First in the Homes of His Countrymen: George Washington's Mount Vernon in the American Imagination by Lydia Mattice Brandt

Abstract

Reviewed by: First in the Homes of His Countrymen: George Washington's Mount Vernon in the American Imagination by Lydia Mattice Brandt Sarah Anne Carter First in the Homes of His Countrymen: George Washington's Mount Vernon in the American Imagination. By Lydia Mattice Brandt. (Charlottesville and London: University of Virginia Press, 2016. Pp. xii, 284. $39.50, ISBN 978-0-8139-3925-4.) First in the Homes of His Countrymen: George Washington's Mount Vernon in the American Imagination explores not only how Mount Vernon became an important and flexible national symbol but also why it came to serve this purpose. Lydia Mattice Brandt's excellent book explains how this house can simultaneously be a prism for understanding and seeing changes in American culture and a palimpsest on which a wide range of ideas may be inscribed over two centuries. In five deeply researched and lucidly written chapters, Brandt offers a fascinating interdisciplinary history of public interest in George Washington's home. In chapter 1, "Prints and Pilgrimage, 1790s–1850s," she considers how the house made real the notion of Washington as a Cincinnatus-like figure, a connection that elevated his symbolic weight. Brandt tells this story by analyzing a range of prints and written sources that detail pilgrimages to Mount Vernon and by exploring how the site became a place to visit, even as it fell into disrepair. Chapter 2, "'Keep It the Home of Washington!': The Mount Vernon Ladies' Association of the Union, 1854–1890," examines the women who transcended the national crisis of the Civil War to preserve Mount Vernon. While some of this ground has been covered elsewhere, the author does a fine job of tracing the specific material context of Mount Vernon as it was restored and became a popular tourist destination by the 1890s. Chapter 3, "Replicas, Replicas, Replicas: 1890s–1920s," offers a fascinating look at the desire to copy—in some cases, in full scale—Mount Vernon, suggesting a Lost Cause "vision of the Old South" (p. 95). Details associated with the house, such as the "Mount Vernon Piazza," became part of the colonial revival in U.S. domestic architecture (p. 110). Chapters 4 and 5 engage more directly with the development of the historical profession and its relationship to Mount Vernon's public and increasingly politicized image. In "Battles of 'Authenticity': Replicas and Research in the [End Page 949] 1930s," Brandt looks at how Mount Vernon's image as an example of domestic architecture spread more widely and continued to be a popular symbolic structure at fairs in the United States and abroad. At the same time, the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association began to turn to male "preservation 'professionals'" with academic credentials to make the presentation of Mount Vernon's history more accurate (p. 151). Whether expansively sharing Mount Vernon as a cultural inspiration or carefully researching its details, these seemingly contradictory undertakings, Brandt argues, both emphasized the importance of the site. The final chapter looks at another dualism in the presentation of public history, the rise of social history and the increase in roadside attractions inspired by Mount Vernon, as well as Mount Vernon's rise as a popular tourist destination. In chapter 5, "'In This Changing and Troubled World': Social History and the American Roadside, 1950s–1980s," the author oscillates between analyzing the presentation of slavery at Mount Vernon—something readers have been expecting throughout her chapters addressing Mount Vernon as a racialized symbol of the Old South—and how Mount Vernon served as an inspiration for Howard Johnson's restaurants and for funeral homes across the United States. Readers may wish to hear more about Brandt's research and thoughtful analysis of the interpretation of slavery at Mount Vernon beyond the point she successfully makes, that "Exploring the history of slavery at Mount Vernon added another layer to Washington's humanity" (p. 198). This extremely clear and engaging book could be profitably assigned to upper-level undergraduates or graduate students in history, architectural history, material culture, popular culture, American studies, and museum studies. It would offer students an exciting opportunity to think through some of the expansive and untapped research possibilities involved in studying built environments in American...