New exhibits depict struggle to freedom
In the new Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia, a tableau of five life-size figures depicts a brawl between a diverse group of men who have made their way to Boston in the winter of 1775-76 to join the rebellion against the British government.
In their midst stands the future president, George Washington, who has shed his characteristic reserve in an effort to break up the melee between New Englanders and Virginians and, by extension, to unify the fractious participants in the budding revolt.
It’s a telling glimpse of the difficult process by which the United States became an independent nation, and of the museum’s determination to show the struggles, doubts and halting progress of the Revolution, rather than presenting an idealized account of unity and purpose.
The museum, which opened Wednesday, tells the story by asking questions about the origins, process and outcome of the Revolution, using thousands of artifacts, digital re-creations of historic events and replicas of important scenes and objects from the period.
“We’re trying to take a page from science museums, which are better than history museums generally about asking questions of visitors and being more interested in raising questions than providing answers,” said R. Scott Stephenson, the museum’s vice president for collections, exhibitions and programming.
“Usually with a history museum, it’s more like history as found facts. This is more like: ‘Dinosaurs: Are they like birds or reptiles? Let’s look at the evidence.’ “
The evidence in the new museum includes Washington’s headquarters tent, where the general lived and worked from mid-1778 until 1783. The linen structure, measuring about 23 feet long by 14 feet wide, is unveiled to visitors in a climatecontrolled case at the end of a 12-minute multimedia presentation on his leadership of the Revolution.
“This was literally the place where he would retire to read and write dispatches, and no one would disturb him until he came to the door,” Stephenson said.
The tent is on display to the public for the first time since the mid-1990s, when it entered storage after being owned by the Valley Forge Historical Society, the source of many items in the museum’s collection.
At the start of the exhibition, visitors are presented with a digital re-creation of citizens and soldiers in New York using ropes to pull down a statue of King George III, which was then melted down and turned into armaments with which to fight the British.
The museum — which cost $150 million, covered mostly by private donations — hopes to show that such tumult was more characteristic of the Revolution than the orderly drafting of the Declaration of Independence depicted by painter John Trumbull in 1819, Stephenson said.
“What do you replace monarchy with when the king is the glue that holds society together?” he asked. “That’s a messy process. It’s not John Trumbull’s version of the Revolution that’s really the truth.”