The President's House - Philadelphia
Extensive information and evidence of the history, historical research of excavation of the site of the President's House at 190 High Street in Philadelphia and the subsequent creation of the National Park Site
Historian Gordon Wood responds to the New York Times’ defense of the 1619 Project - World Socialist Web Site
one of the primary reasons the colonists decided to declare their independence from Britain was because they wanted to protect the institution of slavery.” I don’t know of any colonist who said that they wanted independence in order to preserve their slaves.
There is no evidence in 1776 of a rising movement to abolish the Atlantic slave trade, as the 1619 Project erroneously asserts, nor is there any evidence the British government was eager to do so
Today in History: June 14
Teachers who insist that ".gov" sites are reliable can look to this page at the Library of Congress if they want to confirm their convictions that these sites are reliable. Notice the statement about Betsy Ross. There is nothing specifically incorrect about what it states. However, the phrase "Scholars debate this legend" is far less than is necessary to debunk the myth that Betsy Ross designed the first American flag.
Plaster soldier calls attention to race and the Revolutionary War
This short story of the creation of the mannequins used in Philadelphia's Museum of the American Revolution illustrates the way the present makes understanding of the past. This reflects American's growing understanding of an element of the American Revolution that was ignored in popular understanding of the War for centuries, despite all of the evidence in the historical record
Chernow Gonna Chernow - Study Marry Kill
Ron Chernow's Pulitzer prizes and his biographies of Hamilton and Washington make him a "heavyweight" in the history world. Yet that history world is changing with easier access to primary source documents and young scholars searching for a more complete story of the United States. This is a thoroughly readable account of how one interpreter at the Schulyer Museum in New York, 27 year-old Jessie Serfilippi discovered evidence of Hamilton's ownership of enslaved people an upset the Chernow's narrative and how he went after her in the press, but didn't offer counter evidence. Teachers and students should know how history is changing.
As reviewers and readers noticed immediately, I take issue with how Chernow handles women and slavery in his own biography of the first president. In the introduction, I tally up the various problematic words he uses to describe Mary, Washington’s mother—<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=ucifDwAAQBAJ&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&lpg=PP1&dq=you%20never%20forget%20your%20first&pg=PR36#v=onepage&q&f=false">26 of them</a>, including “crusty” and “shrewish”—and try to set the record straight on family dramas he just plain invented. And I note that as hard as Chernow is on Mary, he is remarkably soft on Washington, a man who owned hundreds of people and did not free one during his lifetime.
Jessie Serfilippi, a 27-year-old part-time interpreter at the Schuyler Mansion State Historic Site in Albany, New York.
In his biography, he writes that “the memories of his West Indian childhood left Hamilton with a settled antipathy to slavery.” In her paper, Serfilippi counters that “there is no indication, either in documents from Hamiton’s childhood or adulthood, that the horrors of slavery he witnessed on St. Croix turned him into an abolitionist.”
Example of one historian going after another
Chernow's writing give the reader a perception that is not backed up by the facts and Jessie Serfilippi goes after him for it.
My own explanation: George Washington may have won Ron Chernow the Pulitzer, but Alexander Hamilton defines his legacy. Serfilippi’s paper was a direct challenge to the man he’d sold as an “uncompromising abolitionist.”
“‘As Odious and Immoral a Thing’” that most historians have long considered factual: Hamilton bought and sold people. He accepted money in exchange for labor performed by an enslaved person belonging to his household. Here’s what Serfilippi found: At the time of Hamilton’s death, his estate included enslaved servants valued at 400 pounds. “There’s just no denying it after seeing that specific piece of evidence,” she wrote to me in an email. “There’s no debating that he enslaved people. To say he didn’t is to erase them, and I will not let that happen.”
But let’s be realistic here. This is a historic site in Albany, New York, and no matter how many visitors the Schuyler Mansion gets, it’ll never come close to matching the number of people who have purchased Chernow’s book or memorized the <em>Hamilton</em> soundtrack. Every new edition of <em>Alexander Hamilton</em> will continue to state that Hamilton <em>may </em>have enslaved people, omitting evidence that shows he did. That narrative will dominate the conversation—for now. There’s a long game to be played here, and that’s exactly what the Schuyler Mansion is doing by supporting work like Serfilippi’s.