Transcending Thresholds

Cliveden of the National Trust

Cliveden of the National Trust, female harvesters' work yard and dependencies at Cliveden, 2022. Photo by Libbie Hawes.

Recipient

Grant Year 2022

Grant Amount $276,000

Status Forthcoming

Updated May 30, 2023

New exhibitions and visitor tours focus on experiences of enslavement and servitude as Cliveden expands its interpretation of the site’s 250-year history as a residence and location of the 1777 Revolutionary Battle of Germantown. With input from a committee of Northwest Philadelphia community members, along with a group of historians, the project places greater emphasis on the lives of people who lived and labored at Cliveden. Transcending Thresholds explores themes of American identity and freedom by looking beyond traditional archives to uncover stories embedded in the site’s architecture, landscape, and material culture. A book of essays sharing the project’s methodology and outcomes serves as a resource for public history practitioners.

The total grant amount represents project funding plus an additional 20% in unrestricted general operating support.

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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