LOEWS Summer/Fall 2011 - (Page 44)

This page: Signers’ Hall at The National Constitution Center Opposite page: The National Museum of American Jewish History Instead, it documents a terrible irony. Here, just a block from where the founding fathers proclaimed liberty as an unalienable right, George Washington kept nine slaves. The President’s House doesn’t dance around this powerful contradiction, it highlights it. Screens mounted on the walls tell the stories of two of the slaves via short films on a continual loop. In one, an actress playing Oney Judge poignantly offers first-person insights into her life, including her daring escape and Washington’s failed attempt to recapture her in New Hampshire. The other tells visitors about Hercules, Washington’s cook, who also managed to escape and was never caught. Sound, photos and visuals offer the political context of the time, but the personal stories are what make the site work as a powerful counterpoint to the Liberty Bell, located just steps away. I knew the Bell, but the pavilion that houses it is new and offers fresh insights. For one thing, the Bell showed up cracked in Philly when they first ordered it from England in 1750, and needed to be recast. It also never actually rang for freedom when the founders signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776. By then, it was in storage because the steeple where they had hung it was too rotted to support its weight. What actually propelled its association with liberty was the writings of abolitionists in the 1830s and it took off from there, even inspiring Ghanians to pose next to it when their country became independent in 1957. The context prepares you nicely for seeing the Bell, and emotionally it still carries the same weight for me that it did back in the 1970s when I saw it on field trips as a kid. To continue heading back in time, I crossed the street to Independence Mall. Still beautiful and regal on the outside, fascinating on the inside. I saw the two first-floor rooms in my tour because it’s only during summer that you can see the top floor with the banquet hall and meeting room. That’s okay, because the declaring-and-signing action took place on the first floor. Wonderfully preserved rooms transport you to that era, and you can almost imagine yourself with a ringside seat while the founders hash out the building blocks of our nation. A New View A block away at 5th and Market I discovered the stunning new home of the National Museum of American Jewish History (NMAJH). What struck me here was the masterful storytelling. Start at the top, where the museum traces the lives of first Jewish immigrants who arrived from Spain in the 1650s and spans until the 19th century. Fascinating panels about pioneers like the Gomez and Gratz families blend with artifacts like a Torah scroll from Morocco sent as a gift to Jews in Savannah, Georgia. The next section covers 1820-1870, highlighting Levi Strauss, the inventor of jeans, Jewish community life in major American cities and their fighting for the Union during the Civil War, including uniforms and weaponry. This is contrasted with slices of cultural life like gowns from fancy Purim balls in the 1870s, complete with music of the era. The cool interactive touch is that you can even grab a Purim ball mask and dance, like a little girl in front of me did. I passed on that, not being too COURTESY OF ThE naTiOnal COnSTiTUTiOn CEnTER well-versed in 19th-century Purim dance moves. The next floor down chronicles the Jewish American experience from 1880-1945, showing how the community began to make its way in business, either as entrepreneurs or by working in factories, weaving in how they adapted to their new home. An education room includes desks, and when you lift up the cover, the voice of a student from that era tells about how she went to night school to learn English after a long day at work. You can put together a shirtfront or pump a treadle loews magazine 44 

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of LOEWS Summer/Fall 2011

The Great Outdoors
Shore Things
Carmen Herrera
The Right App-Titudes
Spice Routes
Futiles Fixes
Music City Sampler
The Future of Flying
The Stories Behind the Songs
Romantic Pleasure in the Pink Palace
Philly 2.0
The Breakfast Club
Local Living
News and Notes

LOEWS Summer/Fall 2011

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