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George Washington's childhood is famously the most elusive part of his life story. For centuries biographers have struggled with a lack of period documentation and an absence of late-in-life reflection in trying to imagine Washington's formative years. In George Washington Written upon the Land, Philip Levy explores this most famous of American childhoods through its relationship to the Virginia farm where much of it took place. Using approaches from biography, archaeology, folklore, and studies of landscape and material culture, Levy focuses on how different ideas about Washington's childhood functioned—what sorts of lessons they sought to teach and how different epochs and writers understood the man and the past itself. In a suggestive and far-reaching final chapter, Levy argues that Washington was present at the onset of the Anthropocene—the geologic era when human activity began to have a significant impact on world ecosystems. Interpreting Washington's childhood farm through the lens of \"big\" history, he encourages scholars to break down boundaries between science and social science and between human and nonhuman.

\"Among the vicissitudes incident to life, no event could have filled me with greater anxieties than that of which the notification was transmitted by your order, and received on the fourteenth day of the present month.\" With these words to the assembled members of the Senate and House of Representatives on April 30, 1789, George Washington inaugurated the American experiment. It was a momentous occasion and an immensely important moment for the nation. Never before had a people dared to invent a system of government quite like the one that Washington was preparing to lead, and the tensions between hope and skepticism ran high. In this book, distinguished scholar of early America Stephen Howard Browne chronicles the efforts of the first president of the United States of America to unite the nation through ceremony, celebrations, and oratory. The story follows Washington on his journey from Mount Vernon to the site of the inauguration in Manhattan, recounting the festivities-speeches, parades, dances, music, food, and flag-waving-that greeted the president-elect along the way. Considering the persuasive power of this procession, Browne captures in detail the pageantry, anxiety, and spirit of the nation to arrive at a more nuanced and richly textured perspective on what it took to launch the modern republican state. Compellingly written and artfully argued, The First Inauguration tells the story of the early republic-and of a president who, by his words and comportment, provides a model of leadership and democratic governance for today.

Attempts by evangelical Christians to claim Washington and other founders as their own, and scholars' ongoing attempts to contradict these claims, are nothing new. Particularly after Washington was no longer around to refute them, legends of his Baptist baptism or secret conversion to Catholicism began to proliferate. Mount Vernon researcher Mary Thompson endeavors to get beyond the current preoccupation with whether Washington and other founders were or were not evangelical Christians to ask what place religion had in their lives. Thompson follows Washington and his family over several generations, situating her inquiry in the context of new work on the place of religion in colonial and postrevolutionary Virginia and the Chesapeake. Thompson considers Washington's active participation as a vestryman and church warden as well as a generous donor to his parish prior to the Revolution, and how his attendance declined after the war. He would attend special ceremonies, and stood as godparent to the children of family and friends, but he stopped taking communion and resigned his church office. Something had changed, but was it Washington, the church, or both? Thompson concludes that he was a devout Anglican, of a Latitudinarian bent, rather than either an evangelical Christian or a Deist. The meaning of this description, Thompson allows, when applied to eighteenth-century Virginia gentlemen, is far from self-evident, leaving ample room for speculation.

Whether acting as a military officer or civilian officeholder, George Washington did not possess a reputation for glad handing, easy confidences, or even much warmth. His greatest attributes as a commander might well have been his firm command over his own emotions and the way in which he held himself above if not apart from the men he led. Understanding the full range of Washington's leadership, which embraced all shades of persuasion and coercion as well as multiple modes of command and solicitude, requires the examination of his influence on the lives, careers, and characters of the members of a diverse fraternity of younger men. InSons of the Father,leading scholars analyze Washington's relationships with men such as Daniel Morgan, Anthony Wayne, Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, Henry Knox, Nathanael Greene, Gouverneur Morris, Alexander Hamilton, and the Marquis de Lafayette. The men on whom this volume focuses were not all his closest associates. Yet all are important figures in that their interactions with Washington provide glimpses into various aspects of his capacities for management, motivation, control, and the cultivation of talent. The essays in this volume demonstrate Washington's consistency in treating all these men differently, for different reasons, at different times. It was perhaps part of his genius to recognize the individuality of the men with whom he interacted as well as the shifting requirements of changing circumstances. Contributors:Fred Anderson (University of Colorado, Boulder) * Theodore J. Crackel (University of Virginia) * William M. Ferraro (University of Virginia) * Jack P. Greene (Johns Hopkins University) * John W. Hall (University of Wisconsin-Madison) * Peter R. Henriques (George Mason University) * Mary-Jo Kline (University of Virginia) * Stuart Leibiger (La Salle University) * L. Scott Philyaw (Western Carolina University) * Thomas Rider (United States Military Academy) * Brian Steele (University of Alabama at Birmingham) * Mary Stockwell (Louisiana State University Shreveport) * Mark Thompson (University of North Carolina at Pembroke)

George Washington is revered as the father of his country, a clever and skilled general, and a man of restrained principle—but not as a political thinker. This short introduction to Washington's political philosophy reveals him as a thoughtful public intellectual who was well equipped to lead the young United States. Though Washington left little explicit writing on political philosophy, Jeffry Morrison examines his key writings, actions, education, and political and professional lives. He finds that Washington held closely to a trinity of foundational principles—classical republicanism, British liberalism, and Protestant Christianity—with greater fidelity than many of the other founding fathers. In unearthing Washington's ideological growth, Morrison reveals the intellectual heritage of his political thought and shows how these beliefs motivated him to action. This insightful, concise story makes clearer the complexities of the revolutionary era and shows how the first president's political ideas shaped governmental institutions and instantiated the nation's foundational principles.

Washington's Farewell Address and the development of the early republic In his presidential Farewell Address of 1796, George Washington presented a series of maxims to guide the construction of a wise foreign policy. He believed, as did generations of his adherents, that if the United States stayed true to the principles he discussed, the country would eventually attain national greatness and international respectability. These principles quickly became engrained in the DNA of what it meant to be an American in the first half of the nineteenth century, shaping the formation of U.S. foreign policy, politics, and political culture. The Declaration of Independence affirmed American ideals, the Constitution established American government, and the Farewell Address enabled Americans to understand their country and its place in the world. While the Declaration and Constitution have persisted as foundational documents, our appreciation for the Farewell Address has faded with time. By focusing on the enduring influence of the Farewell Address on nineteenth-century Americans, and on their abiding devotion to Washington, author Jeffrey Malanson brings the Address back into the spotlight for twenty-first-century readers. When citizens gathered in town halls, city commons, and local churches to commemorate Washington, engagement with the Farewell Address was a cornerstone of their celebrations. This annual rededication to Washington's principles made the Farewell Address both a framework for the attainment of national happiness and prosperity and a blueprint for national security, and it resulted in its position as the central text through which citizens of the early republic came to understand the connections between the nation's domestic and foreign ambitions. Through its focus on the diplomatic, political, and cultural impacts of Washington's Farewell Address, Addressing America reasserts the fundamental importance of this critical document to the development of the United States in the first half of the nineteenth century.

A well-disciplined army was vital to win American independence, but policing soldiers during the Revolution presented challenges.George Washington's Enforcers: Policing the Continental Army examines how justice was left to the overlapping duties of special army personnel and how an improvised police force imposed rules and regulations.

Like several of America's founding fathers, George Washington was a Freemason. Yet Washington's ties to the fraternity and the role it played in his life have never been widely researched or understood. In A Deserving Brother, Mark Tabbert presents a complete story of Washington's known association with Freemasonry. Much more than a conventional history, this book has curated an exhibition of artifacts and episodes to fully contextualize our first president's Masonic life and experiences. Consulting the Library of Congress, Mount Vernon, the Boston Athenaeum, and numerous private Masonic lodges, libraries, and museums, Tabbert chronicles all known instances of Washington's association with Freemasons, confirming some existing knowledge, adding new insights, and debunking unsubstantiated myths. The record of Washington's Masonic ties is presented through contextualizing descriptions and color illustrations, ranging from lodge minute books recording Washington's attendance, to his Washington's Masonic aprons, from the tools used at the U.S. Capitol cornerstone ceremony to the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts's gold urn, made by Paul Revere, containing a lock of Washington's hair. A Deserving Brother documents the significance of Freemasonry in Washington's life and career in a way that separates fact from fiction and will satisfy both historians and general readers, including today's Freemasons.

This book brings together--for the first time--the details of Washington's 45-year campaign to build and perfect Mount Vernon. Here we meet the planter/patriot who also loved building, a man passionately committed to impressing the stamp of his character and personal beliefs on the physical world around him. Architecturally, as the authors show, Mount Vernon blends the orthodox and the innovative in surprising ways, just as the new American nation would. Equally interesting is the light their book sheds on the process of building at Mount Vernon, and on the people--enslaved and free--who did the work. Washington was a demanding master, and his workers often clashed with him. Yet, as the Dalzells argue, that experience played a vital role in shaping his hopes for the future of the nation--hopes that embraced the full promise of the American Revolution.George Washington's Mount Vernon thus compellingly combines the two sides of our first President's life, the public and the private, and uses this combination to enrich our understanding of both. Gracefully written, and with more than 80 photographs, maps, and engravings, it tells a fascinating story with memorable insight.

In 1799, at the end of George Washington's long life and illustrious career, the politician Henry Lee eulogized him as: “First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.\" Esteemed historian Richard Brookhiser now adds to this list, “First in leadership,\" examining the lessons to be learned from our first president, first commander-in-chief, and founding CEO. With wit and skill, Brookhiser expertly anatomizes true leadership with lessons from Washington's three spectacularly successful careers as an executive: general, president, and tycoon. In every area of endeavor, Washington maximized his strengths and overcame his flaws. Brookhiser shows how one man's struggles and successes two centuries ago can serve as a model—and an inspiration—for leaders today.