- Hillsdale College has partnered with the White House to tell the ‘Story of America’ in a series of videos ahead of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence
- President Donald Trump last week appeared in the series; others featured include Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth
- Some historians question the content, leading some experts to say that telling history of America is more challenging than ever
Hillsdale College, the private Christian college known for not taking federal funding, is playing a leading role with the federal government this year in the nation’s celebration of its 250th anniversary of independence.
Widely known in conservative circles, Hillsdale College provided the expertise for a series of videos posted on the White House’s website known as “The Story of America.”
Some content of the video series is under scrutiny by critics, leading experts to say that the telling of America’s story is more challenging than ever at this moment in history.
“It has always been difficult to tell America’s story,” said Martin Hershock, a history professor at University of Michigan-Dearborn.
But in the past decade America has become more polarized than ever, other experts say, creating conflicting narratives around the nation’s past. History is the latest battleground, said Johann Neem, a Western Washington University history professor with expertise in the American Revolution and early American republic.
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“There is not a lot that is holding us together,” Neem said. “We are using history as a weapon to assert our — meaning the Left or the Right — dominance in what feels like an existential battle over the country. It’s become part of a civil war that cuts much deeper than in some other times in the past. That means the possibility of history being something we share is eroding fast, just like our capacity to compromise on politics is eroding fast. We’ve lost a shared center and …making the stakes feel much larger and higher.”
‘Greatest stories’
President Donald Trump last week released the latest installment of the “Story of America,” inviting viewers to honor America’s founding, as he relayed the story of 56 delegates gathering in Philadelphia for the 1776 signing of the Declaration of Independence, calling it “a document that would change the course of history forever.”
“In two and a half centuries – that’s two hundred and fifty years – the spirit of 1776 has carried our flag to places and heights to places that our founding fathers could never have dreamed,” Trump said, pointing to scientific discoveries, defeats of tyrants and dictators, lighting the world with electricity and commerce and planting the American flag on the moon.
“This is the Story of America,” Trump said. “We are excited to retell one of the greatest tales in the history of mankind, working with Hillsdale College and some of our country’s brightest leaders and foremost thinkers who have contributed to the Story of America video series.”
Hillsdale College participated in the ‘Story of America’ video series “because we think more people should have an easy way to learn the basics of U.S. history and civics, especially with the 250th anniversary coming up,” said Emily Stack Davis, spokesperson for Hillsdale College. “Our involvement is educational. The goal is to get people curious enough to read more and keep learning.”
The videos, 14 so far, overview the battles of Lexington, Concord and Bunker Hill, the signing of the Declaration of Independence and more. Framed with historic photos and contemporary narration, the series includes cameos from Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, author Eric Metaxas and a Fox News co-host, Brian Kilmeade, along with Hillsdale College President Larry Arnn and some of the college’s professors.
The series also includes a professor from another Christian college who addresses the faith of the nation’s founders and touches on separation of church and state.
Sarah Weicksel, executive director of the American Historical Association, said that the “Story of America” video series “feels flat.”
“The commemoration of the 250th anniversary of American independence should provide opportunities for all Americans to learn from a shared history, and that has to include the recognition of the really complex challenges, the aspirations, the struggles across that history in their effort to enact the more perfect union,” Weicksel said.
Between the Founders Museum — a White House-backed exhibit featuring AI-generated videos produced by the conservative nonprofit PragerU — and the “Story of America” video series with Hillsdale, Weicksel said the expertise being tapped is limited.
“The White House is opting to work with a small, ideologically-aligned set of organizations and also challenging the motivations of anyone who disagrees with that particular vision,” said Weicksel, who heads an organization whose previous leadership criticized academic history for becoming too “presentist” and losing touch with the the past.
“It makes it harder to envision how younger Americans are going to connect to this and find common purpose across our differences because we are not having meaningful conversations about our nation’s past when you have a small set of organizations putting out that narrative.”
John Dichtl, president & CEO of the American Association for State and Local History, said he’s seeing “a top-down push from the current federal administration to flatten, restrict, and even erase evidence-based history they don’t agree with.”
Telling parts of a nation’s history has always been political in a sense, noted John Carson, a U-M Ann Arbor history professor. “Bluntly put, lots of nations whitewash their pasts and encourage narratives that celebrate the positive,” said Carson. “In liberal democracies, the push for a glorious national narrative has typically been balanced against the much less celebratory interpretations put forward by professional historians as well as often by the groups marginalized in the mainstream tellings.”
Besides the video series, Hillsdale College is also among more than 40 organizations, including Turning Point USA, working with the US Department of Education on the America 250 Civics Education Coalition, aimed at “renewing patriotism, strengthening civic knowledge, and advancing a shared understanding of America’s founding principles in schools across the nation.”
Faith focus
Among the more recent installments of the “Story of America” video series is, “The Faith of Our Fathers,” presented by Mark David Hall, a professor at Regent University in Virginia, established by Christian Broadcasting Network founder Pat Robertson.
Hall said though America was not founded as a Christian nation, exploring the faith of the nation’s founders is important.
“America’s founders were influenced by Christian ideas,” said Hall, who has written several books including, “Did America Have a Christian Founding?”
“Important people from the early colonies …made very powerful Biblical and theological arguments to expand the scope of religious liberty and to include all Americans and the protection of religious liberty.”
In the “Story of America” video, Hall said that “a lot of nonsense has been written about the faith of America’s founders” and many popular authors and scholars often assert that enlightenment ideas lead to strict separation of church and state.
“Nothing could be further from the truth,” Hall said.
But Andrew Seidel, a constitutional lawyer and spokesperson for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said Hall is “absolutely wrong” about separation of church and state.
He said the idea of a wall separation between church and state was floating during the enlightenment but it is an “American experiment.” Until then, no other nation in the history of the world had thought to protect its citizens to think freely by separating religion and government
“This is one of those contributions that we can be proud of as Americans,” Seidel said.
‘Full and complete truth’
Ahead of the 250th anniversary of America’s independence, Hillsdale College is offering a DVD collection, “The Great American Story: A Land of Hope,” on its website for free.
“Too many students across the country today learn an overly politicized version of American history,” says the webpage. “One that focuses on our nation’s darkest chapters and breezes past what makes America great.”
“Far too few learn the full and complete truth about our country: our founding principles of liberty. Our great expansions across the American continent. Our role in the world as a beacon of freedom and prosperity. And our enduring efforts to secure freedom for ourselves and our posterity.”
Bridge Michigan Mini Quiz, Special Edition: America 250
The nation has begun to celebrate a milestone: the 250th anniversary of America’s independence. President Donald Trump recently promised one of the greatest celebrations and portrayed America’s founding and history as “one of the greatest tales in the history of mankind.”
Hillsdale College, a private, Christian college in the south-central part of the state, has partnered with the federal government to present the “Story of America” video series, posted on the White House’s website.
In that spirit, here’s a mini-quiz about all-things America. Be ready to impress your family and friends, long before July 4. For the uninitiated in Bridge Michigan quizzes, this is how we do it: score 100%, email a screenshot of your smarts to kkozlowski@bridgemi.com and one random winner will get some awesome Bridge swag.
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