She took on a much harder cast she went from being june cleaver to joan crawford. In the fact of the matter was neither was true and both was true. There was someplace in the middle. When i got into the scholarship and the research i found out this is a very talented woman even one recent biographer in a recent biographer of washington said she was on weathered. Unlettered person. She also lived in fergus berg. It was a blue booming metropolis. What emerged for me was the fact that im in sport sophisticated woman had been there. Between martha in myself i and myself i think we were starting to address the idea that she needs to be looked at more closely. George as you mentioned died when he was only 12 years old. And it occurred to me he was never around all that much. Where did he achieve all of these qualities. They have to come from somebody. I think they can crack correct conclusion came from his mother. Not just because she have George Washington but how she raised him. Its really interesting. I am sure that the people in fergus berg it was certainly more dominant in the area then we may have thought. The 20th century it is much longer time into the late 20th century. There really interpreting motherhood differently. I dont think there i think there is any doubt about it. With the modern sensibilities into our look backwards. Were not judging them by the moral standards and quality of today. We are taking a closer look at the men and women in trying to seize them. I tried to imagine what it would be like i got a lot of help. I wanted to get a womans perspective what was it like to be a woman raising six children rather than five children. They couldnt even own property. It was to take the property. That was passed along to them. It is a very difficult century for women. Possibly the history of the american republic. She have to have done something right to raise the children under such difficult circumstances. And to produce a man that was right in the heart of his countrymen. I appreciate that a lot. If we can switch over here. I just want to note for everyone watching. Martha has been experiencing some laryngitis. Shes can read some of her responses it for us. I think you we all appreciate it very much. Something that craig touched on. An elite woman. And a slave owner and how that could help us understand her in the world she lived in. I had written out something so my daughter can read it. But i think it answers your question. Telling the story of mary ball as a weather a slave owner and a member of the gentry including class save slavery. And the way it shaped white male symmetry. Marys decision to stay unmarried after death of her husband placed her in a category was special legal and customary liabilities. Virginia law is in the judiciary works to keep the owner of land both exceptional and temporary. Augustines will left his two best plantations to his son. And divided up the west of the land. He left a small amount of money to his and marys daughter betty he left mary the right to use the house in the land where she lived only until george became of age. In stipulated that if she thought she needed more it would come from among people designated for children. They set her at odds with her children. But it was in line with the legal goal of keeping land away from women and trying to reduce property owning windows widows to dependency. These practices created a prediction for widespread problems. He was already gone there. And they have failed to find the means to about build herself a home. Their quest for small sums of money on this infertile property irked him until he finally took the farm from her thinking improvement in property he thinks was due him. He will never know why he remains single. But she have a model for independence. Between the time she was about six until she was about 12. She watched her mother run their farm. And make her own decisions. Mary may not have wanted more children. Another important factor was the progressions that if she remarried and if her second husband tampered with the legacy she would lose guardianship of them. I guess augustine had experienced it. He wanted to press prevent this non common deterrence. She was like in a brisk control over her children. The experience over the course of them 18th century. The enslaved people as well as between those. As well as suggesting some changes. Those were developed over time. Mary became the owner of two young enslaved boys. The role of slave owner blunted her empathy. She owned children about her age who were occasionally her playmates but whatever the game she would win. She grew up on a small farm. The stepfather and mother personally port forced work out. Her mother took over eventually hiring an overseer but still controlling the farm. In the enslaved workers. Mary was born in the time when a very high number of the kidnapped africans were intrigued virginia bewildered and frightened and rebelled us. They were among the legislators writing the early 1h century laws. Complete control over the lies of africans. They litigated over the children and young and enslaved women. She would be valuable although less costly than in the enslaved men. Because women worked in the field as well as the house and produced children that their owners could work or sell. The membership membership in the early 18th century generation helps to make her an unrepentant slave owner. During the resolution she asked george to display that. Mary persisted and got her way. In her will she separated enslaved family members recklessly. As a woman but later and more urgently as a widow they have to demonstrate the authority and strength before the slave and overseers. Statistics show that the infractions owned by widows showed up more often in the courts than those by the time mary was an old woman. The myth was developing. Martha washington for example was protected by the rule at mount vernon. The prevailing ideological of sensibility along with that distance that they would create between mentation witnesses. In the daytoday work from laborers left her vulnerable. As if slave owning can be anything else. Thank you martha and thank you josephine it actually is really helpful in context. You put two things together there Mary Ball Washington experience as a widow and we know how the law in virginia disempowered women but put them slightly more powerful position and also then the needs of slavery. It is a very interesting figure. Both extremely partial powerful and some context. I want to ask charlene to come in on this next question. One of the things i will ask you about the law confines the property owning is very crucial for us to understand. Law that constraints has people. We will come back to that in a minute. How hard it is to write biography in any area. And where writing another book about that. But even so its really a challenge. Why is it so hard to write biographies of women. Multiple challenges as well. I have taken the easy way out. Women who would have been written about in newspapers and by others. People who tried to do Mary Ball Washington. The challenges come from the time when you are looking in this. And how archives have worked. It has been always to entice women with men. When you look at the 18th century women are kind of thought of as a general generalizations. They dont have public identities. There really only known whether they are the mother of somebody. They are known by the men to whom they are attached. Because of that they werent really seen as specific individuals. But as a generic general category. They got lost in the records. They werent written about as much. When you look at the beginning of the country and the census. Its really hard to find women. So one of the challenges to do a biography of women is you have to start sifting through all of the traditional documents and try to find women where they can when they go to an archives. The papers are known by the mans name. So i have to try to find Margaret Arnold through Benedict Arnolds papers. Or there known by their fathers name. There just put into one folder. You have to sift. Same thing when youre looking through newspapers. You have to sift in search for where these women are and what key terms do you use theyre not always get to be known as Margaret Arnold. Much harder to find than men. We get to get creative because once you decide to write write about a woman. This is where you can start thinking about sources in different ways. Is not just a reading through the lines. Its thinking about architecture and spaces that women and habited laundries and kitchens and bedrooms and so how can we bring that in to help tell our story. When you look at jewelry that a woman owned. Or dishes that a woman used to. It can tell us an immense amount and let us write the story in a more full and rich way even though what i think we need to understand is when we do biography you think about the challenges its complex figures. But women who are known by the men in their lives get simplified and just know the mother and the father. They get known as a traders wife. Traders wife. Very complex figures. They are slaveholders and writers. They are women who are full of complexity in the challenges of the biographer is to break through that traditional thinking of women and mothers and wives and daughters and bus that open and took about sources in creative ways to get a fuller and richer way of women. As a more challenging history to write. Especially when you are looking for women of the lower classes and women of color. My students get angry when they cant find sources of the women they are interested in. There is a lot of reward to try to resurrect these women as fully complex individuals that they were. See speemac that is very great. I guess it really underscores a key point especially when theyre trying to write about enslaved women for example who are known to us by the relationship of someone who enslaved them. We are writing the incredible biography and letting her be an individual in her own right and writing her life when we really only had two points to interviews. I think you make such an important point there. The individuals and not just the relationships to others. And just ask you martha two things although i will ask you to be brief about them. If you could just very quickly if you could give us assisting description of what the law of culture is and how it disempowers women elite women, free women and how it empowers women of property when they are not married can you just give us that little snippet. I think it could be super helpful. You become consumed in the identity of your husband. Before marriage you are dependent on your father and you can pass on things you legally and make you the owner of property. When youre a widow the same thing happens. All things in your own right so essentially wipes out your individual existence. You cant testify in court. That is so helpful. I think its interesting for us to think about Mary Ball Washington who even though shes living in this very challenging time. We know they do remarry. Much less quickly. Than men do. They married more quickly. They cant assume its in some kind of modern sense. But it may be that the kind of capacity she has as a widow. I think she have a model in her mother. This not clear to me that she enjoyed her mother very much but she admired it meant that they were not had to have any more children. At the time about that. And as a real reason for not wanting to marry again. She also wouldve possibly lost control if she married again over the property that she still have that they have a temporary status. There were many risks. I want to mention very briefly for us. All of these assess subjects are big ones. An interesting thing that you bring to your book is the fact that she reads can you just very briefly talk about what we can think about as a reader. I actually wrote a page and a half about that which i think my daughter will my wife i was blinking or yours or the two. As she became an possession of the Christian Life from the beginning. They were almost all britain in the late 17th century. They were all helpful to marry and whose early loss of the parents left her in need of both comfort and guidance. Many lessons focus on how to accept loss. By setting to understand gods will and purposes. Excessive unhappiness this was a common belief. Mary head to start learning the lessons early and often. She read her name in the flyleaf below the predecessors in that book became her daily companion in teaching tool. George washington later came to own his own copy of it. They all taught that the prevailing hierarchies were just and one should work hard in ones assigned position. If someone as a lowerclass could not appreciate. For most slaveholders they included telling slaves not to steal into be obedient. Her books furnished her brain with things that helped her to navigate the stress and pain. She did not read novels. The new tone to the reader. Offered lessons in empathy and sympathy. Sharing sorrows with others pain. Because of the early losses in the precocious workload. They came to value the so highly. I think thats really helpful. I just want to go back to greg. And talk to him. He had mentioned the significant reader that has understood him as a person of letters. We have just been talking about how important it is to think about the kind of independent people as full individuals and not in relation to someone else. You write about this in the book but not the whole of the book. I think that is a driving question for a lot of people and it certainly is something that some somebody addresses. See mike listening to marthas daughter talk about the scholarship. It reminded me i guess this addresses the larger problem they go to the hobby store and buying a thousand piece public puzzle and bringing it out. They were trying to piece together one of my other books. You could piece the story together. It is difficult to find out these things. We dont even know exactly when she was born. We dont know George Washington mother we do not know where she is buried. The cottage in fredericksburg. Nobody knows where she is buried today. She did from the time she was raised. And the values that she grew up with. It was a difficult time. I think also she was ultimately a very good woman and who interceded at times to make sure that he followed the straight and narrow. He wanted to become a british cabin boy. And told mary under no circumstances because george become a british cabin boy. One of the officers the first was that the british royalty. They got first preference is. And then british subjects. And then way down at the bottom even below jamaican slaves. Were americans and this is at a time. They kept very good records. And plus, they were in with the cruise they went to the brothels and bars of london. The worst sort of people to enforce them to become sailors. All of a sudden there hundreds of miles out to see you. These are very rough men. Dozens of really tough disheveled was not always very good. To make sure that georgia did not go into the british navy. They encourage them to become a survivor. They didnt want him to go to the ohio valley. That was by the time they were a man. They did look after her affairs. The idea of responsibility to his mother that he obviously learned from his mother. As a citizen and as a son. As a human being. All of these qualities as i mentioned before that we associate with George Washington had to have come from her. I was quickly tried to flip through the book where i can find it. When you wrote about her not wanting him to go to see. I thought that was really moving. I think they have said they would tie him to the april district. You said no, she is a realistic sense of what that would mean and why she thought that would have been a positive outcome for them. I think i may have just lost you craig. I thought that was really a great point that you make. I want to if you could mention and say one more word about this. You talked about her as brave he said she was a brave woman. If you do get him as a brave purchase. Can you say a little bit more about that. I think its quite powerful. Probably all women of that century the century in that time have to be be brave. Mortality was very high. A tremendously High Percentage everything was a danger. And it was all around you. And the infection was a killer. You died of influence. In dysentery. And to be a single woman raising six children i remember the democracy in america where it was about a singularity of american women. He perceived that american women were different than european women. They were far more independent and they stood up for themselves. They were all good attributes. I remember reading that and democracy in america. Thinking he did not had Mary Ball Washington and mind. Wrote that in 1832. It struck me that one of the things that we dont look into enough as the personal qualities of the people of that time. Its not just names and dates and places. These were real human beings with real emotions. Especially at the end with the breast cancer. She was very brave in that regard. There is nothing that was nothing that could be done about it. It have to be terribly painful for her. The accounts that were made. One last thing i would just know is that when martha was talking about mary she enslaves a pretty decent number of people. She has a kind of commanding presence. We can see that in two ways. These are people who are in charge and maybe that is a parallel also. Look at the conduct during the revolutionary war. It was not doing that. Holding together a ragtag army for several years. And losing more battles. The most important battles that he lost. It truly has to come from someplace. Im an ask charlene one last question before we go to some questions from the audience. There has been a wealth of questions. We had been reading them. They are really great. I want to thank you all really a lot. Could you help us put Mary Ball Washington in the context of 18th century british america. Can we draw any larger lessons here. Craig gestured towards this. I wondered if you could find that for us a little bit more. Mary ball washington is extraordinary and then shes also ordinary and i think she is illuminating on the number of points to tell us more about the women in the 18th century. How much she really is the 18th century. We dont have very many women who are 18th century. Mary ball washington is and thats wonderful. As some ordinary elite white women. Women who was born into a slave humming family. Her descendents will continue to help rule virginia. A woman of privilege and spite of many losses and suffering. A lot of other women black or white in virginia and elsewhere did not get to enjoy. She is a devout christian i do think we need to spend more time looking at this a trilogy of women. I dont think that gets enough attention. While she is the devout faithful christian she is convinced in her right to own and control people. She has a right to be in control of these other people. Even though she is this devout christian. Her sufferings, our sad but they are also ordinary. A lot of women lost parents and lots of women lost their husbands but she is unusual and the fact that she does not remarry. That is unusual and 18th century. A lot of women because of how hard life is. They did not make the choice to go it alone even though they have really good reasons to choose to go it alone. Shes extraordinary in that. I think she demonstrates to us the limits rations limitations that they have. They control a large plantation. Yet she does not have the political power on the social power that a man would have in the 18th century. I think she helps illuminate the limitations of womens lives. On the other hand. When you read marthas book or craigs book. This is an elite woman who understood that she needed to learn what all young ladies need to learn. How to ride or read. And how to attract a wealthy husband and she did. If she is usual in that sense also. I also think she shows some of the choices that women made. People who read about her will be surprised at the independence and would be surprised that she chose to not remarry. To control the legacy of her children. She shows the importance of motherhood and what we were mentioning before. She becomes known as the mother. She really emphasizes that as well. She shows us how complicated and complex womens lives are. She is a much more complex figure than that. She brings to meet more questions about the 18th century. How would she have characterized herself. How would she have done that. What did motherhood mean to her. We can kind of guess at what might have meant. And what mattered most to her. She is illuminating and gives us lots of answers. But i think she loves us with some questions also. The evidence isnt there. We dont know what these women are thinking. I will leave it at that. Thank you so much. Thank you everyone. Such good questions. There are some good questions here and i can be of the find it. I will attribute these questions everyone the person that asks this will just know that this is your question. Someone has ask about her feelings about the american revolution. She is born as a british subject. What were her feelings about the american revolution. Martha does too. There are hints that she was a total sympathizer. But nothing really out and out to say yes. She grew up a british suffrage. The divine rights. And she attended the in the anglican church. She dressed in english fashion in every way from childbirth up until 1776. I was trying to immerse myself in that time. What would it be like to say to an individual everything that you have learned for the first 50 some odd years of your life is wrong. Youre not british subject. You dont have to do this. You know have to go to the state church. Psychological and personal. The rep is seven out by the roots of what their culture has been. There is no evidence that she supported it either. For the colonial troops. There was a reference to french troops. They made reference to to be at torrey sympathizer. She was probably fairly agnostic about the whole thing. I think martha talked about this. Theres time when she was working with her garden. Into tell her that george has won an important battle. Thats what he supposed to do. And the success of the american resolution. Nothing like that. I dont think she thought about it that deeply. Nothing that suggests that she really took a position one way or another. And to be fair, even if we go by his old quantification. Maybe one third of people were there. Will see how things go. We would expect that mother of George Washington to be a patriot. She lived her life as a british subject. More than a third of american were laura loyal to the british crown. He was a royal governor. Can gave him a good job. So weve got at least three people have asked about what mary thought about martha. If you have something to tell us about what Mary Ball Washington thought about her daughter in law. Its complicated. I think they think they didnt get along at all. And then mary and martha didnt really like each other. I think mary was pleased that george married martha that if there was discomfort it was probably on martha and georges side. One of the things we havent talked about is a class issue. Mary grew up much less delete than the circles that her son ended up traveling in. She wasnt illiterate. She is elite but not in the super elite. She was not polished. She didnt make conversation necessarily to be amusing and charming. She have things to say. Very utilitarian type of person. I imagine. There were many values that they have. Martha was very lavish. They spent money and went into debt up to their eyeballs. Although she asked for little bit of money for george now and again. And did not dress up. She did not worship the high life. The real question is i dont think martha enjoyed whatever remaining controls they have. There are different generations also. Does it really matter here is a question do we know if she have. Did she remarry. Did we know anything about her ever considering remarriage. Do we know anything about that. It craig, what you think. No evidence of any suitors whatsoever. She did not seek another man after lawrence. She did have a prickly reputation. And maybe they did not see that. Whatever it was. There was a discussion of a dr. Who visited a lot. Have professional reasons to do that. I do get something think its something that they suggest. I wonder. Someone ask a question about women as slaveholders what is the dynamic there he has a certain level of authority. What is the situation of women. Would she had had to have been harsher or tougher or something. I think we have some pretty recent scholarship on this. It is pretty powerful. And the recent scholarship opens up a picture of slaveholding women that i think really goes against what the 19th century gone with the wind slaveholding women were. Its unclear how they were on violent. Not in terms of whipping but in personal one on one using it implement and stabbing them with that sewing needle. We dont have a lot about this. We know enough about other virginia slaveholding women to know that violence was a regular daytoday occurrence in these households. Because women did not had as much authority. They also have a harder time interacting with overseers. And that makes for a more frustrating intense and violent environment. Thank you, thats helpful. Ive another question which i just love. This is directly for you. This is the question about documents. The question for you is are you aware of the papers being included in the washington family paper project which of George Washington papers project is publishing. The papers are so few. Is just heartbreaking. When they went through papers. I wouldnt be surprised a great many of the notes that mary had written with them. I think what is left is a five or six letters at the library in new york. I dont know whats can happen other than that to them. Identify what a beautiful dream. There is another wonderful question here. I know we were having a little bit of challenge with that. Do you think there is a mysterious cassia papers out there. I have no idea. Maybe craig knows. That would be amazing. It is my favorite line of questions here. Is there a cash of Mary Ball Washington papers to be found. I think hes muted still. I think you are muted still. Jeanette, can you unmute him. Craig i think you have to hit your unmute but because they can do for you. The said this is such a great question. There you go i can hear you. Do you think there is a cassia papers out there waiting to be found . We all know that martha destroyed her letters. I think it the scholarship is always available. Ive been Union College in new york a couple of years ago. They pulled that a book and they found a lock of hair of George Washington. It is amazing the amount of scholarship that is out there that is unfounded. We did a lot of research obviously. My son was going through declassified documents and he found a memo that was marked topsecret it was said the to the president of the united states. It was topsecret. In the 70s nobody had ever found it. This was written three days before december 7, 1941. With the japanese and possible possible attacks and what they would be. Im not suggesting that there was any conspiracy. It have laid out the Roosevelt Library for years and classified in the 70s and nobody ever came across it. I think there is always new scholarship out there to be discovered and uncovered. I think its just so important. The power of locating more information. Sometimes we talk about revision is history as its a bad thing. We all like revision medicine. You get new information and new perspective and thats what were doing here. And crack i hope you will join us in recognizing. That the 18th century is the most significant in american history. Thats where we should all focus. Im just can and right there. Thank you all so much for joining us this evening. Im an ask the folks at mount vernon to give us some contact information. If some really great questions. And i want them to go unanswered. Thanks to kevin and jeanette and jim. They are open for visiting and dont forget what i said about the Important Role that they play in sponsoring resurgent scholarships. I think you so much everyone. Michael strain director of the institutes economic studies. Argued that the majority of americans are better off than our current political debates make it seem. Here is a portion of that event. Im not trying to diminish or sugarcoat or ignore any of the real problems we face instead im trying to be accurate and im trying to be accurate about the broad picture of the American Experience and how it is experienced by typical people in most circumstances. I think we are focusing so much on the pockets of real struggle that we are confusing those pockets of struggle for the common experience facing people. I think the militant people key. That their experience is the same as the experience of people who are really suffering and struggling. I dont want to deny that suffering or that struggle i do want to say those are atypical situations and the common into the common experience is that its much more positive than the narrative suggests