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by: Scott E. Casper
List Price: $25.00Amazon.com's Price: $16.50 You Save: $8.50 (34%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 973.41092
EAN: 9780809084142
ISBN: 0809084147
Label: Hill and Wang
Manufacturer: Hill and Wang
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 320
Publication Date: January 22, 2008
Publisher: Hill and Wang
Release Date: January 22, 2008
Sales Rank: 207512
Studio: Hill and Wang
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
New Stories from an Old American Shrine
The home of our first president has come to symbolize the ideals of our nation: freedom for all, national solidarity, and universal democracy. Mount Vernon is a place where the memories of George Washington and the era of America’s birth are carefully preserved and re-created for the nearly one million tourists who visit it every year. But behind the familiar stories lies a history that visitors never hear. Sarah Johnson’s Mount Vernon recounts the experience of the hundreds of African Americans who are forgotten in Mount Vernon’s narrative. Historian and archival sleuth Scott E. Casper recovers the remarkable history of former slave Sarah Johnson, who spent more than fifty years at Mount Vernon, before and after emancipation. Through her life and the lives of her family and friends, Casper provides an intimate picture of Mount Vernon’s operation during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, years that are rarely part of its story. Working for the Washington heirs and then the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association, these African Americans played an essential part in creating the legacy of Mount Vernon as an American shrine. Their lives and contributions have long been lost to history and erased from memory. Casper restores them both, and in so doing adds a new layer of significance to America’s most popular historical estate.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Sarah Johnson's Mount Vernon: Forgotten History of an American Shrine
We found this book to very interesting and very detailed. Scott Casper's research was superb!
Rating: - It wasn't until I finished this book that I realized how good it was
This is a history of Mount Vernon following the death of George Washington. Because it is a story of the everyday life on and operation of the estate, it is a story of 200 years of African American history. There is a parallel history here too, about the pioneer days of the historic preservation movement.
Early vistors to Mount Vernon believed what they wanted to believe. Knowing Washington's will had freed his slaves (upon the death of Martha, who released them early) one could ignore ... Read More
Rating:  - Sarah Johnson's Mount Vernon
This book is hard to get into. There's a little too much background. Getting right into Sarah Johnson's story would have been much more interesting.
Rating: - Sarah Johnson Mount Vernon Review
Its a very interesting book-we had no problems in receiving the book and it arrived in great condition.
Rating: - A window into another world
Casper artfully unravels the layers of mythology and reality at Mount Vernon. Sarah Johnson's Mount Vernon is accessible to lay readers and driven by the compelling stories of the black and white residents of a national shrine.
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