Pod Insights Stuff You Missed in History Class Hercules Posey & the President’s House About this episode The President's House was the first home of the U. S. president in the temporary capital of Phildelphia. While George Washington lived there, he had nine enslaved people that we know of., including the cook, Hercules.
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1:04 Holly Frey? A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future. In season seven of Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, host Martine Hackett continues the conversation with people living with MG, CIDP, and the broader rare disease community, exploring what comes after diagnosis through stories of hope, progress, and connection. Produced by Ruby Studio in partnership with Argenx, listen on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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2:09 Holly Frey? Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of iHeart Radio.
2:20 Tracy V. Wilson? Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson. And I'm Holly Frey. We have mentioned the Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History Executive Order a few times on the show since it was first issued on March 27 of 2025. That's the executive order stating that the US government's policy is to restore federal sites dedicated to history to, quote, "solid and uplifting public monuments that remind Americans of our extraordinary heritage, consistent progress toward becoming a more perfect union, and unmatched record of advancing liberty, prosperity, and human flourishing."
3:02 Tracy V. Wilson? So, signs and other materials deemed to 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 thought to violate this executive order. At least 13 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
3:43 Tracy V. Wilson? the Philadelphia City Council that condemned the whitewashing and suppressing 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 22 of 2026. They disabled the video screens at the site and they took down all of the displays. So not just the ones that had those pieces of information that had been flagged, but everything was taken down. So, February 16 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 20.
4:30 Tracy V. Wilson? This episode was completely 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 24th, 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 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 panels are back up. The one that's not up needs repairs to its mounting bolts.
5:13 Tracy V. Wilson? But most of the metal panels, which are the ones 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. I am not an 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 Hardeman of the Third Circuit Court granted a partial stay, saying that these signs that are not back up don't need to be put back up at this time.
5:58 Tracy V. Wilson? 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 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.
6:29 Holly Frey? After the US Constitution went into effect in 1789, the federal government briefly operated out of New York City. Then, on July 16, 1790, 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 the nation's capital. That would, of course, become Washington DC. The Act also designated Philadelphia as the temporary capital. It would be that for 10 years while the permanent capital was being built.
7:04 Tracy V. Wilson? 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, housed 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 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.
7:40 Holly Frey? 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 Shields, Giles, Ona Judge, Austin, Paris, Maul, Joe Richardson, Hercules, and Hercules's son, Richmond. At 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.
8:18 Tracy V. Wilson? In April of 1791, 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 1780.
8:39 Tracy V. Wilson? 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 nonresidents after they had been there for six months.
8:54 Holly Frey? Washington's chief secretary Tobias Lear wrote to him about this conversation and asked for direction on what 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. Washington said he was not sure how this would affect the situation and that Lear should, quote, "take the best advice you can on the subject." If, according to that advice, it would be possible for Washington's enslaved staff to be free after six months, they should be sent back to Mount Vernon
9:39 Holly Frey? ahead of that deadline, unless Martha Washington chose to keep them in Philadelphia.
9:45 Tracy V. Wilson? Washington went on to say, quote, "At any rate, it might, if they conceive they had a right to it, make them insolent in a state of slavery. As all except Hercules and Paris are dour negroes, it behooves me to prevent the emancipation of them. Otherwise, I shall not only lose the use of them, but may have them to pay for."
10:07 Holly Frey? So 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 Park 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. The Custis estate included almost 300 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.
10:46 Tracy V. Wilson? 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 sentiments and this advice may be known to none but yourself and Mrs. Washington."
11:14 Holly Frey? Oh, George.
11:16 Tracy V. Wilson? 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.
11:23 Holly Frey? Yeah, I like the idea of writing a letter that's like, hey, keep this on the DL, not knowing.
11:30 Tracy V. Wilson? Not just keep it on the DL, but like literally deceive everyone.
11:33 Holly Frey? Yeah, well, that's kind of what I mean. But yes, let's, let's not, um, we're gonna fibberuni this one. Everybody be cool, not knowing that we would all read a whole of this. Like, oh, George. Uh, 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 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.
12:15 Tracy V. Wilson? 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 the case for Austin, who died as a result of this work in December of 1794. 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, LV, Jenny, and Eliza. He was also Ona Judge's half-brother.
13:00 Tracy V. Wilson? 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 January of 1792. 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 some of the enslaved workers in Philadelphia with white indentured servants, who were unaffected by that abolition law. 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.
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17:18 Tracy V. Wilson? We don't know exactly when George Washington's enslaved cook Hercules was born. According to his New York City death record, he was 65 when he died in 1812, so that would have put his birth in 1747. Hercules was enslaved by Washington's neighbor, John Posey, and some of the later records of Hercules's life give his name as Hercules Posey.
17:45 Holly Frey? John Posey was in debt to George Washington, and in 1769, he gave Washington 26 people as a repayment of those debts. One of them was Hercules, who would have been in his late teens or maybe 20 years old at that point. He is known to have piloted a barge that Posey operated across the Potomac River, and then to have trained under the other enslaved kitchen staff at Mount Vernon.
18:10 Tracy V. Wilson? Hercules married a woman named Alice, who was part of the Custis estate. They had three children, Richmond in 1777, Eve in 1782, and Delia in 1785. 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 to the estate as well.
18:34 Holly Frey? Alice died in 1787, and in 1790, Hercules was taken to Philadelphia to work as the cook in the president's house. He asked to bring 11-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 the kitchen, cleaning the chimneys, and running errands.
18:59 Tracy V. Wilson? 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 15 free white servants. And also, Washington's office staff, 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. Maul, who mostly looked after the grandchildren, and Ona, who was Martha's maid, probably slept on mats
19:42 Tracy V. Wilson? 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.
20:03 Holly Frey? As for Hercules's 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 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 Philadelphia's black population. And he was connected to basically anyone in the food chain. In general, Hercules and other enslaved cooks had an enormous influence
20:48 Holly Frey? on the development of American cuisine.
20:51 Tracy V. Wilson? 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 $100 and $200 a year doing this, and that he spent most of it on fine clothing. He wrote, quote, "In 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, blue cloth coat with velvet collar
21:36 Tracy V. Wilson? and bright metal buttons, a long watch chain 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."
21:52 Holly Frey? During his off-hours, Hercules wore those clothes around town. Again, in Custis's words, quote, "Many were not a little surprised on beholding 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 60 years ago."
22:17 Tracy V. Wilson? Custis described Hercules as, quote, "highly accomplished, a proficient in 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 tables or dressers, or if the utensils did 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,
22:58 Tracy V. Wilson? as well for his valuable services, as for his general good character and pleasing manners."
23:05 Holly Frey? In May of 1791, 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 5th, 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.
23:42 Tracy V. Wilson? So Hercules was upset about this. To quote from the letter, quote, "He appeared to be extremely unhappy. And although he made 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 that kind entertained of him, Mrs. 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.
24:26 Tracy V. Wilson? He has accordingly continued here till this time, and tomorrow takes his departure for Virginia."
24:33 Holly Frey? Staying beyond this six-month window would have made Hercules 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 12 years old.
24:52 Tracy V. Wilson? So Hercules and his son Richmond continued to work at the president's house with regular trips back to Mount Vernon or elsewhere, so they weren't there for more than six months. Then in the summer of 1796, 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 $7 from the household accounts to reimburse him. Washington wrote a letter to William Pierce, the farm manager at Mount Vernon, that said, quote, "I hope Richmond was made an example of for the robbery he committed on Wilkes' saddlebags. I wish he may not have been put upon it by his father,
25:35 Tracy V. Wilson? although I never had any suspicion of the honesty of the latter for the purpose of a journey together. This will make a watch without its being suspected by or intimated to them necessary."
25:48 Holly Frey? 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 in the house to doing physical labor outside.
26:03 Tracy V. Wilson? A few months later, on February 22, 1797, which was George Washington's birthday, 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 though this happened after a September 9, 1786, letter 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.
26:49 Tracy V. Wilson? Washington did include a parenthetical, "unless some particular circumstance should compel me to do it." So maybe the loss of Hercules counted as particular circumstance.
27:00 Holly Frey? 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 1797, Louis Philippe, 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."
27:35 Tracy V. Wilson? Hercules eventually moved to New York, where he lived in an area that's part of Chinatown today. He's listed in city directories from 1807, 1808, 1810, and 1812, with his occupation listed as laborer and cook. He died on May 15, 1812, and was buried at Second African Burial Ground.
27:56 Holly Frey? 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 123 people who were his property would be freed upon Martha's death. George Washington died on December 14, 1799. A year later, Martha signed a deed of manumission to free those 123 people, and that went into effect on January 1 of 1801. And she did this because she did not feel safe, surrounded by more than 100 enslaved people who would be freed if she died.
28:37 Tracy V. Wilson? 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. And this included Hercules's three children. When Martha died in 1802, her granddaughter, Elizabeth Park Custis Law, inherited Hercules's son Richmond. And Eleanor Park Custis inherited his daughters, Delia and Eve.
29:07 Holly Frey? Hercules was not the only enslaved person to have worked at the president's house and escaped from bondage. The other was Ona Judge, also known as Oni. She escaped from the president's house in 1796. Washington was absolutely furious about this, and he put intense effort into trying to find her. Since she was part of the 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 and its legacy, which came out in 2020. That episode is a little bit obsolete now
29:51 Holly Frey? because the East Wing of the White House was demolished in 2025.
29:56 Tracy V. Wilson? There is a striking 18th 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 1820s. 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 1778. There is at least one other portrait of someone from Dominica wearing a similar hat.
30:39 Holly Frey? Hercules and Ona Judge were two of the enslaved 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.
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32:07 Speaker 08 This new chicken nugget, reinvented based on real feedback, is made with 100% white meat chicken and is now better than ever. You gotta try the new Burger King Chicken Nuggets and sauces today.
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34:36 Tracy V. Wilson? Now, we will move on to the story of the 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 1800, the Robert Morris House became a hotel. That hotel later closed, and the interior of the building was gutted in 1832. Eventually, all that was left of it was one wall, which in 1947 formed an exterior wall of a store in what had become a commercial part of Philadelphia.
35:19 Holly Frey? In 1948, Congress passed legislation establishing Independence National Historical Park, "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 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 agreement of the parties involved."
36:04 Tracy V. Wilson? 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 side of the President's House was not included in the initial conservation plans. In 1951, that one remaining wall was demolished, along with other structures around it, to create a green space known 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.
36:49 Tracy V. Wilson? But in the midst of all this history, the President's House became a public restroom.
36:56 Holly Frey? Skipping ahead a little bit, between 1993 and 1997, Independence National Historical Park held a series of 16 public meetings to create a general management plan for the park. At these meetings, there 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 Allo talked to black residents who said they did not feel represented at the park and felt they had no cultural connections to it. Later interviews with visitors to the park also found that black visitors generally said
37:41 Holly Frey? the stories that the park was telling just weren't relevant to them. Roughly 40% of the people living in Philadelphia in the 1990s were black, and that is still true today. So while Independence National 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.
38:05 Tracy V. Wilson? 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 2002, Edward Lawler Jr. 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 had brought enslaved people to the President's House.
38:41 Holly Frey? 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. 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.
39:11 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah, 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. 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-white washed version of history, one that was deeply relevant to a lot of the surrounding community,
39:53 Tracy V. Wilson? not an effort to replace facts with a distorted narrative or to push a false ideology rather than the truth.
40:02 Holly Frey? In its report on the 2003 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 the first years of our democracy." And it instructed the Director of the National Park Service to submit a report detailing the actions taken at the park to address and resolve that issue.
40:32 Tracy V. Wilson? 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. 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 get to the Liberty Bell. And the Liberty Bell got an estimated 2 million visitors a year when the new center opened.
41:11 Holly Frey? What followed was years of work by historians and other experts with public meetings and public forums and other opportunities for transparency and feedback along the way. By 2004, preliminary designs for the site included five guiding themes. One, the house and the people who lived and worked there. 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.
41:45 Tracy V. Wilson? Almost 250 people, representing at least 27 different organizations, attended a public forum about the site on October 30th, 2004. This was after many other public meetings and opportunities for input had already happened. At this time, there was also an opportunity for public comment, whether or not somebody was able to attend this specific meeting. Another 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.
42:28 Tracy V. Wilson? And five cultural values were also established to guide work at the site. Those were identity, memory, agency, dignity, and truth.
42:38 Holly Frey? In 2005, 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 of the park and the future plans.
42:56 Tracy V. Wilson? So a lot of this process was incredibly contentious. A clear direction formed 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 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.
43:33 Holly Frey? Finally, in 2006, 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 established Independence National Historical Park in 1948.
44:00 Tracy V. Wilson? 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 2007 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 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 2009, and an exhibit plan was created in 2010, which was followed by yet another public meeting to discuss it.
44:43 Holly Frey? The President's House site was dedicated in 2010. 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, door frames, and window frames suggesting the outline of a structure, and low walls and pavers inside suggesting the outlines of the interior rooms. One partially 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.
45:18 Tracy V. Wilson? Interpretive signs and video screens were installed throughout the site. This 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, and others. There's context on these panels about how many people were enslaved and how many free Black people there were in 1790 and 1800. There's also information about life under slavery and how enslaved people became free.
45:59 Tracy V. Wilson? And there's also, in addition to those metal panels, a series of illustrated glass panels depicting notable people and moments from this era with quotes and descriptions about them.
46:11 Holly Frey? Perhaps unsurprisingly, considering 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 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 10 years that the president lived there, or the indigenous peoples whose homeland the house had been built on.
46:54 Tracy V. Wilson? When I visited the President's House site in December of 2018, 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 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. It incorporates the knowledge of historians and researchers and park staff and designers
47:37 Tracy V. Wilson? 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 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.
48:15 Holly Frey? 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, meaning the government no longer needs to consult the city on changes. The federal judge who ordered the panels to be restored disagrees with both 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.
48:52 Tracy V. Wilson? The January 22nd 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, the Philadelphia Archaeological Forum, a coalition of 45 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.
49:34 Tracy V. Wilson? There is still pending litigation on this, so we will see what happens from this point.
49:40 Holly Frey? 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 path through the site, but one of the History Lost and 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 not neat. It is complicated and messy. It is about people, places, and events that are both admirable and deplorable." Here at the site of the House where the first two Presidents of the United States resided from 1790 to 1800, this definition comes into stark focus.
50:22 Holly Frey? The President's House exposes the core contradiction at the founding of this nation: enshrinement of liberty and the institution of slavery.
50:31 Tracy V. Wilson? 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. 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
51:12 Tracy V. Wilson? created equal could also somehow embrace and justify slavery, 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 text.
51:38 Holly Frey? Yeah. Do you have an eminently reasonable listener mail?
51:44 Tracy V. Wilson? I have a pretty nice, a nice, a nice one with flowers. I love flowers.
51:49 Holly Frey? Me too.
51:50 Tracy V. Wilson? 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 Evelyn. Until your podcast, I had no idea who John Evelyn was. It was fun to learn something about my daffodils 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 U.S. Thanks, Katie. So we have a picture of just some beautiful, beautiful flowers in bloom.
52:34 Tracy V. Wilson? 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 jonquils. Because my mother is very fond of some similar flowers and has always called them jonquils. 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 they are the first thing blooming in some of the places that I have
53:19 Tracy V. Wilson? 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. I love it.
53:31 Holly Frey? I have, I have information for you.
53:34 Tracy V. Wilson? Oh, were you going to tell me about the difference between jonquils and daffodils?
53:37 Holly Frey? Yeah, jonquils are just a type of daffodil.
53:39 Tracy V. Wilson? Okay, that's, well, okay.
53:42 Holly Frey? So they are technically a daffodil.
53:44 Tracy V. Wilson? Great, great. So, thank you again, Katie, for writing this email and sending this picture. If you would like to send us a note, we're at [email protected] . Our, our show notes to our episodes, including this one, you can find on our website, which is missedhistory.com. And you can subscribe to the show on the iHeartRadio app or anywhere else you find your podcasts.
54:14 Tracy V. Wilson? Stuff You Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
54:28 Holly Frey? A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future. In season seven of Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, host Martine Hackett continues the conversation with people living with MG, CIDP, and the broader rare disease community, exploring what comes after diagnosis through stories of hope, progress, and connection. Produced by Ruby Studio in partnership with Argenx. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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