In four recent articles, TIME magazine has engaged the expertise of Hamilton experts in reporting a story. Director of Special Collections and History Lecturer Christian Goodwillie was quoted in Read a Rare Alexander Hamilton Love Letter to Elizabeth Schuyler on March 9 about a collection of original letters, documents and imprints penned by Alexander Hamilton currently up for auction.
Read more about Hamilton’s Special Collections and Archives in the Spring 2013 Alumni Review article “Jewels in the Crown.”
Goodwillie highlighted the political documents in the group including his first report to Congress as Secretary of the Treasury and his early reports on the public credit, which represent the beginning of his efforts to have the federal government assume states' debts; a 1792 letter to President George Washington in which he accused Thomas Jefferson of subverting the administration; and an 1800 letter in which he undermined John Adams, from his own Federalist Party, during an election campaign.
A couple days ahead of the Academy Awards, TIME published 13 True Stories That Would Make Oscar-Worthy Movies for which Maurice Isserman, the Publius Virgilius Rogers Professor of American History, provided a synopsis of the U.S. Army's 10th Mountain Division assault on Riva Ridge and Mount Belvedere in Italy’s Northern Apennines in February 1945 under the category of “A Wartime Outdoor Adventure.” Isserman is currently writing a book about the history of the 10th Mountain Division.
The Surprising Story of Christmas in the United States, published last year on Dec. 23, addressed the law signed by President Ulysses S. Grant in 1870 that made Christmas a legal, unpaid holiday for federal employees in Washington, D.C. In considering the possible interplay of issues of church and state, Douglas Ambrose, the Carolyn and David M. Ellis '38 Distinguished Teaching Professor of History, explained. “One could argue that giving federal workers the day off, which is all the federal holiday does, does not 'support' any religion — it doesn't require anyone to do anything religious, it just says the office won't be open."
Most recently, a March 15 TIME article, The Most Important Slave Revolt that Never Happened, focused on The Denmark Vesey Affair: A Documentary History, edited by Professor of History Robert L. Paquette and Le Moyne College Professor of History Douglas R. Egerton. The book establishes that "even if the revolt itself didn't actually happen, the plot did exist, and that it was the most sophisticated collective plot against slavery in the U.S. "
Both the first, third and fourth stories were written by Hamilton alumna Olivia B. Waxman '11.
