Inventing George Washington, Edward Lengel
A serious historian
gives us a humorous view of the Father of the Country phenomenon. George Washington took great care to save all
his letters, diaries, notes, etc. Then
after he died much was sold, given away, destroyed and replaced with folklore
that sold well and entered the mythology of America.
Sorry, he did not
cut down the cherry tree; and he would have had to sleep all day every day to
spend time in all the homes and beds where people claimed that he slept. No he was not a practicing Christian,
whatever his Episcopalian roots were, he did not insert “so help me god” in his
inauguration speech despite false claims by Gingrich, Bush, and Obama.
All his prayer
pictures are based on what the clergy was selling after the civil war and his
book of prayers is a fake – a bogus document that has not historical truth in
it and it has been debunked numerous times, but it still makes the circles of
the zealots.
Yes he was a good
dancer and had many girlfriends, but Martha was the one he was faithful to
after marriage and she was not frumpy and boring as so many later sketches try
to portray her.
And the NPS
attempted to create a Washington birthplace – only to find out later from
archaeology that they built the wrong size and kind of house in the wrong place
and put up the sign “this house is neither a reproduction nor a facsimile of
the original”.
The fact is that
“biographers” or better – mythmakers – such as Weems have created a mythology that
is as factual as Star Wars and Harry Potter, but no one wants to destroy it and
go back to the truth. We see the same
today when I think of the presidents in my lifetime. Ronald Reagon has gone completely to the myth
makers. No one remembers the men who
died in the bunker with the truck bomb or him sleeping through the crisis call
– instead he is the great communicator.
Our effort to
understand history is perverted by those who want to shape history to sell a
specific idea. Such a shame.
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