The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF), a national Washington, D.C.-based education and advocacy organization, announced “Erasing American History” as the subject of its annual thematic Landslide report about threatened landscapes and landscape features and issued a call for nominations. As the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence approaches, the United States is simultaneously also witnessing the erasure of irreplaceable cultural resources that reflect and interpret our shared history.
Inaugurated in 2004, the annual thematic Landslide report and exhibition highlights nationally significant cultural landscapes and landscape features that are threatened. The report will be accompanied by a complementary online exhibition, which will include newly commissioned photographs and historical images, site plans, and other archival materials.
According to TCLK, erasure, specifically targeting cultural landscapes, is due to multiple causes ranging from redevelopment projects that claim to require a blank canvas to deliberate acts emblematic of the mindset that “history is written by the winners.” Cases of erasure that have attracted national attention include White House East Wing and portions of the Frederick Law Olmsted-designed grounds that were razed in October 2025.
President Trump’s Executive Order 14253, titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” has also affected how history is conveyed and interpreted at national park sites. In Philadelphia, interpretive signage regarding enslavement have been removed at the President’s House at Independence Hall National Park; signage at World War II-era Japanese American confinement sites are being altered; a rainbow flag at the Stonewall National Memorial, the first national park site dedicated to LGBTQ history, was recently removed; and many others.
Another example in the nation’s capital is the bulldozing of Black Lives Matter Plaza. The plaza’s surgical insertion along a two-block stretch of 16th Street, N.W. immediately north of the White House and Lafayette Square (part of President’s Park), began in June 2020 amid nationwide protests about the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. In early March 2025, following threats by President Trump and Congress of a federal take-over of the city and loss of federal funding, Mayor Bowser announced the plaza would be erased.
TCLF points out that the threat of erasure is again on the rise, running counter to the idea of a cultural landscape as a palimpsest, the layers of which can serve as a text that tells us much about ourselves. Landscapes reflect our cultural values, traditions, and history through their use, built features, and settlement patterns; they range from gardens and plazas to entire neighborhoods, regions, and expansive rural areas.
The deadline for nominations is June 12, 2026. Questions or Landslide nominations can be submitted to Nord Wennerstrom ([email protected]).
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