Transcript

9.4.26 · History Hour

0:01
Speaker 1: Hello and welcome. This is Radio Eye's History Show, and
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Speaker 1: I'm your host and reader for today, Joseph Bolt. Glad
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Speaker 1: to be with you, and before we begin, as always,
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Speaker 1: we need to remind you that Radio Eye is listener-driven,
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Speaker 1: and that means we welcome your comments or suggestions about
0:20
Speaker 1: our programming, and in particular, this show, History Show, so
0:26
Speaker 1: if you have any suggestions for me, or ideas about
0:30
Speaker 1: what you want to hear in history, please call us
0:33
Speaker 1: at 859-422-6390 and let us know. Radio Eye is a
0:40
Speaker 1: reading service intended for people who are blind or have
0:44
Speaker 1: other disabilities and make it difficult to read printed material.
0:48
Speaker 1: I'll cite the sources as we go along today. So
0:52
Speaker 1: I thought that we would talk about one of the
0:55
Speaker 1: more famous mothers of history, and that would be Mary Washington. So,
1:05
Speaker 1: let's get to reading about Mary. When Mary Washington died
1:11
Speaker 1: in August of 1789, her eldest child, George, was a
1:18
Speaker 1: few months into his first term as the first president
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Speaker 1: of the United States. Mary had lived and died in
1:27
Speaker 1: 18th century Virginia. Her parents died when she was young,
1:31
Speaker 1: leaving her property and enslaved people. She brought this inheritance
1:38
Speaker 1: to her marriage to Augustine Washington, a planter and merchant.
1:45
Speaker 1: Augustine died in his forties, which was not unusual for
1:49
Speaker 1: the time, but Mary, unusually, never remarried. She was a
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Speaker 1: mother of six children total, five of whom survived into adulthood.
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Speaker 1: She was the only American woman honored with a monument
2:05
Speaker 1: in the antebellum period and the only one of the
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Speaker 1: revolutionary era memorialized in that fashion during the 19th century.
2:14
Speaker 1: That's a quote from historian Kate Hallman in her book,
2:20
Speaker 1: The Mother of Washington in 19th Century America. Throughout the
2:26
Speaker 1: first decades of the United States' existence, Americans revered Washington
2:33
Speaker 1: as not only the father of their country, but also
2:36
Speaker 1: a unifying figure in a fractured nation. Some looked to
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Speaker 1: the woman who had birthed and raised this godlike leader.
2:51
Speaker 1: In the century and a half after her death, Marriott
2:55
Speaker 1: appeared in biographies of both her son and herself, portraiture,
3:01
Speaker 1: commemorative objects, and the monument that now stands by her
3:05
Speaker 1: grave in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Before the Civil War, abolitionists and
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Speaker 1: enslavers alike cited her as, quote, firm yet Christian, wholly
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Speaker 1: domestic and refreshingly simple, as an ideal example of the
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Speaker 1: founding past, end quote. This was a quote from the
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Speaker 1: author Hallman. To mark the mother of Washington in 19th
3:32
Speaker 1: century America's release on September 11, Smithsonian chatted with Hallman
3:40
Speaker 1: to learn how Americans have memorialized and looked to Washington's
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Speaker 1: mother for advice. As Hallman puts it on, quote, how
3:50
Speaker 1: to raise a George, end quote. So, From here on
3:55
Speaker 1: in this article, we're going to read the interview with Holman.
4:00
Speaker 1: And the first question to her from Smithsonian was, You
4:04
Speaker 1: write that your book is a biography of sorts that
4:07
Speaker 1: begins in death. What do you mean by that? And
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Speaker 1: Holman says, Because Mary was Washington's mother, there was a
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Speaker 1: public memory, at least initially, after she died. The idea
4:20
Speaker 1: of the mother of Washington had to be created, just
4:23
Speaker 1: like the monument. I was interested in how that happened,
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Speaker 1: Holman said. What was remembered and carried forward? By whom? When?
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Speaker 1: And what purposes? And how that changed over time? And also,
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Speaker 1: what was forgotten about her and why? So the next
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Speaker 1: question to Holman by the interviewer is, What should readers
4:48
Speaker 1: know about Mary's life? Holman answers and says, Mary was
4:53
Speaker 1: born in the early 18th century to a family that
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Speaker 1: was part of a land-holding elite in the northern neck
5:00
Speaker 1: of Virginia, not as powerful or wealthy as other areas
5:04
Speaker 1: of the colony, but an established area. Her marriage to
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Speaker 1: Augustine Washington in 1731 was a good match for both,
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Speaker 1: uniting two families and property, which allowed them to purchase
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Speaker 1: more property. They were enslavers and created their life on
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Speaker 1: the outskirts of Fredericksburg, on land that later became known
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Speaker 1: as Ferry Farm. That's F-E-R-R-Y, Farm. Augustine was married before
5:35
Speaker 1: and had two sons by first marriage, so Mary became
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Speaker 1: a stepmother. Augustine died in 1743, and as we said earlier,
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Speaker 1: Mary never remarried. which was somewhat unusual for the 18th century.
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Speaker 1: There are a couple of ways to read this. It
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Speaker 1: could have been to protect her children's inheritance. It also
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Speaker 1: might have been to safeguard her independence as a woman.
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Speaker 1: She was, of course, still dependent on her eldest son,
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Speaker 1: who inherited Ferry Farm, to remain there. In the 1770s,
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Speaker 1: Washington moved her to a house in Fredericksburg to be
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Speaker 1: near his sister Betty. We don't have too much of
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Speaker 1: Mary's own voice over the years, but we know she
6:29
Speaker 1: refused offers to live with family. She was very strong-minded, strong-willed,
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Speaker 1: not wealthy, benefited from the labor of enslaved people which
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Speaker 1: underpinned the independence she cherished. Her next question from the
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Speaker 1: interviewer was, what was Mary's relationship with her son like?
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Speaker 1: Biographers of Washington have paid a lot of attention to
6:57
Speaker 1: that question, Holman says. Because of their investment in him,
7:02
Speaker 1: it has become difficult to assess that relationship on its
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Speaker 1: own terms, from her perspective or by the standards of
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Speaker 1: the day. Writers have either claimed she was wonderful, an
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Speaker 1: exemplary as a mother, or a bad one. She was
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Speaker 1: religious and seemed to hold high standards for herself, which
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Speaker 1: may have translated into the way she raised her children,
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Speaker 1: especially her eldest. Their correspondence was formal. Washington always addressed
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Speaker 1: her as Honored Madam, which indicated respect for her. He
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Speaker 1: was concerned for her well-being in ways that might have
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Speaker 1: felt like a burden, and didn't have the fullest appreciation
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Speaker 1: for the disruption she experienced, especially during the Revolutionary War.
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Speaker 1: Mary sometimes expressed that in letters to him, but he
8:01
Speaker 1: couldn't understand that she had needs that were not only material,
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Speaker 1: but also emotional. Of course, he had a lot going on, too.
8:12
Speaker 1: Next question was, Why did a slew of Washington's biographies
8:16
Speaker 1: appear in the early to mid-19th century, and how did
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Speaker 1: they portray his mother? Holman answers, Washington's biographers sought to
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Speaker 1: humanize a figure who was godlike even in life and
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Speaker 1: use him to instruct young Americans. For both purposes, it
8:37
Speaker 1: was important to pay some attention to his private and
8:40
Speaker 1: domestic life, including his family. readers wanted to know who
8:45
Speaker 1: or what made the man. Increasingly and unsurprisingly, given the
8:51
Speaker 1: importance of moral or sentimental motherhood in the 19th century,
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Speaker 1: the answer was his mother. In the hands of Washington's biographers,
9:02
Speaker 1: Mary became instructive, not only to young readers, but to
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Speaker 1: women of all ages on how to raise children, or
9:11
Speaker 1: How to Raise a George. James Kirk Paulding dedicated his
9:18
Speaker 1: 1835 biography of Washington to, quote, the pious, retired domestic
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Speaker 1: mothers of the United States, end quote. In his and
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Speaker 1: others' hands, Mary was firm yet tender and loving, attending
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Speaker 1: to her son's education on all fronts, especially moral. For example,
9:40
Speaker 1: in these biographies, a story involving a favored horse replaced
9:44
Speaker 1: the cherry tree as a source of Washington's fabled honesty.
9:50
Speaker 1: He attempted to make the horse obey, and in the
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Speaker 1: process it died. He fesses up to his mother. She's
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Speaker 1: upset yet pleased. because he has told her the truth.
10:03
Speaker 1: For his biographers, this is as much about her as him.
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Speaker 1: She had brought him up well. Next question was, how
10:13
Speaker 1: did Mary's role as an enslaver fit into her status
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Speaker 1: as a national figure? Pullman answers, This is where the
10:22
Speaker 1: remembering and forgetting is very clear. Slavery lurked behind the
10:27
Speaker 1: mother of Washington. She was imperious, yet pious, and welded
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Speaker 1: power without much problem. Yet, there were no explicit mentions
10:38
Speaker 1: of slavery or enslaved people in the stories of Mary's
10:41
Speaker 1: life until after the Civil War. Despite the fact that
10:46
Speaker 1: the first full-length biography of her was written, The mid-19th
10:51
Speaker 1: century authors writing about Mary differed on the slavery question,
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Speaker 1: but they agreed on ideal womanhood and motherhood as private, domestic,
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Speaker 1: and pious. The next question by the interviewer, in addition
11:05
Speaker 1: to correspondence and historical records, you used material culture and
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Speaker 1: objects as sources. What are some of the more compelling
11:13
Speaker 1: sources you found? Answer was, in terms of objects, there
11:17
Speaker 1: are two linked ones that come to mind. an easy
11:21
Speaker 1: chair in the collections at Mount Vernon, and a cabinet
11:25
Speaker 1: card from 1889 with an image of that chair. The
11:31
Speaker 1: chair has not been fully authenticated as belonging to the
11:35
Speaker 1: Washington family or belonging to Mary, though it may have.
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Speaker 1: There were two chairs on the list of items in
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Speaker 1: her estate after she died that were up for sale,
11:47
Speaker 1: but it was a fine piece of furniture, beautiful 18th
11:51
Speaker 1: century craftsmanship. The chair was rather fancy and fashionable for
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Speaker 1: life at Ferry Farm, but the cabinet card labels it
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Speaker 1: definitively as, quote, the chair in which General Washington was
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Speaker 1: nursed by his mother, end quote. This description conjures an
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Speaker 1: image of little George being nursed at Mary's breast in
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Speaker 1: this chair. as she passes on sustenance and love to
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Speaker 1: the man who made the nation. This is the mother
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Speaker 1: of the father of the country, the nation's grandmother. So
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Speaker 1: both the chair and its visual representation in the cabinet
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Speaker 1: card encode the memory of Mary as a nurturing mother
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Speaker 1: in the public mind. The interviewer then asked when, where,
12:40
Speaker 1: and why was Mary Washington's monument erected. The answer was,
12:46
Speaker 1: The Mary Washington Monument stands in Fredericksburg today, but it
12:52
Speaker 1: was not the first one at the site. Custis and
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Speaker 1: others wanted Mary publicly memorialized, and the story of how
13:02
Speaker 1: that unfolded is a rich one. In 1833, President Andrew
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Speaker 1: Jackson came down to lay the cornerstone of the monument.
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Speaker 1: The original design included a temple-style base with columns. a
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Speaker 1: shaft of forty-five feet rising from it, and a bust
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Speaker 1: of Washington at the top. Workers got as far as
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Speaker 1: constructing the base and delivering the spire, which lay on
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Speaker 1: the ground beside a decaying base for nearly forty years.
13:32
Speaker 1: The contractor died, and raising funds had been a problem
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Speaker 1: from the beginning. But that only goes part of the
13:40
Speaker 1: way in explaining the monument's status and the relationship people
13:44
Speaker 1: had had with the incomplete structure over time. Some made
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Speaker 1: pilgrimages and were shocked to find it unfinished and decaying.
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Speaker 1: Others wrote on it and used it for target practice.
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Speaker 1: There was perpetual talk about completing it and a lot
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Speaker 1: of finger-pointing about who should undertake it. But only in
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Speaker 1: the 1890s did two women associations one local and one
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Speaker 1: national worked together to complete it. And really, they replaced,
14:19
Speaker 1: they totally replaced it. It's a smaller version of the
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Speaker 1: Washington Monument that stands in Washington, D.C. After the original
14:28
Speaker 1: monument was demolished in 1893, local artist Annie Arnaud painted
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Speaker 1: rocks from it with scenes of the incomplete first monument.
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Speaker 1: They They suggest how attached some locals, likely established white families,
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Speaker 1: felt to that monument, perhaps because it was a ruin
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Speaker 1: in postbellum Virginia. It represented an antebellum past that commemorated
15:00
Speaker 1: and laid claim to a founding one as moments in
15:03
Speaker 1: history collapsed back in time. And the final question is,
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Speaker 1: To Hellman was, after the monument was finished in 1894,
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Speaker 1: it receded from the national limelight. In the 20th century,
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Speaker 1: conflict arose over who should maintain it. And the last
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Speaker 1: question was, what happened to Mary's legacy in the 20th
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Speaker 1: and 21st century? Mary's reputation underwent a complete reversal by
15:31
Speaker 1: the mid-20th century. Biographers of Washington, informed by Freudian ideas...
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Speaker 1: cast the mother of Washington as difficult, even shrewish. He
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Speaker 1: had become great despite of her, and not because of her.
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Speaker 1: Today we have a more nuanced understanding of Mary the woman,
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Speaker 1: one whose life had many facets, including motherhood. That story
16:01
Speaker 1: came from SmithsonianMag.com, the reinvention of George Washington's mother from
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Speaker 1: paragon to virtue to greedy shrew to widow striving for independence,
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Speaker 1: written by Rebecca Brenner Graham, historian at Brown University, in
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Speaker 1: September of 2025. And this next article on Mary Washington
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Speaker 1: comes from History.com, How George Washington's Iron-Willed Single Mom Taught
16:30
Speaker 1: Him Honor, written by Matt Mullen in May of 2019.
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Speaker 1: Here are some of the ways Mary Ball Washington, George
16:43
Speaker 1: Washington's mother, has been described by historians. Crude, greedy, illiterate, self-centered, slovenly,
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Speaker 1: a loyalist, an especially ruthless slave owner, an impediment to
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Speaker 1: her son's success. Alternatively, she has been described as a saint,
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Speaker 1: a perfect Christian mother who raised a perfect son. In reality,
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Speaker 1: none of these things are totally true. She has been
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Speaker 1: the object of both meaningless praise and more often antagonism
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Speaker 1: from writers who dreamed of a different mother for their hero, George.
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Speaker 1: A quote from historian Martha Saxton, who writes in her book,
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Speaker 1: The Widow Washington, a biography of our first president's deeply
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Speaker 1: misunderstood mother. Mary Ball Washington was neither a villain nor
17:51
Speaker 1: a saint, but rather an exceptionally strong and resilient woman,
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Speaker 1: a single mother who raised five children and instilled in
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Speaker 1: them qualities of fortitude and purpose. She was independent in
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Speaker 1: ways few other women were at the time, choosing not
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Speaker 1: to remarry after her husband Augustine's death and refusing to
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Speaker 1: give up on her property. By many accounts, Mary was
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Speaker 1: a tough mother, After she was widowed, she didn't have
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Speaker 1: the money to send George to school in England, as
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Speaker 1: was common for well-to-do Virginia families at the time. Instead,
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Speaker 1: she enlisted him and his siblings to help run the farm.
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Speaker 1: She emphasized obedience in her children. She treated George seriously
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Speaker 1: as a man and seriously as a religious being. Saxton writes,
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Speaker 1: Prior historians once interpreted this as poor mothering, which contributed
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Speaker 1: to Mary's unfortunate standing in history. In fact, it was
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Speaker 1: the common of mothers at the time to be stern,
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Speaker 1: even remote. The fond mother, the mother who is psychologically
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Speaker 1: and emotionally utterly available, and has nothing but unconditional love
19:31
Speaker 1: for her children, came about in the late 19th century.
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Speaker 1: A quote from Saxton, who further says that's not the
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Speaker 1: kind of mother Mary was. Mary Ball was born around 1708.
19:49
Speaker 1: or 9 in Lancaster County, Virginia. As we've read before,
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Speaker 1: her father died when she was three years old, and
19:59
Speaker 1: her mother remarried and had more children. After her stepfather died,
20:04
Speaker 1: just a few years later, Mary grew up in a
20:08
Speaker 1: matriarchal household. She watched how her mother openly exercised authority
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Speaker 1: and independence, something she would later emulate with her own family.
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Speaker 1: When Mary was twelve, her mother died, and she moved
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Speaker 1: in with her half-sister. Her religious education deepened at this time.
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Speaker 1: She read devotional books and was moved by many of
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Speaker 1: their teachings. In time, Mary's religious conviction gave way to
20:41
Speaker 1: a profound and long-lasting sense of inner strength, a contrast
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Speaker 1: to the traits of submissiveness once associated with pious women.
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Speaker 1: Mary was 22 when she married Augustine Washington, a 36-year-old widower.
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Speaker 1: They moved to a spacious plantation and had George. in 1732.
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Speaker 1: Over the next ten years, they would have five more children. One, Mildred,
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Speaker 1: died shortly after childbirth. Augustine died in 1743, when George
21:25
Speaker 1: was eleven years old, leaving Mary to raise their five
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Speaker 1: children and run Ferry Farm, while her property holdings, including
21:37
Speaker 1: roughly 20 enslaved workers made her an eligible option for remarriage,
21:46
Speaker 1: she chose not to do so. Rather than risk marrying
21:53
Speaker 1: someone unsavory and putting her children at risk, she decided
22:00
Speaker 1: to shoulder the burden of raising them on her own,
22:06
Speaker 1: which was another testament to her independent streak. Despite her
22:13
Speaker 1: modest means, she did the best she could to provide
22:18
Speaker 1: her children with an improvised education. Although she could barely
22:25
Speaker 1: afford it, she loaned George money for dancing lessons, which
22:33
Speaker 1: she knew were essential for entrance. into elite Virginia society.
22:40
Speaker 1: He ended up, by the way, paying her back for that.
22:44
Speaker 1: Mary loved tea, and she trained all her children in
22:51
Speaker 1: the genteel art of tea-serving and drinking, something George would
22:58
Speaker 1: carry with him his whole life. In letters he sent
23:02
Speaker 1: his mother throughout his adolescence. George moved out in the
23:10
Speaker 1: late 1740s, first to become a land surveyor and then
23:16
Speaker 1: to join the Virginia militia. As the years went on
23:21
Speaker 1: and her children grew up or died, money became increasingly
23:26
Speaker 1: tight for Mary. Even with enslaved workers, the expenses of
23:31
Speaker 1: running a farm were manifold. Money soon became a contentious
23:37
Speaker 1: issue between her and her eldest son. For the rest
23:43
Speaker 1: of her life, she would occasionally write to George, asking
23:48
Speaker 1: for small sums of money. It is too much, while
23:53
Speaker 1: I am suffering in every other way, and hardly able
23:58
Speaker 1: to keep my own estate from sale, to be saddled
24:02
Speaker 1: with all the expenses of hers. A quote with George
24:08
Speaker 1: complaining in a letter to his brother at one point.
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Speaker 1: Historians point to this as evidence of Mary's avarice or ineptitude,
24:19
Speaker 1: ignoring that George was famously penny-pinching, even though he was
24:25
Speaker 1: worth an estimated $ 525 million in today's dollars. Additionally, the
24:33
Speaker 1: way Virginia inheritance laws were structured, after a father's death,
24:39
Speaker 1: land was supposed to transfer to the oldest son, and
24:41
Speaker 1: George likely resented that his mother refused to relinquish control
24:45
Speaker 1: of the family property. The problem with some of the
24:49
Speaker 1: material about her is that it can make both people
24:54
Speaker 1: look bad, Saxton says. For example, if you start to
24:58
Speaker 1: use evidence about George not wanting to give his mother money,
25:02
Speaker 1: you run the risk of making him look awful. So
25:04
Speaker 1: you have to spin the story in which she's the villain.
25:09
Speaker 1: Mary did not see much of George as he accelerated
25:12
Speaker 1: through the ranks of the Continental Army and led the
25:15
Speaker 1: country through the American Revolution. Her apparent disinterest in his
25:19
Speaker 1: military career is often interpreted as disapproval, or even preposterously
25:23
Speaker 1: her loyalty to the Crown. but no historical documentation supports this.
25:30
Speaker 1: In all likelihood, she merely dreaded war like everyone else
25:33
Speaker 1: and was worried for her son's safety. During the war,
25:36
Speaker 1: they went five years without seeing each other. In 1782,
25:42
Speaker 1: she wrote a letter to George describing how difficult the
25:45
Speaker 1: experience was for her, and she states, I was truly uneasy,
25:52
Speaker 1: she wrote. George visited her on the way to his
25:56
Speaker 1: presidential inauguration in 1789, the last time he would see her.
26:02
Speaker 1: By then, she was living in a house in Fredericksburg, Virginia,
26:05
Speaker 1: where she gardened and read. Mary died of breast cancer
26:10
Speaker 1: in August of that year at age 81. George, of course,
26:14
Speaker 1: would go on to lead the country as the first
26:16
Speaker 1: president and live forever in American imagination. The real Mary,
26:22
Speaker 1: in all her strength and sacrifice, would soon be forgotten
26:27
Speaker 1: in his midst. Well, once again, we've completed a chapter
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Speaker 1: in Radio Eye history. I'm your host, Joseph Bolt, and
26:39
Speaker 1: I sure enjoyed reading to you today. Thank you for
26:42
Speaker 1: giving me your time, and I'll be back next time
26:46
Speaker 1: with another chapter of Radio Eye history. And until then,
26:52
Speaker 1: happy trails to you.