{"id":4022,"date":"2016-05-05T15:37:20","date_gmt":"2016-05-05T15:37:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/historynews\/?p=4022"},"modified":"2025-11-12T15:25:55","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T15:25:55","slug":"who-lives-who-dies-who-tells-your-story-hamilton-in-the-special-collections-research-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/historynews\/2016\/05\/05\/who-lives-who-dies-who-tells-your-story-hamilton-in-the-special-collections-research-center\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cWho Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story?\u201d Hamilton in the Special Collections Research Center"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In the Broadway musical Hamilton<\/em>, George Washington tells Alexander Hamilton, \u201cYou have no control \u2026 who tells your story.\u201d In archives and special collections, stories are preserved and told every day, whether they are the stories of presidents and politicians or those of everyday people. While the Special Collections Research Center <\/a>is better known for its collections documenting modern day people and events, we do hold some materials related to our founding fathers, including those represented in Hamilton<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Alexander Hamilton. Order on First Bank of United States, May 16, 1794. Cochran History of Business Collection<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Alexander Hamilton\u2019s own handwriting can be seen in the original 1794 document \u201cOrder on First Bank of United States,\u201d which shows Hamilton in his capacity as Secretary of the Treasury authorizing the Secretary of State, Edmund Randolph, to be paid $900 for “certain expenses which have occurred in the West Indies in relation to public service.” His work is also represented by his publication The Soundness of the Policy of Protecting Domestic Manufactures<\/em> (Philadelphia: printed by J. R. A. Skerrett, 1817).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eighteenth century printed materials in SCRC demonstrate that the personal attacks shown in the musical were just as vindictive in real life: the pamphlet Letters to Alexander Hamilton, King of the Feds<\/em> (New York: orinted by Richard Reynolds, 1802), attributed to expert scandalmonger James Thomson Callender<\/a> (the man credited with revealing Hamilton\u2019s affair with Maria Reynolds), attacks Hamilton for 64 pages.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Cover of An American Colonel: A Story of Thrilling Times During the Revolution and the Great Rivalry of Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton, by Jeremiah Clemens (Akron, Ohio: Wolfe Pub. Co., 1900)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Multiple books in SCRC detail the life and death of Hamilton, including Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton\u2019s The Conqueror: Being the True and Romantic Story of Alexander Hamilton<\/em> (New York: Macmillan, 1902) and William Coleman\u2019s 1804 publication A Collection of the Facts and Documents, Relative to the Death of Major-General Alexander Hamilton<\/em> (Boston: Reprinted by Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1904).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aaron Burr\u2019s troubles did not end after he killed Alexander Hamilton in an 1804 duel. In 1807 he was arrested for treason<\/a> at the behest of President Jefferson. The trial is extensively detailed in the two volumes of Reports of the Trials of Colonel Aaron Burr<\/em> (Philadelphia: published by Hopkins and Earle. Fry and Kammerer, printers, 1808). For Burr apologists, the book An American Colonel: A Story of Thrilling Times During the Revolution and the Great Rivalry of Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton<\/em>, by Jeremiah Clemens (Akron, Ohio: Wolfe Pub. Co., 1900) tells the story of Hamilton and Burr\u2019s rivalry in pro-Burr fashion.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Marquis de Lafayette letter to \u201cMy dear sir,\u201d December 19, 1784. Jay Edwin Sturgis Nagle Papers.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Marquis de Lafayette is represented in SCRC collections by a handwritten 1784 letter from the Jay Edwin Sturgis Nagle Collection<\/a>, as well as multiple printed eulogies given upon his death in 1834. An unusual take on the Marquis is given in Walt Whitman\u2019s short publication, Lafayette in <\/em>Brooklyn<\/em> (New York: George D. Smith, 1905), in which he describes being picked up and kissed by Lafayette as a small child.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thomas Jefferson, of course, is well documented in many resources, including two letters from the Alexander James and George Mifflin Dallas Papers<\/a>. SCRC also holds an early edition of Jefferson\u2019s only full-length book, Notes on the State of Virginia<\/em> <\/a>(Philadelphia: R.T. Rawle, publisher, John Thompson, printer, June, 1801). The Dallas Papers also contain one letter by James Madison.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Letter, James Madison to George Mifflin Dallas, June 23, 1821. Alexander James and George Mifflin Dallas Papers<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

George Washington, like Jefferson, is extensively documented. One particularly beautiful Washington-related book is an 1858 publication of his farewell address upon his retirement from the presidency–the basis for the song \u201cOne Last Time\u201d (Washington’s Farewell Address to the People of the United States: Embellished with Arabesque Designs & Illuminations<\/em>. Philadelphia: Devereux & Company, 1858).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013Katy Rawdon, Coordinator of Technical Services, SCRC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the Broadway musical Hamilton, George Washington tells Alexander Hamilton, \u201cYou have no control \u2026 who tells your story.\u201d In archives and special collections, stories are preserved and told every day, whether they are the stories of presidents and politicians or those of everyday people. While the Special Collections Research Center is better known for … Continue reading \u201cWho Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story?\u201d Hamilton in the Special Collections Research Center<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":987,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[40,41,25,36,14,6],"class_list":["post-4022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history-news","tag-alexander-hamilton","tag-american-revolution","tag-history-news","tag-politics","tag-rare-books","tag-top-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/historynews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/historynews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/historynews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/historynews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/987"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/historynews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4022"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/historynews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4022\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5494,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/historynews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4022\/revisions\/5494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/historynews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/historynews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/historynews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}