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George Washington's Mount Vernon: At Home in Revolutionary America 1st Edition

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Robert F. Dalzell (Author)
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Robert F. Dalzell (Author), Lee Baldwin Dalzell (Author)
4.2 out of 5 stars 30 customer reviews
ISBN-13: 978-0195136289
ISBN-10: 0195136284
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Product Details

  • Paperback: 320 pages
  • Publisher: Oxford University Press; 1 edition (February 24, 2000)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0195136284
  • ISBN-13: 978-0195136289
  • Product Dimensions: 9.9 x 0.9 x 6.9 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,722,093 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Top Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsWashington understood as an architect for democracy
By A Customer on September 14, 1998
Format: Hardcover
For an Architect practicing in any era since Monticello was built, it has always been easy to enter into Jefferson's process--to commune with the models and the methods he sat down with as he designed (time and again) the house that he built as a monument to his ideas and his place in history. In part, this has been because he planned and drew much as we do today. We have the drawings. We know (and can quickly avert our eyes from) the form of labor. We can hold these two-dimensional maps up to the brilliant artifact, and be satisfied, with ourselves, that we have made a connection to the past. Mount Vernon, however, has had to wait for the Dalzells to read, for us, the full and fully three-dimensional process of its becoming. This beautifully written book brings to George Washington's home, a context of meaning and National symbolism that time and distance had almost obliterated. The book is a restoration project: and as such, it is a key compliment to the preservation work so ably executed over the years by the Mount Vernon Ladies Association. I heartily recommend this book to architects (amateur and professional), their clients (who may find comfort in learning that building has always been a trial), architectural historians, or anyone at all who is curious about the faithfulness of our democracy to the designs of one of its primary draftsmen.
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4.0 out of 5 starsa good insight to the life of Washington through his home
By Jason G on August 16, 2011
Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
This is really an architectural biography, that is a story of the life of Washington through his public and private spaces. Mount Vernon, the estate and house, has long been seen as an archetype of colonial America, yet this work exists to show just how unusual Washington was and how unusual his estate was.

Drawing on extensive use of primary sources, the authors have made the case that Washington's working estate was intended to be a public location for showing how a private life could be lived well, with late 18th century virtue at its heart.

The authors do not ignore the role that slave labor played at Mt. Vernon, nor Washington's changing attitudes. Mostly what they accomplish with this work is to show and flesh out in greater detail how this estate, and its evolving history, to 1799, was used to create and demonstrate what the new American Republic could be.

Washington might be surprised at the attention to detail that the preservation of Mt. Vernon has today. He would not be surprised that it is a public space, welcoming to people from across the land. He might be surprised at its attention today, froze in amber in 1799, as it remained a working estate, constantly changing, to be used and grown for economic output in his day.

This is a readable, well researched history that fleshes out Washington and the important role that Mt. Vernon played in his life.
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5.0 out of 5 starsA Successful Mix
By A Customer on May 7, 2000
Format: Hardcover
Knowing Professor Dalzell and Mrs. Dalzell personally, I was incredibly curious to see how they blended the two seemingly connected but perhaps contrasting topics of George Washington and his home. Essentially, they were connected very successfully. The entire history of the home itself is told vividly with photographs, anecdotes, and objective descriptions of its development. Following, Washington's own personal, military, and political history is told in light of the times, and in the book's shining ability, in relation to the home itself. The Dalzell's cleverly-melded arguments and discussions leads the reader to a full knowledge of Mt. Vernon and its inspiring owner.
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5.0 out of 5 starsThis book enriches our understanding of Washington.
By A Customer on November 2, 1998
Format: Hardcover
Mount Vernon was both architecturally innovative and a true mirror of Washington's feelings and mind. He never wrote an autobiography and his diaries consist largely of farm accounts, but in Mount Vernon, the authors write, "he produced a text from which it is possible to coax a remarkably full sense of his political convictions and of how, over time, they changed." The book, George Washington's Mount Vernon, combines the public and the private sides of his life and uses the combination to enrich our understanding of both.
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3.0 out of 5 starsLackluster
By HH on February 21, 2016
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
Robert F. Dalzell, Jr., and Lee Baldwin Dalzell attempt to show what George Washington's 8,000-acre plantation can reveal about his personal character. Their core premise is that his deeply held values and opinions were embedded in his environment. By looking at Washington through the lenses of material culture research, they try to suggest a connection between the way that he managed Mount Vernon and the way that he understood the nation. Writing, for example, about how Washington assembled the work force that he needed to build his house, the Dalzells see parallels with the concerns that also troubled the country: "When fully assembled, the building crews at Mount Vernon thus had a polyglot character. Indeed, they came close to replicating, in miniature, the larger Virginia society from which they were drawn. They also displayed, sometimes dramatically, the pressures and tensions that eddied through society" (p. 127). Here the Dalzells are following the axiomatic premise of anthropologist Clyde Kluckhohn, who held that cultural performance serves the analyst as a "mirror for mankind." In a similar way, the authors argue that Washington is effectively mirrored in Mount Vernon.

The book is extensively illustrated, as all good material culture studies should be, with more than 80 photographs, images, scaled-drawings, and maps. Yet the potential for a truly alternate view of Washington is not fully achieved. The Dalzells might have paid more attention to the physical elements of the landscape that Washington so carefully crafted over a period of 40 years, but instead they have depended most heavily on conventional documentary sources.Read more ›
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 starsInteresting in spots, dry in others...

Planning a trip to George Washington’s Mount Vernon, I decided to do a little research by reading George Washington’s Mt. Vernon: At Home in Revolutionary America by Robert F. Read more

Published 4 months ago by Cynthia K. Robertson
5.0 out of 5 starsGood read

Excellent book on Mt. Vernon. I have been there, going again but learning so much history and how Washington felt about his home. Read more

Published 11 months ago by S. Mitchell
5.0 out of 5 starsInformative Read

The book was just as described, in great condition. In addition, it was also a very informative read.

Published 19 months ago by Caroline Spurry
1.0 out of 5 starsdisappointment

So slanted. I have read some writings by Washington himself this portrayal is ludacris. I was very disappointed to say the least.

Published on March 11, 2014 by Readaholic
5.0 out of 5 starsAn excellent read

I had no firm expectations about the book and have read only a couple of books about Washington. I now feel I have a much stronger sense of him as a human being rather given to... Read more

Published on December 8, 2013 by EM in NC
5.0 out of 5 starsDry

I love history and find myself reading this book in snatches. Our first President was truly a complex if unconventional man of great importance in the founding of our young... Read more

Published on October 6, 2013 by springroses
4.0 out of 5 starsA very close look at the construction and life of George Washington

This goes into a part of George Washington's life that you never hear about, what he was doing while serving our country for years and years, often with little or no pay. Read more

Published on October 2, 2013 by Anne the quilter
5.0 out of 5 starsVery Interesting

I enjoyed reading this very much. I lived in that area & have been to Mt. Vernon several times. Beautiful area & an lovely home.

Published on September 27, 2013 by Shirley Boyle
4.0 out of 5 starsINTERESTING BOOK

We learned more about colonial construction than we might have needed to know, but it was fascinating. We particularly enjoyed the interpretation of Mt. Read more

Published on September 5, 2013 by Jack R. Hoffman
5.0 out of 5 starsDetails of Washington's Domestic Affairs

You will not find thrilling accounts of the crossing of the Delaware. The book covers a side of Washington rarely discussed, including how he ran his plantation, how he handled his... Read more

Published on August 29, 2013 by Catamaran'78

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