Tessera

Jason Heppler @jasonheppler.org · last wk.

Suddenly learning that I was not emotionally prepared to finally read Demon Copperhead.

New little side project: Westward, an endless scroll of 1,000+ public-domain photographs of the American West from the Library of Congress, the Portal to Texas History, and SMU’s DeGolyer Library.

I wrote about how the Trump administration's new exhibit in Philadelphia recasts Washington as an antislavery luminary rather than an enslaver.

The new exhibit at the President’s House Site offers a profoundly misleading interpretation of Washington’s history with slavery, denying visitors an opportunity to contemplate the irreconcilable tensions between American slavery and American freedom. Rather than focus on the decades he spent actively enslaving other human beings—including while president in Philadelphia—the exhibit now uses Washington’s private statements questioning slavery and his posthumous emancipation of the people he enslaved to diminish the importance of the institution to his life. These revisions distort our history and deprive Americans from encountering history’s full complexity at the site where it happened.

Whereas once Washington’s antislavery credentials were wielded to bring slavery to an end, today some conservatives highlight Washington’s ostensible opposition to slavery to deemphasize slavery’s foundational importance in American history. Against a growing insistence that slavery has profoundly shaped American society in ways the country has yet to fully reckon with, they now selectively highlight Washington’s purportedly antislavery views to wave slavery away as a momentary aberration in America’s glorious history of freedom.

Some abolitionists once played up an antislavery version of George Washington to try to end slavery. Now the Trump administration is doing it to deny slavery mattered at all. I wrote about the new exhibit at the President’s House in Philly for @theatlantic.com. www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026...

In 2018 I read about universities, libraries, and humanities councils in New England convening veterans to discuss The Odyssey to help them make sense of their own experiences and was blown away by what a good idea it was. Funding the humanities = good. www.concordmonitor.com/2018/03/14/h...

‘Homer can help you’: War veterans use ancient epics to cope - Concord Monitor

The trials of Odysseus are really not that different from the struggles of those learning to readjust after wars of today, modern veterans are finding.A small group of military veterans has been meeti...

concordmonitor.com

Chance the Lawyer@chancethelawyer.bsky.social · last wk.

Ahem, I think I know how the story goes. www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026...

How the Trump Administration Made George Washington an Abolitionist

In Philadelphia, the Park Service now downplays the importance of slavery to understanding the first president.

theatlantic.com

why is everything

an AI slop movie poster Trump x Washington with a time travel clock above hero red caped trump standing heroically atop some offshoot of mt. washington, holding actual ai george washington by one hand, who seems to have fallen off and in a weirdly breathless but not at all human-written tag line, it says the past was about to change / history was about to be saved, with change and saved in red text and the remainder in white. it's got a fake tagline at the bottom that says Patriot Pictures presents a film by America, and I oop--

I wrote for @theatlantic.com yesterday about how the new narrow, whitewashed interpretation at the President’s House Site distorts a tactic once used by abolitionists and rejects what most people say they want out of history.

These losses are especially acute in Philadelphia. Nearly 175 years ago, Pillsbury, the abolitionist, lamented that Americans heaped praise on Washington while ignoring the enslaved people who made his life and achievements possible. “No glory has ever covered their names; no honor has ever been paid to their memory,” he said. “No monument commemorates their dismal toil.” The President’s House Site exhibit once corrected that imbalance. Not anymore.

Many Americans see this whitewashed, censored version of the nation’s past for what it is. Time and again, a majority of Americans express their desire to engage with a full and accurate American history. In Philadelphia, the Trump administration has had to use the power of the federal government to ensure they won’t get it.

Some abolitionists once played up an antislavery version of George Washington to try to end slavery. Now the Trump administration is doing it to deny slavery mattered at all. I wrote about the new exhibit at the President’s House in Philly for @theatlantic.com. www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026...

Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · last wk.

“Racism is good and policy should be designed to reflect that principle,” couched in euphemism, is an acceptable opinion in the anglosphere leadership class but “racism is bad and policy should be designed to reflect that principle” is wokeness gone amok and unacceptable bsky.app/profile/okwo...

Musa Okwonga@okwonga.bsky.social · 2w ago

The editor in chief of The Economist referring here to the AfD’s leader as a “perfectly thoughtful person“ instead of what she truly is - a driver and enabler of German fascism - is a huge part of the problem.

Once more for the evening crowd ICYMI

Some abolitionists once played up an antislavery version of George Washington to try to end slavery. Now the Trump administration is doing it to deny slavery mattered at all. I wrote about the new exhibit at the President’s House in Philly for @theatlantic.com. www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026...

Phil Lewis@phillewis.bsky.social · 2w ago

NC State ghosted me after I did an *on campus* interview once.

Interesting: There’s now an anonymous, moderated list of companies that stop responding after you interviewed with them

Jurretta Heckscher @jurretta.bsky.social · 2w ago

Best brief summary I’ve yet seen on Washington and slavery.

Some abolitionists once played up an antislavery version of George Washington to try to end slavery. Now the Trump administration is doing it to deny slavery mattered at all. I wrote about the new exhibit at the President’s House in Philly for @theatlantic.com. www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026...

Once more for the evening crowd ICYMI

Some abolitionists once played up an antislavery version of George Washington to try to end slavery. Now the Trump administration is doing it to deny slavery mattered at all. I wrote about the new exhibit at the President’s House in Philly for @theatlantic.com. www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026...

J Majewski @mavthepup.bsky.social · 2w ago

Great piece! The parallels--and critical differences--between how abolitionists and MAGA use Washington's tepid antislavery is fascinating. MAGA history never explains how, if the Founders so opposed slavery, the number of enslaved people went from 700,00 in 1790 to 4 million in 1860.

Some abolitionists once played up an antislavery version of George Washington to try to end slavery. Now the Trump administration is doing it to deny slavery mattered at all. I wrote about the new exhibit at the President’s House in Philly for @theatlantic.com. www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026...

Manisha Sinha @profmsinha.bsky.social · 2w ago

Historian of abolition here, Richard Allen’s eulogy on Washington is still the best to read to get at the complexity of his legacy on slavery.

Some abolitionists once played up an antislavery version of George Washington to try to end slavery. Now the Trump administration is doing it to deny slavery mattered at all. I wrote about the new exhibit at the President’s House in Philly for @theatlantic.com. www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026...

Joanne Freeman @jbf1755.bsky.social · 2w ago

I’ve been talking (and live-streaming) a lot about the President’s House “exhibit” in Philadelphia in recent days. Here’s a new piece on it that’s well worth reading.

Some abolitionists once played up an antislavery version of George Washington to try to end slavery. Now the Trump administration is doing it to deny slavery mattered at all. I wrote about the new exhibit at the President’s House in Philly for @theatlantic.com. www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026...

I’ve been pitching essays to The Atlantic for like a decade now, excited to finally have something to show for it. Proud to be able to contribute some expertise to help understand the administration’s current multi-pronged attack on history.

Some abolitionists once played up an antislavery version of George Washington to try to end slavery. Now the Trump administration is doing it to deny slavery mattered at all. I wrote about the new exhibit at the President’s House in Philly for @theatlantic.com. www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026...

I’ve been pitching essays to The Atlantic for like a decade now, excited to finally have something to show for it. Proud to be able to contribute some expertise to help understand the administration’s current multi-pronged attack on history.

Some abolitionists once played up an antislavery version of George Washington to try to end slavery. Now the Trump administration is doing it to deny slavery mattered at all. I wrote about the new exhibit at the President’s House in Philly for @theatlantic.com. www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026...

Some abolitionists once played up an antislavery version of George Washington to try to end slavery. Now the Trump administration is doing it to deny slavery mattered at all. I wrote about the new exhibit at the President’s House in Philly for @theatlantic.com. www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026...

Washington, the Useful Abolitionist

In Philadelphia, the Trump administration downplays the importance of slavery to understanding the first president.

theatlantic.com

The Atlantic@theatlantic.com · 2w ago

I’m published in The Atlantic.

An updated exhibit in Philadelphia offers a misleading interpretation of George Washington’s history with slavery—and deprives “Americans from encountering history’s full complexity at the site where it happened,” John Garrison Marks argues.

Some abolitionists once played up an antislavery version of George Washington to try to end slavery. Now the Trump administration is doing it to deny slavery mattered at all. I wrote about the new exhibit at the President’s House in Philly for @theatlantic.com. www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026...

Washington, the Useful Abolitionist

In Philadelphia, the Trump administration downplays the importance of slavery to understanding the first president.

theatlantic.com

We can only hope the administration approaches these with the same care and commitment to quality that they did the Great American State Fair.

Unable to control the content of the Smithsonian NMAH, Trump is ordering NPS/Interior to install signage along the NPS-controlled National Mall telling visitors about the findings of the report and to install new exhibits about the signers of the Declaration. www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...