In 1776, 13 politically and culturally diverse colonies wanted to form a nation. Though they declared independence from Britain and took up arms together, they didn’t share meaningful or unifying relationships, said Christopher L. Brown, a historian at Columbia University — but one man “became a point of stability and solidity.”
In the run-up to our nation’s semiquincentennial, the legacy of that man, George Washington, is central to commemorations and celebrations of American independence. Washington was a principled leader known for his integrity, but is also a complicated historical figure: He devoted his life to American independence, even as he and his wife enslaved more than 300 people at their Mount Vernon home in Virginia. But as the commander of the Continental Army, and then the first president, his significance in American history is unparalleled.
“He arguably held the most important jobs at a point when the United States became the United States,” Dr. Brown said.
One of the most direct and intimate ways to encounter Washington is through the objects he interacted with. In recent months, historical institutions across the nation have worked to restore or recreate items that not only reveal something about the man, but also bring modern-day Americans closer to the history of the Revolutionary War.
At Colonial Williamsburg, a tailor has recreated a politically charged coat; for a seaport museum in Philadelphia, a shipwright is replicating a boat that changed the course of the war; for Mount Vernon, printers have rendered an exquisite wall covering; and for a library in South Carolina, a textile conservator is preserving a rare battle flag.
In doing this work, each artisan remains devoted to the materials and hand-crafting processes of the colonial era, usually forgoing power tools for equipment that was used centuries ago.
This focus on how objects were made helps us understand them in their original context, said Jennifer Van Horn, a professor of art history at the University of Delaware.
“I think it’s a trust in process,” she said, “that if we do it the same way they did in the past, we get a result that must bring us closer to the past.”
“There are very few things that encompass so much of the human experience as textiles do,” said Mr. Hutter, who has worked at Colonial Williamsburg for 30 years. As part of the living history program, he dons colonial attire and shows visitors a world where tailors were not a luxury but a common necessity.
For Washington, clothes were an opportunity to make both professional and political statements. When the Continental Congress was debating whether to mobilize an army, he showed up in a military uniform, “looking like a general,” Dr. Brown said, “quite literally casting himself into the role.”
For his inauguration coat, Washington selected fabrics from the newly opened Hartford Woolen Manufactory in a show of support for domestic products. His sartorial choices also offer insights into how he viewed the new office he was assuming. The tight fit and gilded buttons might seem formal to 21st-century eyes, Mr. Hutter said, but the style was humble compared with the fur-trimmed silks and embellished velvets of European monarchs.
“Washington stood before the masses wearing the same plain brown suit that many of those tradesmen and laborers and businessmen in the crowd would be wearing as well,” Mr. Hutter said. “He wanted very much to be a citizen statesman.”
This type of vessel, known as a Durham boat, was the tractor-trailer of its time, Mr. Dormond said. These beefy workhorses, 40-feet long and eight-feet wide, hauled iron ore down the Delaware River. In December 1776, Washington commandeered 16 of them for a sneak attack on Hessian troops garrisoned in Trenton, N.J. The boats transported 2,400 troops across the river, and toward what became one of the Revolution’s most heralded victories — later to be famously idealized in Emanuel Leutze’s enormous 1851 painting, “Washington Crossing the Delaware.”
Where possible, Mr. Dormond, who is also the director of the museum’s boat shop, follows tradition. For example, he milled and then steam-bent 56 solid-oak ribs for the hull rather than use modern wood laminates. He also used the spokeshaves, the dividers and the batten strips that the original shipwrights would have used to smooth, measure and shape the vessel. When it’s complete, it will sit on the grounds of Washington Crossing Park in nearby Bucks County, and park visitors will be able to climb aboard.
Fine decorative arts, like block-printed wall coverings, were one of the many ways the Washingtons displayed their wealth at Mount Vernon, which was 10 times the size of the average house in colonial Virginia. Washington was one of the richest Americans of his time, according to the Smithsonian-affiliated Museum of Finance.
To create wallpaper for the bedchamber (the original paper was unrecoverable), Adelphi referenced large fragments of a contemporaneous French paper called Emerson Arabesque.
The staff traced each color of the pattern onto a separate sheet of acetate, and then had those laser-burned onto four wood blocks that were aligned by hand onto a cotton paper base. Because wood blocks are fussy — they must be stored in a humidity-controlled environment to prevent shrinkage and cracking — Adelphi has started using 3-D-printed plastic blocks. “There’s no loss of quality,” Mr. Larson said.
The flag, which is the emblem of the second regiment in Spartanburg, came to public view only three years ago, and now belongs to the Spartanburg County Public Libraries. Before it is installed there, Ms. Whelan will remove dust and dirt, design a protective mount and commission a blue background that matches the flag’s three widths of silk, which are joined to create the banner.
Ms. Whelan, who works from her studio in Philadelphia, said that in every project, her aim was to preserve rather than restore — so her efforts must remain “invisible, reversible and anonymous.” When she worked on Washington’s battle standard, which was heavily damaged, she held her breath to prevent the silk from rippling with every exhalation.
It can be intimidating to engage with such fragility, she said, “but you’re doing good work, so you just have to keep going.”
For Ms. Whelan, what stands out about the Spartanburg flag is its rarity. Of the estimated 500 flags flown by American revolutionaries, this is one of only 30 that are believed to have survived, according to the Museum of the American Revolution. “It gives you hope,” Ms. Whelan said. “Maybe there’s another one out there, who knows? Don’t throw things out in your attic! All you hoarders out there, unite!”
