An AI-generated image of former President John Adams is part of an exhibit that is a partnership between the Trump administration and conservative nonprofit PragerU.
The White House/PragerU
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The White House/PragerU
A new history exhibit commissioned by the Trump administration has some historians perplexed, as the administration’s pushback on arts and history raises questions about omitting marginalized voices in the nation’s history.
Eighty-two paintings — including portraits of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence, as well as key events from America’s founding — make up The Founders Museum.
The exhibit, just steps from the White House inside the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, marks a partnership between the administration’s White House Task Force 250 and conservative nonprofit PragerU to celebrate the lead up to America’s semiquincentennial next year.
Besides paintings of Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton and Betsy Ross, the museum also features over 40 AI-generated short videos of these historical figures coming to life to share their stories — all available online and produced by PragerU.
In a statement to NPR, the White House said that the exhibit uses the power of AI so that “these people, places and events come to life, making history engaging to Americans across the country.”
“While the project to bring the Founders and the signers of the Declaration of Independence into focus is one that many historians admire and would support,” William G. Thomas, vice president of the research division at the American Historical Association, says, “I think there’s some concerns about how that’s done in this case.”
This includes concerns about how words and stories of real-life historical figures could be reshaped by their AI counterparts.
PragerU CEO Marissa Streit tells NPR that the videos were a joint effort between the White House team of experts, PragerU scholars, and widely referenced historical sources.
Blurring the lines between reality and fiction
The danger of projects like The Founders Museum, according to Brendan Gillis, director of teaching and learning for the American Historical Association, is that it focuses narrowly on a small set of experiences, making it seem like this is all the American Revolutionary history that we need to know. But, he says, “there’s many, many more people who shaped the American Revolution and kept this story going.”
One concern is how AI-generated videos can sometimes blur the line between reality and fiction. In one video, an artificially generated John Adams says, “Facts do not care about your feelings” — a phrase often used by conservative commentator and PragerU presenter Ben Shapiro.
“I have real concerns about the extent to which they weave together words that are preserved in primary sources from historical figures with other sort of commentary,” Gillis explains. “And it’s not always clear [when] the historical figures actually said the words that are coming out of their mouth, or wrote them down, and when this is the work of whoever scripted them.”
“Viewers should understand that the portrayals are careful interpretations — grounded in letters, speeches, and original writings from the period,” Streit said in response to concerns about the videos’ sourcing.
Other videos from the exhibit appear to gloss over key aspects of figures’ lives, leading to what can feel like broad strokes of history. Karin Wulf, a history professor at Brown University, points to Revolutionary writer and thinker Mercy Otis Warren as an example.
An AI-generated image of Revolutionary writer Mercy Otis Warren is part of an exhibit that is on display near the White House.
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“In the video, it acknowledges that she’s a writer, and that writing wasn’t something that women were encouraged to do, certainly in public,” Wulf says. “But it then has her say these kind of pablum pieces about patriotism and liberty that are so much less stringent and so much less potent than what she actually said at the time.”
Warren was infamously critical of the Founders, writing in her observations of the 1787 Philadelphia Convention, “America has, in many instances, resembled the conduct of a restless, vigorous, luxurious youth, prematurely emancipated from the authority of a parent, but without the experience necessary to direct him to act with dignity or discretion.”
“Give us five minutes, and we’ll give you a semester”
PragerU was founded by longtime conservative radio host Dennis Prager and his then-producer Allen Estrin in 2009 to promote conservative values through courses taught in five-minute videos.
“We used to say in the early days, ‘Give us five minutes, and we’ll give you a semester,'” Estrin told The New York Times in 2020.
PragerU openly admits it is not an accredited university. The nonprofit media organization produces thousands of “edutainment” videos on topics from history to science, garnering millions of views.
But PragerU has faced criticism for misleading and inaccurate content, most recently for an episode of its PragerU Kids series, Leo & Layla’s History Adventure, in which Christopher Columbus tells two time-traveling siblings, “Being taken as a slave is better than being killed, no? I don’t see the problem.”
PragerU Kids’ series, Leo & Layla’s History Adventure.
PragerU / Leo & Layla’s History Adventures
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PragerU / Leo & Layla’s History Adventures
Critics slammed the episode and others, accusing it of downplaying the historical significance of slavery and the experiences of enslaved peoples.
Streit says critics have misrepresented the videos and called the criticism “disingenuous.”
Defending the Columbus episode, Streit explains the reason they did not have him condemn slavery is because “that would be historically inaccurate.”
Streit says, “We don’t excuse it; in fact, we make clear that slavery is evil, explaining this in age-appropriate ways. At the same time, we teach that historical figures must be understood with the context and standards of their own era.”
American greatness and the voices of the marginalized
PragerU plans to take The Founders Museum on the road with “mobile museum trucks” to cities across the country to give the public a chance to experience the exhibit in person ahead of America’s 250th birthday.
Streit, in an interview on PragerU’s website, says the company will be taking the opportunity during the semiquincentennial to “reignite patriotism and give some perspective that yes, America has its blemishes. Of course it does. But America is a great country. It has been a leader in greatness for so many years, and we want to teach that.”
The White House says it has sent letters to state governors and ambassadors encouraging them to put The Founders Museum in their state capitols, schools and embassies.
The Founders Museum unveiling coincides with President Trump’s criticisms of the Smithsonian Institution, especially exhibits on slavery, immigration and LGBTQ history.
“The history that best serves us as a country, and in our ambition for a full democracy and full freedom and liberty is for all, is the fullest history of all people. And if you look at the history of all the people, 40% were enslaved,” Wulf says.
This story originally appeared on NPR
