Interpretation of the Chew Family's History

Cliveden of the National Trust

Recipient

Grant Year 2010

Grant Amount $75,000

Status Completed

Updated May 30, 2023

Cliveden, an 18th-century historic site once owned by the Chew family, envisioned new interpretive strategies, testing of new interactive exhibitions, revised guide training, and an extended series of programs and events. These projects, which were all based on the history of enslavement at the site, were designed to engage with Cliveden's surrounding communities, especially African-Americans, in Germantown and North Philadelphia. The project team included historians, a psychologist, filmmakers, a storyteller, community members, and representatives from reparations groups.

uestions of ractice

Audiences take in Liberty To Go To See, 2015, at Cliveden’s Main House, an interactive dramatic event based on the Chew Family Papers, produced by the New Freedom Theatre and featuring a script created through a year-long partnership between Cliveden and the Philadelphia Young Playwrights.

Interview

Inside Cliveden of the National Trust: Q&A with Executive Director David Young

Recipient

Cliveden of the National Trust

Cliveden of the National Trust is an eighteenth-century historic house and the site of the 1777 Battle of Germantown. A National Historic Landmark, the site includes two historic properties on over five acres of green space in Philadelphia's Historic Germantown. Cliveden preserves and interprets over 200 years of American history through the lives of the Chew Family and their staff, both enslaved and in service, and it offers programming for children and adults to connect the past and the present.

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