July 17, 2022
"The globalist billionaire who funded the woke transformation of Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello paid for a similar overhaul of James Madison’s house..."
"[B]lindsided tourists are hammered by high-tech exhibits about Madison’s slaves and current racial conflicts, thanks to a $10 million grant from left-leaning philanthropist David M. Rubenstein.... Visitors to Montpelier get to see just three rooms in the sprawling mansion.... Outdoors and in the house’s huge basement, dozens of interactive stations seek to draw a direct line between slavery, the Constitution, and the problems of African Americans today.
'A one hour Critical Race Theory experience disguised as a tour,' groused Mike Lapolla of Tulsa, Okla., after visiting last August. Hurricane Katrina flooding, the Ferguson riots, incarceration, and more all trace back to slavery, according to a 10-minute multi-screen video.
Another exhibit damns every one of the nation’s first 18 presidents — even those, like John Adams and Abraham Lincoln, who never owned slaves — for having benefited from slavery in some way.
The only in-depth material about the Constitution itself appears in a display that pushes the claim, championed by the controversial 1619 Project, that racism was the driving force behind the entire American political system.... Even the children’s section of the gift shop leans far left, with titles like 'Antiracist Baby' by Ibram X. Kendi and 'She Persisted' by Chelsea Clinton."
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"The globalist billionaire..."
Is there any other kind? Seriously, I can't think of one who isn't. Even Trump and Thiel are 'globalist' in their own particular way.
Well that will solve the impossibly long wait times in the past to get into Monticello. My prediction is that by this time next year there will be an emptied parking lot and unhindered by crowds casual strolls through the property. Just stay away from the woke tour attendants, the erdatz "gift" shops and take in the views of the Shenandoah mnts truly one of the loveliest parts of America.
Two of the most brilliant minds in human history versus two simpletons. When the pendulum finally swings back to sanity, it needs to do so with devastating force.
i first assumed that the National Park Service, was behind all this; but, apparently it's a owned by the National Trust for Historic Preservation a privately funded, nonprofit organization
So this private org, charges a $35 guided tour.. Visitors to Montpelier get to see just three rooms
BUT! THE GOOD NEWS IS! not only doesn't the National Trust for Historic Preservation have to pay ANY taxes.. Billionaires that want to, can write off Their donations on Their taxes too!
Sounds like a Pretty Good Deal.. For THEM
Egads.
10 million? That’s all it took? The real problem is not that they sell us out, but how cheaply they do it.
I'm reminded of the Santayana quote
Progressives ruin everything they touch. What a shame.
Visitors to Montpelier....
I think I see the problem. They're in the wrong place.
But seriously, if you look at the Monticello website and click on the tour descriptions, you can see that the focus is heavily on slavery. It's operated by a non-profit foundation, so it's theirs to do with as they please. I would probably skip it. You can get stories about slavery and oppression anywhere. My goal in going there would be to learn more about Jefferson.
I might change my mind if they end the "slavery tour" (listed as one of the events in most of the tours they offer) with a lecture to visitors about how many of the products they buy (clothes, cell phones and other electronics, mineral mining for their EV car battery) relies on modern slavery and exploitation.
So the People’s birthright has been privatized, repurposed as a propaganda tool inside a tax shelter? Isn’t there some serious 1A abuse wound up in this cozy little arrangement? Or is it now sufficient to recite “diversity inclusion equity” in order to commandeer and overwrite our heritage?
"[B]lindsided tourists are hammered"
Considering that progs like hammering blindsided citizens, why be surprised? Why is anyone, at this late date, "blindsided"?
Hey, tourists, this is how much progs hate you and your country. Live and learn.
… Ain't no lion or tiger, ain't no mamba snake
Just the sweet watermelon and the buckwheat cake
Ev'rybody is as happy as a man can be
uh - The Clintons are WHITE.
The enemy within.
This has been building for fifty years. In the beginning the impulse was modest and benign -- to stop ignoring slavery and point out that it was part of the world back then. I suppose it's gotten out of hand -- like everything else -- since then.
All foundations and big corporations seem to behave in exactly the same way and say exactly the same thing nowadays. That could be changing a little right now: I heard at least one important PR firm told its clients not to make a big deal out of the Dobbs/Roe abortion case, and the companies took their advice.
Montpelier was a du Pont family mansion after the Madison's time. After the last du Pont willed it to a complicated non-profit arrangement, which included the National Trust, the house was reduced from 55 rooms to the 22 rooms that were there in Madison's day. Is that really what preservationists ought to do?
I wanted to find out if the murderous du Pont heir from a few years back had lived there, but I couldn't remember his name, so I did a web search for "crazy du Pont heir" and was surprised to find out that more than one name came up -- many more. If I had done a search for "murderous du Pont heir" I would also have found more than one name. To be sure, it's a very big family.
"David M. Rubenstein"
One of the founders of Carlyle Group, head of the Kennedy Center board of trustees, generous donor to the University of Chicago and its law school, owner of one of the Stone copies of the Declaration of Independence, on display at UChicago. Donor of a copy of Magna Carta to the National Archives.
I suspect that David, who is a notorious preserver of the founding documents of our country and a believer that all Americans should have access to them, had precious little to do with the re-imagining of Monticello and Montpelier. He certainly is an admirer of the founders.
Boards of Trustees and woke staff are more than able to bolix up historic sites and museums without direction from a donor. Fashionable attitudes among museum directors is usually enough. See: Art Institute of Chicago and its late, great docent program.
Leftwing propaganda is everywhere.
Slavery is still a part of the world today.
Lebron has his shoes made by slaves in China.
Hunter Biden feeds his under aged female slaves Crack while he abuses them.
The contemporaries of the leaders of the American Revolution were Louis XVI, George III, Catherine the Great, and Frederick William of Prussia. Our leaders don't look so bad when compared to those worthies. They look even better when you compare them to the kings of Benin, Dahomey and other independent kingdoms in Africa. There is a report of one unfortunate subject who sneezed in the presence of his King in one of those African kingdoms. The man was promptly executed for his offense. On the plus side, he never had to endure racism and was, undoubtedly, a free and happy man prior to his execution......The slave owners of the American Revolution worked to found a state where slavery was considered an abomination. The kings of Europe, Asia, and Africa not so much.
I visited Montpelier years ago, maybe in the 90s, and it was in bad shape, just sad compared to Monticello, which I saw on the same trip.
Much of Montpelier was in the form the Duponts had put it in, and the docent told us there was debate about whether to regard the Dupont renovations as historical and deserving of preservation. The Dupont rooms were nice, in the early 20th century style.
At Monticello, there were employees who role played slaves. I remember a basket-weaver who conversed with the visitors. No one was asking him about "being" a slave or — inviting him to break character — playing a slave. They were just being friendly and asking about the basket-weaving.
slippery slope
weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
James Madison adopted Dolly Madison's son John Payne Todd. Madison ended up having to mortgage Montpelier to get the guy out of debtors prison. And Dolly spent her latter years in poverty because of this wayward child.
John Payne Todd was a real Hunter Biden. Difference is, Madison couldn't launder foreign aid money to enrich himself to help take care of the addict. Dolly spent her latter years in poverty because of her son.
They should open a museum of horrible Presidential family members. Besides John Payne and Hunter Biden, there could be a Billy Carter exhibit, Roger Clinton, and you could probably ad Ted Kennedy to the list. Oh, and Liz Cheney would get a shrine.
Althouse needs an "Everything woke turns to shit" tag.
I'm all for discussing the stain of slavery, provided it is complete with the context of the time and the state of the world.
Slavery existed for thousands of years everywhere in the world, until it was eradicated by western European culture. At the time of US abolition, it has been estimated that 40% of the residents of Africa were either slaves or slave-owners. Even the (mostly peaceful) indigenous peoples of the Americas practiced slavery (and many engaged in human sacrifice).
For an apologypalooza, it's hard to top the new AMPAS film museum in Los Angeles. Apparently, the history of the greatest art form of the 20th Century is a history of racism,sexism, homophobia, exploitation of indigenous people, and incipient TERFhood.Some exhibits are wonderful, but you have to fight to find them.
I recall the Smithsonian's display of the B-29, Enola Gay, had a similar issue arise, but at least there was some pushing back against a woke mis-reinterpretation of WWII warfighting back then. I'd argue that authoring the founding documents of the United States was a more important event than what that bomber accomplished.
"Althouse needs an "Everything woke turns to shit" tag."
Does that sound like anything I would say... even once?
I did blog it when Trump said it.
I don't think you can even find examples of my using the word "woke" that are not quotes of other people or discussing someone else's use of the term.
Thanks to CRT and 1619, it's all becoming clear to me now, especially the part about America being built on the back of slaves.
Clearly, the power and greatness of the Confederacy, so evident today, was due to the labor of slaves without which the South would have lost the Civil War to the weaker, abolitionist, industrialized north.
Yes, I know Lee surrendered to Grant mostly ending the war with victory for the North. So what! It's not about "history." It's about "theirstory."
"He who controls the present controls the past."
The colonial-era Carlyle House in Alexandria, Va., is available as a wedding venue, restored slave quarters and all. Before my first marriage, I went on a "wedding tour" where they showed off the amenities to prospective renters. They showed us the restrooms, which were down in the basement near the slave area, and there was a moment of unintentional comedy when one of the other mothers on the tour asked if the slave mannequins could be packed away somewhere during the reception. The guide indignantly said no. It was amusing to contemplate sneaking them upstairs to sit around one of the tables.
It's amazing to think how much progress has been made in the area of race problems. At the beginning of the 20th century Blacks were not permitted to attend most colleges, were assigned to sub-standard public schools, were banned from owning property in many neighborhoods, were prohibited from joining certain unions, etc. Now, 120 years later, the biggest problems facing the Black community are (1) some people still admire 19th Century Presidents, when they shouldn't; (2) a White author was named after his father; and (3) pronouns (always).
Hunter Biden's tax payer funded Hooker said...
uh - The Clintons are WHITE.
****************************************************************
Ah, but Bill Clinton is the self-described “first black president”… (sarcasm aimed at ol’ Slick Willie)
My suggestion is that one takes the tour carrying a boom box, then loudly play the marches of John Phillips Sousa starting about halfway through the tour. Extra points if you disable the 'Stop' and 'On/Off' buttons.
Lurker 21 - I grew up and live on a farm that adjoins Montpelier and my dad had a distant connection by marriage with the Duponts and was an official at the annual steeplechase races Marion DuPont put on for the community. One year (in the 60's?) that crazy guy rented a helicopter and flew down for the Races and landed on the front lawn. For me the biggest change in the post-DuPont era is that the Races - which pretty much everyone in Orange County came to and enjoyed for free - black, white, rich, poor - is now fully corporate, 99% white and is priced out of range for most locals.
the point about enola gay was that the nuclear bombing was just a virtue signal toward the Soviets, this is what gar alperovitz, came up with,
"The slave owners of the American Revolution worked to found a state where slavery was considered an abomination"
Talk about revisionist history. Slavery in the USA lasted for four score and seven years after the founding. And it took our bloodiest war to end it.
If you can't destroy it, subvert it. In other countries its usually done by strong arm tactics. In the USA, you just bribe people. Americans will do anything for a buck.
We celebrate Madison and Jefferson because they were the "fathers of our country" and their support for things like Democracy and the average people having a voice in Government. Their slaves were just the way they made their $$. We don't care about Hamilton or John Adam's servants. We don't have a big exhibit about Churchill's house maid or butler. And there's no reason to make a fuss over Jefferson or Madison's slaves.
None of the stuff mentioned existed when I visited Jefferson's home. I was mainly impressed by how well laid out Jefferson's house was, and the number of books. The kitchen was separate from the main house, and it constructed so that the meals could be easily transported to a dumbwaiter, and hauled up to the dinning room.
It took a while for Jefferson's residence to become a tourist attraction/shrine. IRC, the House fell into disrepair after his death. Changed hands, and it wasn't until some rich Notherner bought it, that it was refurbished and eventually sold and turned in a tourist thing.
Plenty of people didn't like Jefferson in the 19th and early 20th century. Henry Adams for one. Teddy Roosevelt for another. It wasn't slavery, it was the weak foreign policy and refusal to build up the US Navy.
Leftism is cancer, with all due respect to cancer...
The most interesting question raised by the post is this:
Does Mz Althouse now consider the NY Post as reliable news source as the NY Times?
All else pales in comparison.
At this point it wouldn't be surprise me if some white people offer themselves up for slavery on eBay.
Too bad our present day robber barons are so wrapped up in nonsense political correctness. John D Rockefeller restored Colonial Williamsburg with no political bias.
If we must have a tyrant a robber baron is far better than an inquisitor. The baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity at some point be sated; and since he dimly knows he is doing wrong he may possibly repent. But the inquisitor who mistakes his own cruelty and lust of power and fear for the voice of Heaven will torment us infinitely because he torments us with the approval of his own conscience and his better impulses appear to him as temptations. And since Theocracy is the worst, the nearer any government approaches to Theocracy the worse it will be. A metaphysic, held by the rulers with the force of a religion, is a bad sign.
“ Outdoors and in the house’s huge basement, dozens of interactive stations seek to draw a direct line between slavery, the Constitution, and the problems of African Americans today. '
An interactive station comparing the problems of African Americans today with those of Africans today would provide an interesting backstory.
Quit visiting and let them go broke.
"Slavery in the USA lasted for four score and seven years after the founding. And it took our bloodiest war to end it."
What do you mean, "our", Freder?
It took awhile to find the handle on this Enlightenment thing. Catherine the Great called a convocation of her subjects in order to bring the Enlightenment to Mother Russia. The merchant class objected to the fact that only aristocrats were entitled to own serfs. They dreamed of living in an egalitarian society where any man could own his own serf. The aristocrats, for their part, objected to measures that would restrict their right to summarily punish serfs with the knout. Unlike the cat o' nine tails, there was a great deal of mortality associated with the knout. The cat o' nine tails is is not ordinarily associated with humane treatment, but there it was.... Iirc, Catherine wisely suspended the convocation. It just wasn't working out...During the Napoleonic Wars, serfs proudly served in their militias to guarantee their right to remain serfs. Were they bigger fools than the troops in Napoleon's armies who marched and died to ensure men the right to live under Napoleon's rule?....If only there was a globalist billionaire around to show people back then the proper way to do things.
Neither mandates nor redistributive change nor diversity [dogma] were motives for incorporation under the American charter and compact. In fact, the America experiment was conceived as a hostile adversary to sustainable progress of this authoritarian triplet.
After reading these comments, I became curious about whether James Monroe's home has also succumbed to wokeness. I have been there several times, just a few less than Monticello. I grew up in the area, and school field trips were constant.
Back then it was called Ash Lawn, and now it's called Highland. James Monroe, an often overshadowed Founding Father - what is he known for now? How will this great man of history be portrayed at his very home?
Here's the 1st paragraph on the official website:
Highland is a historic place with an ongoing story. The former plantation, nestled in the hills of Albemarle County, is like many sites of its kind, both unique and typical in the landscape of American history. Highland was a working plantation in the early American economy, and home to scores of enslaved men, women, and children who performed the bulk of Highland’s production and maintenance.
A some point people are going to get tired of this.
We'll know that point has been reached when this sort of left wing trash starts getting the same treatment that Confederate Statues have been getting
And people wonder why we feel like we are in an occupied country.
You cannot compromise with these people.
For the record, I have been to Andrew Jackson's Hermitage. I thought they did a good balance between the man, the house, and the slave quarters. They celebrated the man and his house, but they were not afraid to address the slavery issue in detail. I felt it was well executed.
Talk about revisionist history. Slavery in the USA lasted for four score and seven years after the founding. And it took our bloodiest war to end it.
Freder, like Ritmo, seems unfamiliar with The Northwest Ordinance of 1787.
The prohibition of slavery in the territory had the practical effect of establishing the Ohio River as the geographic divide between slave states and free states from the Appalachian Mountains to the Mississippi River, an extension of the Mason–Dixon line. It also helped set the stage for later federal political conflicts over slavery during the 19th century until the American Civil War.
Slavery preceded the American Revolution and was confined to those states that permitted it until the Civil War. It was NOT permitted in new states.
What I would like to see is for Jefferson and Madison to somehow be resurrected and given a chance to put this "globalist billionaire" under a moral microscope.
And I wonder how a self-described "globalist" could be so utterly ignorant about slavery, and how it had been practiced for millennia on every continent except Antarctica---by all races.
" Slavery preceded the American Revolution and was confined to those states that permitted it until the Civil War. It was NOT permitted in new states."
Apparently you are unfamiliar with the Missouri Comprimise which admitted Missouri (and later Arkansas) as slave states. Also texas was admitted as a slave state. And of course texas fought two wars to maintain chattel slavery.
Sounds like the NYT is calling a time out on cancellation, the 1619 project, and everything that may actually threaten the existence of its owners.
John D Rockefeller restored Colonial Williamsburg with no political bias.
Some people would say that his apparently lack of political bias back then was itself political bias. That disagreement explains all the trouble we're having now.
We don't care about Hamilton or John Adam's servants. We don't have a big exhibit about Churchill's house maid or butler. And there's no reason to make a fuss over Jefferson or Madison's slaves.
Harvard is putting plaques on buildings with the names of the enslaved persons who lived there. No mention of all the other thousands of workers who scraped through life keeping the elite institution going. What we're seeing looks like a hypocritical gesture in the direction of an equality that can't be achieved, by an elite institution that has devoted itself to preserving and producing inequality through the ages.
But there is a difference between Southern and Northern climes. The explicit message around here in New England is that people were enslaved and that is horrible. Your takeaway from visiting the restored house of an 18th or 19th century African-American might be that these people had been slaves but went on to have families, farms or shops of their own. They couldn't rise as high as their white neighbors theoretically could, but barring something horrible happening, once they were free they didn't have bad lives for those days.
Slavery Eradicated? That, friends is rich! Look no further than China, for starters.
Michael K writes: "Slavery...was NOT permitted in new states."
Can that be right? What about the new slave states of:
Alabama
Arkansas
Florida
Kentucky
Louisiana
Mississippi
Missouri
Tennessee
Texas
Arguably Kentucky and Tennessee were not new states because they were created from the territory of existing states. But what about the others?
Jupiter said...
"Slavery in the USA lasted for four score and seven years after the founding. And it took our bloodiest war to end it."
What do you mean, "our", Freder?
Freder's side was a part of that war too.
Democrats passed Jim Crow laws after they lost their war to keep slavery around.
Now Democrats have abortion and affirmative action and government welfare programs and destruction of the nuclear family to keep poor minorities poor.
Can that be right? What about the new slave states of:
Notice they are not north of the Ohio River ?
The "Missouri Compromise" of 1850 was an attempt to avoid the war.
Legal Definition of Compromise of 1850
series of compromise measures passed by the U.S. Congress in an effort to settle several outstanding slavery issues and to avert the threat of dissolution of the Union. The measures were offered by the “great compromiser,” Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky. In an attempt to give satisfaction both to those favoring and those opposing slavery, the important sections of the omnibus bill called for the admission of California as a free state, the organization of the territories of New Mexico and Utah with the slavery question left open, settlement of the Texas-New Mexico boundary dispute, a more rigorous provision for the return of runaway slaves, and the prohibition of the slave trade in the District of Columbia. These measures were accepted by moderates in all sections of the country, and the secession of the South was postponed for a decade. The Compromise, however, contained the seeds of future discord.
Then came the Kansas Nebraska Act.
In January 1854, Senator Stephen Douglas of Illinois introduced a bill that divided the land immediately west of Missouri into two territories, Kansas and Nebraska. He argued in favor of popular sovereignty, or the idea that the settlers of the new territories should decide if slavery would be legal there.
Anti-slavery supporters were outraged because, under the terms of the Missouri Compromise of 1820, slavery would have been outlawed in both territories since they were both north of the 36º30' N dividing line between "slave" and "free" states.
Bleeding Kansas followed and then the Civil War.
History lesson for the ignorant concluded.
Freder is at nit again:
Apparently you are unfamiliar with the Missouri Comprimise which admitted Missouri (and later Arkansas) as slave states. Also texas was admitted as a slave state. And of course texas fought two wars to maintain chattel slavery.
You idiot. I just posted an explanation for the stupid. Did you happen to notice those were all south of the Ohio and west of the Mississippi? The Congress was trying to avoid war, kind of like Trump was in Europe and the Mideast. You lefty idiots are bringing nuclear war closer.
Lincoln's famous Peoria Speech given in response to Stephen Douglas on Oct 16, 1854, is a brilliant and concise summary of the history of slavery in our country until that point in time. It's pretty long but worth reading in its entirety. Lincoln spent 3 hours delivering it. Lincoln argues against popular sovereignty and the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which was a Douglas creation. I find in my studies of slavery and the events leading to Lincoln's election and study of the Civil War that I come back to this speech time and again.
Tom T. said...
The colonial-era Carlyle House in Alexandria, Va.,
Mom and I went to its opening ceremony in the early 70s. No slave mannequins or mentions in sight then, but they did lower the doorways into the historic parlor back to their original, under 6' height, which was annoying. That room is where Gen. Braddock wrote back to his London masters suggesting a tax on the colonies to pay for the F&I war he was about to begin in earnest--and botch and die at what became Pittsburgh. Somehow, I doubt HMG needed the prodding, but the City of Alexandria, owner of the house, is (or was) right proud of it, and their own high taxes.
I looked up Madison's birthplace plantation, Belle Grove on the Northern Neck (his sister's plantation in the Shenandoah Valley has the same name). It's a B&B, and surprisingly, there's no mention of slavery on the website ("Come travel back to the days of Southern Elegance and Charm …"). For the other one, which is NPS-owned, it's in the third sentence. We visited 40+ years ago because my father's last Navy ship was named the Belle Grove, but I didn't realize until today that it was the other one.
Did you happen to notice those were all south of the Ohio and west of the Mississippi?
Most of Missouri is north of the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi. I only point this out because you called me an idiot.
Your original claim was that slavery was "NOT permitted in new states" (emphasis in the original). Even if you don't count states like Alabama and Mississipi, which were carved out of existing states, your original contention was wrong.
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