. One partially

(35:54):
enclosed space just before the entrance to the Liberty Bell
Center also serves as a slavery memorial. It's the first
official slavery memorial to be created at a federal property.

Speaker 2 (36:06):
Interpretive signs and video screens were installed throughout the site
that is included. As we said earlier, metal panels focused
on things like the slave trade, a timeline of slavery
people who worked and lived at the President's House and
people who visited, so this included enslaved people, indentured people,
free servants and laborers, ambassadors from other countries, indigenous dignitaries,

(36:30):
and others. There's context on these panels about how many
people were enslaved and how many free black people there
were in seventeen ninety and eighteen hundred. There's also information
about life under slavery and how enslaved people became free.
And there's also, in addition to those metal panels, a
series of illustrated glass panels depicting notable people and moments

(36:54):
from this era, with quotes and descriptions about them.

Speaker 1 (36:58):
Perhaps unsurprisingly can Seysidering the years of public comment and
some very heated back and forth, the President's House site
got some criticism after it was unveiled, like that it
seemed too scattered and not well grounded in its connection
to Philadelphia, or that the open air design felt too
abstract without a clear entry point or a strong narrative

(37:19):
to guide visitors' experiences, that it didn't perfectly match the
footprint of the original house. There were also some complaints
that it didn't say enough about John Adams or about
the details of the Executive Branch's activities over the ten
years that the President lived there, or the indigenous peoples
whose homeland the house had been built on.

Speaker 2 (37:41):
When I visited the President's House site in December of
twenty eighteen, I personally felt like I was sort of
seeing two different exhibits mixed together, the metal signs, which
were a lot more text based and factual, and then
the illustrated glass panels, which felt almost like they had
come from a separate exhibit. But none of that criticism

(38:02):
was caused to tear it all down. The President's House
Site was created through years and years of ongoing public
comment and input and advocacy from people who had been
excluded from the stories that the park was telling for decades.
That incorporates the knowledge of historians and researchers and park

(38:23):
staff and designers and architects and other experts who all
worked together to create a public space to interpret the
interconnection between the institution of slavery and the first decade
of the Executive Branch of the federal government. The public
was deeply engaged with this site all throughout the planning

(38:45):
and the execution, and it was paid for primarily by
private funding in the City of Philadelphia, not by the
federal government, and at multiple steps, the federal government and
the city agreed not to make changes to it without
consulting one another.

Speaker 1 (39:02):
The federal government has argued that the President's House site
falls outside of the scope of earlier legislation related to
the park, and that those agreements between the city and
the federal government have expired meeting, the government no longer
needs to consult the city on changes. The federal judge
who ordered the panels to be restored, disagrees with both

(39:22):
of those points. The government has also claimed that it
had already been working on new information panels for the site,
but if that's true, it definitely has not involved the
kind of public input or transparency that led to the
initial creation of the site.

Speaker 2 (39:39):
The January twenty second removal of the displays provoked outrage
and a lot of official statements from various people and
organizations in Philadelphia and elsewhere. That includes the Independence Hall Association,
the Organization of American Historians, the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia,

(39:59):
the Filmiladelphia Archaeological Forum, a coalition of forty five different
history and preservation organizations from Philadelphia, really on and on.
There were repeated protests drawing hundreds of people to the
President's House site, and of course there was the legal
action that led to the judge's order to restore the site.

(40:21):
There is still pending litigation on this, so we will
see what happens from this point.

Speaker 1 (40:27):
We're going to close with some of the text that
was flagged for removal. As we said, there's not one
specific entry point or pass through the site, but one
of the history lost in found panels is particularly evocative
of what the whole site was designed to do and
the points historians have made in response to the executive
order targeting history at the National Parks. Quote, history is

(40:50):
not neat. It is complicated and messy. It is about people, places,
and events that are both admirable and deplorable. Here at
the of the House, where the first two presidents of
the United States resided from seventeen ninety to eighteen hundred,
this definition comes into stark focus. The President's House exposes

(41:11):
the core contradiction at the founding of this nation, enshrinement
of liberty and the institution of slavery.

Speaker 2 (41:19):
This text goes on to say, quote, while important moments
in the early history of the nation took place here,
slavery casts a shadow over those accomplishments. For many, the
fact that President George Washington transported enslaved Africans to this
house from Mount Vernon, his plantation in Virginia is profoundly disturbing.

(41:40):
As the new federal government embraced the lofty concept of liberty,
slavery in the President's House, as in the New Nation,
undermined the meaning of freedom and mocked the nation's pretense
to be a beacon of liberty. If we are to
understand how a nation founded on the principle that all
men are create could also somehow embrace and justify slavery,

(42:05):
we must examine the context of this contradiction on the
lives of Americans of every race and condition. The President's
House offers an opportunity to draw lessons from the past
as we examine the present and engage in the future.
In my opinion, that is all eminently reasonable.

Speaker 1 (42:25):
Text. Yeah, uh, do you have an eminently reasonable listener? Mail?

Speaker 2 (42:31):
I have a pretty nice a nice, a nice one
with flowers. I love flowers. Met this is from Yeah,
This is from Katie. Katie wrote, Hello Holly and Tracy,
longtime listener, Finally with a reason to write. And I
enjoy planting and growing heirloom flowers, especially daffodils. One of
my favorite daffodils is named John Evelin. Until your podcast,

(42:55):
I had no idea who John Evelin was. It was
fun to learn something about my daffodil's namesake. See more
about the daffodil at the link. Attached photo is John
Evelyn growing in my garden. Unfortunately, John Evelyn appears to
be commercially extinct, at least in the US. Thanks Katie,
So we have a picture of just some beautiful, beautiful

(43:20):
flowers in bloom, daffodils with like white outer petals and
then yellow in the center. So so pretty. This led
me down a rabbit hole about what the difference is
between daffodils and jonquills, because my mother is very fond

(43:42):
of some similar flowers and has always called them junqules.
And I don't remember now exactly what the difference is,
but I very much appreciated learning that there's a John
Evelyn daffodil and that it's so pretty and happy looking.
I love these flowers because they tend to come up
so early in the spring. A lot of the times

(44:03):
they are the first thing blooming in some of the
places that I have lived, and so you can sort
of come through the dark, snowy, cold winter and then
see pretty yellow flowers poking up from the snow. Sometimes.

Speaker 1 (44:18):
I love it. I have information for you.

Speaker 2 (44:21):
Oh, are you gonna tell me about the difference between
junqles and daffodils.

Speaker 1 (44:24):
Yeah, junkles are just a type of daffodil.

Speaker 2 (44:27):
Okay, that's well, Okay, so.

Speaker 1 (44:29):
They are technically a daffodil.

Speaker 2 (44:31):
Great, great, So thank you again Katie for writing this
email and sending this picture. If you would like to
send us a note where at history Podcasts at iHeartRadio
dot com are our show Notes to our episodes, including
this one. You can find on our website, which is
misshistory dot com, and you can subscribe to the show

(44:52):
on the iHeartRadio app or anywhere else you find your podcasts.
Stuff You Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.
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