The Founders at Home: The Building of America, 1735-1817

Summary (from the publisher): Through the Founders' own voices--and in the homes they designed and built to embody the ideal of domestic happiness they fought to achieve--we come to understand why the American Revolution, of all great revolutions, was the only enduring success.

The Founders were vivid, energetic men, with sophisticated worldviews, and this magnificent reckoning of their successes draws liberally from their own eloquent writings on their actions and well-considered intentions. Richly illustrated with America's historical and architectural treasures, this volume also considers the houses the Founders built with such care and money to reflect their vision for the fledgling nation. That so many great thinkers--Washington, Madison, Hamilton, Jefferson, John Jay, the Lees of Stratford Hall, and polemicist William Livingston--came together to accomplish what rightly seemed to them almost a miracle is a standing historical mystery, best understood by pondering the men themselves and their profound and world-changing ideas.

Through impressive research and an intimate understanding of these iconic patriots, award-winning author Myron Magnet offers fresh insight into why the American experiment resulted in over two centuries of unexampled freedom and prosperity.

 

Review: This work of non-fiction provides a brief biographical overview of several of the founding fathers of America including William Livingstone, the Lee family, George Washington, John Jay, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison. This book did an excellent job of giving a fairly in-depth biography of each man and family, as well as their political contributions. Additionally, (although somewhat overstated in the title and summary) the book gives an overview of the family home of each of the men described, including its history, renovations, and fate after the founder's death.

 

Although I am still a little unsure of why the author chose the particular founding fathers that he did, especially since some were prominent while others were lesser known men, I enjoyed learning interesting tidbits about all of them. For example, I knew very little going in about the five Lee brothers of Stratford Hall, one of which would go on to father General Robert E. Lee. George Washington's lesser known title is that of "Father of the American Mule" after the king of Spain sent him two prize jackasses "as a mark of his esteem" (179). When one died, he proceeded to breed the creature with an American mare, and spawned a dynasty of mules.

 

I anticipated this book to be largely about the founders' home life and their houses. Although it turned out to be largely about their political careers with some information about their homes, I still enjoyed what I did learn. The author includes photos and floor plans of most of the homes, and analyzes how their homes reflect the men themselves. For examples, George Washington's home is a combination of a manor house and farmhouse. "For all his ambition, he built the house of a citizen, not a seigneur, and the endearingly homey Mount Vernon turned out to be a large but undoubted example of what Greenberg calls America's architecture of democracy" (120). Poor Hamilton Grange, home of Alexander Hamilton, has had an awkward history of being moved multiple times, once to be shoved sideways between two much larger buildings, with its verandas cut off, to be used as a rectory of a church. However, today it has been largely restored. Likewise, President Madison's home Montpelier has had a long evolution from the house Madison's father built in the mid-1760s to the renovations made by the president, to ballooning into a fifty-five room mansion under the ownership of William du Pont.

 

If anything, this book makes me want to continue to gain a more in-depth understanding of the founders' homes and their history. Magnet has shown that their homes were one way of understanding these great men that contributed greatly to the country we still know today.

 

Stars: 4