The Property of the Nation - by Matthew R Costello (Paperback)

About the Book

Today's larger-than-life image of George Washington is the result of the complicated, intertwined processes of icon- and nation-making during the first half of the nineteenth century, when politicians, enslaved African Americans, women, and the rising middling class played tug-of-war with Washington's symbolic meaning. Each laid claim to his vision for the new nation, revealing different motivations and visions for America's young democracy.

Book Synopsis

Finalist: George Washington Prize

George Washington was an affluent slave owner who believed that republicanism and social hierarchy were vital to the young country's survival. And yet, he remains largely free of the "elitist" label affixed to his contemporaries, as Washington evolved in public memory during the nineteenth century into a man of the common people, the father of democracy. This memory, we learn in The Property of the Nation, was a deliberately constructed image, shaped and reshaped over time, generally in service of one cause or another. Matthew R. Costello traces this process through the story of Washington's tomb, whose history and popularity reflect the building of a memory of America's first president--of, by, and for the American people.

Washington's resting place at his beloved Mount Vernon estate was at times as contested as his iconic image; and in Costello's telling, the many attempts to move the first president's bodily remains offer greater insight to the issue of memory and hero worship in early America. While describing the efforts of politicians, business owners, artists, and storytellers to define, influence, and profit from the memory of Washington at Mount Vernon, this book's main focus is the memory-making process that took place among American citizens. As public access to the tomb increased over time, more and more ordinary Americans were drawn to Mount Vernon, and their participation in this nationalistic ritual helped further democratize Washington in the popular imagination. Shifting our attention from official days of commemoration and publicly orchestrated events to spontaneous visits by citizens, Costello's book clearly demonstrates in compelling detail how the memory of George Washington slowly but surely became The Property of the Nation.

Review Quotes

"Costello pays careful attention to his many informants, and from those sources he has constructed an important new analysis of Washington's legacy."--Journal of American History

"For scholars seeking a prehistory of founding fathers tourism, this work is especially evocative. It underlines the ongoing tension of public history, private homes, and political power."--Journal of Southern History

"Costello has written an engrossing story tracing how [George Washington] has been remembered."--The Beacon

"In the first half of the nineteenth century, political parties and organizations, entrepreneurs and tourists, authors and artists, and descendants and enslaved people helped democratize George Washington's image while staking their own claims to the nation's history. Through meticulous research and graceful prose, Matthew Costello illuminates insightfully how Washington's body, tomb, relics, and stories became vehicles for recasting the father of his country as a man who belonged not just to a Virginian elite but to all Americans."--Scott E. Casper, author of Sarah Johnson's Mount Vernon: The Forgotten History of an American Shrine, dean emeritus of the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences, and professor emeritus of history, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

"The Property of the Nation roots today's larger-than-life image of George Washington in the complicated, intertwined processes of icon- and nation-making. Over the first half of the nineteenth century, politicians, enslaved African Americans, women, and the rising middling class played tug-of-war with Washington's symbolic meaning. Each laid claim to his vision for the new nation, revealing different motivations and visions for America's young democracy."--Lydia Mattice Brandt, author of First in the Homes of His Countrymen: George Washington's Mount Vernon in the American Imagination

"For well over a century, the focus of the roughly one million people who come to Mount Vernon each year has been the ancestral Virginia mansion that served as George Washington's residence. This was not, however, the case for much of the first decades after his death, before historic preservation became a thing, when what resonated with the people who made the journey to Mount Vernon was not Washington's home but his burial place. Not grand or imposing, the original family tomb was a small brick structure nestled in a forested clearing, just down the hill from the imposing mansion. In this new book, Matthew Costello tells the long-untold story of that tomb and how Washington, a lifelong member of the Virginia aristocracy, came to be embraced as a symbol of American democracy and a man of the American people."--Mary V. Thompson, research historian, Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington