Property of the Nation: Washington's Tomb (Fall 2020 George Washington Prize | Volume: 65, Issue: 8)

Property of the Nation: Washington's Tomb

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Authors: Matthew R. Costello

Historic Era: Era 3: Revolution and the New Nation (1754-1820s)

Historic Theme:

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Fall 2020 George Washington Prize | Volume 65, Issue 8

Excerpted from the George Washington Book Prize finalist The Property of the Nation: George Washington’s Tomb, Mount Vernon, and the Memory of the First President, by Matthew R. Costello (University of Kansas).

property of the nation
Costello's book focuses on 

Washington's death in December 1799 deeply affected the American populace. Politicians, civic leaders, and preachers participated in public commemorations and delivered countless orations and eulogies, reminding citizens of Washington's virtues and his role as the deliverer of American independence. They reminisced about the struggles that the young nation faced in its darkest moments and emphasized Washington's perseverance in war, politics, and diplomacy. His retirement from public life affirmed his reputation as a selfless leader who only wished to serve the greater good. Although his death signified a new age of uncertainty for the republic, many Americans believed that as long as Washington was remembered and emulated, he would continue to serve the country as its model citizen for future generations. In hindsight, Washington was many of these things, but he was also much more complex than his contemporaries acknowledged. Nonetheless, with the real Washington gone, intellectual and cultural agents seized the opportunity to further transform Washington into a national symbol.

With such a diverse population scattered across the former colonies, political and cultural elites labored to create a nation that could moderate these differences after the American Revolution. The intelligentsia sought to unify the populace by means of days of national celebration, imagery, poetry, music, pamphlets, and historical readers. Many nationalist movements of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries grounded their identities in a common culture, history, religion, ethnicity, or language. But Americans faced a much more difficult task in creating their own distinct nationhood.

With no ancient foundations or legends for Americans to build upon, cultural agents could only look back to the American Revolution and glorify its heroes for their rejection of monarchy and tyranny. Washington's contributions to independence made him a national hero and one of the most popular men in America; but after his death, Americans feared that without him the republic would collapse. By transforming him into a national symbol, elites hoped to inspire patriotism, solidify political control, and allay anxieties about America's ability to endure without Washington. With his physical presence gone, they attempted to employ his memory and image as a bulwark of nationhood to unite Americans and bestow lessons in civic virtue.

With no ancient foundations or legends for Americans to build upon, cultural agents could only look back to the American Revolution and glorify its heroes for their rejection of monarchy and tyranny.

Studies of American nationalism have highlighted the nation-making process itself, exploring days of celebration, rituals, orations, symbols, and the myths that cultivated early nationalist sentiments. Intellectuals attempted to invent a national culture that could foster an American identity and unite the populace under the auspices of nationhood while simultaneously excluding Native Americans and African Americans because of their perceived racial inferiority. By