{"id":159,"date":"2008-12-21T12:11:00","date_gmt":"2008-12-21T17:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/sethbruggeman\/2008\/12\/21\/the-windows-remember\/"},"modified":"2008-12-21T12:11:00","modified_gmt":"2008-12-21T17:11:00","slug":"the-windows-remember","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/sethbruggeman\/2008\/12\/21\/the-windows-remember\/","title":{"rendered":"The Windows Remember"},"content":{"rendered":"

From time to time my job leads me to local museums and historic sites.<\/span> <\/span>I<\/span>t’s<\/span> a<\/span> <\/span>gre<\/span>at gig for a museum junky like myself. And, better yet, I occasionally get to see stuff that doesn’t turn up on the usual tours. Take, for example, this amazing window that I discovered (thanks, Blanche) on a recent visit to Cliveden<\/a> (rhymes with “lived in”), a National Trust<\/a> historic site north of downtown Philly in Germantown, PA. <\/span>\"\"<\/a>For nearly two centuries, Cliveden\u2019s owners encouraged their guests to \u201csign\u201d the building\u2019s windows with a diamo<\/span>nd scribe. Look closely and, in just this single pane, you\u2019ll find nearly one hundred and thirty years worth of name<\/span>s, dates, and well wishes. The window is a guest book in glass, the result of a charming tradition that litera<\/span>lly etched family friends into Cliveden\u2019s memory.<\/span><\/p>\n

Folks who, like myself, spend a lot of time doing history with things know full well that objects seldom speak so clearly of their pasts. This window owes its remarkable prolixity to Benjamin Chew and his progeny. Chew, a lapsed Quaker who made big money managing the Penn fam<\/span>ily’s legal affairs, built Cliveden as a summer home in the 1760s. The house is most famous for sheltering a handful of British soldiers who, garrisoned behind the building’s three-foot thick stone walls, managed to stall General Washington’s advance <\/span>toward Philadelphia in October 1777 during the Battle of Germantown. Chew sold the place after the Revolution, but reacquired it shortly befo<\/span>re his death. The home passed from generation to generation until 1972 when the Chew family presented Cliveden to the National Trust. That they did speaks strongly to the family\u2019s awareness of its own significant historical legacy.<\/span><\/p>\n

Cliveden\u2019s windows are, in this light, striking evidence of one family’s desire to commemorate itself. And what a <\/span>striking commemoration it is. To look through this window is to see one\u2019s self reflected in the deep memory of a <\/span>\"\"<\/a>building, and a landscape beyond, that witnessed the unfolding of our national story. And, at the same time, the window is itself a unique kind of historic text. It chronicles the comings and goings of some of this country’s most <\/span>prominent people over a remarkable span of time. The absence of less prominent names reminds us that not even objects have perfect memories. In any event, much could be made of this by a historian with an ear for objects. Ho<\/span>w one footnotes a window is another matter entirely.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From time to time my job leads me to local museums and historic sites. It’s a great gig for a museum junky like myself. And, better yet, I occasionally get to see stuff that doesn’t turn up on the usual tours. Take, for example, this amazing window that I discovered (thanks, Blanche) on a recent … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “The Windows Remember”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2638,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,44,16,41,40,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-battle-of-germantown","category-benjamin-chew","category-cliveden","category-george-washington","category-national-trust","category-windows"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/sethbruggeman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/sethbruggeman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/sethbruggeman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/sethbruggeman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2638"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/sethbruggeman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/sethbruggeman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/sethbruggeman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/sethbruggeman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/sethbruggeman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}