Kate Elizabeth Brown

A handbook for teaching Washington's legacy, the American founding era, and responsible engagement in contemporary civic life Crafted by a diverse group of expert historians, museum professionals, and K–12 teachers, Learning Through George Washington is an engaging, multifaceted exploration of how to teach and learn about the American Revolutionary era. For more than twenty-five years, these educators have gathered at Mount Vernon to participate in dynamic dialogues about Washington's life, eighteenth-century America, and the challenges of teaching this complex history to everyone from the curious public to advanced college students. The essays, each shaped by personal expertise, tackle subjects ranging from interpreting primary sources to discussing controversial topics, such as American slavery and Native dispossession, with accuracy and respect. By emphasizing primary source–based inquiry, material culture, and effective pedagogical methods, this collection invites readers to explore Washington's legacy and its continued relevance today. Perfect for history enthusiasts, educators, and students, Learning Through George Washington not only deepens our historical understanding of the founding era but also provides valuable resources for further study, ensuring that Washington's call for the "general diffusion of knowledge" remains alive and well into the twenty-first century.

A handbook for teaching Washington's legacy, the American founding era, and responsible engagement in contemporary civic life Crafted by a diverse group of expert historians, museum professionals, and K–12 teachers, Learning Through George Washington is an engaging, multifaceted exploration of how to teach and learn about the American Revolutionary era. For more than twenty-five years, these educators have gathered at Mount Vernon to participate in dynamic dialogues about Washington's life, eighteenth-century America, and the challenges of teaching this complex history to everyone from the curious public to advanced college students. The essays, each shaped by personal expertise, tackle subjects ranging from interpreting primary sources to discussing controversial topics, such as American slavery and Native dispossession, with accuracy and respect. By emphasizing primary source–based inquiry, material culture, and effective pedagogical methods, this collection invites readers to explore Washington's legacy and its continued relevance today. Perfect for history enthusiasts, educators, and students, Learning Through George Washington not only deepens our historical understanding of the founding era but also provides valuable resources for further study, ensuring that Washington's call for the "general diffusion of knowledge" remains alive and well into the twenty-first century.

Alexander Hamilton is commonly seen as the standard-bearer of an ideology-turned-political party, the Federalists, engaged in a struggle for the soul of the young United States against the Anti-Federalists, and later, the Jeffersonian Republicans. Alexander Hamilton and the Development of American Law counters such conventional wisdom with a new, more nuanced view of Hamilton as a true federalist, rather than a one-dimensional nationalist, whose most important influence on the American founding is his legal legacy.In this analytical biography, Kate Elizabeth Brown recasts our understanding of Hamilton’s political career, his policy achievements, and his significant role in the American founding by considering him first and foremost as a preeminent lawyer who applied law and legal arguments to accomplish his statecraft. In particular, Brown shows how Hamilton used inherited English legal principles to accomplish his policy goals, and how state and federal jurists adapted these Hamiltonian principles into a distinct, republican jurisprudence throughout the nineteenth century. When writing his authoritative commentary on the nature of federal constitutional power in The Federalist, Hamilton juxtaposed the British constitution with the new American one he helped to create; when proposing commercial, monetary, banking, administrative, or foreign policy in Washington’s cabinet, he used legal arguments to justify his desired course of action. In short, lawyering, legal innovation, and common law permeated Alexander Hamilton’s professional career. Re-examining Hamilton’s post-war accomplishments through the lens of law, Brown demonstrates that Hamilton’s much-studied political career, as well as his contributions to republican political science, cannot be fully understood without recognizing and investigating how Hamilton used Anglo-American legal principles to achieve these ends. A critical re-evaluation of Hamilton’s legacy, as well as his place in the founding era, Brown’s work also enhances and refines our understanding of the nature and history of American jurisprudence.