Sarah Johnson's Mount Vernon: The Forgotten History of an American Shrine

By Scott E. Casper

Book Overview

Sarah Johnson's Mount Vernon brilliantly restores the lives and contributions of African Americans to the legacy of Mount Vernon. Digging beneath the well-known stories of George Washington and the era of America's birth, Scott E. Casper recovers the remarkable history of Sarah Johnson, who spent more than fifty years at Mount Vernon, in slavery and after emancipation. Through her life and those of her family and friends, Casper provides not only an intimate picture of Mount Vernon during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries--years that are rarely part of its public story--but also a window into a community of people who played an essential part in creating and maintaining this American landmark.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0809084155
• ISBN13: 9780809084159
• Release Date: January 2008
• Publisher: Hill & Wang
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.8" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

behind the scenes at a shrine

As other reviewers have noted the basic story here, I will note that Casper has found out a lot of information about African Americans who lived and worked on the grounds of Mount Vernon through the 1800s. He is not interested in trashing George Washington, but in getting at the lives of "unsung" people and then using their lives to discuss larger themes in American life. It's a nice blend of local and national history, with the emphasis on the local. Two small points, one good, one less good. On the bright side there is humor here--especially the pilfering tourists who want to take just a little piece of the place home with them. My only complaint was that somehow I missed the point that the chapters were chronological in order, not by theme or person, and I was baffled for the first few dozen pages until I figured that out. Maybe my bad, maybe it could be clearer.

Sarah Johnson's Mount Vernon: Forgotten History of an American Shrine

We found this book to very interesting and very detailed. Scott Casper's research was superb!

It wasn't until I finished this book that I realized how good it was

This is a history of Mount Vernon following the death of George Washington. Because it is a story of the everyday life on and operation of the estate, it is a story of 200 years of African American history. There is a parallel history here too, about the pioneer days of the historic preservation movement. Early vistors to Mount Vernon believed what they wanted to believe. Knowing Washington's will had freed his slaves (upon the death of Martha, who released them early) one could ignore reality and presume that those who labored in the field and encountered visitors were free. For 60 years it bubbles into public consciousness only every now and then that they are not. In the first part of the book, Sarah is in the background as we learn about Washington's heirs, Martha's dower slaves, crops, the buying, selling and renting of people, and the precursors of the tourist trade yet to come. Sarah becomes the central vehicle for the story in the later half of the book. Sarah is a perfect vehicle for this history because her life illustrates her times. Augustine Washington assumed control of this estate at age 21. From his mother, he received Sarah's mother Hannah, and noted her additions to his assets when she bore children. In 1844 he hired Hannah out to a cousin for $24 for the year. She returned from this forced labor pregnant and delivered a mulatto child naming her Sarah with her grandfather's last name, Parker. Later, when Mount Vernon was sold to a preservation society, which in part preserved it from the raveges of the Civil War, Sarah was also sold. In freedom she returned to her home, Mount Vernon, and became an employee of the new society. The saga of Sarah's family, a metaphor for the contemporaneous sagas of thousands of African Americans, is told against the growth of Mount Vernon as a national shrine and tourist destination. While Mount Vernon is buffered, it cannot help but be effected by the successionist fervor, the civil war, the war's unsettling aftermath, Jim Crow, and World Wars I and II. Scott Casper takes the reader through all this, up to the present nascent awareness of the role of African Americans in history. On p. 219 there is a eloquent piece on Sarah who we know she was and who she may have been. This is a short book, but its ideas will stay with you a long time.

Sarah Johnson Mount Vernon Review

Its a very interesting book-we had no problems in receiving the book and it arrived in great condition.

A window into another world

Casper artfully unravels the layers of mythology and reality at Mount Vernon. Sarah Johnson's Mount Vernon is accessible to lay readers and driven by the compelling stories of the black and white residents of a national shrine.