Archive for the ‘Popular Culture/Media Literacy’ Category

In celebration of Martha Washington’s birthday today, we just wanted to point out some of the fabulous teaching resources we have online that you can use in your classroom. Martha Washington: A Life is a website devoted entirely to teaching about Martha Washington with a biography, lesson plans, an Archive of artifacts and letters that were hers, as well as a list of Resources. We also have a range of lesson plans that teach about Martha Washington for different grade ranges on our main website. If you have a chance to visit Mount Vernon in person this summer, you will surely meet Martha Washington via our first-person interpreter, Mary Wiseman. This past weekend’s Washington Post article about Mary’s work as Martha Washington is a little teaser for all that you will experience when you meet her in person. So once again, Happy Birthday, Martha!

Beginning on April 24th, Mount Vernon’s Archaeology Dept. will begin an underwater archaeology project in the Potomac River next to Mount Vernon. We asked our Archaeology Director, Esther White, to give us the scoop for our GWW readers.

GWW: What are the boats doing?

EW: Mount Vernon is partnering with the Lighthouse Archaeological Maritime Program (LAMP), the Institute of Maritime History (IMH), the Maryland Historical Trust (Trust) and the Virginia Department of Historic Resources (DHR) to conduct an archaeological survey of the Potomac River. The boats are using side scan sonar and a magnetometer to map the bottom of the river along Mount Vernon from Little Hunting Creek to the north, to Dogue Creek to the south.

GWW: What is side scan sonar? How about a magnetometer?

EW: The first is a sonar system used to map river or sea floors. The sonar detects objects protruding above the bottom. When stitched together these images provide a map of the river bed. By analyzing these maps nautical archaeologists can detect ship wrecks, wharves and other features under the water. A magnetometer measures magnetic fields to detect iron below the water.

GWW: What do they hope to find?

EW: The underwater survey is being done to see what’s there. IMH works to document and map stretches of the river and has chosen to partner with Mount Vernon to learn more about the waters around George Washington’s plantation. Shipwrecks are one thing the survey expects to document.

GWW: Any particular ship?

EW: The Federalist is one ship the crew would love to find. This boat was a gift from the merchants of Baltimore, MD in appreciation of Washington’s work with the Constitutional Convention. It was a fully rigged miniature ship, 15′ long, and was sailed to Mount Vernon by Joshua Barney, a Revolutionary War naval hero, in June 1788. George Washington recorded a hurricane in his diary on July 24, 1788. This severe storm succeeded in “driving the Miniature Ship Federalist from her Moorings, and sinking her.”

GWW: Will the underwater archaeologists scuba dive?

EW: If the archaeologists find anything of interest they might scuba dive to get a better look. This wouldn’t happen until later in the week.

GWW: What will happen to wrecks they find?

EW: Nothing immediately. The archaeologists will record the locations of the wrecks and other things they find. These archaeological sites will be registered with the Trust (Maryland controls the Potomac River) and the DHR (Virginia controls the mouths of the two creeks). In this way the archaeological sites will be preserved for the future.

Image by L. Toshio Kishiyama

While George Washington is widely known as an excellent statesman, soldier, and horseman, most do not know that he was also quite the dancer. A life-long music lover, one of his greatest pleasures was listening to his granddaughter play the harpsichord. This tradition of music is continued today at Mount Vernon through concerts, dancing, and educational programs on colonial music, such as our slave music videoconference, the new Harpsichord Hero game, and an upcoming distance learning program (more details to come).

Mount Vernon has been lucky to have musician David Hildebrand, of the Colonial Music Institute, performing here for many years, and he has been kind enough to let GWW interview him. Enjoy!

GWW: How did you become interested in colonial music?

DH: Many years ago, nearly 30, Gmy wife and I were playing traditional folk music in Annapolis, Maryland. Every so often someone would come up to us and say something like: “Hey, this is a colonial town, do you know any colonial music?” Well, the first time someone asked, we just smiled. The next time we started to wonder what colonial music was like. By the third time, we had already started researching and had a piece ready to play for the enquirer. Three advanced degrees and four CDs later (not to mention 2 children and thousands of performances), here we are, apparently the national experts in the field.

GWW: What instruments do you play?

DH: Harpsichord, English guitar, Spanish guitar, hammered dulcimer, violin, English and German flutes, and djembe.

GWW: What was the general style of the music that George Washington would have enjoyed?

DH: There was no single style of music. Those wealthy enough to afford harpsichords and other instruments and lessons could play the English and European instrumental works and song settings that were published in London and elsewhere – these would be in what is roughly called today the Baroque or Classical style. But the tunes to which he danced, the military ballads, and the tunes he overheard his slaves sing- these were all in very different style. Of the popular songs of the day, English and Scottish music prevailed, while Irish music would flourish only later in the century.

GWW: What would George Washington play on his ipod today?

DH: Most of the titles would not be recognized by the average person, but the following list gives those older titles followed by modern titles which today represent the same melodies. In most cases the function of these older pieces was to accompany dancing, while the more recent titles evoke nursery rhymes or childish songs:
God Save the King (same as My Country Tis of Thee)
La Belle Catherine (same as Do You Know the Muffin Man)
Nancy Dawson (same as Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush, or Lazy Mary Will You Get Up? or This is the Way we Brush our Teeth, etc.)
Marlbrouk (same as The Bear Went over the Mountain, or For He’s A Jolly Good Fellow)
Yankee Doodle- we all know this one! But be careful, the typical opening verse which goes “Yankee Doodle went to town riding on a pony, stuck a feather in his hat and called it macaroni” is not from Washington’s time period, but dates only back to the 1830’s (about the time the myth about him chopping down the cherry tree was being invented).

Using George Washington’s personal journals and the Mount Vernon Ladies Association guest books, Mount Vernon’s historians are able to track the thousands of famous visitors that have visited Mount Vernon since the years when Washington himself would receive them at the door. Founding Fathers, such as Jefferson, Madison, and Patrick Henry, artists such as Jean Antoine Houdon and Charles Willson Peale, and even American lexicographer Noah Webster were amongst the hundreds of guests that the Washingtons would graciously welcome each year. In fact, much of what we know about Mount Vernon in the 1700’s is gleaned from the journals and letters of visitors who described everything from the music and food to the slaves and farms.

The American pilgrimage to Mount Vernon did not end at Washington’s death in 1799, however. Famous visitors have included the Roosevelts, King George VI, Queen Elizabeth, Brigham Young, Prince Charles, Queen Liliuokalani of Hawaii, and Michelle Obama and her daughters. The Kennedys hosted a state dinner at Mount Vernon honoring the President of Pakistan in 1961. Countless celebrities from Barry Manilow to Harrison Ford have walked the same paths as Washington, all perhaps hoping to soak in a little bit of his greatness (admittedly, that’s just a guess). It’s clear that the hospitality of the Washingtons extends to Mount Vernon today, and the desire to see the home that Washington loved so dearly is still as strong as it was in the 18th century.