Memorializing Dinah and Reckoning with Enslavement
Community Integration, Arts-based Emplacement, and Racial Justice at Stenton Historic House in Philadelphia
The Public Historian published an article Beth wrote about Inequality in Bronze, a two-year project of Stenton Historic House in Philadelphia, executed in partnership with Karyn Olivier (selected artist), Dina Bailey (community engagement facilitator) and Neysa Page-Leiberman (curator).
The article is based on data Beth collected as evaluator for the project, funded by the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage.
Karyn Olivier’s rendition of her memorial to Dinah, a woman enslaved at the historic house in the 1800s, made the cover of the journal.
Here is the abstract:
Inequality in Bronze is a two-year project (2018–20) reckoning with the history of slavery at Stenton, a plantation house museum in Philadelphia, by commissioning a new memorial to Dinah, a woman enslaved at the property in the mid-1700s. Drawing on data collected throughout the project, this article argues that historic house museums need to move from “community participation” to “community integration” in their efforts to forefront racial equity. This article asks how we can redress centuries of erasure and the absence of Black lives at historic sites. It offers points of consideration for other historic house museums contemplating similar projects as the collective work to address the legacies of American enslavement continues.
