Dr. Scott Stephenson
President and CEO, Museum of the American Revolution
The Revolutionary War was an eight-year conflict that secured our independence. But the American Revolution is an ongoing experiment in liberty, equality, and self-government that continues to this day.
Summary
In this week’s episode of Leadership Matters, Alan Fleischmann sits down with Dr. Scott Stephenson, President and CEO of the Museum of the American Revolution. Scott shares his journey from growing up near Pittsburgh to leading one of the nation’s most dynamic cultural institutions and shaping how millions understand America’s founding story.
Together, Alan and Scott explore the power of personal storytelling in history, the global impact of the Declaration of Independence, and how the Museum is preparing the nation for the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution. Scott reflects on the decade-long effort to build the museum, the importance of material culture and the ways immersive experiences can strengthen civic understanding in an age of rapid technological change.
Mentions & Resources
Guest Bio
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania native Scott Stephenson holds a B.A. from Juniata College and an M.A. and Ph.D. in American History from the University of Virginia. His broad public history experience spans nearly three decades and has been marked by public and professional acclaim for his creative and innovative approaches to engaging audiences. He has developed and collaborated on exhibits, films, and interpretive programs for numerous historical sites and organizations including Colonial Williamsburg, the Smithsonian, the Canadian War Museum, the National Park Service, George Washington’s Mount Vernon, the Heinz History Center, and the Museum of the Cherokee People.
From 2007-2018, Stephenson led the development of the Museum of the American Revolution’s award-winning exhibitions, multimedia experiences and educational programming, as well as overseeing the care and expansion of its rich collection of art and artifacts, first as Director of Collections and Interpretation and then as Vice President of Collections, Exhibitions, and Programming. He served as a key member of the senior leadership team that raised $173 million to build and open the Museum, surpassing the original capital campaign goal of $150 million. The Museum opened in April 2017 to national and international acclaim, including rave reviews in the New York Times, Washington Post, and New York Review of Books. The core exhibition received many prestigious awards including the AAM 2018 Excellence in Exhibition Award for Special Achievement, AASLH Award of Merit, and the PA Museums Institutional Award.
In November 2018, Stephenson was named President and CEO of the Museum.
Episode Transcript
Alan Fleischmann
Welcome to Leadership Matters on SiriusXM and at leadershipmattersshow.com. I'm your host, Alan Fleischmann. I'm joined today by an incredible historian, an educator, a top executive who's helping to bring the story of America's founding into the public consciousness.
Dr. Scott Stephenson, the President and CEO of the Museum of the American Revolution — a must-visit stop on your next trip to anywhere in the country, let alone if you're going to Philadelphia. Scott began his journey in Pittsburgh, developed a passion for history that led him to a PhD from the University of Virginia, and he went on to help shape key cultural moments and national monuments around the country before joining the Museum of the American Revolution as its first Director of Collections and Interpretation in 2007.
In 2018, Scott was appointed as the museum's President and CEO. And under his leadership, the museum has become the nation's newest but, I would argue, most premier cultural institution when it comes to connecting our past with our future. He's inspiring millions to connect with the ideals and the complexities of America's founding.
As we approach the country's 250th anniversary, Scott is helping guide us — and not only how we recall and remember the origins of our country, but how we can reimagine and recommit to the principles of the revolution, and reaffirm what it has and continues to be: a beacon for the world, the American experiment.
Scott, welcome to Leadership Matters. It's such a pleasure to have you on.
Scott Stephenson
Alan, thank you. It's a real honor to be with you.
Alan Fleischmann
I have been looking forward to this so much because I think people who've been listening to the show have realized — and certainly those who know me know — I've become quite obsessed with the museum, quite obsessed with your leadership, actually. Almost like you're the solution to so many of what matters.
We cannot have a thriving democracy without a thriving capitalism. We can't have a thriving capitalism without a thriving democracy. And we can't have either unless we understand what led us to the revolution and what is the experiment that is not fully realized and not fully fulfilled, but that needs to be the priority of all of us.
And what I've learned — the other night we had this incredible dinner, and you were there — is how many of the ambassadors and how many of the presidents and prime ministers and their people in countries all over the world look to the American experiment, look to the Declaration of Independence in particular, and feel so strongly.
And we're going to get to your background first, but we're not going to leave the show today without talking about the Declaration's Journey. Because what is so incredibly inspiring as a globalist who cares so much about our backyard in the United States is that it may absolutely be the most important document in history — not only U.S. history, but world history.
And what is so extraordinary is to hear people talk in leadership positions in all corners of the globe about how important the American experiment and the Declaration of Independence — those words, those words matter — has been that big light.
But I don't want us to get into all that, because we're going to need to do that without first starting with a little bit about you. You were born in Pittsburgh, so you grew up on the other side of Pennsylvania, which is another world away from Philadelphia in so many ways, but I know it's an incredible city.
Tell us a little bit about life at home, what your parents did, if you had any brothers or sisters, anything about where you grew up. And of course, as we started talking — the Bicentennial. Who were the people in the world that enlightened you to care about all these incredibly important parts of who you are today? The mentors, the teachers, things like that as well.
Scott Stephenson
Yeah. So I, as you mentioned, grew up just south of Pittsburgh in the South Hills. My mother's family — she was half — her mother's side of the family were all 19th century German immigrants to Pittsburgh, before and after the era of the Civil War. In fact, her mother grew up with German being spoken around the house until World War I changed the attitude that we had as Americans towards speaking German in the house.
Her father's parents were immigrants from Slovenia. So, it's the Ellis Island side of the family. So, I grew up with that ethnic side of the family on my mother's Pittsburgh family. And my father was from northwestern Pennsylvania, south of Lake Erie. And they were very old stock — German, Swiss, Dutch, Scots-Irish. Every group, including the first Muslim who emigrated to New Netherland in 1625, one of my ancestors. So, all of American history.
Part of me grew up learning over time American history through these personal family connections that literally spanned nearly 400 years of North American history. So, I was interested in, steeped in all of those stories.
And then I had a grandfather, my father's father, Leroy Stephenson, who never took the highway anywhere. It was always back roads. And it was always stories of, pointing to a field and saying, "That's where John Brown lived. There used to be a town over there, where that cornfield is. That's where Lafayette came in 1824 when he was coming through. George Washington was over there."
And so, I was just enthralled by these stories. And if you did, in that era before you could turn a screen on, you had to go to the library and read about these things. And so, I was really obsessed with biographies, like in elementary school. I remember just pulling one biography after the other. I very distinctly remember a biography of Walt Disney, for instance, that — a lot of the details still stick with me 60 years later.
Alan Fleischmann
Was Walt Disney one of your first biographies?
Scott Stephenson
I was actually thinking about this recently. I remember it was the story of someone who was born extremely poor and struggles, but has a dream, and just how he eventually creates Mickey Mouse and creates this empire that changes people's relationship to the world through his work. And I think those kinds of stories really stuck in my synapses along the way.
Alan Fleischmann
I love that. My parents, when I was a little kid, left me in their bed when they went out one night because I was restless. I didn't want to hang out with my siblings. And my father had bought me a book called Meet John F. Kennedy, and he left the book and I read it. And while it was a small book, I started it and finished it by the time they came home. And I became obsessed with John F. Kennedy after that for the longest time, because it was my first book, my first biography.
So there's something about these early biographies when you're a kid where the curiosity was formed and where the imagination was let free. And I think it's funny how they actually become part of you. Biographies, being a historian — I can see the building blocks right now, which is great.
Did you love school?
Scott Stephenson
I was an okay student in school. I was off the charts in writing, English class, that sort of thing. I would say I was not a great history student, even though I obsessively read history and read biography and was interested in it. But the way history was taught — it was memorized dates and names and boring multiple choice. And I'm not — I'm not skilled — my wife is a physician. She was very good at memorizing the periodic table and all that sort of stuff. And that's just not the way I'm wired to learn. I'm wired — narrative is the way I remember things.
And so I loved history. I went on — as an undergraduate, I went to a small liberal arts college in central Pennsylvania, Juniata College, and had an incredible experience studying international relations and history. But I figured at the time, that was a natural path to go to law school. So I actually went to law school and then had a moment where I thought, "Oh my gosh, if I stay in law school, I end up a lawyer reading contracts for the rest of my life."
And I thought being a history professor or working in history somehow would be good. So fortunately, I had a come-to-Jesus moment and had parents who actually accepted that.
Alan Fleischmann
Which is amazing that they did.
Scott Stephenson
I can never be grateful enough for. And that goes all the way back to being a child. I mean, my mother absolutely made sure that I had a book in my hand all the time, took me to the library. My father — any interest that I had, he was fully on board. I loved the outdoors, we spent a lot of time hiking and camping and all that sort of thing.
And so they just — it was a really great, supportive childhood. And then when you have a difficult conversation with your child who you thought was headed this direction, and it's like a 180-degree turn — but they accepted that and were supportive of it. And fortunately, my mother, who passed away in 2007 — shortly before she passed away, actually saw me open an exhibition at the Smithsonian. And I remember she leaned in and said the night of the opening, "Now I understand."
Alan Fleischmann
What did your mom and dad do?
Scott Stephenson
My mother was a teacher, elementary school teacher, until there were three of us children in the house, and then she was a full-time mom and homemaker while we were growing up. I have a younger brother and sister. My father worked in commercial real estate in Pittsburgh. And he really instilled — in a different kind of way — he loved architecture and buildings in Pittsburgh, which still has a beautiful built environment. And he's the one who — we'd walk up and down the streets in Pittsburgh and look up at all these buildings, and he knew the stories of every single one — who had built them, what companies had been housed there.
And so, while ultimately, I settled on early American, revolutionary American history, I developed a real appreciation for the span and sweep of American history and the history that inhabits a space, the physical environment. I think that's why I feel so comfortable working in the museum, in the public history sphere — is that I really need to tactilely experience and taste and smell and feel the past. That's my route into it. I don't start with the head. I start with the heart and the senses.
Alan Fleischmann
You also, based on my conversations with you, you love the personal side of history. I mean, when you think about the best historians, the best way to connect to the past and the future is when you get into the personal and you understand the people. I mean, there are some people that talk about history as if it were people with titles rather than people with souls. And I think that's the difference. Your curiosity is about the human complexity, not just the human titles.
Scott Stephenson
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, when you can see — particularly when talking about the founding era, where it's just been so mythologized and can seem so remote — not just in time, but culturally, can seem so distant. And we don't have photographs. And so looking at — you can only get so close to people through paintings from the period. And of course, they don't show all the people that are important anyway.
And so that's why I think material culture and just stories and narrative can bring us closer and hook us emotionally. And then we start to understand that, for instance, the system of government that is so vital for us today is the imperfect product of people who were put into predicaments just like we are. They had to make decisions with imperfect information without knowing what the outcome would be, just like we do.
And I think that's something that's missing from maybe a lot of the dialogue about civics right now and teaching civics. So often it comes out of — "Well, Thomas Jefferson says that it's really important, and the founders thought you needed to be educated." And that's great, but it can sound a little bit like a lecture. "Vegetables are very good for you. You should eat them."
That's not how my children learned. It was actually through stories. My kids were very picky eaters, and what got them becoming more experimental, to the point where they're incredible cooks now, is watching cooking shows like Chopped and Iron Chef, which are all about stories. Here's a box of ingredients, and then you start to learn about the flavors, and there's a story, there's a narrative there, and all of a sudden then you want to try that as well.
And so I think that translates into the education world, of what we should be thinking about here on the eve of our 250th anniversary of the republic. I think it's what we're trying to do at the museum, at least.
Alan Fleischmann
But there's such drama that people need to feel and understand. And the courage. I mean, when people get a sense of — these are life-and-death moments that people are taking. Then also, Benjamin Franklin lived to be in his 80s. And John Adams and Thomas Jefferson died on the very same day, on July 4th, the 50th anniversary of the founding of our country, or the Declaration of Independence.
And these moments — they stick with you when you feel the drama and the courage. Because they saw time differently than we did. They saw urgency. We talked about the pursuit of happiness, you and I have as well, and we'll get into all that too.
Before I forget — the Bicentennial played a role in your life?
Scott Stephenson
Oh man, the Bicentennial was definitely a hook. So I was 10 or 11 years old when the Bicentennial was getting rolling. And I actually — next to my desk, right off here to the left, I have a picture of myself in 1976 leaning rakishly on a friend of ours' Jeep off in the countryside ramble. And I look at myself every day and think about this now 50-year journey.
And as I reflected about the coming Bicentennial — or sorry, the 250th — and thought, "What were the things that really hooked me?" There are two moments that I can really trace back that are foundational for me, that I think helped to put me in the business that I'm in now.
One of them was the popular children's television show — which you will remember, Alan — probably Captain Kangaroo, which ran for decades. And Captain Kangaroo in 1976 ran a little segment about the American Bicentennial. And I'm obsessed with this because I can close my eyes and see the shot of the Old North Bridge at Concord and Independence Hall and Yorktown. And I could almost hear it.
And I actually a couple years ago thought, "Well, everything's on YouTube," and I actually found it on there, and it was exactly the way I remembered it 50 years later.
So that got me wondering, like, "200 years? How old are Grandma and Grandpa anyway? Like, how long ago is 200 years?" And that's an important developmental moment for children also, to think historically — in terms of generations and the passage of time. So that got me interested.
And then about the same time, again, I was probably 10 or 11 years old, a friend of my mother's — actually a sorority sister from Southwestern Pennsylvania — brought me out to stay at her home over the weekend. And she wanted to take me — we went and visited Ohiopyle Falls, where they do whitewater rafting. And then we went to Fort Necessity, which is the French and Indian War fort, the site of young George Washington's first military defeat as a 22-year-old guy.
And we're down at the little reconstructed fort, and I remember, again, distinctly, a National Park Service ranger dressed in the costume of a soldier from the period marching down the hill very slowly, building great anticipation. And then he did a demonstration showing us a flintlock musket and how it was loaded, and he fired it off, and I can still smell that acrid smoke.
And then he handed me a bayonet, which — he may have been telling me the truth, or he may have been lying to a 10-year-old, I don't know — but he said, "This is an original bayonet from the end of the musket that was found on the old military road to the Forks of the Ohio." And I got to hold that object in my hand, and man, I can almost hear something like change in my brain that day.
And so for me, the Bicentennial was all about that — reading those biographies, bugging my parents. "Take me to Fort Ligonier. Take me to Fort Pitt." For us, George Washington was a young guy in his 20s losing all the battles, trying to be a British general, not the Revolutionary War guy who we would come to know and love someday.
So that — just the importance of getting kids that age. And we now know that there's really good evidence that children before about the age of 12, if you take them to museums, engage with culture, live performance, etc., you can — first of all, they have better academic outcomes. Their literacy is better. They become more civically engaged. You also are starting a pattern of lifetime engagement with culture. It is much harder to convert adults to that pattern of behavior. So it's so important that we're doing this work with them.
Alan Fleischmann
Did you go to Williamsburg when you were a kid?
Scott Stephenson
We did. I was in high school, actually, the first time we went. We did a spring break trip to Williamsburg, and we watched the United States hockey team defeat the Soviets in the Winter Olympics from a hotel room. So that'll tell you exactly when it was. Yeah. And that was just incredible.
And Williamsburg — I mean, I've been going there regularly. I've worked at Williamsburg. We still collaborate very closely with them at the museum here. It's such an important, magical place, still, particularly for families.
Alan Fleischmann
I made the big mistake of convincing my older daughter, who is now 21, when she was very little — when I took her there as a daddy-daughter weekend — that it was real and that we were going back in time. I thought it was a fun thing for me to do. Big mistake. Never do that with your kid. Because she took everything so literally and personally. And when she saw slavery, she was horrified, and she wanted to liberate, and she wanted to convince everyone to come out with me back to the hotel. And I didn't know what to do, because I created this.
I wanted to enjoy the time capsule that it was, or the time machine. But I realized you don't do that. But she had a great time, ultimately. But my memories of that are not so great.
Scott Stephenson
Like an episode of Black Mirror.
Alan Fleischmann
Yeah, exactly. It was like, remember where you go Black Mirror.
And then you went to college at Juniata College, right? Which is in Pennsylvania?
Scott Stephenson
Yeah, it's the part that James Carville famously labeled Alabama — Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and Alabama
Alan Fleischmann
Alabama right in the middle.
Scott Stephenson
Yeah, exactly.
And it's — I mean, one of the things I love about the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania — I grew up in western Pennsylvania, educated and have lived in central Pennsylvania, now live in eastern Pennsylvania in the Philadelphia region for the last quarter century. I mean, it is an incredible state. Very diverse, beautiful — from cities to great outdoor areas, the Pennsylvania Wilds up in the north. And incredible history that goes from the French and Indian War, which played a really important role in the coming of the American Revolution. Of course, the actual winning of American independence. And then, of course, another July 4th — the Battle of Gettysburg.
I mean, we've got quite an arc here.
You're welcome, Governor Shapiro, for that gift ad there.
Alan Fleischmann
The gift of Pennsylvania. But it is an extraordinary state, and it is amazing if you really want to understand the complexity of our country. You can go to Pennsylvania and find everything there. And that is amazing.
And it is amazing that you're there, because you're there, meaning now with the museum, and it should be there for all the great reasons as well.
But you went to UVA, which has its lineage as well. You've got interesting connectivity to Thomas Jefferson there. Obviously, Virginia has connectivity to so many of the founding fathers and mothers of this country. And that's where you earned your master's degree, and it's also where you earned your doctorate. That's correct?
Scott Stephenson
Yeah. In history, American history.
Alan Fleischmann
How did those experiences deepen — did you know then at that point, "I'm going into the storytelling and the story creation of the American experience"? Did you know that going into that? Or did you think, "I'm going to use this as a foundational thing, and we'll see where life will lead"?
Scott Stephenson
I was really taken by the idea of being a history professor. I thought, "Man, oh man." I had very romantic ideas about the life of a small college history professor.
But I was always drawn — I didn't really know the term "public history" then. I had already worked as an undergraduate and even younger, when I was in high school, doing archaeology, like as a summer job. And when I was at UVA as a graduate student, I worked at Monticello in the archaeology department. I started getting involved with living history, interpretation, reenactment, actually, when I was in high school out in Pittsburgh. So, again there’s a theme here; I enjoyed experiential learning. I started doing a lot at Colonial Williamsburg at the time.
And so slowly over those graduate school years, I was getting pulled in. It was actually my advisor, the late Stephen Innes, who was the first person that said, "Scott, you're really headed toward museums. You really love this stuff."
And at the time, interdisciplinary work was really not — it wasn't something that was done in our department. People were really not interested in material culture, for instance. Ed Ayers was just starting a project called "The Valley of the Shadow," which is now one of the foundational digital history projects, but it was just being invented here in the early '90s.
And something happened, though, in — it was in 1993, actually. And again, it's one of those turning points where some listeners may remember a project that was announced by the Disney company called Disney's America, and they were going to build an American history theme park near Manassas, Virginia.
Alan Fleischmann
It was so controversial.
Scott Stephenson
The existential crisis that caused for places like Colonial Williamsburg. And so in 1993-'94, this was burning up the airwaves. And there was a mentor of mine, Cary Carson, who at the time was the Vice President for Research at Colonial Williamsburg. And he was the point person for Williamsburg in talking with Michael Eisner's people, and a guy named Bob Weis, who was the vice president for Imagineering at Disney, who was the lead person for that project.
And ultimately the project was canceled, so it did not go forward. But Cary wrote this article called "Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: Whose History is the Fairest of Them All?" And it was his recounting of his interaction with the Disney folks.
And he had a call in there, because he said, "Right now, academically trained historians are used as source material for the people who communicate, mass communications to the culture — filmmakers, exhibit designers, Imagineers at Disney. We're treated as somebody you use as a resource, but we don't really have any control over the product."
And he said, "What we need are academically trained historians who learn the tools of communication so that we have more control over the product as a way to communicate the insights that have come through all of our scholarly advances."
And I just remember reading that and saying, "That is what I want to do."
And it came right as I was getting close to finishing my dissertation. And I was very fortunate in that through connections that I'd made, places like Colonial Williamsburg, through that, I started getting hired to write scripts for educational films and to contribute to exhibitions. I worked on a lot of media. I had a few — I worked as an advisor on the Daniel Day-Lewis movie The Last of the Mohicans.
So I had lots of — in retrospect — picking up a toolkit and doing exactly that. And for about a dozen years, actually, before I got a call from a little two-person startup organization that wanted to build a museum about the American Revolution.
Alan Fleischmann
Well, when I think of Cary Carson, who I know a little bit about, actually — which is interesting, I never thought about the connectivity when you and I talk, yeah — because I'm obsessed a little bit with the architecture of our history. And when I think about it, it gave me a new window in looking at you, actually, Scott.
Because when I think about how beautiful the museum is, not just the content, but the fact that you could almost not look at the content and learn so much when you walk through the Museum of the American Revolution — it speaks volumes about the material side that you said earlier, something that was almost like you wanted to touch your history.
What I love at Colonial Williamsburg is that you are able to experience it through all your senses. As if I'm walking in the past and thinking about today and tomorrow. That's you.
So, the very fact that you referred to Cary Carson as your mentor — he was all about culture. He was all about understanding the tactile part of culture and how you describe it. But he was about architecture and beauty and understanding how different things are today than they were before, and what that meant. The icebox. I mean, it's crazy. But you get to know him by looking at his work.
Scott Stephenson
Cary once proposed, again, one of these great think piece white paper articles that he published — he said Colonial Williamsburg has this huge, multi-million-dollar advertising budget every year. He said, "We should take that budget and we should do a soap opera that's set in Colonial Williamsburg that people tune into, and they follow these stories."
And so, the theme here, of course, is that people love the stories of people. And I realized in those years in the wilderness, so to speak, that you've got to tell a story for folks.
And so, when we started working on what became the Museum of the American Revolution, and as I was pulling the designers together, and other curators and that, I started describing what we were doing. I said, "What we're doing is we're making a movie you can walk through."
Because what you're doing as a curator is much closer to what Peter Jackson or Ken Burns are doing than Walter Isaacson, right? Or Ron Chernow. They've got you, and you're going to read page 123 before you read page 456.
A visitor in a museum — you might have an hour of their attention, but it is going to come in micro doses. In some cases, 10-second bursts. And you can't predict which parts of the story they're going to focus on, right? I mean, it's almost mind-blowing, the problem that you have.
And so just like Peter Jackson had to take Tom Bombadil out of The Lord of the Rings to make a movie that would take you on the road, I knew we weren't going to be able to tell the complete story of the American Revolution. You had to focus on people, on communities in predicaments. You had to pull you in emotionally so you felt like you were there. You had to somehow get people to wonder, even though they know how it turns out, "What's going to happen at this moment or to these people, or how's this all going to — how are they going to get out of this situation?"
And so, we paid a lot of attention to not just the way to write the story, but then how you size the galleries, how you think about lighting design. Places it gets cramped and narrow and twisting and turning. Other places, it's large and soaring.
And the greatest moment for me was like a week or two after we opened in 2017. I happened to be standing at the bottom of the grand stairway that takes you from the second floor, where the exhibits are, down to the ground floor. And I mean, literally walking through. And you catch a snippet of a conversation accidentally. And a guy turns to the other one and says, "I feel like I just walked through a movie."
And I thought, "Oh my gosh, there we go."
So anyway, I can say that what you're describing was certainly intentional on our part.
Alan Fleischmann
It's the experience that you go through. And also it allows you — I think this is going to be even more critical as we become more inundated by technology and AI in our lives — it's the humanity and the human connectivity. I mean, technology can take you to these transformational moments, which you do so beautifully at the museum, and you really use the best of it, but you're allowing the humanness to remain the prominent.
And so when you go — I would say — and it's so striking that you were so involved with films like The Last of the Mohicans, and you did films on Williamsburg and you did films on Smithsonian and Mount Vernon, that you have this film background, because I can feel it. You walk through, and that material cultural part — if you want to feel it, I want to see it, I want to use all your senses — that actually makes your heart beat faster.
Scott Stephenson
And then the thing we have, and the reason to visit the museum, is then there's the real objects. There are the witnesses. And no matter how real AI George Washington is going to become, standing there and there is the sword that George Washington bought in Philadelphia in 1767 — American silver-hilted sword because he wanted to buy American because we were boycotting British imported goods. He was taking a political stand a decade before the revolution. There's the real thing.
Or standing in front of George Washington's Revolutionary War tent as you know, one of the great objects in the collection. And that just — that's what puts the stake in your heart.
Alan Fleischmann
I love that. That's so true, by the way, because we're going to live increasingly in the age of distortion. And people are going to play with facts. And we're looking for truth. And what better place to find the truth than to walk into a museum that's credible and to see firsthand the exhibits where you're seeing the original. That's the ultimate truth. This is — that's amazing.
The tent, the sword. The letters. The handwritten letters. When you think about — when I asked our friends, mutual friends, these great historians, "What is the biggest worry they have in modern history that they didn't have before?" is that they had diaries and they had letters. They had handwritten letters that went back and forth between two people who made history together. And now it's an email, or it's a text, or it's — or not even. Disappearing messages are probably the worst thing in the world that a historian could ever hear of.
How are we going to capture the moments in a way that tells the whole story? That vulnerability, the fears, and the friendships that are forged between presidents or between prominent individuals who are the curators of their moment in time. It's a big deal. Museums actually capture it. You're able to do it.
Alan Fleischmann
I mean, I love Annapolis and its history, and I often love to go see the longest continuous statehouse in Annapolis and its history. And then Jefferson, and obviously Washington was there as well. But then, if you love that, and you want to go further and go broader and go deeper, you've got Philadelphia. It can take you even into a much more expansive sense of history.
Scott Stephenson
And ideally, you're not going to just one place. I mean, the reason I don't think of us as competitors with places like Colonial Williamsburg and Monticello and Mount Vernon is it's like the jewelers' row idea. We're hooking people on jewelry. And so if you're hooked on the stories and the relevance, you're going to want to visit all of these places, and hopefully over the course of a lifetime, from being taken as children and going back at later points in your family.
Hopefully we're bringing that back.
Alan Fleischmann
And then there's also this feeling like I want people to go to the museum because I want them to see it. I want them to experience what you were describing earlier. But I also want people to understand that it's not a stationary place of the past.
Tell us a little bit about the connectivity to wherever you are, and others. I will go to Philadelphia, experience it, and then what do you do to take the museum with you? Because that's the part that I also think is so important — is that it's not just a one-time visit. It can be a commitment and a partnership for you and your family.
And frankly, if you're a CEO listening right now, there's an extraordinary opportunity for you to partner as a philanthropic partner, certainly as a donor and benefactor, but be a partner as a corporate partner or a nonprofit partner as well, because there's just so much to give when you actually have that relationship with the museum.
Scott Stephenson
No, that's a really important point. And I want to say that while the core exhibition in the museum, about 16,000 square feet, talks about the 18th century, roughly from the 1760s to the early republic, but it's really important that visitors — if there's one thing we want them to walk away from — it is understanding that the American Revolution and the Revolutionary War are related, but different things.
The Revolutionary War was an eight-year conflict. It secured our independence. It was a revolutionary war. Very, very important.
The American Revolution is an ongoing experiment in liberty, equality, and self-government that started in the 18th century and continues. And that is something that the founding generation argued and mused about what they meant when they used the term "American Revolution."
And John Adams famously wrote a letter in 1818 where he said the American Revolution happened before the war. It was a change in the hearts and minds of the people, and then the war just represented a change that had already come about.
Here in Philadelphia, Dr. Benjamin Rush, another delegate to the Continental Congress, signer of the Declaration of Independence, wrote on the eve of the Constitutional Convention a different perspective, one that I'd say probably is more the spirit of the Museum of the American Revolution. He wrote:
"The American war is over" — meaning the Revolutionary War. "But this is not the case with the American Revolution. Only the first act of the great drama is over."
And then went on to say it remains for us to perfect our morals and to perfect our education and our forms of government, and that this is going to be a never-ending process of seeking a more perfect union.
And so that's where — yes, we're located in Philadelphia. Yes, a lot of the events that took place that we describe in the core of our story are East Coast, although there's a lot of global history as well. But it is a launching point, a jumping-off point.
That generation, that revolution that they were setting in motion, they expected to affect the lives of people around the globe. And so that is something for the 250th you mentioned earlier, Alan — our Declaration's Journey exhibition. We've written a chapter two of the story, and for the next 15 months, we will have this great, special exhibition here at the museum.
And we're also doing a lot of outreach and digital work as well to get the story out. And that is looking at the 250-year story of what happens to the Declaration of Independence, how it inspires more than 100 nations to issue their own declarations and countless statements of human rights, how it shapes not just American history, but global history to the present day.
Alan Fleischmann
And that's what I find so incredible. And I've seen you in action with our ambassadors and embassies and people from other countries who are so — it's so important to them to connect with our 250th, to connect with the American Revolution, because of the very fact — which is why it's genius you and the team decided to create this exhibit — that it has influenced over 100 countries in the world, this Declaration of Independence and the idea.
No one ever thinks about that. I always think sometimes there's an arrogance to America, and maybe the world doesn't like us because we're just a dominating figure in the world. We are. But what I'm realizing is when you say the American Dream, it's not just Americans who are dreaming. And the museum actually is capturing that and very specifically teaching us about the power of words, the power of collective — the story, the drama, the negotiation, the compromise that led to that. Every word. Thomas Jefferson had a lot of people leaning over him. There was a lot of compromise and negotiation. He did not like that.
And this idea that something as profound as that isn't just an American ideal, but a global one, is so important.
Scott Stephenson
And I think that's one of — for me, the most powerful message of this chapter two, if you will, the Declaration's Journey, is, I think if people thought about American exceptionalism and the Declaration in the past, it was some version of: Thomas Jefferson goes up the mountain, receives the Declaration of Independence, shares it with Congress. They edited it a little bit, shares it with the American people, and then it's a gift to the world.
What we have learned through pulling this exhibition together is a much more powerful way, and I think a truer way, to understand the power of this document is that it has been a dialogue with the world. That Americans' understanding of their own declaration has been influenced as much by what other people have said about it, how they have chosen to apply it, how people have challenged the nation to say:
"If you say these words — 'all men are created equal,' that 'governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,' etc. — then these things follow."
And so, in the truest sense of the word, the Declaration of Independence is a living document. And we're trying to prove that through the story that we're telling.
And it has been — in a moment like we are in America now, where there's some pessimism. Obviously, in these divided times, and some people are feeling like, "Gosh, the founding is so hopelessly corrupt in so many ways and failed to do so much that it really isn't worth thinking about very much."
The world actually is telling us, "No, no, you actually do matter. Look at how you've inspired us."
We have objects from Chile, from Mexico, from India, from Ireland. I mean, it's all proof. It's real objects reflecting how the Declaration of Independence has profoundly shaped understanding of human rights and sovereignty of nations, all the way up — the latest declaration that we include and explore is from 1991, and it's the Constitution of Ukraine.
And could there be a better demonstration that this is an ongoing journey that we are on together as people around the world?
Alan Fleischmann
I love this. What would be your final — I mean, this is one of those things where we're going to have you on again, because we're going to need to talk about how each individual person needs to commemorate, celebrate, and contribute to the — I can never say it, so I just say the 250th, because I never had to say the word —
Scott Stephenson
Somehow, semiquincentennial.
Alan Fleischmann
Yes, it's too hard for me. Semiquincentennial. So I just say the 250th.
But in these departing words right now for this episode, knowing that this is episode #1 of Scott Stephenson on Leadership Matters, not the final one, what would you tell people who really want to make sure that they're thinking, understanding their individual personal opportunity to commemorate, celebrate, and then I would say create awareness about the 250th? But also what they might be able to do in their community, wherever they are in this country. Yeah. And also corporately and philanthropically. Like, how would you just look at the different parts of people that each one could be — one, some people can represent all — that are listeners, and just what would you want them to do and know that they can do with the museum?
Scott Stephenson
I'll tell you, one of the things that has struck me in the eight years that we've — we've had nearly 2 million people from around the world, certainly around the country, through the museum — we tell a very full-throated, honest, warts-and-all, but also very hopeful and positive story of America. And I expected in the divided times that we're in to have more criticism, either from the left or the right, about "You're being too positive about this" or "You're being too negative about that."
And that hasn't actually been our lived experience. We have had everyone from George Will to the Philadelphia Gay News write editorials praising the story as it's told at the museum here.
And so I encourage people to think about: what's the story of America that you would like people to know? How do you think about the story of America? And talk to your neighbors, others, about their stories of America.
There was a really powerful study that was issued a few years ago by the organization More in Common. And you can find it easily if you search the title, "Diffusing the History Wars." And it was a really robust study of what Americans across the political spectrum think the story of America is, how they think it should be taught, and most importantly, how do you think someone who's the opposite of you politically would want that story to be told?
And what it suggests is that there's actually an enormous, unheard 90-some percent of the population who actually agree that the story of America is one of incredible achievements that we should be incredibly proud of, and some terrible errors that it's important to remember and learn from and teach.
And so I'm hoping, just as the Bicentennial for 10- or 11-year-old Scott Stephenson was getting me to think about, "What's the story of America?" I'm hoping that we're now going to spark a new, a fresh societal conversation about what our story has been, what the significance of it is, and that history can actually be a meeting place, a place for common ground, rather than a source of division, as I think we tend to see it.
Alan Fleischmann
Yeah. So I want to leave you with that thought. This is definitely ways in which you can get involved. I want people to reach out if they want to get involved. What would be the best way to reach out to the museum, by the way?
Scott Stephenson
So our website is amrevmuseum.org — A-M-R-E-V museum dot O-R-G — or just Google the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia. We have a great biweekly email series called "Read the Revolution." If you put your email in there, every two weeks you'll get a little excerpt of a book about the revolution and a little prompt to get you thinking about it. And just come for a visit.
And by the way, all of our exhibits — we have a virtual museum online. So if you're not sure what you're getting into, you can literally zoom through on your computer. You can actually hear me talk the entire time if you click on all the little hotspots for the audio tour.
Alan Fleischmann
And also, I want to mention to people, as we close here, that Ken Burns' new documentary that is incredible about the American Revolution is drawing heavily — it drew heavily on the museum's research. And you should know that with Scott is an extraordinary team of curators, an amazing staff of people who care so deeply, not about the museum alone, but about what makes the American experiment so important.
And the donors and supporters and active docents and others that are part of what really makes this museum so special.
So for a person who loves history but also loves its relevance today and its importance tomorrow, there is no museum I know in the country or anywhere, frankly, that is more important, more relevant, and more exciting than this museum, the Museum of the American Revolution.
So kudos to you, Scott, for creating what you've done. We're going to have you back on to talk about different thematic moments that we want to dive into, maybe the Declaration's Journey, the exhibit itself, because it'd be cool to walk through a little bit of that. Let's do that too.
But I just want everybody to know you've been listening to Leadership Matters on SiriusXM and at leadershipmattersshow.com. I'm your host, Alan Fleischmann. We've just had an hour-plus — we needed a little more time — with Scott Stephenson, the President and CEO of the Museum of the American Revolution.
And we've been discussing his history, the history of the museum itself, and how it got to be at such an important place in our country and literally on the most exciting block in museum world, in Philadelphia, and how its relevance in these days, and its relevance as we continue to go forward into the 250th year, has never been more relevant, more important, and more exciting.
So thank you, Scott, so much for being with us today.
Scott Stephenson
Thank you, Alan. What a pleasure.
This transcript has been edited and condensed for clarity.