With Presidents Day around the corner, how do we celebrate a president known to have slaves? That’s the sort of question explored by Seth Bruggeman, a history professor and coordinator of the Public History Program at Temple University.

According to Bruggeman, Presidents Day assumes that the nation comes together and celebrates the birth of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln and, theoretically, all presidents. “It presumes we can all share in the legacy of these men equally; however, it is more complicated than that,” he added.

Take Columbus Day, said Bruggeman. Although Columbus was credited with discovering America, many consider him responsible for genocide.

“What statement do you make when you endorse with full federal power the positive image of a person who is also legitimately and for good reason considered a villain?” Bruggeman asks. “With Presidents Day, we have to be careful not to exclude those who celebrate differently.”

And that’s an issue the park service has been dealing with at sites around the country. A wonderful example is taking place in Philadelphia.

The President’s House project, which just received a $3.5 million grant from the Delaware River Port Authority, is a commemorative effort to erect an installation exhibit across from Independence Hall. The exhibit is intended not only to mark the spot where the mansion that housed the first two presidents once stood, but also to honor the nine slaves that George Washington held there.

According to Bruggeman, the project presents some interesting problems of historical interpretation. First, how do you commemorate a building that no longer exists? And secondly, how do you talk about slavery in the life of George Washington at a place where the setting for that slavery doesn’t exist anymore?

As coordinator of Temple’s Public History Program, part of Bruggeman’s job is to prepare history students to deal with this kind of historical complexity in their future positions as archivists, curators, park officials and editors and to encourage them to participate in the production of a history that is sensitive and inclusive as well as intellectually rigorous.

At the President’s House, officials are excavating and using historical archeology to show how the space was used and how African Americans lived their lives there.

"I think it ironic that the push to interpret slavery at the President’s House occurs now and has not occurred in a more aggressive way at Independence Hall. But that is how historical meaning is negotiated over time,” said Bruggeman.

Bruggeman is the author of Here, George Washington Was Born: Memory, Material Culture and the Public History of a National Monument, which examines the history of commemoration in the United States by focusing on the George Washington Birthplace National Monument and the controversial replica of Washington’s house built there in 1932.