#amrev

[icarusbetide]

wtf was hamilton actually like

yet another long rant about how little i really know about hamilton! this is in regards to his personality because i can't get him down. i can't figure out what he would've been like in everyday life.

for any historical figure, we take explicitly documented traits and build off of them. even if it's clumsy, i'd be confident "predicting" how washington & jefferson usually act, etc. but for some reason, ham's characterization is all over the place. his recorded personality traits, also mixed with his political attitudes, often conflict and authors end up leaning into certain parts. for instance: there's flirty & flamboyant ham. there's prideful, arrogant, standoffish ham. there's bumbling politics ham, obtuse and belligerent 24/7 - aka musical ham, but that was an intentional choice. there's even kind and warm ham, which definitely seems accurate for his family and close friends least.

was he loud and intense 24/7? or was that just him during work, since we also know that he had a habit of mumbling to himself and looking like a daydreamer to spectators?

some people said that his general countenance was serious and austere, but we also know that he could be a charmer in social spaces. he was described as feminine but also as "martial". some have written that there's an "simplicity" in his manners, and a clear openness, but we also speculate that he closed off some part of his emotions after laurens' death. he was constantly worried about his loved ones' health, like him tucking in judge ford, but we also know that he could ghost people mercilessly. was he guarded or was he not?

i guess i can pinpoint how he might have interacted with select people, like eliza, his children, washington. but i don't know which side of him was shown in the majority of his interactions - what the "real" him, or at least common him, would've been.

one of my fav descriptions of him notes how even his speech fluctuated:

“His language is not always equal; sometimes didactic like Bolingbroke’s; at other times light and tripping, like Sterne’s. His eloquence is not so defusive as to trifle with the senses, but he rambles just enough to strike and keep up the attention...His manners are tinctured with stiffness and sometimes with a degree of vanity that is highly disagreeable. “

and i recall another anecdote about how he was serious and made intelligent conversation at dinner, but became more of the flirty charming persona afterwards while socializing.

like all human beings he was multifaceted, but damn. i really can't confidently say "oh if you ran into hamilton in the street he would be really polite/reserved/kind/charming."

i guess all of this goes to say that this guy was insanely complex and i'm not sure if anyone, let alone himself, really figured it out. that's definitely why i'm interested in him as a figure, but ugh. frustrating when i'm writing and can feel myself slipping into a common ham archetype that i don't think is 100% accurate. and we didn't even get into how much of that is "real" or - adams' version.

[andrewjacksondestroyer]

lawrence & george washington! I think about them a lot. they make me sick (in a good way).

[my-deer-friend]

In the midst of his feverish diplomacy [at the court of Versailles], Laurens found time for personal matters. During his year in London, he had married "Patty" Manning, the daughter of his father's English partner, and she had delivered their daughter after he sailed to join Washington's army; although Mrs. Laurens had made plans to join her husband in America, her delicate health made the journey impossible. Hearing that Laurens was coming to France, she and her daughter smuggled themselves across the English Channel and joined the young colonel in Paris. It was a long, difficult journey, made at considerable risk. [...] Young Laurens himself was engaged in fundamental sabotage of His Majesty's hopes of victory; yet in the finest traditions of romance, Patty Laurens ignored the English spies and informers swarming in Paris and in the channel ports and rushed to her soldier.

Thomas Fleming, Beat the Last Drum (2016)

Truly amazing how you can just Say Things in a published history book. 🥲

There's a lot that's factually wrong here, but perhaps the most frustrating is the fanciful narrative that Martha Manning Laurens went off on a daring, romantic jaunt to see her husband. The reality was far from that, even from what little remains of her historic footprint, so it's a weird angle to spin.

Martha had spent over four years in London caring for their daughter on her own and making repeated pleas to travel to America. John found a reason to rebuff all of these, not because of her "delicate health" but rather on account of the risk of the voyage (which, admittedly, was not trivial). Most likely, his underlying reasoning was more selfish – having his family close by would require him to divide his time and attention, an inconvenince he was not willing to take on when there were more glorious things to do.

Left behind, ignored and dismissed, it is reasonable to conclude that Martha dared the journey to France in a last-ditch attempt to meet up with John and to travel back to America in his company (a plan he could hardly refuse). However, according to Massey, the reunion probably never happened, in part because Martha only learned of John's presence in Paris when he was already wrapping up his mission. He doesn't seem to have bothered to inform her ahead of time, and it certainly didn't occur to him that this would have been a convenient and expedient way to bring his wife and daughter home with him. (This man spent a month on a boat. It's not like he didn't have time to think about this.)

We don't need to – and shouldn't – exonerate John's poor treatment of Martha and Frances by plastering over it with this kind of romantic revisionism.

[myfairmaidenx]

Repost from my insta, (@)laurensmylove (the username was taken here so I adopted my main’s username :)

Just some very stylized portrait stuff of mr John Laurens

[unicornsaures]

historical lams sketch for the soul

[stasiaorleanka]

Hamilton and Duel?

What do you think about Hamilton and Burr's duel, there are questions i ask myself constantly such like "Why did he accept the challenge when he was disgusted with duels?" and "why did he wear his glasses if actually did, after he claimed that he wasn't going to shoot? AND THE MOST INTERESTING THING, Did he really want to die? I've read this several times in biographies and on the internet, and the idea that he wanted to win with Burr, dying and making the Vice president the villain in the History seems to be very created in Hamilton's mind.

WHAT DO YOU ALL THINK?

[living-history-lesson]

Ran across these gentle felines and thought I'd share for the amrev and cat fans

Patterns by OonaPatternsEtc

[badeyesightdog]

[icarusbetide]

my favorite part of the young hamilton by flexner wasn't the actual biography but the note where he explains why he researched hamilton and not franklin, jefferson, or adams. franklin? already covered in the past. jefferson? being covered by a contemporary and friend.

but then he gets to adams:

crying. the man's so unlikable this historian went nahh forget it.

[a-anxy]

Au where Alex it's a red coat and John it's a simp for him

Ajajsja i just mischaracterize them so hard, i'm sorry

((reuploadet because i forgot alex's freckles :(())

[dustzvacuumcleaner]

[coolconsiderateman]

puppyfication of founding-fathers

[frankidacre]

Me explaining, once more, that being interested in a particular historical figure or era does NOT necessarily equate to supporting it ‼️ Creators shouldn’t have to make a piece of work “clean” just because some readers may get uncomfortable. If anything, we should be promoting the exploration of uncomfortable topics- proper research and portrayal should be praised. Bring back historical and media literacy.

[culperscomet]

5th grade history class gave my a special interest like no other

historically inaccurate amrev media you are so dear to me

[bphs-hmml]

Actually...

[sarahhillips]

This is a real fabric design. Someone drew this for apparel fabric. They make a bunch of pin up mens designs and they chose to go all 1776.

I must have it at once.

Abe Lincoln being on there feels kinda wrong though because that belongs with the civil war pinups 🥲

I want to make this into a gown.