Historians are, by and large, delighted that Hamilton has brought so much attention and interest to the founding era in American history. Lin-Manuel Miranda has attracted diverse, young audiences and made them excited about history in unprecedented fashion. There are many songs that are historically on-point, although as a piece of art, the play takes some liberties with chronology and alters some historical events. What concerns historians most are two of the main messages of the show:

1. Alexander Hamilton was a scrappy immigrant who pulled himself up by his bootstraps to become an underappreciated American everyman
2. A multiracial cast playing white characters and singing hip hop makes the story of the founding era more diverse

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Public historians have spent a good deal of time looking at how history is performed in museums and living history sites, in reenactments, and on film and television. Theatre, opera, and musicals have received far less attention, and one reason for this might be that these forms of representation are often thought of as elitist.[1] As Lyra Monteiro points out in her review of Hamilton: An American Musical, the overwhelming majority of audiences for Broadway shows are white (and presumably well-off). This seems particularly ironic, given that Hamilton has been congratulated for challenging dominant white-centred narratives of the American past. My focus here, however, is not to engage with this specific representation of American history. Rather, I would like to briefly explore three points of engagement that public historians might find helpful in thinking about how theatrical performance brings, as Monteiro puts it, “history to life,” namely historical accuracy, ownership of the past, and historical distance.

Access the full article, courtesy of The National Council on Public History, here

As “Hamilton” fever has swept America, historians have hardly been immune. The megahit Broadway musical’s creator, Lin-Manuel Miranda, has won prestigious honors from the profession, including the 2015 George Washington Book Prize. More than one scholar has marveled at the show’s detailed presentation of the founding period’s complicated politics — not to mention the way Mr. Miranda’s dazzling rap lyrics pull off rhymes like “line of credit” and “financial diuretic.”

But even among historians who love the musical and its multiethnic cast, a question has also quietly simmered: does “Hamilton” really get Hamilton right?

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With a record-breaking sixteen Tony Award nominations for his hit musical Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda will soon have to clear some space on his trophy shelf next to his Grammy and Pulitzer. But there is something remarkable about the play that all the critical acclaim has missed entirely. Reviewers have rightfully celebrated Miranda for telling the life story of one of America’s greatest Founders using energetic numbers, a multiethnic cast, and a strong emphasis on hip-hop. Yet Miranda has not received due credit for an important and distinguishing characteristic of his musical: his unique approach to what is unknowable about the past. His script makes it clear that there are significant gaps in the historical record concerning Hamilton and his times. Of course, the play takes liberties, as any historical play must–and has a great deal of fun in the process. But in numerous places, Miranda shows us the limits of what we can know about the past.

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While the play has won overall acclaim, some magazines and news sites have criticized the play for its poetic ahistoricism. The New York Times, with the aid of influential historians, criticized the play for taking dramatic license with important historical facts. While biographer Ron Chernow has served as the historical consultant, it seems that the issue is more Miranda’s dramatic interpretation that than the factual foundation. Hamilton has been included within a recent historical trend called “Founders Chic,” a growing body of scholarship that celebrates the Founding Fathers for their intellectual and political foresight, creating the architecture of our modern political institutions. This differed from the previous reverence of the Founding Fathers as heroic men of virtue, who ultimately comprised an anachronistic pantheon of mythological figures. Vox’s Aja Romano wrote a lengthy piece explaining that Hamilton was a Pulitzer-prize worthy piece of fanfic.

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Lin-Manuel Miranda’s award-winning Broadway hit Hamilton: An American Musical turned international attention to the story of founding leader Alexander Hamilton, but also sparked the public rediscovery of his wife Eliza Hamilton’s philanthropy.

Hamilton dramatizes the life and death of Alexander Hamilton. It has also put Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton (1757–1854) back in the narrative for her role in creating and leading a pioneering orphanage. Originally known as the Orphan Asylum Society of the City of New York, the institution still exists and is now known as Graham Windham.

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The  Pulitzer Prize winning Broadway musical Hamilton has captured the attention of the populace in more ways than one. Inspired by Ron Chernow’s biography Alexander Hamilton, the musical features a diverse cast and uses hip hop to lay focus on a man vital to American history yet virtually unknown to many Americans. The musical has also managed to make history, literally, by being the first contender to receive 16 Tony Award nominations. Creator of the musical, Lin Manuel Miranda, feels that this story was a necessary one.

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What did James Hamilton do for work in the seventeen years between 1748 and 1765? Was he a watchman or weighman at the port of Basseterre, St. Kitts, the entire time? When did he start working for Archibald Ingram? Was this a full-time or part-time job?

Access the full article, courtesy of Michael E. Newton, here