On March 27, 2025, President Donald Trump issued an executive order, \u201cRestoring Truth and Sanity to American History,\u201d that directed federal departments to review federal monuments for materials that (among other administration objections) \u201cinappropriately disparage Americans past or living (including persons living in colonial times).\u201d<\/p>\n
Actions stemming from this order include the removal of signage at the President\u2019s House portion of Independence National Historic Park in Philadelphia that describes the lives of several enslaved people who lived there with George and Martha Washington.<\/p>\n
The removals happened in late January 2026; bare concrete panels are now visible where the historical materials used to be. The City of Philadelphia has sued the National Park Service (NPS), pointing out that the city funded a significant portion of the President\u2019s House component of the historic site. Additionally, the cooperative agreement signed between the city and the federal government stipulated that the federal government confer with the city about any potential changes to the site.<\/p>\n
On Feb. 9, the counties of Bucks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery filed a joint amicus curia brief in support of the City of Philadelphia\u2019s lawsuit. The counties issued a joint statement, including the following commentary by Bucks County Board of Commissioners Chairwoman Diane M. Ellis-Marseglia:<\/p>\n
\u201cAttempts to erase evidence of our history do not heal the stains of the past \u2013 quite the opposite, they make us weak and vulnerable to repeating our failures. In Bucks County, with our place in American history firmly rooted, we resist temptation for self-delusion and instead confront our faults head on, resolving always to do better tomorrow than we did yesterday. Only then can we achieve our country\u2019s founding vision of equality for all people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although Trump\u2019s executive order refers to alleged activities during the Biden administration\u2014 \u201cpressur[ing of] National Historical Park rangers that their racial identity \u2026 dictate how they convey history to visiting Americans\u201d\u2014the President\u2019s House at Independence National Historic Park is the result of a cooperative agreement signed in 2006 by Joyce Wilkerson on behalf of Philadelphia Mayor John Street and the National Park Service under President George W. Bush. As reported by WHYY, Philadelphia spent $3.5 million on the President\u2019s House exhibit, \u201cFreedom and Slavery in Making a New Nation,\u201d which opened in 2010 (when Barack Obama, not Joseph Biden, was president).<\/p>\n
U.S. District Court Judge Cynthia M. Rufe granted a preliminary injunction Feb. 16, ordering the National Park Service to restore the exhibits while the lawsuit proceeds. The Trump administration promptly appealed the ruling.<\/p>\n
Two historians\u2014one local, one nationally renowned\u2014spoke with The Press about the historic site and the removal of materials describing the lives of Oney Judge and the other enslaved people in the Washingtons\u2019 household: Austin, Giles, Paris, Moll, Hercules Posey, Richmond, Christopher Sheels and \u201cPostilion Joe\u201d Richardson.<\/p>\n
Kenneth C. Davis is the author of more than a dozen books, including the \u201cDon\u2019t Know Much About \u2026\u201d series and the recent \u201cMore Deadly Than War: The Hidden History of the Spanish Flu and the First World War.\u201d He has given lectures around the country, including at the Smithsonian and at the Lehigh County Historical Society, where he presented material from his book \u201cIn the Shadow of Liberty: The Hidden History of Slavery, Four Presidents, and Five Black Lives.\u201d<\/p>\n
The book for which Davis first became known, \u201cDon\u2019t Know Much About History: Everything You Need to Know About American History but Never Learned,\u201d was \u201cmeant as a corrective\u201d to \u201cthe version of history that so many of us grew up with, that either erased a lot of history or swept it under the rug.\u201d For example, Davis notes, \u201ca great many people did not know that George Washington was one of the largest enslavers in the country when the Declaration of Independence was adopted.\u201d<\/p>\n
Davis is one of many scholars who have worked for the Spast several decades to \u201celiminate that bedtime story version of history in which George Washington chops down a cherry tree and cannot tell a lie.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe real story,\u201d he asserts, \u201cis so much more interesting than the sanitized version that we teach children in elementary school, and most people never get past.\u201d<\/p>\n
What distresses him is that so much scholarship over such a long period of time is now being dismantled at the highest level.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s changed now,\u201d he says, \u2018is that the administration is trying to erase, remove\u2014take a crowbar to, in the case of Philadelphia\u2014that corrected version of history that historians have struggled mightily in the past few decades to correct.\u201d<\/p>\n
This matters, Davis says, in ways that go beyond a single exhibit and touch on our understanding of all of American history.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s dangerous to eradicate this history and attempt to restore that sanitized version,\u201d he explains. \u201cThe truth is what really matters, and the truth is so significant to what happened in this country: how the country progressed, how it struggled, and cost hundreds of thousands of lives in the Civil War, ultimately leading to a civil rights movement that corrected many for the ills of the past, but certainly didn\u2019t remove the stain that slavery created in this country.\u201d<\/p>\n
He contends that changes made to the President\u2019s House exhibit and other removals\u2014like the removal of films about the work of women and immigrants in textile mills from Lowell National Historic Park\u2014are of a piece: \u201cIt\u2019s really an effort to change the real history of America into something that\u2019s perhaps proud and patriotic, but eliminates the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Northampton County Historical & Genealogical Society (NCHGS) maintains and operates six sites within the county: the Sigal Museum, the 1753 Bachmann Publick House, the Jacob Nicholas House, the Mixsell Illick House, the Kressler Garden, and the Jane S. Moyer Library and Archives. Megan van Ravenswaay is the executive director of NCHGS; she shared her perspective on the \u201creview\u201d taking place under Trump\u2019s executive order.<\/p>\n
The American Alliance of Museums (AAM), she explains, is where museum directors look for guidance and best practices. Van Ravenswaay notes that the AAM views museums, including those operated by government entities, \u201cserve the public trust. Interpretation is never neutral,\u201d she continues, explaining that \u201cevery exhibition involves choices about what to include, what to emphasize, and how to frame it. That in itself isn\u2019t unethical. In fact, interpretation is part of the work.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, the AAM does draw an \u201cethical line,\u201d that van Ravenswaay says \u201cis crossed when interpretation shifts from scholarship-driven storytelling to image management\u2014especially if well-documented history is minimized, removed, or reframed to present a narrower or more comfortable narrative.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s why the removal of the President\u2019s House materials at Independence National Historical Park raises important questions,\u201d she continues. \u201cFor many visitors\u2014myself included, when I first saw it years ago\u2014that site was the first time they learned about Oney Judge and the individuals enslaved in the nation\u2019s first executive household. When those stories are taken down, even temporarily, access to that knowledge shrinks.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Lehigh County Historical Society (LCHS) typically does not comment on \u201chow others run their organizations,\u201d according to Executive Director James Higgins. However, he did offer the view that \u201cOn the whole, it is not a good idea for government to curate historical information for political or for the purposes of bolstering a particular image.\u201d Higgins additionally remarked that LCHS has \u201cnot encountered any evidence of removal of information from sites in either Lehigh County or the Lehigh Valley.\u201d<\/p>\n
Like Davis, van Ravenswaay sees a pattern in the materials that are being removed for reevaluation from federally owned historical sites.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt Stonewall National Monument, the removal of a Pride flag under new federal flag guidance sparked concern because that symbol is deeply tied to the history being interpreted. There have been reports of revisions or removals of interpretive materials in national parks that reference Indigenous displacement, slavery and climate change. Each case is different, but the common thread is the narrowing of what visitors encounter in official public spaces.\u201d (New York City officials, including Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal, returned the Pride flag on Feb. 12, days after its removal by the National Park Service.)<\/p>\n
Davis asserts that students of history can, and should, grapple with the complexity of American history, and of human beings.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can understand,\u201d he says, \u201cthat even as Jefferson s\u2026 was calling the slave trade \u2018execrable,\u2019 he possessed more than 100 people, and had a liaison with one of them, and fathered several children by her. This is not disparaging; this is the reality of a human being, and history is about real people, not marble statues.\u201d<\/p>\n
Van Ravenswaay expresses a similar trust in the American public\u2019s ability to handle historical facts that may be uncomfortable.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen the public loses access to fuller historical context,\u201d she asserts, \u201cwe lose more than information. We lose opportunities for understanding, empathy, and civic maturity. Museums and historic sites are strongest when they trust the public with complexity.<\/p>\n
PresS photo by Nina SubinKenneth C. Davis is The New York Times best-selling author of \u201cDon\u2019t Know Much About History,\u201d as well as other books.<\/p>\n
Press image courtesy Kenneth C. Davis\u201cIn the Shadow of Liberty\u201d tells the stories of five enslaved people and the four American presidents whose lives overshadowed theirs.<\/p>\n
Photo courtesy of Megan van RavenswaayMegan van Ravenswaay is the executive director of the Northampton County Historical & Genealogical Society.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On March 27, 2025, President Donald Trump issued an executive order, \u201cRestoring Truth and Sanity to American History,\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":121837,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120],"class_list":["post-121836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121836\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}