in general, the criticisms of these works and some of our colleagues who too readily ignore the flaws and works of entertainment claiming to present history. i, too, think that we must be more vigilant about the resorting distortions of the past. in particular of all too frequent tendency to turn it into contemporary heroes. i do admit, however, that i find hamilton with barack obama more ingenuo ingenuous. one thing really does worry me. like a soccer referee wielding a red cart to drive somebody from the field, he warns popularizes the field of history. yet for centuries, novelestisis

including such people have appropriated history for some of the most interesting work. given the evident blt, aren't such absolute bands and impossible goals, if they are, what do we do about them, no play or field can capture the complexity of history. as my friend, the documentary screen writer taught me, a standard, standardly format script for a 90 minute film is about 100 plus pages you can't cover any fully in that sort of space. of course who wrote, however can capture any subject forward. but we don't stop writing books, nor we'll stop writing plays and movie screens. so if we do not just reject hamilton, what do we do with it, how do we assess it fairly without asking too much of it. writing is a historian exploring culture uses and abuses of

history andrew, hamilton, evolving of film television and dramatic productions of the revolution, he argues the three conventions help to drive that genre. patriotism yolking decent americans, even perspective, the version of liberty and freedom reacting to bad things by people trying to deny that freedom, that bind americans to the good cause. and -- excluding those bad things as the critical factor in victory of that good cause. and yet argues, hamilton also challenges some of these conventions, reshaping them even while affirming. the place fascinating mix of challenging affirmation of forcing us to think about, for example, who gets to claim inclusion of the story of the revolution and divisions among them does much to explain its power and influence. benjamin's paper resinates with

it, writing is a historian of the development, he seeks to context -- assessing what he gets right and what he gets wrong. he stresses its addressing of issues of race and revolution in today's -- and he cites its open invitations to its audience to engage in arguments about what stories to tell about the revolution, whose stories to tell and what forms these stories take. as he says, the play itself teaches that hamilton should not be, and i quote, the last stop on the viewer's journey. now, again, we turn to something completely different, any chance to invoke was good. especially when they play with history. an expert on drama and the history of american theater, the situation in the context of a rich startling history of 19th century plays about the american founding and their uses of race. and one of her many points about

the story she tells so well, she points out that so with so many critics have seen about new challenges, actually previous works from a previous century or too, a call for for example one i wish i had been there to see, the 1858 of boston organized by william cooper reenacting the boston massacre with an all black cast, don't you just wish you could have seen that. nathan's remarkable paper reminds us that the question asked by hamilton's closing song who lives, who dies, who tells your story, resinates with many traumatic attempts to grapple with the issue whose resolution it really is. now i'm going trespassing, while paralleling themes of the paper byizenburg. i propose another way of understanding hamilton, invoking a different precursor. drama's best reshape for history, williams shakespeare.

i argue that we should see hamilton, as what i call shakespeare history, think about juli julius sei julius caesar for a second and include such ak kro nichls. but what works is history is his place human core, the dying roman republic, and porsche struggling to navigate political over which they have no control, senator assassins desperately seeking to restore the republic that their victim, caesar, ends the cold who replaced republic with an empire. hamilton, too, i submit, is firmly grounded in his human core, presenting it skillfully. the selfishness and self destructiveness. bears political and psychological complexity. the virginia a ris -- the

sisters and the quest to become part of the narrative in a male political world. and georgia washington's nobility and insight. in the world of hamilton, politics is a human pursuit, shaping and reflecting its participants human reality. hamilton also teaches that politics is and must be hard work. valuable lesson that we need now more than ever. so its sketch of the complex politics of the 17 t 0s cannot meet the tests of modern scholarship, because many it seems right. i would like t invoke in this connection, the song one last time, which may not present fully the partisan realities unguarding washington's farewell address. the kwan drink facing george washington as the leader of the revolution who knows that he must step aside from power and figures out a way to do so. if i conclude, as i do, that we need not worry too much about

hamilton's reshaping of history, why not. i submit we need not worry because we need not worry about our students who kindly accepting a play as historical reality. in my experience, students in middle schools, high schools and colleges are fascinated not just by the play, but by the history on which it draws, they're not content to settle for the story of hamilton, they want to know the stories giving rise to the story. this play has spurred their desire to learn, as generation before, the play 1776 did. growing out of that reality in today's classrooms is the likely impact of hamilton on our profession's future, again, like the impact of 1776. that earlier plague drew many of us, including me, to the history of the revolution and early republic. 10 to 20 years from now, maybe even sooner, we may see a similar influx into our

profession of young scholars who saw and listen to hamilton and never got over it. if those of us 1776 drew into this have done some good in our writing and teaching, maybe our field will also benefit from by products of that remarkable contemporary version of shakespeare history, hamilton, thank you. >> so given that this is a round table, i think we hope to square a rectangular rectangle, we should talk amongst ourselves and figure out what we want to say to each other tone lighten you, once we do that, we will open up to questions and this gentleman holding a microphone has got the microphone and please do not answer the question, to that extent, we're going to emulate that awful show

survivor. so, anybody want to start. >> go for it. >> i'm happy to throw it up into the audience. >> does anyone just want to throw it up into the audience, then we'll see what happens. >> okay. let's try that. does anybody want to ask a question? i see one man who is -- southern methodist university, off what you had to say in terms of shakes sphere, and i want to do it in this context. i taught westerns and i always taught them as commentary ris, they got it right is completely irrelevant and in that context, in that sense i would like to hamilton into a context. you mentioned the book of any grows and i found -- i've been horrified to find that who list

through the revolution period, i discovered it when i was writing my own book on that subject and i have been scooped by a novelist. my point is that book is just powerful to me as hamilton and it's accurate. because hamilton takes its place along with that and along with the other things you mentioned and along with paris and revolution, in terms of a larger discussion of both revolution and race in this country. so i will like to locate the play in the context, first of all, of what larry hill does, but secondly in terms of the hollywood films that are trying to address this and on that sense i want to call everybody's attention, please, to birth of a nation, not the one about the klu klux klan, but the one about south hampton county virginia in 1831, which will be released, it

will be released in the -- and i encourage everybody to see it and i encourage everybody who is interested to see who don't have to say, thanks. >> i will just like to respond very briefly and say that in some ways, what you're saying also references a film that we all saw, i think, and a book that many of us have read, that's 12 years of slave. and i remember, also, one of the most horrifying things about the response to that play and that book and that movie, and that was the comment by certain right wing commentators that this was just ignorable because all it is is slavery form. and i had no idea what slavery, i still don't know. i read that article three or four times and i finally realize that all it was saying was, i don't want to know the truth about slavely, this confronts me, so it makes me feel ickey. well, fine. we have to feel ickey. and we want our students to feel

ickey about this. anybody else? >> i both agree and disagree or i have several thoughts, i guess. and that's -- i see it may be as more of a continuum of memory with maybe, you know, disciplinary history at one end and all of these other things. it may be some films are, you know, more -- are trying to capture some sort of memory and some not, so we think of -- so, for example, i think hamilton is, at least, attempting sort of to wrestle with memory and we may or may not agree with how it does that as opposed to something -- i don't know if any of you seen sons of liberty, so sons of liberty, you can learn all you need to know about it by hair, one, is it shows franklin in the 1770s and even then,

they're showing a bald and with stringy hair, why do they do that, it's because that's what we recognize as audiences, right. it doesn't care what it looked like. the other is, they start out with -- it's been -- the guy who plays sam adams, right. in the first shot, you see him what the beautifully, you know, manicured like skruf and everything and he's playing -- and he's, what, 32 when that was shot. and, you know, and so this beautifully manicured chin. for those of you who have seen the portrait of samuel adams, he didn't have a manicured chin, he had two or three chins under it. yeah, but, i mean, so some of these things i totally agree with you, there, there are a lot of our really about the present, some of them, i think, they do take it. i think it's -- i think it's sort of a con tomb in yu contin

maybe. >> i'm not going to pick it up and throw it. the word prothpheticrophetic. >> ben used prophetic. >> i'm sorry. >> you used it well, i should have looked at my notes. i was intrigued that you used that, that's a tradition that starts again, very immediately after the revolution in american drama, they start prophe prophe they're continuing forecasting this idealized future and they're using their own history -- they go back and reinvent to try to show you, the seeds were always there. >> and it's not just there.

john adams writing letters back and forth, at least twice -- thank you. i hope that works. it may be prophesy, but this team of prophesy, everywhere. >> isn't this part of the problem. this is religious notions with historical notions and i think part of the problem the seeds being planted that we assume it's going to be gradual release of these virtues that trace back to the founders and it's narrative that we like, because we want to assume the evolution of progress, when, in fact, our history discounts that, even in the basic rule of suffer aj, it's not a gradual expansion of the right. so part of the problem is exactly what you're talking about, shakes sphepeare history nobody calls it history.

we call it literature. but the other thing is just to think about how these powerful narratives, eclipse important elements that we as historians spend time recovering, talking about, have to be part of the narrative. and the power, there's no doubt, the power of the drama is about the time casting, is about the music, is about getting people to believe in something, yes, but is it what we want people to believe. i mean, the question i'll ask in hamilton, does it inspire us to go out and change the world. >> they'll inspire people to take a political stance. we can assume that the musical encompasses everything that we

wanted to that it embodies certain political values that we -- some of us here, obviously, like it. that's fine. but i think we have to always stay on our critical edge because popular culture is about diminishing a more radical political perspective in a lot of ways. particularly when it becomes widely popular, we know, different people have different interpretatio interpretations, it can be interpreted conservative way and comforting way, to me, that's a frob. -- that's a problem. we shouldn't feel comfortable about the pass and we should want to have a narrative that provokes us. i think race is very important. i don't want to diminish class and gender, which always seems to get thrown out the window. that should be part of the discussion as well. and we talk about politics and power. >> so if i can feedback on what you were saying, it feels to me like there are moments in

hamilton where he is stepping outside and critiquing and i wonder to what extent those moments are legible to all audiences and to what extent people just assume that's cool, because now we're use to people breaking the frame, posing a question and hopping back in the frame. and, you know, the idea is that we query, we agitate, you should leave the theater ready to do something rather than go, that was nice. and i'm humming it. so i think he is working with that. it may be that one subsumes the other, depending on the perspecti perspective, or overwhelmed it entirely. >> there's a really brilliant movie on lawrence stern that does that. i can't remember the title. it's brilliant, it's about a play within a larger story. it's all about the engagement of creating the story, the

engagement of the actors, this problem of talking to the audience and it's really -- of course, it's british. very effective critique of this dynamic. i think this is an important dynamic to talk about the production of meeting. i think there are gestures of it, but not enough, you have to actually -- you have to deconstruct the myths that you have celebrated here. i think it's a se se cell -- sei have not seen the musical, but i understand that a significant portion of it is a love story that involves, reynolds and those types of things and that's one of the levels on which it works as a musical story.

i'm interested in that aspect and how it interfaces with history. my reading is of hamilton, person, is that he was a profoundly emotional man for whom emotion was a significant driver of his actions. and i'm curious, that issue has been left largely on the table, both by this panel and last night's panel. it's kind of lurking under the sub text. but what about the emotional history of the revolution period and the early republic. why did -- why and how did people fall in love, express their love. how did it manifest themselves in their lives. were they, in fact, motivated to action by the site of violence, how and why is that accurate. why are we leaving that issue on the table. >> i think that can get very tricky because, of course, then our understanding of what love means and what people's understanding of what love means, it takes a lot of effort to translate that or honor or,

you know, anything else -- it's so easy to quote from -- you know, it's interesting, right. miranda talks about the people who write to him about trying to ship a relationship between hamilton and all the things that modern audiences want to kind of read back because they don't quite get it, how the people of the 18th century are using some of that emotional language. and so i think that would take a lot of hard work to translate for 21th century audience how 18th century people are experiencing certain emotions. i'm evading the specifics of what you're talking about because i don't care. you're asking an interesting -- you're asking more interesting question, i think, about how w or an audience can recapture the emotional landscapes i think that's recapturing the politics

or recapturing a whole host of other issues and i think that's what they're trying to work on these days. >> there's one emotion, i think, just to answer quickly, that the play does try to address and that's not fear, is this going to work. is this experiment going to fail. why are you opposed to me. you're going to ruin everything. no, you're going to ruin everything. and it's one of the -- >> that's what the 1790s are all about. >> that's about how the country is going to explode. >> the failure of this dream, whatever it may be. and different understandings of what that dream should be. in certain ways the play does get it, that very important emotionally reality and left my students asking about it, wanting to explore it. i'm not sure how to explore the one you're talking about because, frankly, i'm puzzled by it and i want to keep thinking about it.

>> one of the things we focused on the most, though, in con temporary america, and that will variy a lot by the audiences that attend and see it. i saw it and i was, you know, surrounded by affluence white crowd to be really interesting to see how the play is different when the audience is, public city school kids. and i was really struck about how the play can change with different context of seeing another musical recently, the book of mormon, which i had a few more drinks is i might argue historically accurate than hamilton. but, really, offensive in so many ways. so central part of that musical is about orlando.

we saw it, like two days after horrible events. and when orlando is celebrating is this place, it just gave me chills. i mean, i sensed in the audience and cast, that the play -- it wasn't completely transformed but it meant something different from its meaning two weeks ago. so that's really all about -- and i think that makes it really interesting and it makes drama, particularly, volatile genre because it's not fixed, the performance matters. it's effecting. but my question is, you know, where does history fit into that. what we see often historical uses of the past. so often, and one of the things that we as historians use to do, is re -- hold, you know, all kind of culture makers responsible. so the question, really, i mean,

i would be really interested in efrlg that's been said today and yesterday. but, you know, can we get a little bit more precise, maybe, about how history really should intervene, can we do it better, you know, than miranda has done it. you know, we celebrate his artistic genius and so forth. could we be more precise where historians can intervene so the culture and political work that's being done that we might approve of, nonetheless is historically accurate and grounded can we infuse the stories that are doing good with a little bit more say integrity. >> we're not doing to have control over that because some artists are going to check with us before they go out into the world. >> i'm starting a kick starter campaign, everyone put in a thousand bucks and we'll get our own musical.

>> but my question is about the do min c dominincan. >> he's puerto ricoian. >> i've seen the ay, but i'm a little old for the hip-hop style, so i didn't quite get it. but i was wondering about the particular -- excuse me, caribbean nature of this work, that it may have a lot less to do with the history of alexander hamilton and the history of american revolution and with more to do with how people of color from the caribbean fit into the united states because, i mean, black americans will simply, like myself, willing to be black americans, but caribbean people have a

different identity when they come to the united states, in fact become black when they come into the united states in most instances. >> this came up during the preliminary session. >> miranda has said that the play is more auto biographical than historical. i think that's a part of and -- and this is this issue that i'm trying to raise again. where are we drawing the line between fiction and nonfiction. why is it we can't embrace the fact that fiction is fiction and that it's -- it tells a good story, it's powerful. people respond to it differently. but i think this is more about what andrew is talking about, there's a political agenda about marketing and publicity that wants to give it the label of history that's part of the appeal. when people go to see it, they're expecting to get history. the hbo, you remember, someone changed the wikipedia entry because they had watched the john adams hbo and they had learned the truth.

i got e-mails from people who say, oh, well i saw miranda and -- i don't need to learn anything else. so i know it's nice to be optimistic and think it's going to take us down the road to greater historical knowledge and inquiry but that's not inevitable. the power of politics of hollywood are not about embracing history. >> i'm from the new york stark society. and one thing that came up in last night's panel, we concluded that miranda wouldn't really have the opportunity to revise his work, but what you can look at his revisions is what he left out from the public theater production and the broadway production and as ben mentioned, the whisky pavilion. correct me if i'm wrong, my recollection is that that song, one last time -- >> yeah. >> was sung as hamilton and washington are putting on their

uniforms for one last time to put down a rebellion by fellow americans. >> yeah. >> and i think that's what gets left out, so i'm just -- >> at the talk back, so when i saw on broadway for the first time because i had seen it twice before, i had seen it as one last ride twice. it was one of the things that miranda talked at the talk back session. and he said one of the problems was that he was kind of losing the audience's attention span at that song. they weren't kind of following along with him. i don't want to mischaracterize it, that was my recollection. and it's -- it is sort of too bad because it did show another dement dementia, oh, wait, that's why -- dimension, that's how they now think about the revolutionary tradition, you know, like they're on the other side. so it is kind of too bad. in the name of the song is different. it's one last ride in the public

theater and then it became one last time and became more about the farewell address and stuff like that. >> isn't that a perfect example of the way the play systematically privileges emotion and relationships over political issues. so a completely federalist version of the whisky rebellion, wouldn't be cool to pretend it was the same way of seeing it as they're the ones in the revolution, you can't imagine that anyone would ever think that and that's the case, again and again and again and it's the federalist point of view. and this is -- i mean, i don't think that this -- after what ryan said last night. i wonder if maybe we need to go back, because it's -- and that made the point that the play is bringing this interpretation we've been trying to kill. i think some of us have not been trying to kill it. i think some of us have given us

a second light through this production and it's got all those attributes that some of us criticize going on 15 to 20 years ago. i'll just -- for those of us who were too young to remember, when i -- let me just -- i've got four things that i've -- i'll go quickly as possible so we're all on the same page. so -- but what you'll see is, a lot of the same things you've been talking about. i think they all reinforce each other particularly well. number one is -- but number two, it's the -- founders in that made this very clear last night and it gives a needle federalist interpretation of every aspect of this 1790s. and it's -- the privileging of character and personality over political issues and content is

tied to focus on the questions of leadership and the looking at thingsperspective. the fourth thing, is this idea that these good founders were anti-slavery and they would have done more, so it's brought up in the very first seen that hamilton imagine themselves as anti-slavery freedom fighters and they get some to be the black soldiers as opposed to those being the dunn's war. and the character here, for something real going on there for us. and then in the end, as we've heard, we -- and saying could have done more, and the -- that idea -- i mean, all this is straight out of joe ellis, the anti-slavery, is the crown jewel, the jewel and founding

fathers and founding brothers the idea that hamilton versus jefferson encapsulates the entire political history and the real drama with what went on between them, not constituencies, not all the other things at policies that most of us had been writing about and emphasizing. so, you know, like ben and i have been going back and forth about this for months and months and months. bu the k moment, i've got to ask you about, when he said i don't care about the founders, you gave it away, you don't really care. ben cares about everything else about history. i don't know this. >> no, he didn't care that much. >> yeah. >> i still care. >> i'm the only person at the table who doesn't happen in the name of the founder or the book that they published. >> it's true. >> i was just -- i would like to say one other thing. actually two things, one is this

joe ellis, please. >> are we going to not take him seriously. >> no, i don't take him seriously any more. >> i don't take him seriously for years. >> i didn't say -- david, please. i didn't say -- well, miranda seriously. but i -- no, i did not. i certainly do not take joe ellis seriously. i had to read the quartet and caused him great pain. i had to say so, but i said it. >> now -- >> it's a bad book. precisely because it does what it shouldn't do. it reduces everything to the foreground founding guys and that's wrong. that's misleading. it's bad history. i am not prepared to say that we should avoid the founder's cul-de-s cul-de-sac, that phrase is going to haunt me the rest of my career, i know that.

but i also don't think that we -- i don't think that we should be plastering campaign buttons or bumper stickers on our books. i'm not for them. i'm not against them. i found them interesting. i try to see them in context. good scholarship of the sort that we want to encourage does that. we try to introduce that to our students. whenever i teach about this stuff, i mention hamilton, i wonder, look, this is a play, this is not history.

a can and this is -- we all know around -- and we don't -- and

just how what -- and. >> it's very different.

and playing field and powerful -- not the real hamilton and that needs to be and it's important to understand the founders and it's not that this is new terms of now we've moved on and it's going to keep happening. we have to engage and we have to actually teach the lessons that

are distinguished with real historians do as opposed to popular culture, our knowledge matters and we have to defend it. >> so if i can jump on that, i want to make a distinction between hollywood and broadway because while miranda is extraordinarily powerful and popular and it may be made into a movie. it's making it into a movie is going to put it in a way and change it in a way that we'll have a profound effect on it. i don't know who remembers rent. so. >> changed it. so it wasn't as successful so there was something that was contingent about the liveness of it and the fact that it would change from night to night, whether you had a tragedy that would reshape it, for example, those of you who saw the tonys

and they remembered that they took the guns out of the performance, the hamilton performance because they didn't want to put that on stage. there's a profound change in the way it's being staged that's contingent on historical moment. so i think the broadway liveness

we lose that lexicon and i'm wondering if the same thing will at some point happen with the way it's working on it. maybe you go to your blog and you get to display what it meant to you. i think we always in the world where the power brokers are going to tell us what it meant and so we have to contend with that, as well. yes, we may be.

>> what nobody has mentioned, they didn't mention it last night and nobody here really mentioned it either, the play doesn't end with alexander hamilton, the play ends -- it ends with a list of the accomplishments and all the things she did. i kind of woonder, why don't we ever bring that up. why -- i know a lot of us -- but why don't we kind of pay attention to the fact that this play is about more than one hamilton. it's about also what she does at the end of it. i have not had the privilege to see the show. i know the people that have had to have the idea, she looks and they're not sure if it's because she's seeing hamilton or she's

seeing the audience and realizing his story has been told. i guess i'm wondering -- >> because turn out really wants to turn elizabeth skyler into nancy reagan and she's also the hamilton family or part of the production of creating the memory of hamilton. in fact, very effective, as we know, some founders have good people who preserve their papers, preserve -- recreate their identity and hamilton is quite skilled in that. and elizabeth skyler hamilton was in the forefront of playing that role, which is a traditional role of women, protecting the reputations of their dead husbands, dead soldiers, the dead family honor, the dead family legacy. >> and i completely agree. i will just add to that, it's partly because the way i read it is, it's still really about him.

i mean, they want -- i mean, they sort of want to make it about her. it's still really about him and how his memory will be preserved, how he could have done so much more. and it's a beautiful poignant song about how when she sees the or fan she's helping him reminds, she sees their eyes. i mean, it's a beautiful song, but it's still about him. i mean, to me that's how it functions in the musical. >> we've run out of time. >> oh, i'm sorry. >> so i want to thank everybody on the panel. and i hope we've cast light rather than shedding heat, especially today.

>> that happened at 1804 at the young age. for short, the ha ha society. we've had many discoveries and we just revealed three new ones this past thursday liberty hall, check on that -- online for that needs to give special thanks of number of organizations that made this program possible today. especially trinity church, who hosts this partners with great spirit and great support con -- c -- and the members of the haha society and the board of directors all worked hard to bring this together. we had 32 events and 20 locations over 10 days.

and it took everyone's support and encouragement. the haha society joins two honor hamilton's life and his legacy. in that light to the awareness society will be presenting the first hamilton legacy award to ri richard for his two decades of his work to educate the public. the revival of history can be traced to mr. brookheiser's work, i'll give you four examples. after reading about and writing a studying a book, he saw that, wow, there's someone, a right hand aid and man in his life, alexander hamilton became intrigued and wrote a tremendous book in 1999. the book is only 220 pages long, that deserves an award. if you can tell alexander

hamilton's life and all the dimensions of it and 220 pages, it's magnificent. the other thing that we really impersonate and really gets the true hamilton and going to the primary sources, it's been really helpful to the cause of looking for people and about the accurate characterization where many of us didn't hear about him because of the mischaracterization, so we thank him for that book and really was quite accomplishment. number two, he was historian cure rater the man who made modern -- -- how many were able to see that. how many were able to see that, good. he worked with the institute with jim and nicole, and then there were these alexander exhibit panels that were

produced, and it was so excited, we went down where alexander hamilton was born and there were those panels. we were at the patterson museum, yesterday, sorry, sunday and there were those panels, so articulately tell the story of all the dimensions of his life, number three. mr. -- called rediscovering alexander hamilton and that came out in 2011. now, all of these resources created a foundation from years ago that resulted in great scholarship and content of much renown. they have become the core resource material this year, you may have heard the support of the institute, along with the rockefeller foundation and the hamilton musical, all came together to serve 20,000 students to see that over 18

months. and that rich content was because of the work of him over many years, and quite a hamilton legacy. because it was original continued efforts to share alexander's story, richard is very deserving as the first recipient of the hamilton legacy award, which reads "richard is here by presented with legacy award, for decades of outstanding service and dedication, to educating the public about the contributions of alexander hamilton to the united states of america. the alexander awareness society, 2016. let's thank richard brookheiser.

>> you have to have them, but they're not enough. they have to be made real in the world, you have to work for them. and the same is true of memory. we have to remember what we've done right. we have to remember what we've done wrong, but memory is not automatic. it has to be informed and it has to be cherished and encouraged, and the alexander awareness society does splended work in that regard and it's a great honor to be recognized by them. thank you.

in the hamilton musical, it ends with a profound perspective and a set of questions. who lives, who dies, who tells your story. i like to answer those three parts, who lives, we all live in hamiltons america. as it was alexander hamilton that created the vision and shaped the foundations upon which the united states of america achieve greatness. who dies, on this day july 12th, 2012 years ago, alexander hamilton died defending his honor, such that as he would say, to be in the future useful. in 18 minutes will be mark the

2:00 passing of alexander passing after 30 years from his injury. he often chose the nations well being over his physical, financial, and family's well being. who tells your story, we're most privileged to have richard brookheiser tell the story. alexander hamilton, ladies and gentlemen, richard brookheiser. so how did hamilton make america prospero prosperous. we have to look at three things, we have to look at the arc of his life, where he came from and where he went. and then we have to review what he did at the height of his life. and then we have to consider what inspired him, what most

moved him. hamilton, as you know, was an immigrant and there were several other immigrants among the founding fathers, ratio gates, robert morris, james wilson. but these other men all came from the british aisles. hamilton was the unique immigrant from the west indys, raised on the island of saint croix, which was on the ver gir islands. and it was like the middle east today. it was the place where the thing that everyone wanted came from. today that's oil and the 18th century. the wealth that was generated by west indian sugar was fantastic. when hamilton was six years old,

1763, the french and indian war ended, also called seven years from war. and at the end of this world war between britain and france, britain had conquered so many of the colonies that they had to give some back. they couldn't possibly hold all that they had won. so there was a serious debate british government should we keep canada or the island of gaud -- they decided to give back and they were fiercely criticized by the british business community, how could they have done this, canada is only snow -- that was a sign of how valuable these islands were. hamilton saw the commerce that was generated from the ground up, this first job in christian

stead in saint kroi was for merchant house, it was headquartered in new york city. it had branches in the west indys and another branch in bristol england. the cougar who ran the branch ended up becoming a member of parliament he also saw, enormous despairties in the holding of this wealth, most of this money went to plan terns. james mansfield novel, or thomas

bertrum is a plantation owner and he appears in the novel halfway through, he comes back to england from antigua. many of them never left from france and home countries. they were run by overseers. and merchants, a few professions. this was the class in which hamilton's parents belong, james hamilton, rachel, he was merchant's agent, she owned a small store and christian stay. but the vast bulk of the population of slaves, the population with hamilton lived there was 10,000 10,000 slaves, 500 white people. population of st. croix was 22,000 slaves, 2,000 white people. the average life span of a field hand who was brought to the west

indies from south africa was seven years before he was worked to death or died of diseases. the plantars were not so concerned with that, there was always another slave ship coming in. beak man and kruger sometimes dealt in slaves. the slaves fresh from africa were held before they were sorted out, put on smaller ships and sent west of the british west indies. >> this was the social system hamilton grew up in. heavily skewed, no opportunity to rise. >> he managed to get out because his own brilliance and luck. he was a smart boy and a smart young man his blowers recognized that. so did the local minister. he had connections with the

north american mainland. when hamilton was a teenager. he was isn't to north america to be educated the plan was to get him trained as a doctor and he would come back to the islands to practice. the first plan was to send him to the college of new jersey which is now prince upon. he went to kings college which is now colombia. just up broadway from this building p.m. this is the second important location in hamilton's life, the fact that he came here to new york rather than to philadelphia or boston, which were the other significant cities in british north america. philadelphia the largest, new york had passed boston to become second. they were all commercial cities. but boston and philadelphia had been founded as holy cities. they were religious experiments.

boston was the city on the hill. philadelphia was the city of brotherly love. and some of that atmosphere still clung to them, new york was always and only about getting and spending. the dutch founded it as new amsterdam as a trading post to take first from the iroquios indians. the english acquired the city, but it kept its character. i'm sure you all know the foundi myth of new york that is that it was bought in the indians for $24 of beads, trinkets and tools in 1624 the way the myth is usually told the poor indians were treated.

i have heard some tellings of the myth in which the indians who sold manhattan didn't actually live here, they're just passing through. there may be double dealing on both sides. myths always tell a truth. and the trujth of that myth is that the soul of new york is commerce. that's why people live here, to make it, to get ahead. hamilton was coming from one commercial place to another innately commercial place. it was by no means a paradise. new york was a slave city in a slave colony. the population of the city was about 1/6 slave. and they worked as house servants, worked on the small farms in what is now brooklyn and queens. the city was doubly bound to

slavery. what was grown and produced on those farms, the food, timber, fabric, it was shipped down to the west indies to be used by the slaves and the owners of the slaves there there was still slavery here in new york, there were a lot of other things going on. there was some commerce. there was some manufacturing. it wasn't supposed to happen under the british mercantile system. the people got around the rules and the laws as i hear they still do in new york there was informing here then. hamilton came from a place that marked him and he moved to a place that continued to mark him. he never graduated from colombia, the revolution happened and he left his college to fight.

he became a captain of an artillery company. he was noticed by george washington put on his staff as a colonel where he served for four years and finally at the end of the fighting, he was given a field command at the botal of yorkto yorktown. he came back to new york, made his money as a lawyer. he also served in the new york assembly and the continental congress he was sent as a delegate to philadelphia in 1787. he wasn't regular in his attendance. after the constitution was written, he took up the job of campaigning for it in the newspapers. he organized a series of essays we would now call them op ed pieces in the new york newspapers. new york was crucial because it had an anti-constitution

governor but central location. if new york stayed out of the country, new england would be split off from the rest of the country new york was a must win state. hamilton found two collaborators james madison, and john jay, an older man, former diplomat and spy master. the three of them wrote 85 essays for the new york newspapers. jay got sick early on, so he only wrote 5, madison wrote 29 hamilton wrote 51. these essays came out at a rate of four a week. they were each 2,000 words long. some weeks there were five, one week there were six. columnists in the new york types today they write 750 words twice a week. they're also immortal. after the constitution was

ratified george washington had to pick a first treasury secreta secretary. he first asked robert morris who had run the finances of the country during the second half of the revolution. morris was the richest man in america he didn't want to do public service again, he wanted to make money. he recommended alexander hamilton saying he was sharp. washington knew that already. he becomes the first treasury secretary of the united states september 1789 when he's 32 years old. now we come to what he did at the climax of his life. the problem he faced was debt. wars cost money and the united states had no money. we had gone through the war --

8 1/2 year war, the longest war we ever fought until vietnam. it was longer than the civil war and our portion of world war ii put together. we couldn't pay for it. the government and congress could not tax the states, they could ask the states for money. and if the states wouldn't pay or couldn't pay. they didn't have to pay. robert morris said at one point asking the states for money, was like preaching to the dead. they minted paper money. and as unbacked paper money always does, it inflated away until it was worthless. they called in all the old dollars, they issued new money, that began to inflate in turn. they kighted their bills, they

did funny stuff with their cred ders. they got loans from dutch bankers who were willing to run a risk. they got loans from france. and they scraped through at the very end of the war, the soldiers marching to yorktown would not have got there, because they had not been paid. but a french ship filled with silver was part of the french armada that came to participate in the yorktown campaign. and so that campaign was funded. and america won its final victory. after the war 1783, the hearter was truly bare. our debt was trading in europe and amsterdam and antwerp at a quarter to a third of its value. it was essentially junk. what did hamilton do? he had going for him the fact that the new constitution did

allow the federal government to raise taxes. that was a plus. how would the money be spent? he made two early decisions of great consequence. one was called assumption, the other was called nondiscrimination. assumption had to do with the fact that there was not one american debt, but 14 there were the debts owed by the united states and there were the debts owed by each of the 13 states the 13 states had raised their own troops. made their own expenses in the war. and some of them were badly in arrears. massachusetts in particular, and also south carolina. and there was ill feeling among the states, some of the states had paid off their debts, and they thought, why should we take on obligations by the deadbeat

states. not all the states who paid their debts had done it honestly. rhode island paid its debts by printing paper money. so there was a lot of suffering and sharp dealing on all sides. hamilton's argument was that the war had been a common struggle. all the states were fighting together for the liberty of all for the whole country. he assumed the debts of the 13 states along with the federal debt. they would all be treated as one debt. they would be paid off at the same time. this was the decision for assumption. nondiscrimination had to do with the creditors, the holders of the debt most of them were soldiers who had not been paid during the war. this was simply chronic, soldiers were not paid. they were given ious, at the end

of the war they were sent home with their ious, promises of future payment. but over the years, some of these ious had been sold. if a soldier needed money immediately, he might sell his iou at a discount to a merchant. or maybe he would sell it to a speculator, to someone with resources who thought, maybe one day these things will be paid off. let me buy them up from soldiers. the ious had been traded. everyone agreed soldiers should be paid off at their full value, these men had suffered for the country, they had fought, they bled. many americans thought, why should we pay off speculators, they haven't fought, they haven't bled, they were simply looking for a profit. >> hamilton knew the way the world of money works.

he knew that if debtors pick and choose among their creditors, they can do it once. they won't be able to get a loan again, or if they can it will be at punishing rates of interest. so he said there should be nondiscrimination that all the creditors will be paid off at a common rate he was able to get congress to agree to this too. he had to do some bargaining to make this happen. the most consequential deal was to move the capitol from new york first to philadelphia for ten years and then to a site in the potomac which was as yet undeveloped, is now washington, d.c.. we incurred a future of murderous washington summers but we got america's debts paid off in a timely fashion and that was due to hamilton's foresight and clever deal making.

he also had an insight about how to handle the debt. his intention was not to pay it off and make it go away. he wanted to manage the dead. he wanted a debt where regular payments would be made on the interest. and his insight was, if you did that with debt it turns from being a liability into being a resource. people see you're not struggling under a burden. you're maintaining it. so they're willing to extend you credit. debt becomes credit. debt can become money. if you have a credit card, you know how this works. if you have 20 credit cards, you know how this doesn't work. debt has to be managed carefully. that was hamilton's intention. his way of managing the debt was a new thing in world finance.

only two countries had gone this route. holland was first, england followed with the bank of england. early in the 18th century, france tried to join the new financial world. the man in charge of their debt was not cautious. he was a man named john law. a scottsman, brilliant but literally a gambler. he gambled himself. the smashup was so terrible, the french had been suspicious of banks to this day. this is why most french banks are not called banks. that's how dean the suspicion in france of banks and banking goes. alexander hamilton was going to take this small country on the edge of nowhere and make it the third country in the world, in the new world of modern finance. there are going to be many bumps

on the road after his death. people did not maintain his policies. we would have panics and depressions. he got us off to a solid start. when he came in as treasury secretary as i said, our debt was trading at a quarter to a third of its value. when he left, it was trading at 110% of his value. he had made it worth as good as gold. so the money men of europe were willing to pay a small premium to hold it. the phrase we use for poor troubled new nations is banana republic. most of them are in countries where bananas grow. america was on the way of being one of those countries. the phrase for a troubled new nation would be maple republic. he helped us to avoid that fate.

he wasn't doing it oath to balance the books. he wasn't even doing it to expand the economy. he had a further vision in mind. and that's what i want to end with. we can see it in his report on manufacturers. the alexander hamilton awareness society had an event that the great falls of patterson -- where the passaic river drops 50 feet on its way to the atlantic. hamilton saw during the war, he had a picnic there with george washington and lafayette. this is a source for power. this can be used for factories. there were some problems with hamilton's plan the first director turned out to be a crook he embezzled the funds. factories did come to patterson and they did come to america.

in a report that hamilton issued to congress, he talked about the benefits of a diverse economy to the united states. we have agriculture, we have commerce and trade. we also need manufacturing. we need all we can get. he went to great detail about the kinds of things that could be made in america one of the people he found was samuel colt, who built a factory in patterson, and moved it to hartford and the colt pistol and weapons were produced by colt and his decendents. he was one of hamilton's talent picks for the patterson great falls project. but in his report on manufacturers, hamilton talks about what manufacturing and economic diversity can do for people. he wrote what i consider to be the most eloquent, most moving

words he ever wrote. he said that minds of the strongest and most active nature can fall below mediocrity. and labor without effect if confined to uncongenial pursuits. but were all the different kinds of industry obtained in if a community? each individual can find his proper element and call into activity the full vigor of his natu nature. each individual can find his proper element and call into activity the whole vigor of his nature. hamilton is going beyond dollars and cents. he's even going beyond diversity. he's looking at an economy's effect on people. i find this moving because he's writing about himself he could

so easily have fallen below mediocrity and labored without effect. if he had stayed the rest of his life on the islands, that would have been his life story. from brilliance and luck, he got out, he had a career. unlike some people who rise from nowhere and make it, he thought of other alexander hamiltons, he wanted to make a world that would be easier and better for them that's what he wanted the american economy to be. that's what he was trying to create. now we are here to celebrate his life but we're also commemora commemorating -- we've been calling it his passing. but let's be honest, his death, his death in a dual which i believe was needless, i believe was tragic. makes me angry with him whenever i consider it. remember the first time i went

to wehok, the dualing site is long gone. it was a ledge over the hudson about 20 feet up from the water, dynamited in the 19th century to put in a railroad. now at the top of the cliff they have a tiny little park, not much bigger than this lectern. they have a rock against which hamilton is said to have leaned after he was shot and there's a flag pole and a fence and there really isn't much to see there. but what there is to see is across the water. because it's right on the hudson. and when you look to the east you see all of manhattan. from the battery all the way up through midtown all the way up to riverside church. the manhattan mountain range of skyscrapers and apartment buildings. i knew that if hamilton could

see that now he would say, this is why i came here. this is what i worked to build, use it. thanks very much. [ applause ] >> mr. brookheiser has been gracious to take some questio and answer them. if you can keep your questions short and make them questions and not statements, it will make for a very special time. you'll see in the middle at the

front there's a microphone. if you want to come up with a short and tearse question that would be helpful. this isn't the constitutional convention. hamilton gave one speech that was six hours, we're not going to emulate that. >> did hamilton have any economic interest in any of the enterprises built at the great falls? >> well, you know, i can't say that he didn't have a dime in it, but he was probably the poorest treasury secretary we ever had. his money came from being a lawyer. and he was a very good one and a very well paid one. and when he -- after he retired from the treasury and was back in legal practice, and his finances had taken a hit because of all the years he spent as treasury secretary. he hoped to recoup, and expected

to be able to leave his wife and children in a nice estate. his death cut that short. and his widow and his family was in very straightened circumstances afterwards. >> the reason i ask the question, there's an attack on hamilton currently that is an echo of attacks on hamilton during and after his life. his wife spent 50 years defending him after his death. >> oh, they've been attacking him for a long time. >> the current attack i hear from my people who maybe once were jeffersonians. i don't know what they are today. they're sayg hamilton had only built the great falls dam because he owned the land or had a financial interest in manufacturing. i didn't believe it, i'm glad to hear you agree that it's a lie.

>> right. you can always ask them, do you want to live in a poor country. would that be better? >> any other questions? >> yes, here's one. >> you mention something i think is sophisticated, talking about the fact that everyone is a specialist maybe you can talk about a specialization of labor. each individual his own personal talents and professions being specialized in. >> the report on manufacturers is very long and there's a lot in it. and it's easy to miss this paragraph. it leaped out at me as a biographer, i did have this sense that hamilton was writing about himself, which he rarely

does. he's not a self-analytical person. he's not very self-reflective. he never kept a diary. some of his letters talk about himself. this is true of most of the founding fathers they weren't generally an inward looking lot. john adams was, he has some of that purt an self-examination and he keeps a detailed diary but -- i thought here for a surprising moment, it's like the mask slips and we're seeing something about the inner man. he's probably perhaps not even aware of it. this is his own life, how it could have gone, this alternate life he's describing. it could so easily have happened he worked for a merchant that was headquartered here he had a men sister who had been educate

at princeton, that was a second break. when he was a teenager, he wrote a letter about a hurricane that flattened st. croix, it was published in the local newspaper. and so people read this thing and thought, this is a bright kid, let's give him a boost. you could so easily see none of those things happening or just short circuiting somehow. that's what he could have been, i just see him wanting to change the deck for future players. very inspiring. any other questions? >>. >> i know you've seen the play hamilton. if your books had been the source of material is there anything you would have changed or added. >> i love the play. i saw it at the public theater.

i reviewed it, they made me pay for the reviewer's ticket. that's how hot the show was even before it went to broadway. ron and i agree on everything except the year that hamilton was born. there's a controversy about that michael newton has finally put that to rest. he agrees with me, not -- i agree with hamilton. the question is, was he born in 1755 or 57. anyway no, i -- the one thing that the play does. and i see why they did it. they make aaron burr into basically a nice guy. he has no ideas and he does kill the hero, basically, he's a good sort. and this is done for dramatic reasons, you want an antagonist who's not just a villain.

so they're trying to make a kind of a -- not a parody between him and hamilton, but nothing lopsided. burr had many admirable qualities, he was a brave man, an intelligent man well reedman. i see something cold and empty at the heart of him which is not the way miranda chose to go. it's not the way chirnow chooses to go in his book. his idea is dark indeed. >> they were also able to speak to huge rooms in the 18th century. i don't -- they did it differently. it must have been like singing.

>> i'd like to ask you a question that i asked an alexander hamilton actor at the grange. i asked the question in front of professor friedman, and neither her nor the actor -- they didn't give me an answer. but the actor in his portrayal of hamilton was offended by my question. was alexander hamilton romantically involved with his wife's sister? >> you know, yes. but did they have an affair? i don't know. we never know. his wife's sister angelica. betsy skylar was one of a number of skylar daughters. her sister married john church and it was actually john church's dualing pistols that

were use d in the fatal dual wih aaron burr i've seen them. and they're really good looking, which makes it terrible. i mean, these are fetishized artistic objects of gentlemenly death. it's chilling to see these things. dualing was also illegal in new jersey. it was illegal everywhere. deaths and duals were considered murders, but they were never prosecuted. no jury would have convicted, because that's what gentlemen did. it was a parallel system. it was a wicked system. but we lived with it. there were these church sisters and clearly angelica is smitten with hamilton. she writes these letters to him and about him and she reminds me of a character in a jane austin

novel. one of these characters who's amusing by how annoying they are. they're always in your face and putting their emotions before you i think hamilton was flattered by this attention. he had an eye for the ladies. he's not the only person you can think of who falls in love with a whole group of sisters simultaneously. mows art did that. charles dickens did that it's a common pattern for someone, often from the margins and they meet rich glamorous or attractive sisters, and they pick out one whom they marry, they're just in love with the crop of them. and they're in love with him. that's my best answer. there's no solid proof of anything more than that. yes, i think there was a kind of

erroticized quality to the relationship with all the skylar girls. thank you so much for your attention. [ applause ] >> you can tell by his knowledge and the depth -- there are many historians, there are many biographers, many authors, many journalists, very few have the charlie depth and wit that mr. brookheiser has. i wanted to share this with you all today. richard brookheiser has been designated as an alexander hamilton scholar. provide active, objective and insightful information to the public about alexander hamilton.

the alexander hamilton society 2016. thank you for your service to alexander hamilton. and to conclude, we want to let you know if you haven't gotten one of these, you can ask for it afterwards. we have a number of more hamilton events, on the hudson and mid valley region. that's july 15th and 17th. the trinity church archives is going to have original documents. i believe baptism -- we encourage you to see that. thank you so much for coming and keep following and cheering on alexander hamilton and his contributions, thank you. [ applause ]

"first ladies" is now available at your favorite bookseller and also as an ebook. c-span, where history unfolds daily. in 1979, c-span was created as a public service by america's cable television companies and is brought to you today by your table or satellite provider. coming up on c-span3's american history tv, a focus on alexander hamilton. he'll hear from authors and historians. also "hamilton" the musical and its impact on popular culture. c-span's "washington journal" live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. this week we're focussing on presidential battleground states leading up to election day.

wednesday morning, it's pennsylvania. we'll talk about voters, recent polls and updates on other key political races in the state. our guests include terry madonna, director of the center of politics and public affairs at franklin marshall college. republican consultant christopher nicholas and democratic strategist mark evans. watch "washington journal" live at 7:00 eastern wednesday morning. join the discussion. the morris-jumel mansion was built in 1765 as a summer home for colonel roger morris and his wife. abandoned during the revolutionary war it was then used as a military headquarters. in 1810, steven jumel purchased the property. after he died, his wife married aaron burr and the two occupied the home. carol ward, executive director of the morris-jumel mansion on

the ties between halexander hamilton, and the morris-jumel mansion. this is about 45 minutes. >> tonight's program is the room where it happened, hamilton connections to the morris-jumel mansion which is celebrating its 250th anniversary. as many of you know, it's the oldest house in manhattan. not only does it have a strong connection to alexander hamilton, but also to george washington, aaron burr and manuel miranda, as you will soon see. we're so fortunate to have carol ward, the executive director of the mansion, as our guide tonight. she's been there for eight years. carol is an art historian who is an expert on bringing contemporary art into an historic house setting. her book about the morris-jumel mansion is available for sale downstairs in our store and

carol will be signing her book downstairs after the program. she'll be available for your questions at that time. please welcome carol ward. [ applause ] >> thank you, everyone. i'm going to set my timer and try to keep us on track this evening. okay. so i wanted to thank the historical society, obviously, and kathleen and everyone for inviting me this evening. this is a topic that i know can fill a room, as it's friday night in the summer, 6:30, and there's cocktails being served somewhere, i'm sure, and the sun still is out. so i'm very excited you're all here in the room with me. we are going to talk a little bit about the history behind the musical as it relates to the mansion. we're going to talk about the musical itself. we're going to talk about leslie odom jr. all these amazing people that are part of the history of the mansion. just to warn you a little bit,

there are sound clips in the power points and one of the technical things we worked on right before you worked in is the sound clip starts at the beginning of the slides. how many people have heard the soundtrack? okay. about half of us. excellent. so there's a couple that start really laoud just to warn you. who has been to the morris-jumel mansion before? awesome. about half of us again. thank you to those of you who have been. those who have not, you need to get out right now. no, i'm just kidding. i'd expect to see you soon at the mansion. let's begin by setting the scene with the two men or the one man we're talking about this evening. we've got alexander hamilton in his historic guise and his contemporary guise. to quote from the musical to start off with, how does a

bastard -- i'm not going to rap it. how does a bastard orphan, sochb a whore and a scotsman dropped improverished in squalor grow up to be a squalor? it relates to hamilton historically and also relates to lindmon weld himself. historic hamilton is born january 11th, either 1755 or 1757. we're not quite sure. as i look to our hamilton descendant in the room. most historical evidence leads us to believe it was 1757. and as most of us know, he dies july 12th, 1804, after the famous duel with another resident of the mansion, aaron burr. flip of that, mr. miranda is born january 16th, 1980. so a little bit after that. and what i want to do throughout

the evening is tell you about the history of the mansion relating to hamilton and then how lindmon weld factors into this story. so sew let's start. this is not hamilton related. as kathleen said, it's manhat n manhattan's oldest house built in 1765. 251 years old. and it was built as a summer country resdense by the gentleman on the left, roger morris. a retired british colonel. builds the house as a wedding present for his wife, mary philips morris. if you've ever heard of philips burg manor in tarytown, new york, that's her family's estate. when you start thinking about the welts of these families in the 18th century you have to think about washington heights being the countryside. closest neighbor is five miles away.

they have 130 acres of land around the house. huge farm. now mary morris, before she's married, her family estate in tarytown has 52,000 acres of land around it. you're talking about the cream of the crop, the height of society in 18th century. we know roger marries her for her money. it's a given fact. she's an heiress. they live there for about ten years, until 1775. as you might guess, they're loyalists. they high tail it back to england when the revolutionary war breaks out. so they leave the house abandoned. interestingly enough, and this will be a theme throughout my story, the wife mary comes back to get a lot of possessions from the house. when they live back in england, roger dies at about 60. mary lives to be 95. also the point of my story today. all the women outlive their husbands. subtext. after that, it becomes a headquarters for george washington, then the british,

then kind of becomes abandoned and a tavern for a little bit. we'll get to that. here's where the first sound clip comes in, and it's kind of loud so just get ready. ♪ ♪ this close is giving up mass scrutiny i scream in the face of this mass mutiny ♪ ♪ the men with whom i am to defend america ♪ ♪ we ride at midnight. i cannot be everywhere at once people ♪ >> george washington sounding a little different than you might imagine him from his portraits. so what i have on the screen is a still from the musical. that's chris jackson in the center as george washington. we've got an etching of the battle as they envisioned it, and then really amazing website

that i would highly suggest called genius.com. they have all the lyrics to every song from the musical and people annotate it based on historical fact. if you click on the mirric you just heard that we have to run up to harlem quick, this is what you'll find. and so it actually talks about the battle of harlem heights that's featured in the musical that took place around the mansion. that takes place september 16th, 1776. most people consider it a victory because it's the first time the continental army gets the british army to retreat. they come back with reinforcements and washington then retreats up to white plains. imagine it's a battle of brooklyn, battle of harlem heights and then goes to white plains. hamilton is there during the battle of harlem heights. he's coined the lilion by washington. washington considers him like a

son. he's the right-hand man. that's the title of the song from the musical. he depends on him for many, many things. by this point in the war, hamilton is writing 50% or more of washington's correspondence. so washington cannot be the general he was without hamilton right there. i'm not saying that just because doug is sitting right there in front of me. now other interesting fact which i just found out as i was doing research for this talk. during the retreat, aaron burr saved an entire brigade, including mr. hamilton. interesting thing i found on the interwebs is normally washington would commend an officer after an event like that. it is the only recorded time that washington doesn't commend the officer. he doesn't commend burr. that's a really interesting sleight, and it starts -- you start thinking about the life of burr as it relates to hamilton and also just in general that start building up. as kathleen mentioned, i live

with burr and hamilton at the house, so i have to be a little fair to both sides. so -- >> ladies and gentlemen. you could have been anywhere in the world tonight but you're here with us in new york city. are you ready for a cabinet meeting, huh? >> are you ready? so the great thing about the house and about our conneio with the musical is it's not just that he wrote a couple of the songs at the hour, which i'll talk about in a little while. it's the historic pieces of the musical are taking place at the house. battle of harlem heights and the first rap cabinet battle took place in that dining room. that's a really amazing connection that we can talk about. so we have the dining room as it's seen now. something else i'm going to talk about, we're going through a five-year reinterpretation plan. you'll be one of the first groups to get a sneak peek of

what the mansion is going to look like in a few years. and then the cabinet itself. very cool picture that was taken when the cast went to the white house for the second time. you have everyone under the portrait of their respective cabinet member/president. to lin's right. and jackson under george washington. very cool story also. david jefferson lafayette lives across the street from the mansion so we just wave as he walks his dog. it's really neat. the interesting thing about the cabinet battle in the show is it sets up the conflict between hamilton and jefferson. you've talked about the different views of what america was going to look like. the revolution is over. we've won as king george says in the musical. what comes next?

what are you going to do now that you're an independent country? it's not as easy to govern as you all like to think. so we've got two factions. we've got the federalists which are led by hamilton. big business, government, banks, keeping the capital in new york city. really kind of controlling government. on the other side, we've got the republicans with thomas jefferson. egrarrian society, rmers, common man, which we're still having that conflict today. don't worry. i'll not get political, 2016. i stay out of that. all right. so then as i mentioned, while jefferson has that dinner party, it's a tavern for about a couple years. then the house is abandoned for about 20 years. these two farmers own it. it gets into disrepair, and then we're at 1810. 1810, the lady on the right who i do live with every day, her name is eliza jumel. a lot of you have probably heard

about her if you've come to the mansion. she's my favorite person in the whole story today. no offense to hamilton or burr, but she is a super, super strong woman. lives to be 90 years old. starts off life super poor in rhode island. dies one of the wealthiest women in new york and probably all of the country. she buys this house with her first husband steven jumel. they don't change the footprint of the house which is interesting architectually because it was kind of out of style. an 18s century house. they could have made it more 19th century and grand. she adds things to the interior of the house. here'sior first sneak peek. below her portrait and that portrait dates to 1833 when she marries aaron burr. she's about 59 in that portrait. the wallpaper that literally just got put up at the mansion in the first floor hallway. it is based on a new primary source that we have found in our

archives, and it's this amazing gray marbleized wallpaper to make you think you are in a greek and roman temple. eliza loved the best things in life. she helped steven triple his fortune. they travel back and forth to france a lot. an amazing duncan five suite related to the whitney suite you'd see if you went there today. height of 19th century decorative arts. why is she important to our discussion today? her first husband passes away in 1832 in a very odd accident involving a pitchfork. somehow he falls on to a pitchwork. i don't know how that happens there. don't you see it there? whatever. brought back to the mansion. he's bandaged up. what we know is that some time in the course of the evening, she dismissed the servants and he supposedly cries out that he's in pain. she unbandages his wounds to

help clean them. he bleeds out and dies. that's what we know. the rest i'm going to leave to you because again, i live with her every day. about eight months later, she decides to marry her second husband. this man. ♪ what to say to you you have my eyes you have your mother's name when you came into the world you cried and it broke my heart ♪ ♪ i am dedicating every day to you ♪ >> all right. so here's, as he calls himself in the musical, the villain of our history. this is aaron burr. and completely misunderstood guy. i mean, spoiler alert at the end of the musical every night he does shoot alexander hamilton. it doesn't change unfortunately. there are some people in the burr camp that really want it to change, but every night he

shoots hamilton. so he is then t antagonist of t musical. li n has rated a well-rounded portrait of hamilton. he's born in newark, new jersey, in 1756. and so opposite to hamilton. he is born to a very famous preacher and a woman -- his mom, is transcendentalist. she's a super smart woman. she trains burr, if you will, in find of the best of the classics in architecture and art. and he also, his parents both die so they're both orphans. but very different scenario. his father didn't leave. his mom wasn't supposedly a prostitute. so he's got this legacy already on his shoulders to protect. a lot of what the story -- concurrent stories of hamilton and burr are are them viewing a legacy in a very, very different way. one needs to build a legacy,

hamilton, and one needs to maintain that legacy. and that's seen a lot in their lives historically and also in the musical. so burr marries theodoci theodocia probos. they have a daughter they also nametheodocia, the one he's talking about. she's born in 1783. some people will say that burr is one of the first feminists. i don't know about that. i'm kind of on the fence about that. but he does do something very different for his daughter. he educates her in more than just sewing and how to get a husband. so she just like his mother did for him, she knows the classics. she knows art. she knows architecture. and she becomes his confidante. after his wife dies, he is actually looking for a new place to live. in 1803, there's a survive iing to aaron burr telling him about the mansion. and she says, you basically

should buy it now because in ten years, it's going to become, quote, a princely estate, which is kind of interesting and amazing when you think about he had the opportunity to purchase the house in 1803 and then becomes the owner of the house about 30 years later. so the song is about theodocia when she's born. the wife has died shortly afterward. and this is another thing about hamilton versus burr. if we flash forward to the duel, especially in the musical as well, there's this last song before the duel takes place. and burr says, it's either him or me. he's not going to make an orphan of my daughter. both these men know what it's like to be an orphan, not to have parents. burr's wife has already died. it's him or hamilton. and he doesn't want his daughter, who is an adult at that point, to not have parents. and a very weird, interesting twist of fate, burr basically gives all of his documents to theodocia about his time during

the revolutionary war. she is traveling up from the south where she lives with her husband on a ship and we know that she dies in a shipwreck. either the ship flounders or possibly pirates board the ship. we have a copy at the mansion that an artist created for us. we did a whole exhibit on aaron burr and all the women. this is supposed to be theodocia drowning. so this was, i think, a really interesting slide. before we get to lin and where he comes on the scene. this is the hall the way it looks today with a newly conserved portrait. after eliza's death in 1865, her

daughter takes control of the house. you can see her granddaughter on the right in the porerate. eliza jr., if you will. she takes control of the house and two last owners own the house. very quick succession. the family on the left is the laprince family. laprince was a very early filmmaker photographer and on september 8th, we're going to be premiering a film called the first film, all about how the movie would have been shown at the mansion. the mansion would have been the first movie theater in america. he mysteriously disappears in france before he can show it. if you want more information on that, check our website. the last, last owners of the earl family. the slide on the right is the back of the house. our famous octagon room. if you can kind of notice right by the chimney, they've cut out the roof for a skylight. the son of the earl family, ferdinand p. earl was an art

student. and it was actually his art studio. it continues past these figures we've talked about. so the mansion becomes a museum in 1904. the dar, daughters of the american revolution, take it over. it's basically t site of colonial revivalism. yea, america. the morrises are not in the story. hamilton is not in the story. eliza jumel definitely not in the story. and it's all washington all the time. so they open after a grand renovation in 1907. really fun thing about this photo, you see it says 1758? they thought it was 1758. it's okay. and this was george washington's birthday in 1907 when they are grandly reopening the house. now we've switched over to museum life.

this is william shelton and bolton on the top slide. they are the first curator and archaeologists of the institution. you can imagine a little bit, you love the dar. it's an interesting group of people. there were 20 spinning wheels throughout the mansion. there's a letter from shelton telling the dar, don't give me any more spinning wheels. please. and he is the first one, though, that actually goes through the collection and tells the dar, look, we have to tell everyone's story. which kind of jumps to the musical, right? who lives, who dies, who tells your story? shelton is the one telling them, you have to tell everyone's story. i know you love geoe washington, but there's other people in the history of the house. so the dining room where the cab net battle took place? this is what it looked like in 1907. yea, george washington. let's have a bust, a plaque, little stoatues of george

washington. when you think about 19th century museums, they were keeping that era alive of like these cases and you are really not telling the story so much of the room. those are some more dar ladies. and they are fabulous. what i would tell you is the dar single handedly saved houses like this. they went to city, elected officials and said you cannot tear down this house. it has intrinsic historical value. we were just talking about jackie kennedy. it was before landmarks laws and these ladies were really doing it the right way. so as much as we look back and say, well, why did they do this? they were doing what was best for the time and dressing up and looking fabulous as well. so you might recognize this woman. anyone have a guess? she's queen elizabeth. the mansion was the only new york stop on queen elizabeth

ii's bicentennial like travels around the united states. and really cool thing, i'm going to step away right now. that shorter lady right there is kay parker. we lost her a couple years ago. she was on the board of the mansion for, gosh, 40-plus years. she was an amazing lady. came up to like here on me. and she was one of those people that just was in it for the right reasons. have to give her a shout-out tonight. we love her. we're going to rename the octagon after her. it's an amazing story. we love kayo. okay. now i've flashed forward like 30 years. lin-manuel. we have to talk about him. so i started off as the director of education at the mansion. and in 2011, we wanted to do this event that brought the community into the mansion because, first and foremost, we view ourselves as a communi