Gender In The Early Republic:

A Lesson For High School Students

Margaret F. Frostholm
Frostholm1@aol.com
Gender in the Early Republic
Fall 2002
February 23, 2003

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GENDER IN THE EARLY REPUBLIC

A LESSON FOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS
Background:
During the Early Republic period in the United States, the definition of gender roles was
changing for both sexes at many levels of society. White, middle-class men and women
experienced the most significant change, although white men and women at the upper
end of the social and economic scale experienced some change in role expectations, as
evidenced by George and Martha Washingtons lives. It is necessary to make distinctions
as to race and socioeconomic level, since, as Kathleen Brown points out, Women and
gender have proved slippery terms for feminist scholars and are increasingly used in
highly specific historical, racial, class, and ethnic contexts.1
Merriam-Webster defines gender as: the behavioral, cultural, or psychological traits
typically associated with one sex.2 This definition encompasses a multitude of variables,
including socioeconomic level, race, class, and geographic area. It is not possible to
address the changes that occurred in every area or for each gender in a brief lesson such
as this one. It is, however, important to recognize that any changes that did happen were
experienced differently by different groups, and even differently within those groups.
This lesson focuses on describing gender roles for white men and women from the
middle and upper socioeconomic levels.
In evaluating gender in terms of the American Revolution, especially for high school
students, it is important to evaluate the students existing concepts of what gender entails,
and then to enrich these concepts through scholarly readings, discussion, and analysis.
Objectives:
This lesson is designed for a high school curriculum that focuses on three themes:
equality, interdependence, and power and participation. The timeline of the course is
typical of a US History I course, roughly from the first colonies to the Civil War. By
focusing on these three themes throughout the course, students are better able to study
topics in US History in depth, which of course leads to greater understanding of the
topics. The deeper focus of this lesson on gender, specifically, gives students insight into
areas that historians are studying and researching today, increasing their interest and
fostering discussion and participation.
Each unit in this theme-centered curriculum revolves around a question that addresses
each theme. The questions for this unit are:
1. How was equality defined in this period?
2. How did genders rely on and interact with each other?
1

Kathleen M. Brown, Brave New Worlds: Womens and Gender History. William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series,
Volume 50, Issue 2, Early American History: Its Past and Future (Apr., 1993), 315.
2
Merriam-Webster Online <http://www.m-w.com>.

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3. How was power displayed and how did this power affect the participation of different
genders in society?
At the conclusion of this lesson, students will be able to:
1. Define gender; describe gender roles in todays United States, and how those roles
evolve in times of national crisis.
2. Analyze selections from authors about gender in this time period.
3. Compare and contrast descriptions of gender roles as described by different
authors.
4. Assess a painting by Edward Savage and its implications for gender roles.
5. Redesign the Savage painting for todays society, reflecting gender in their
painting.
6. Judge/ evaluate their own and each others work based on a rubric.
Evaluation of these skills will be based on discussion participation, quality of reading
analysis, and clarity of painting design.
National Curriculum Standards Addressed:
NSS-USH.5-12.2 ERA 2: COLONIZATION AND SETTLEMENT (1585-1763)

Understands why the Americas attracted Europeans, why they brought enslaved
Africans to their colonies, and how Europeans struggled for control of North
America and the Caribbean
Understands how political, religious, and social institutions emerged in the
English colonies
Understands how the values and institutions of European economic life took root
in the colonies, and how slavery reshaped European and African life in the
Americas

NSS-USH.5-12.3 ERA 3: REVOLUTION AND THE NEW NATION (1754-1820s)

Understands the causes of the American Revolution, the ideas and interests
involved in forging the revolutionary movement, and the reasons for the American
victory The impact of the American Revolution on politics, economy, and society
Understands the institutions and practices of government created during the
Revolution and how they were revised between 1787 and 1815 to create the
foundation of the American political system based on the U.S. Constitution and
the Bill of Rights

Massachusetts Curriculum Standards Addressed:

USI.2 Explain the historical and intellectual influences on the American Revolution and
the formation and framework of the American government.

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USI.14 Explain the characteristics of American democracy, including the concepts of

popular sovereignty and constitutional government (which includes representative
institutions, federalism, separation of powers, shared powers, checks and balances, and
individual rights).
USI.19 Explain the rights and the responsibilities of citizenship and describe how a
democracy provides opportunities for citizens to participate in the political process
through elections, political parties, and interest groups.
Procedures:
1. Brainstorm as a class: what is gender? What indicates gender? Describe the
roles of men and women in our society today. What do you think were the roles of
men and women in the Early Republic period? How do gender roles change in a
time of crisis? Think of what is happening now with the US and Iraq how
might gender roles change if we go to war?
2. Students will read attached excerpts of readings on gender, and on George
Washington:
a. Highlight words or phrases that the author uses to describe or define
gender
b. How do these illustrate the authors definition of gender?
c. How does this compare with our original definition of gender?
d. Form a composite description of gender roles for both sexes, at the middle
and upper levels of society during this period. Address these questions:
What did it mean to be an upper class man? Woman?
What did it mean to be a middle-class man? Woman?
What characteristics were respected and honored in upper class
men and women?
What behavior and characteristics were respected in and expected
from middle-class men and women?
How do these characteristics reflect gender expectations?
3. Look at the following painting from the National Gallery of Art: The Washington
Family by Edward Savage (click on the painting for a larger view)
http://www.nga.gov/cgi-bin/pinfo?Object=564+0+none
a. Consider the style:
Is this formal or informal?
What evidence demonstrates this?
b. Consider the composition. (The way the painting is structured)
Is there balance or imbalance? Why did the artist use this
approach?
Who is most important in this painting? Who is least important?
How do you know?
c. Consider the purpose.
Why do you think this work was produced? Who commissioned
(paid for) it?
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Is there a message? What do you think it is?

What symbolism do you think the artist used?
What can we learn about the historical period through this work?
For example fashion, what these people may think is important,
and signs of gender.

Answer the following questions, remembering that in art, every element of the
picture is placed there for a reason:
1. Why are the people standing where they are? (males on one side and the
females and Washington's personal slave, Billie Lee, on the other)
2. Why do the males have a globe and the females a map? Is there any
relationship between the map showing the plan of the federal city and the
background scene of the Potomac? Why do you think the artist placed George
Washington's hand on the boys shoulder and the boy's hand on the globe?
3. Why are the males facing open space and the females and Billie Lee,
Washington's personal slave, behind a table? Why is the Billie Lee in shadow?
Why is Billie Lee in the portrait at all?
4. What do the answers to the first three questions tell us about gender, and
interpretations of gender at the time this was painted? (who is included in
what gender roles, and why?)
5. How do we know what the intentions were of Edward Savage (the painter)
and of Washington, who commissioned the work? How are these intentions
shown in the painting?
6. How is art interpreted by people when the artists are not around or no longer
alive to explain their intentions?
7. How would you design this painting today? How would you try to reflect
gender in your painting?3
Culminating Activity:
Design and draw the painting you described in response to the Washington family
portrait, above. Who is in your painting? What are they doing? Why are they doing this?
How do these actions (or lack of them) reflect ideas about gender?

Adapted from Birth of the Nation: The First Federal Congress 1789 1791,
http://www.gwu.edu/~ffcp/exhibit/lessonplans/approach1.html Copyright 2000 First Federal Congress Project.

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Readings on gender during and after the American Revolution: define the underlined
words within context of the reading.
Linda Kerber says, We are ready to ask whether and how the social relations of the sexes
were renegotiated in the crucible of Revolution.4 As Cynthia Enloe has remarked, a
successful revolutionary movement establishes new definitions of what is valued, what
is scorned, what is feared, and what is believed to enhance safety and security.
5
{Cynthia Enloe, Beyond the Battlefield: A Feminist Approach to Pre-War and PostWar Military Politics as quoted in Kerber in Hoffman}
But by far most women who followed the armies were impoverished 6
Americans claimed both implicitly and explicitly that they were creating a new kind of
politics, a democracy in which the people acted as constituent power, in which every
adult citizen had an obligation to play an intelligent and thoughtful role in shaping the
nations destiny It was this cultural transformation that Americans had in mind when
they referred, as they frequently did, to the new era that political mobilization would
usher in. 7
Collective petitions would serve women as their most stable political device deep into
the nineteenth century. 8
On the other hand, Martha did not want to get involved in politics (lecture, July, 2002),
and was content to administer her household, without having to travel or be involved in
larger world affairs.
Ulrich, Good Wives: She had been a good wife, obedient to her husband, loving to her
children, kind to her neighbors, dutiful to her servants, and, as her daughter Anne
Bradstreet expressed it, religious in all her words and wayes. This described Dorothy
Dudley, who died December 27, 1643, the wife of Thomas Dudley, a farmer. 9
On the surface it is obvious that some activities in colonial society carried gender labels
and some did not. Men were elected to representative assemblies. Women nursed babies.
Both men and women experienced religious conversion and Indian captivity. Few
members of either sex wrote poetry.10
Ulrich calls some female roles deputy husbands. The skilled service of a wife included
the specialized housekeeping skills but it also embraced the responsibilities of a
deputy husband. Since most productive work was based within the family, there were
4

Linda K. Kerber, Reinterpretation of the Revolution in Ronald Hoffman and Peter J. Albert, eds. Women in the Age
of the American Revolution. University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville VA, 1989, 10.
5
ibid, 11.
6
ibid, 13.
7
ibid, 17.
8
ibid, 19.
9
Laurel Thatcher Ulrich. Good Wives: Image and Reality in the Lives of Women in Northern New England 1650
1750. Vintage Books, New York NY, 1980, 3.
10
Ibid, 5.

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many opportunities for a wife to double the files of her diligence. A weavers wife
might wind quills. A merchants wife might keep shop. A farmers wife might plant
corn.
Almost any task was suitable for a woman as long as it furthered the good of her family
and was acceptable to her husband. There was no proscription against female
farming, for example, but there were strong prescriptions toward dutiful wifehood and
motherhood. Context was everything. 11
Rosemarie Zagarri:
Originally articulated by contemporaries such as Benjamin Rush and Judith Sargent
Murray, republican motherhood affirmed that women had a profound influence on the
political values of the American Republic. As wives and mothers, women were seen to
make an essential, though indirect, contribution to the body politic. According to Linda
Kerber, the historian who coined the term, The Republican Mothers life was dedicated
to the service of civic virtue: she educated her sons for it, she condemned and corrected
her husbands lapses from it.12
These Thinkers, especially Adam Smith, David Hume, Henry Home (Lord Kames),
William Robertson, and John Millar, promoted a theory of history and society in which
women played a prominent role. The Scots maintained that the family represented a
primary transmitter of customs, habits, morals, and manners. Arguing that women acted
as both the means and beneficiaries of social progress, they claimed that women softened
mens brutal passions and rose in stature as society improved. In effect, the Scottish
theorists broke down the conceptual barrier between public and private spheres and
defined a social though not political role of importance for women. Building on this
basis, Americans could then articulate the more revolutionary role for women that was
embodied in the Republican Mother.13
Viewing the family as an integral part of the political culture, the Scottish philosophers
saw that the relationships and attitudes forged within the family directly shaped the public
realm.14
As Kames put it in reference to women, Women came to be regarded, in proportion as
the national manners refined. Manners, then, referred to what we might call mores, or
social norms. Thus when women influenced the manners of men, they helped shape the
very fabric of society.15
Americans turned this idea on its head. In a republic, more than in any other form of
government, women should be educated. In a republic, the women must raise the future
11

ibid, 37.
Linda K. Kerber, Women of the Republic: Intellect & Ideology in Revolutionary America, as quoted in Morals,
Manners, and the Republican Mother. William and Mary Quarterly, Volume 44, Issue 2 (Jun., 1992), 192.
12

13

Zagarri, 194.
ibid, 197.
15
ibid, 202.
14

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generations of male citizens and must support their husbands in the sacrifices they made
for the government. female education, in other words, would improve the quality of
male citizenship.16
During the Revolution, women demonstrated their centrality to the political process: they
were critical to the success of the boycotts against British goods; instrumental in
providing emotional and material support for the troops; and essential in assuming male
roles as men left their farms and businesses to go to war. Though these actions failed to
produce a widespread movement for womens political rights, it did highlight the
disparities between mens assertion of rights and equality with respect to Britain and
the dispossessed status of women in America.17
Kathleen Brown:
By the American Revolution, new symbols were replacing an older set of AngloAmerican gender meanings. Boston Tea Party participants did not dress like women, as
English protestors often did, but like men they defined as outsiders, Indians, before going
on their tea-dumping spree. For white men in Englands colonies in the 1770s, the power
existing in the social margins could no longer be unleashed by the cross-dressing rituals
of the skimmington or charivari. (see http://www.quinion.com/words/weirdwords/wwski1.htm for an explanation of these terms) Although seventeenth-century Puritan
antipathies to any form of cross-dressing may have diminished the popularity of English
protest traditions in New England, the decision of eighteenth-century New Englanders to
dress as Indian men rather than as Anglo women remains significant. When they
refashioned the theatre of protest in the 1770s, Bostons male patriots were clearly no
longer operating within an English gender lexicon. 18
Paul Gilje:
Perhaps the best way to describe the political and social meaning of the American
Revolution is to turn to a product of the early republic with which every school child is
familiar: the short story "Rip Van Winkle." Washington Irving wrote this tale in June
1818. He took a German folk tale, placed it in the Hudson River Valley and the "fairy
mountains" of the Catskills, and offered what he thought was a scathing critique of the
new world created by the American Revolution. Little did he realize that his political
meaning would be lost to generations of children who adore the story for its own sake,
and that he provided fodder for historians seeking to understand the changes he
deplored.
Irving nostalgically looked back upon the colonial era as a time when everyone knew his
or her place, where even small towns had a hierarchy, and people did not reach beyond
their stations. Whether such a society ever existed is beside the point. Irving in 1818
believed it had, and so did many others. Irving sarcastically described political debates,
where the local school teacher, Derrick Van Bummel, expostulated on every issue
16
17
18

ibid, 206.
ibid, 210.
Brown, 324 325.

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undaunted "by the most gigantic word in the dictionary." But Van Bummel was poor--he
was a school teacher after all--and as articulate and brilliant as he was, his opinions only
carried so far. Of much greater weight was Nicholaus Vedder, the village patriarch and
owner of the local tavern. Vedder hardly uttered a word. He controlled the conversation
merely by the way he smoked his pipe. If he sent forth short, frequent, and angry puffs,
everyone knew it was time to change the subject. If he merely sat there, allowing tranquil
clouds to emit from the pipe, it meant he was pleased. In such a world, hierarchy
predominated, and those on the bottom of society deferred to those on top. Those on top,
in theory, paternalistically protected the interests of those on the bottom.
The American Revolution changed all of this. Rip came staggering down from the
mountain to his old village to find it transformed. Bedraggled, long bearded, no doubt
smelly, he entered the town, and almost immediately someone asked him if he was a
federal or a democrat. In the early republic's world of equality even this old man's
political opinions were important. When he asked about his old friends, he discovered
that the patriarch Vedder died eighteen years before and was all but forgotten. So much
for hierarchy. Talent was now what counted. Van Bummel went off to the wars, became a
general, and was then elected to Congress.
Out of this new attitude a special set of values emerged. This middle class-comprised of lawyers, businessmen, and entrepreneurs--first came into prominence
during the early republic. Their values defined the new domesticity that helped to mold
gender relations in the nineteenth century and trumpeted the reification of the individual
that ultimately led to the call for the abolition of slavery. It was also their ambition that
drove Americans to come to dominate a continent. Finally, it was their world view that
permeated all of American society, so that by the end of the twentieth century most
Americans espoused their value system and labeled themselves as middle class.19
Federalist Number 10:
The effect of the first difference is, on the one hand, to refine and enlarge the public
views, by passing them through the medium of a chosen body of citizens, whose wisdom
may best discern the true interest of their country, and whose patriotism and love of
justice will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary or partial considerations. Under
such a regulation, it may well happen that the public voice, pronounced by the
representatives of the people, will be more consonant to the public good than if
pronounced by the people themselves, convened for the purpose. On the other hand, the
effect may be inverted. Men of factious tempers, of local prejudices, or of sinister
designs, may, by intrigue, by corruption, or by other means, first obtain the suffrages, and
then betray the interests, of the people. The question resulting is, whether small or
extensive republics are more favorable to the election of proper guardians of the public
weal; and it is clearly decided in favor of the latter by two obvious considerations:

19

Paul Gilje. The Early Republic: An Introduction, Organization of American Historians, <
http://www.oah.org/pubs/magazine/earlyrepublic/gilje.htm> Accessed December 27, 2002.

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In the first place, it is to be remarked that, however small the republic may be, the
representatives must be raised to a certain number, in order to guard against the cabals of
a few; and that, however large it may be, they must be limited to a certain number, in
order to guard against the confusion of a multitude. Hence, the number of representatives
in the two cases not being in proportion to that of the two constituents, and being
proportionally greater in the small republic, it follows that, if the proportion of fit
characters be not less in the large than in the small republic, the former will present a
greater option, and consequently a greater probability of a fit choice.
In the next place, as each representative will be chosen by a greater number of citizens in
the large than in the small republic, it will be more difficult for unworthy candidates to
practice with success the vicious arts by which elections are too often carried; and the
suffrages of the people being more free, will be more likely to centre in men who possess
the most attractive merit and the most diffusive and established characters.
Federalist Number 51:
The provision for defense must in this, as in all other cases, be made commensurate to
the danger of attack. Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the
man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection
on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of
government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human
nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern
men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing
a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in
this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place
oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on
the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary
precautions. This policy of supplying, by opposite and rival interests, the defect of better
motives, might be traced through the whole system of human affairs, private as well as
public. We see it particularly displayed in all the subordinate distributions of power,
where the constant aim is to divide and arrange the several offices in such a manner as
that each may be a check on the other that the private interest of every individual may be
a sentinel over the public rights. These inventions of prudence cannot be less requisite in
the distribution of the supreme powers of the State. But it is not possible to give to each
department an equal power of self-defense. In republican government, the legislative
authority necessarily predominates. The remedy for this inconveniency is to divide the
legislature into different branches; and to render them, by different modes of election and
different principles of action, as little connected with each other as the nature of their
common functions and their common dependence on the society will admit. It may even
be necessary to guard against dangerous encroachments by still further precautions.
There are, moreover, two considerations particularly applicable to the federal system of
America, which place that system in a very interesting point of view. First. In a single
republic, all the power surrendered by the people is submitted to the administration of a
single government; and the usurpations are guarded against by a division of the

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government into distinct and separate departments. In the compound republic of America,
the power surrendered by the people is first divided between two distinct governments,
and then the portion allotted to each subdivided among distinct and separate departments.
Hence a double security arises to the rights of the people. The different governments will
control each other, at the same time that each will be controlled by itself. Second. It is of
great importance in a republic not only to guard the society against the oppression of its
rulers, but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part. Different
interests necessarily exist in different classes of citizens. If a majority be united by a
common interest, the rights of the minority will be insecure. There are but two methods
of providing against this evil: the one by creating a will in the community independent of
the majority that is, of the society itself; the other, by comprehending in the society so
many separate descriptions of citizens as will render an unjust combination of a majority
of the whole very improbable, if not impracticable. The first method prevails in all
governments possessing an hereditary or self-appointed authority. This, at best, is but a
precarious security; because a power independent of the society may as well espouse the
unjust views of the major, as the rightful interests of the minor party, and may possibly be
turned against both parties. The second method will be exemplified in the federal republic
of the United States. Whilst all authority in it will be derived from and dependent on the
society, the society itself will be broken into so many parts, interests, and classes of
citizens, that the rights of individuals, or of the minority, will be in little danger from
interested combinations of the majority. In a free government the security for civil rights
must be the same as that for religious rights. It consists in the one case in the multiplicity
of interests, and in the other in the multiplicity of sects. The degree of security in both
cases will depend on the number of interests and sects; and this may be presumed to
depend on the extent of country and number of people comprehended under the same
government.
Garry Wills on Washington: Like Cato, he insisted on national credit Like Pericles
and Publicola, he was ready to sacrifice his estate when the British threatened it with their
ships guns on the Potomac. 20 (who are Cato, Pericles and Publicola?)
Cato the Elder: http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/c/catoe1lde.asp
Pericles:
http://www.pbs.org/empires/thegreeks/htmlver/characters/f_pericles.html
Publicola: http://www.livius.org/va-vh/valerius/publicola.html
Public virtue is the only foundation of Republics. There must be a positive passion for
the public good, the public interest. John Adams to Joseph Warren, 1776, as quoted in
Wills p. 188.
Washington, by contrast (to Adams), always acted on a system, which makes him less
winningly vulnerable than other great men of the founding time.21

20

Garry Wills. Cincinnatus: George Washington and the Enlightenment. Doubleday and Company, Garden City NY,
1984, 185.
21
Ibid, 189.

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Edmund Morgan on Washington: The familiar anecdotes about Washington tell us to

keep our distance.22
Washington made gentlemanly manners his habit, copying down 110 Rules of
Civility as a boy. He was as well known for his emotional aloofness. Gouverneur
Morris, one of Pennsylvanias delegates to the Constitutional Convention in 1787,
made the mistake of telling Alexander Hamilton that he could be as familiar with
Washington as any of his other friends. Hamilton, who had been Washingtons
aide-de-camp during the war and knew him as well as anybody, took Morris up
for a bet. If, at the next reception held, Morris would slap Washington on the
shoulder and say, My dear general, how happy I am to see you look so well,
Hamilton would gladly pay for a dinner for Morris and a dozen of his friends.
Morris accepted, and at the very next gathering made the daring gesture, calling
out, My dear general, I am very happy to see you look so well! as he put his
hand upon Washingtons shoulder like a good chum. All became silent, as, with a
frown, Washington turned his fierce eyes toward him, forcing the suddenly timid
Morris to step back a few steps in order to disappear into the crowd. Morris won
his dinner from Hamilton, later declaring, I have won the bet, but paid dearly for
it, and nothing could induce me to repeat it!23
He was not a bookish man But he did understand power in every form.24
Washington did crave honor and pursued it relentlessly, but he did not deceive himself
with that spurious substitute for honor, which is arrogance. His aloofness had nothing to
do with arrogance. It had to do with command. The remoteness that still surrounds
him was a necessary adjunct of the power he was called upon to exercise. 25
He recognized that he was on trial, that the character of the government and the respect
accorded it would be measured by the respect that he himself demanded and commanded.
As president of a republic he aimed at an elegant simplicity in his style of living,
sumptuous enough to escape any imputation of ostentatious poverty, but restrained
enough to avoid outright splendor. {To Catharine Macaulay Graham, he explained that
his wifes wishes coincide with my own as to simplicity of dress, and everything which
can tend to support propriety of character without partaking of the follies of luxury and
ostentation.} At the same time he cultivated his characteristic aloofness, even to the
point where his critics charged that his condescension smacked of monarchy.26
Washington had no yearning for personal power, nor did he want any military
adventures of the kind that so often infatuate men who are obsessed with power for its
own sake. 27
22

Edmund S. Morgan. The Genius of George Washington. W. W. Norton and Company, New York NY, 1980, 5.
Ross Rosenfeld, The Real Washington and Lincoln. Newsweek Web, http://www.msnbc.com/news/873077.asp
accessed February 14, 2003.
24
Morgan, 6.
25
ibid, 7.
26
ibid, 21.
27
ibid, 22.
23

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From Rediscovering George Washington on PBS.org:

The Physical Characteristics of Washington
Here is how a fellow officer described him when he was just twenty-six.
"[S]traight as an Indian, measuring six feet two inches in his stockings, and
weighing 175 pounds. . . . His frame is padded with well-developed muscles,
indicating great strength. His bones and joints are large, as are his hands and feet.
He is wide shouldered but has not a deep or round chest; is neat waisted, but is
broad across the hips and has rather long legs and arms. His head is well-shaped,
though not large, but is gracefully poised on a superb neck. A large and straight
rather than a prominent nose; blue gray penetrating eyes which are widely
separated and overhung by a heavy brow. His face is long rather than broad, with
high round cheek bones, and terminates in a good firm chin. He has a clear though
rather a colorless pale skin which burns with the sun. A pleasing and benevolent
though a commanding countenance, dark brown hair which he wears in a cue.
His mouth is large and generally firmly closed, but which from time to time
discloses some defective teeth. His features are regular and placid with all the
muscles of his face under perfect control, though flexible and expressive of deep
feeling when moved by emotions. In conversation, he looks you full in the face, is
deliberate, deferential, and engaging. His voice is agreeable rather than strong.
His demeanor at all times composed and dignified. His movements and gestures
are graceful, his walk majestic, and he is a splendid horseman."28
When he was selected Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army,
Washingtons appearance began to become familiar to his countrymen and to the
world. The Morning Post and Daily Advertiser in London reported that "Not a
king in Europe but would look like a valet de chambre by his side."29
The painter Gilbert Stuart was to find "features in his face totally different from
what I had observed in any other human being. The sockets of the eyes, for
instance, were larger than what I had ever met before, and the upper part of the
nose broader. . . . All his features were indicative of the strongest passions, yet,
like Socrates, his judgment and self-command made him appear of a different cast
in the eyes of the world. . . . Had he been born in the forests . . . he would have
been the fiercest man among the savage tribes."30
In 1789, Jedidiah Morse described Washington as "tall, upright, and well made; in
his manner easy and unaffected. His eyes were of a bluish cast, not prominent,
indicative of deep thoughtfulness, and when in action, on great occasions
remarkably lively. His features strong, manly, and commanding; his temper
28

James Thomas Flexner. Washington: The Indispensable Man. Little, Brown and Company, Boston, 1974, 37-39.
James Thomas Flexner, GeorgeWashington in the American Revolution. Little, Brown and Company, Boston, 1968,
as quoted in PBS, http://www.pbs.org/georgewashington/father/qualities.html
30
ibid.
29

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reserved and serious; his countenance grave, composed, sensible. There was in his
whole appearance an unusual dignity and gracefulness which at once secured him
profound respect, and cordial esteem. He seemed born to command his fellow
men."31
What common soldiers repeatedly confirmed in more homely style, Gouverneur
Morris, in his eulogy of Washington in 1799, said in lofty phrases: "Born to high
destinies, he was fashioned for them by the hand of nature. His form was noble
his port majestic. On his front were enthroned the virtues which exalt, and those
which adorn the human character. So dignified his deportment, no man could
approach him but with respectnone was great in his presence. You have all seen
him, and you all have felt the reverence he inspired . . . ."
Such, then, is the reality of Washingtons appearance. A multitude of witnesses, of
many nationalities, friends and enemies, different political parties, young and old,
military and civilian, men and women of high and low station confirm what Dr.
James Thacher recorded in 1778: "The serenity of his countenance, and majestic
gracefulness of his deportment, impart a strong impression of that dignity and
grandeur, which are his peculiar characteristics, and no one can stand in his
presence without feeling the ascendancy of his mind, and associating with his
countenance the idea of wisdom, philanthropy, magnanimity, and patriotism."32
To know such a Washington is to understand why a patriotic soldier in desperate
times might beg him to be king of America; to understand Washington is to know
why to be king would be beneath him.33

31

Albert Bushnell Hart, ed., Tributes to Washington, Pamphlet No. 3 (Washington, D.C.: George Washington
Bicentennial Commission, 1931), as quoted in PBS, http://www.pbs.org/georgewashington/father/qualities.html
32
ibid.
33
Rediscovering George Washington, Appearance and Reality: The Physical Characteristics of Washington. PBS,
http://www.pbs.org/georgewashington/father/appearance.html 2002 The Claremont Institute.

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Brown, Kathleen M. Brave New Worlds: Womens and Gender History. William and
Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Volume 50, Issue 2, Early American History: Its Past and
Future (Apr., 1993), 311 328.
Madison, James. Number Ten, The Federalist. November 23, 1787.
______________. Number Fifty-One, The Federalist. February 8, 1788.
First Federal Congress Project. Birth of the Nation: The First Federal Congress 1789
1791, http://www.gwu.edu/~ffcp/exhibit/lessonplans/approach1.html Copyright 2000
Flexner, James Thomas. Washington: The Indispensable Man. Little, Brown and
Company, Boston, 1974.
Gilje, Paul. The Early Republic: An Introduction. Organization of American
Historians, < http://www.oah.org/pubs/magazine/earlyrepublic/gilje.htm> Accessed
December 27, 2002.
Hoffman, Ronald and Peter J. Albert, eds. Women in the Age of the American Revolution.
University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville VA, 1989.
Kerber, Linda K. The Paradox of Womens Citizenship in the Early Republic: The Case
of Martin vs. Massachusetts, 1805. The American Historical Review, Volume 97, Issue 2
(Apr., 1992), 349 378.
Merriam-Webster Online <http://www.m-w.com>.
Morgan, Edmund S. The Genius of George Washington. W. W. Norton and Company,
New York NY, 1980.
PBS, Rediscovering George Washington, Appearance and Reality: The Physical
Characteristics of Washington.
http://www.pbs.org/georgewashington/father/appearance.html 2002 The Claremont
Institute.
Rosenfeld, Ross. The Real Washington and Lincoln. Newsweek Web,
http://www.msnbc.com/news/873077.asp accessed February 14, 2003.
Ulrich, Laurel Thatcher. Good Wives: Image and Reality in the Lives of Women in
Northern New England 1650 1750. Vintage Books, New York NY, 1980.
Wills, Garry. Cincinnatus: George Washington and the Enlightenment. Doubleday and
Company, Garden City NY, 1984.
Zagarri, Rosemarie. The Rights of Man and Woman in Post-Revolutionary America.
William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Volume 55, Issue 2 (Apr., 1998), 203 230.

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_______________. Morals, Manners, and the Republican Mother. William and Mary
Quarterly, Volume 44, Issue 2 (Jun., 1992), 192 215.

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