Mount Vernon was George Washington’s sprawling estate, spanning over 8000 acres of land. It housed more than 500 slaves, who maintained the estate for extended periods of time. Roughly half of the slaves were freed after the death of George Washington’s wife, as written in his will.
Image Credit: Mount Vernon Organization
This artifact argues that it is 100% possible to keep on to old monuments and memorials, as long as all of the history is carefully detailed online and in tours, as shown below.
The history of Mount Vernon, however, only depicted the side of Washington and his prestige. Never before did the tour groups view the slave quarters, or read up on slave tradition. This was recognized and then addressed by the caretakers of the tours and the house.
The purpose of this tour expansion was to document the most integral mechanism to the functionality of George Washington’s establishment.
They didn’t idiolize the slaves, they simply toured their history, traditions, and living quarters, to give tourists a better feel of who actually ran the sprawling mansion.
This argues that it is good to memoralize the people who were slaves and slave owners, because we shouldn’t forget their history. To a certain extent, the United States wouldn’t have been possible without their continued efforts.
I am drawn to this particular artifact because it is relevant to my past artifact, the removal of the Robert E. Lee memorial.
Instead of destroying the farm from public view, the Mount Vernon mansion was redesigned to show the impact of the slaves on the mansion. This could have and rightly should have occurred with the Robert E. Lee memorial, an education on what the memorial was supposed to truly represent, military brilliance, would have likely wooed many people onto the side of keeping the monument.
Instead, the city allowed themselves to be influenced by other people, without properly explaining the meaning and significance of the monument.
This artifact allows a fantastic comparison to the memorial, as it can be a clear example of what to do when concerning a highly controversial topic and historical site.
In my essay, I will utilize these following elements: Ethos, Pathos, Logos(a lot of Logos), the failure of Kairos, and I will also include the change in the status quo overtime. This will also be tied in with the relative changes in social ques and social understandings concerning various objects.
Overall, this artifact provides compelling reasons as to why the memorial of Robert E. Lee should not have been taken down. Not only does this depict various instances of informing the public, but it was also handeled in a professional manner, thus proving its legitimacy.
This honestly raises a great point that I never thought of before quite honestly. It did give me some stuff to think about and raises a very logical connection between the two. I think something you should take into account is the fact that one is a site where history happened, and the other is as a posthumous monument. There’s a very key difference between a site where history itself unfolded and something that merely reflects a time period. The Lee memorial was made to commemorate someone, but nothing truly took place there. In Mt. Vernon’s case, a lot of the darker economic foundations of America (ones we should arguably be seeking to spread awareness of and actively dismantle) took place there, and thus it’s more of a “historical site” because history did indeed unfold there. Thus, it has an inherent educational connection that I feel is more readily apparent than something that took place after the event you feel it’s meant to educate about. Because of this, I feel that the comparison between say, removing Mt. Vernon off the map, is a bit different than removing a statue to Lee. Now if you were comparing the removal of Lee’s grave or the removal of a Civil War-era battlefield off the map, then the connection might be stronger. If you are going forward with linking the ones you’ve presented here, I think that you need to take into account that you may need to bolster the case for the Lee Memorial being a “historical” monument more or further legitimize (by your words) its role in the historical period it’s meant to get us to reflect on.
History is history. We can try to hide it, to run from it, to suppress it, but we can never change it. I think what the tour of Mount Vernon does addresses this idea extremely well. We respect Washington for everything that he’s done for this country, but we mustn’t forget the fact that he was also a slave owner. History has two sides, the good and the bad, and it’s important to remember that. We sometimes learn about the good and purposely leave out the bad, and vice versa, but in the end that will never do anyone any good. It’s better to simply learn about the truth.