{"id":122205,"date":"2015-12-20T08:35:45","date_gmt":"2015-12-20T08:35:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2015\/12\/20\/yet-hamilton-shows-how-historians-reliance-on\/"},"modified":"2015-12-20T08:35:45","modified_gmt":"2015-12-20T08:35:45","slug":"yet-hamilton-shows-how-historians-reliance-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2015\/12\/20\/yet-hamilton-shows-how-historians-reliance-on\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Yet Hamilton shows how historians\u2019 reliance on documents can make telling history precarious. In a pivotal scene after Hamilton has betrayed his wife, Elizabeth (called by her nickname Eliza throughout the play), she burns the letters he has written to her over the years. It\u2019s an imagined scene that nonetheless demonstrates powerfully how fragile the historical record can be. She sings, \u201cLet future historians wonder how Eliza reacted when you broke her heart,\u201d deliberately asserting her agency over what is remembered. Miranda ends the production with Eliza, too. The cast joins in song to explain that after Hamilton\u2019s death it was Eliza who collected his papers for preservation. The lesson is clear: the sources historians rely on to craft historical narratives exist not by some consequence of nature, but because people like Eliza Hamilton worked to preserve them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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<\/p>\n

On Hamilton and Learning to Think Historically<\/p>\n

<\/a>
(via archographer<\/a>)<\/p>\n

#all the love to<\/a>\u00a0#lin-manuel miranda<\/a>\u00a0#for recognizing that the work Eliza did was WORK<\/a>\u00a0#vital and important to the historical record<\/a>\u00a0#but also in shaping the society we have inherited<\/a>\u00a0#I have seen too many male historians and biographers<\/a>\u00a0#whose very careers rest on this work by bereaved wives and daughters<\/a>\u00a0#behave as if the contributions of those wives and daughters were negligible<\/a>\u00a0#ignorable<\/a>\u00a0#the kind of thing one naturally expects these wives and daughters to do<\/a>\u00a0#as if the labor of these wives and daughters is something that is OWED to Famous Historians<\/a>\u00a0#NO ACTUALLY IT IS NOT<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

(via philcoulson<\/a>)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yet Hamilton shows how historians\u2019 reliance on documents can make telling history precarious. In a pivotal scene after Hamilton has betrayed his wife, Elizabeth (called by her nickname Eliza throughout the play), she burns the letters he has written to her over the years. It\u2019s an imagined scene that nonetheless demonstrates powerfully how fragile the … <\/p>\n

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