CHESTERTOWN,
MD—George Washington is often viewed as a president far above the fray, more icon
than politician. But in the final installment of the “Meet the Founders” series
at Washington College, historian Richard Beeman will offer a surprising
portrait of the man he describes as America’s “essential founding father,”
a leader often buffeted by the storms of public opinion and political
opposition in America’s rambunctious young democracy.
Beeman’s talk will
take place on Wednesday, November 14, at 5:30 p.m. in Decker Theatre, Gibson
Center for the Arts, on the College campus, 300 Washington Avenue, and will be
followed by a book signing. It is hosted by Washington College’s C.V. Starr
Center for the Study of the American Experience, where Beeman is a senior
fellow.
“George Washington was the indispensable man
who, in both his behavior and his public persona, tried to represent not a
single faction or point of view, but all Americans,” says Beeman. “But it was
not always an easy job – especially during the turbulent final decade of his
political career.”
The
November 14 talk will focus on the challenges that Washington faced first as president
of the Constitutional Convention and then as president of the United States. He
spent two arduous terms struggling to find consensus among opposing philosophies
and political interests.
Beeman,
the John Welsh Centennial Professor of American History Emeritus at the
University of Pennsylvania, has been a member of
that university’s faculty for 44 years and has served as Chair of the
Department of History and as Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.
He was the winner of the 2010 George Washington Book Prize, one of the largest
literary prizes in the nation, for Plain, Honest Men: The Making of the
American Constitution (Random House). The New York Times called the
book a “scholarly yet lively account” of the “passion-filled crucible”
that was the 1787 Constitutional Convention.
Beeman
is the author of seven books on Revolutionary-era America, including The
Penguin Guide to the American Constitution (Penguin, 2010) and Patrick
Henry: A Biography (McGraw-Hill, 1974), which was a finalist for the
National Book Award. Other honors have included fellowships from the National
Endowment for the Humanities, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Institute for
Advanced Study at Princeton, and the Huntington Library. He has served as a
Fulbright Professor in the United Kingdom and as Harmsworth Distinguished
Professor of American History at Oxford University. He has written articles and
book reviews for many publications and has appeared with Jon Stewart on “The
Daily Show.”
“Meet
the Founders” serves as a sequel to “Inventing a Nation,” a series of four talks
Beeman offered at Washington College in the fall of 2011. “Dr. Beeman’s series last year was a smash
hit, and we’ve been thrilled to have him return,” says Adam Goodheart, the
Starr Center’s Hodson Trust-Griswold Director. “There are few historians as
gifted as he is at bringing to life the vivid personalities who played starring
roles in the Revolutionary drama.”
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Founded in 1782
under the patronage of George Washington, Washington College is a private,
independent college of liberal arts and sciences located in colonial
Chestertown on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.
The College’s
C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience is dedicated to
fostering innovative approaches to the American past and present. Through
educational programs, scholarship and public outreach, and a special focus on
written history, the Starr Center seeks to bridge the divide between the
academic world and the public at large. For more information on the Center,
visit http://starrcenter.washcoll.edu.
