runawayforthesummer

[runawayforthesummer]

Hi! Hope you are well. I noticed you made a recent post and had a quick question for you. So I was scrolling through iaintapatientphase tumblr and saw an interesting response to one of her post about Hamilton on his death bed. You said Hamilton told his friends that they couldn’t marry Eliza after he died...is that true? I can’t find any information on it. And it sounds ridiculous but totally in character. Can you expand on this? I really need to know more about Hamilton telling his friends he they can’t become his kids step father lol

I was just joking. Sorry if I got anyone excited! 

#I do think morris probably thought about it though

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Slutshaming women is not ok Slutshaming Alexander Hamilton is totally ok Tumblr logic

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“This country was founded by a group of slave owners who told us that all men are created equal. To my mind, that is what’s known as being stunningly and embarrassingly full of shit.” - George Carlin

…PolitiFact going through history to fact check this guy was like that time CNN went through history to dig up dirt on Bernie, and all they found were videos of him planting trees, and telling kids that racism is bad.

[runawayforthesummer]

inauguration but make it fashionable 😌✨

#can't believe he put the bad portrait of Ham in the oval....except I can lmao

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I would write an angsty fic from Eliza’s POV based on tolerate it by Taylor Swift

#and Angelica could kill him like no body no crime

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#okay 2020 #but also that party after the constitutional convention

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An indifference to property enters into my character too much, and what affects me now as my Betsey is concerned in it, I should have laughed at or not thought of at all a year ago. But I have thoroughly examined my own heart. Beloved by you, I can be happy in any situation, and can struggle with every embarrassment of fortune with patience and firmness. ... My heart overflows with every thing for you, that admiration, esteem and love can inspire. I would this moment give the world to be near you only to kiss your sweet hand. Believe what I say to be truth and imagine what are my feelings when I say it. Let it awake your sympathy and let our hearts melt in a prayer to be soon united, never more to be separated.

source.

#alexander hamilton #elizabeth schuyler

[runawayforthesummer]

Humblelin. That’s the word to describe Lin Manuel. Humble.

Yeah that's exactly what I would call selling enamel pins of your face. Just make an emoji sticker pack, dude.

#I AM SCREAMING #I did not know about this #he is......he is something

[runawayforthesummer]

Some dude in 2020: You should not judge a historical figure, a man from the past, by the modern ethics! He was a product of his time. 500 years ago his actions were completely normal! It’s present-ism, we can’t judge… bla-bla-bla…

People from 500 years ago: Oh my, this guy is such a bastard, a genocidal butcher, a total piece of garbage. Let’s keep records of this douche so people from the future shall hate him too. 

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this is ridiculously funny

#this is the most ME video that has ever existed I am crying laughin #also Eliza probably #hence why i'm posting it here lol

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#one of the top five tweets from yesterday

[runawayforthesummer]

IN PHOTOS: Celebrations spread after Joe Biden is projected to win 2020 presidential election

Within seconds of the race being called, a crowd outside the White House broke out in cheers. Celebrations also erupted in New York, Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Chicago, among other cities.

Click here for more. 

#so much joy today! #I haven't felt this way in a very long time #I talked to friends about how we didn't think we'd be this happy #but this has been such a difficult year #and this has been such a stressful week #that today just let us all relax in a way we haven't been able to since before trump announced he was running

[runawayforthesummer]

#always has been always will be #although like y'all Biden is on track to win and I wish people would stop freaking out

[runawayforthesummer]

The Talleyrand Letter

Many, many thanks to @derevko and @intheheightsandfluff for all their work on the french! This post is because of them.

As many people know, the University of Virginia houses a collection of Angelica Schuyler Church letters.

This online exhibit, which is based on a 1996 exhibit they had in their physical library, has descriptions of many letters written to her.

Of most import for the purposes of this post is a letter written by Talleyrand (stealer of portraits) to Angelica soon after his arrival in America.  Talleyrand and Angelica were great friends in Europe and she sent Eliza many letters about him.

Here’s a link to the letter and the description UVA gives of the letter.  Their description:

Letter of the Marquis de Talleyrand to Angelica Church Philadelphia. May 11, 1794 Talleyrand has left France and has taken the opportunity to renew his friendship with Angelica’s father, Philip Schuyler. He has met Mr. Hamilton, who speaks too much of “grandes personnages,” and notes too little of the beauty of his wife, Angelica’s sister Elizabeth. In a coy compliment, Talleyrand reports that Elizabeth’s beauty resembles her sister’s, but that his own lack of English prevented a comparison of their character: “If she is spiritual, amiable, and has your sensibilité, then there is the resemblance.”

The problem?

That’s really not what he said.

Here’s a translation of the part about the Hamiltons:

Almost every day, I have seen M. Hamilton ; he is accurately described in England as a most deserving man; his conversation on all the events of the envoy and on the great characters playing a part in it surprised me. He knows the envoy like a well observing man who has never left it, even though he has never been there.

Your sister, whom you had told me is so similar to you, does not look like you at all, at least physically; if she is spiritual [witty], amiable, sensible, then she is in those ways similar to you, but I cannot vouch for these myself because she only spoke English to me and I did not have as good a translator with me as when I met your father.

So, let’s break this down, shall we?

1. He’s not saying it’s a bad thing Hamilton knows all these people!  He’s saying it’s impressive!  Hamilton is well read and educated!

2. Talleyrand says nothing about Ham and Eliza’s relationship or what Ham does or does not notice about his wife?

3. He also says nothing about Eliza’s looks, besides that she doesn’t look like Angelica. He’s like “well, you and your sister don’t really look alike, so it must be in your personalities, but I couldn’t get to know her because of the language barrier.” 

So there’s a lot going on and some interesting stuff (like Angelica telling people she and Eliza were similar!), but nothing about Ham’s obsession with famous people or not noticing Eliza.

And because I can’t not take this guy to the fucking cleaner every chance I get, Chernow, who does not source, basically relied on UVA’s description (or someone else using that description) in his book, rather than doing any work himself, saying:

Talleyrand confess to only one complaint about Hamilton: that he was overly enamoured of the grand personages of the day and took too little notice of Eliza’s beauty.

No, Chernow, that’s absolutely not what he said.

#repost #talleyrand #chernow doesn't know how to do his job #but neither do a lot of people tbh #also lmao when @derevko was just my friend I asked to do things for me sometimes #:)))))) #now I get to ask her to do things for me whenever I want

[runawayforthesummer]

Hi! Hope you're doing well these days! :) So I've been reading through your Eliza tag (again) and one of many things struck me (I'll try not to bombard you with them) - Charles Talleyrand noted at one point that Hamilton did not appear to appreciate Eliza's beauty. Do we know any details of what caused the man to think so? I mean, Hamilton makes it pretty clear that he thinks Eliza is the bee's knees in all respects, physical or otherwise.

Hi!

This message is from a long time ago, but I wanted to dip back into Eliza discourse for a moment because I miss her!

I actually wrote about this before. (I’ll reblog the post right after I post this answer). 

Essentially, Talleyrand actually didn’t say anything like what Chernow (and others) assumes he did. 

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if u live in california, regardless of who u may or may not be voting for, it's worth your time to vote no on prop 22! uber, lyft, postmates, etc have poured millions into support for prop 22, which would allow ridesharing companies to classify their workers as independent contractors instead of employees, depriving them of rights that employees are entitled to under california law ✌️ uber and lyft are desperate for this to pass and have even threatened a shutdown of operations in CA if theyre not granted this exemption from following labor laws

[runawayforthesummer]

The Disappearance of Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton

“Hers was a strong character with its depth and warmth, whether of feeling or temper controlled, but glowing underneath, bursting through at times in some emphatic expression.”*  

[This is as much a reminder to myself as to anyone else reading once I start quoting extensively from AH’s letters to ESH, as I will do in an upcoming post. ESH very much gets lost because of their one-sided correspondence.]

Unless you’re willing to dig a bit (and I don’t mean reading Tilar Mazzeo’s atrocious biography that makes her even more of a cipher, or taking seriously both Miranda and Chernow’s fictional creations), ESH is sort of a phantom. She’s not unknowable, but nothing is left of her letters to her husband, and we have comparatively few letters to her family during the years of her marriage (and to find those, one has to put in the work - they aren’t easily available transcribed on Founders or in a publicly accessible online volume, although a few letters from others to her do appear in Intimate Life of AH - the letters from Kitty Livingston are especially fun). We find most of ESH’s thoughts/reflections on AH in letters from 1804 and 1805, after his death, and then in her quest to get material for a biography. We also then get a lot of her voice in her letters to others. But to many, the real question is: what was Elizabeth Schuyler like when being courted by, and then married to AH? Who is this person that AH was stating was “the sole proprietor [of my heart]” (13July1781)?  

We have around 120 of AH’s letters to her - and we’re missing about another 60 that are mentioned in other letters - but we’re left with the lingering question: who in the world is he writing all of this highly emotional, gushy stuff to? Does she feel the same way? Does she feel more of this/less of that? How does she express herself to him? How does she think and feel? 

I’ve tried to do posts about A. Hamilton’s relationships with Nicholas Fish and Matthew Clarkson, and without letters from both sides, there’s no there there. And my post about AH’s feelings about Philip Schuyler was one of the most difficult: because we don’t have AH writing personally to PS in any but a handful of letters, I’m stuck reading what he wrote to other people about his father-in-law to get his take on his father-in-law. I’m doing a few posts quoting extensively from AH’s letters to her, but without her response, it’s like reading into a void. 

But there’s something else going on with ESH too, a mixture of misogyny and lack of understanding of the roles of women in the 18th century and just a total dismissal of women’s work. It often plays out as: why would a genius like that have been interested in her. Sometimes (Chernow), it descends into the “this guy was so smart and complicated he would have always needed multiple women to fulfill him intellectually/romantically/physically” trope.  

The sum total, when combined with heaping doses of misogyny, disregard for women’s labor, and lack of knowledge of the time period, is to erase her out of both his professional and intimate life. She’s around, maybe doing something, definitely having babies, but she just must not be that important. AH’s own testaments to her and to others about her are ignored.

Elizabeth Schuyler attended diplomatic and political meetings at a younger age than we have any record of AH doing so. She had relationships - often predating AH’s own - with nearly everyone important person in AH’s American life, including members of the Continental Congress, Washington, and members of Washington’s military family. ESH performed all the duties of soft diplomacy, from hosting and entertaining important politicians (Washington, Jefferson, Talleyrand, among many others) to performing the social visits that were so important in the Federalist political era. ESH ran their home (including negotiating where they lived, the rent, the furnishings, the servants, etc), educated their children (besides risking her life nine times that we know of to have them), helped AH with his correspondence, attended political and social events solo and alongside him, communicated political and military news to him and to her family, and advised him on political speeches. ESH was also pretty excellent at handicrafts (but oh wait, those are made by women, so they don’t matter). And I haven’t even touched on her life after his death! 

If one is interested in life of the historical AH in 1780 and beyond, one has to grasp that ESH is a real person deeply involved in all aspects of his life thereafter, whose affections AH regarded as “ the only blessing which can make life of any value to me” (10Jul1781), even if we don’t get to hear/read her side of things.  

* p105 of Intimate Life of AH. I do not know who wrote this about ESH. Chernow cites Intimate Life, but Allan McLane Hamilton did not write that McHenry wrote that, nor does it appear in The Life and Correspondence of James McHenry (1907). 

#clapping for this post #I have so many thoughts to add about who I think she was! #but I actually think it's just as important (more important?) to recognize all that she DID #because a) we'll never completely know her duh #but also b) because so many people want to erase even the things we know she actually did! #so once we start talking about what we know she did we can start filling in the lines of this woman