- The tradition of creating a presidential library did not begin until 1939 when Franklin Roosevelt donated his papers to the Federal Government. So it is not surprising that George Washington is getting his library only now. Located at the Mount Vernon Estate, the $45 million Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington is, however, long overdue. Washington’s stature, once collectively acknowledged by Americans, is now somewhat diminished. The library, research center, scholars in residence, and rotating exhibits will, with time, be a corrective. And if he is not again
first in the hearts of his countrymen,
then certainly he should be second. See Edward Rothstein’s review on Washington as a reader of books (The New York Times, 27-Sep-2013).
The Washington Presidential Library
C. Vann Woodward has written of Jefferson, It fell to the lot of one Virginian to define America.
It was in his private life that Jefferson defined the relationship between blacks and whites in America, acting out in the most specific sense the psychosexual dilemma of the whole nation. Other great men in history have loved unlettered women, among them Rousseau and Goethe, each of whom lived for years with virtually illiterate mistresses and then in the end married them. But Jefferson’s dilemma was peculiarly American. So savage were the penalties of this kind of love in the New World that he could neither admit it nor defend it without fear of social ostracism, and he had to keep up an elaborate pretense that it did not exist. He could not openly, and perhaps even privately admit his paternity to Sally’s children.