#alexis coe

https://www.amazon.com/You-Never-Forget-Your-First/dp/0735224102

It is commonly known now that not only is history written by the victors, but mostly by old white men. That must be why there was strong praise for Alexis Coe’s book, You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington, when it was first released. Besides having maybe the best cover for a book on Washington, Coe’s book also has the distinction being the first Washington biography written by a woman.

Having all this information, I expected an interesting look/take on Washington, especially regarding how after almost two years of reading books dedicated  solely on the first president, they all start to sound the same with little details or insights differing depending on the author.

Coe begins her book with a preface that destroys previous mentions of Washington’s mother, Mary. Usually depicted as an old, cranky, self-centered, controlling mother to the great general, Mary is shown by Coe as not that but rather a woman of her times. All her thoughts and actions not only reflection her life experiences but are the norms of several colonial-era women of the time that were also women that suffered from weak family prestige, loss of husband/children, agrarian housewife, poor, and frontier life. Coe really takes a beating to Ron Chernow, who she justifiably points out how Chernow added his only male bias to Mary’s text and words, not taking into account her environment or time period that she was living in and made a good counterpoint using said evidence that Mary was actually a thoughtful and caring mother whom Washington doesn’t seem to harbor ill temper or see her as a burden. I personally kicked myself for taking Chernow’s words to heart in this, not applying my own personal thinking skills. A often repeated quote is that “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.” Coe points out that this type of error often occurs because male historians often focus and write more on Washington’s military feats and history, relegating other social history either aside or to female historian. This is why Coe was the first woman to write a straight biography of Washington, while other women were to write on Washington and his relations to say the constitution or slavery or just a biography on his wife, Martha, instead.

Coe calls these male historians ‘The Thigh Men’, as they often over emphasis not just Washington’s abnormal height, but also other parts of his with the most attention centering on his stone unfazed face. They “...take every opportunity to remind readers that the great general was very, very manly” (xxxii). But all this historic revisionism all takes place in the first two chapters of the book (technically not even the first two but rather the preface and introduction). The rest of the short book is not really written as a tradition book but more in a reference per chapter. For example, if you want to read about Washington’s spies, there is a chapter dedicated solely to that and only that. You are not going to find any other references outside of said chapter. There is chapter dedicated to Washington’s romantic life but never mentioned again. This seriously hurts the book’s value as Washington resource. His secret failed but continuous letter writing flirtatious affair with Sally Fairfax is really not seen as such but rather told in a sentence, loosing it’s significance. The Revolutionary War comes and goes in less than three chapters, again pointing out the major feats and accomplishments that Washington had but the hardship and suffering is pretty much glossed over. With the easy and non formal writing of Coe, at times it feels like the book was written in a listial Buzzfeed style book.

Jane Grant one of the co-founders of the New Yorker magazine- amongst many many other things.

Coe’s essay and tweets have led to William Hogeland unlocking his (paid subscription) article for a brief time. Titled, “American Slavery and the Love of Alexander Hamilton” (https://williamhogeland.substack.com/p/american-slavery-and-the-love-of), Hogeland speculates why, for some, it has to be believed that AH was not an enslaver. I hope it’s okay to quote only a brief part: 

The point of making fervent antislavery crusaders out of people who manifestly weren’t fervent antislavery crusaders, beginning in the Gilded Age, is to valorize American business, and especially its ineluctable “too big to fail” intertwinings with American government, by divorcing big business historically from the institution of slavery—indeed by framing the rise and global spread of American business as the great antidote to slavery.