In the name of the father : Washington's legacy, slavery, and the making of a nation / François Furstenberg.

Documents the ways in which George Washington's words, image, and mythology shaped America's fledgling republic throughout the first fifty years after the Revolutionary War, offering insight into the pivotal role played by slavery issues.

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Furstenberg, François
Format: Book
Language:English
Published: New York : Penguin Press, 2006.
Subjects:
Table of Contents:
  • What the nation was up against
  • The farewell
  • The threats: geographical, political, international
  • Consent, slavery, and the problem of U.S. nationalism
  • 1. The apotheosis of George Washington
  • Washington dies
  • The nation's uncertain future
  • Civic texts: creating a new future
  • Partisanship
  • Nationalism and religion
  • Resignation, gratitude, and consent
  • 2. Washington's family: slavery and the nation
  • George's death and Martha's predicament
  • Slavery and the national family
  • Washington as abolitionist
  • Washington and paternalism
  • Toward a consenting republic?
  • 3. Mason Locke Weems: spreading the American gospel
  • Clergyman to evangelical bookseller: "true philanthropist and prudent speculator"
  • Weems and antipartisanship
  • Weem's Washington: a primer
  • An "ad captandum" book
  • Discriminating the "populi"
  • Selling Marshall's biography: Weems and civic texts
  • 4. Civic texts for slave and free: inventing the autonomous American
  • Schoolbooks ad civic texts: the hidden bestsellers of early American literature
  • From the Columbian orator to the English reader: the making of the autonomous individual
  • Slavery and reading: the specter of uncontrolled slaves
  • Civic texts for slaves, self-control, and the inculcation of slave autonomy
  • 5. Slavery and the American individual
  • Revolution, resistance, and autonomy
  • Fit to be free
  • The extended legacy of civic texts.