Published Tuesday, August 1, 2000
PITTSBURGH
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Show dispels myths about 1st president
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ARTIFACTS, ART, WRITINGS REVEAL THE TRUE LEADER
Herald Staff Writer
"Washington Crossing the Allegheny" might not have the same ring to it as "Washington Crossing the Delaware" but the incidents are given equal treatment in "George Washington: The Man Behind the Myths" at the Senator John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center.
The show brings together artifacts, artworks and writings by him and about him to try to give a sense of who Washington was and who we make him out to be.
It revels in the paradoxes of Washington’s life: the liberator of the United States owned slaves; the father of our country had no children of his own, but doted on his stepchildren and eventually raised his step-grandchildren.
The two crossings show how man and myth have come together. The Delaware crossing -- immortalized by Emanuel Leutze’s painting -- illustrates a small band of demoralized men under Washington’s command about to make a Christmas Day 1776 raid of Trenton, N.J.
The event achieved mythic stature with Washington’s stoic pose and the dramatized scene, which borrows little from the actual facts of the crossing.
Leutze’s painting isn’t in the show, but a print based on it carries the essence of it.
The Allegheny crossing occurred in 1753 as the 21-year-old Washington was returning home after carrying a letter from Virginia Gov. Robert Dinwiddie to the French commander at Fort LeBoeuf, near Erie, asking the French to leave British soil.
Washington was sent home with a negative reply and had to cross the Allegheny near what is present-day Pittsburgh. The future president and his guide, Christopher Gist, were caught in a driving snow storm, but the river was not yet frozen.
The pair made a raft and started crossing, but Washington fell in and had to swim to an island, where Gist caught up to him. The next day, they were able to walk across the now-frozen Allegheny.
A William Ranney painting of the crossing from the 1850s shows Washington seemingly with an air of destiny as he stands on the raft, holding onto a pole, with no inclination of the near-calamity that would soon befall him. At least an 1844 print shows Washington unsteadily pushing the raft across the water, and with eyes that are far from certain about his fate.
Washington’s life was rife for mythmaking because little is known about his early years, said Andrew E. Masich, history center president and chief executive officer.
But even his adult life, when facts were obtainable, has been rendered far from truthfully.
Among the myths the show tries to lay to rest:
But Washington did not have a free ride thanks to his birth. His father died when he was 11, taking away Washington’s birthright to stay in that society because he was the son of his father’s second wife.
Washington’s formal education probably ended when his father died, but he studied surveying and had clear goals of acquiring land and status and entering the society of Virginia aristocracy, Masich said.
Although his goals were personal, the skills required to achieve them were in demand for his public roles as Virginia militiaman, commander of the Continental Army and president.
Perhaps his greatest asset was his self-confidence.
"That was something our country needed in a leader at that time," Masich said.
Washington wasn’t against a little mythologizing on his own. He was concerned about his appearance and designed his own uniform, Masich said.
In a famous portrait by Charles Wilson Peale, Washington is shown in his Virginia militia uniform. The painting -- represented in a study by Peale and a full-sized copy by another artist -- was made 15 years after the fact. Washington’s expanded girth had popped buttons off the suit.
Thomas Jefferson deemed the heavy, weary Washington in Joseph Wright’s 1784 portrait "unfavorable," yet a better likeness than Peale’s many portraits because it showed Washington in "his gravest difficulties."
Of course, Washington had no control once he had died. "Apotheosis of Washington," a print by H. Weishoupt after Samuel Morse, depicts him as a Christ-like figure ascending to heaven surrounded by angels.
Masich said he hopes that after seeing the exhibit visitors will still be able to admire Washington, but judge him as they judge themselves.
"George Washington was a man, not the marble man that people think of," Masich said. "He had the same sorts of ambition and desire and frailties that any of us have. He was a flesh and blood character that people would have liked to have known."
The show runs through Oct. 22. Information: (412) 454-6000.