As we look forward to Presidents' Day, explore the memory of Mary Ball Washington with Kate Haulman
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Hello, Morgan!
Celebrations of George Washington’s birthday began during the American Revolution, and it became a federal employee holiday in the 1880s. In 1968, legislators moved the holiday to the third Monday in February. But what about the woman who gave birth to George on February 22, 1732?
Kate Haulman joins us today to explore the memory of Mary Ball Washington, who is the focus of her recent book, The Mother of Washington in Nineteenth Century America. Kate is an Associate Professor of History at American University.
Here’s Kate to tell us more about this founding mother and the complicated memory of her.
Tell us about your book in two or three sentences. What's the big story you're uncovering?
The Mother of Washington in Nineteenth-Century America uses the story of Mary Ball Washington’s status as a literal founding mother to illuminate contests over motherhood and the revolutionary past. In print, images, and through a monument to her, Mary’s public memory foregrounded maternal ideals based in traditional gender roles and made them central to the nation’s origin story. As some women framed their engagement with the state in maternal terms during the nineteenth century, calling upon republican and moral motherhood, other men and women used the Mother of Washington to link the qualities she represented, such as domesticity, piety, and elite status, to the nation’s founding.
What first sparked your interest in this topic?
Initially I was thinking about writing a biography of Mary Washington but was also interested in the monument to her. That project had its origins in the 1830s but was not completed until the 1890s—there was a story there, I thought. That’s where I began my research and that’s where it stayed, as I shifted to focus entirely on Mary’s public memory. It was interesting to reflect on her life, discussed a bit in the first chapter, relative to her afterlife. The topic seemed especially important and compelling given the approaching 250th of the American Revolution in 2026 and ongoing contests of what constitutes ideal “American” motherhood and who can claim it.
What's one surprising or little-known detail you discovered in your research?
I think many folks don’t know about the Mary Washington Monument at all, which standsin Fredericksburg, Virginia. When I began the book, I didn’t know much about its history. I was surprised to learn that the monument remained incomplete for more than sixty years, and that it was vandalized, even as other people revered the place as a shrine to her memory and to founding motherhood.
Why does this story matter for understanding the early American past or the present?
It matters for both, and for reflecting on the relationship between the past and the present. The Mother of Washington explores the creation of public memory and its cultural work. This means understanding who gets remembered and how, and who does the remembering and why.
Memory has a politics, as does motherhood. In Mary’s case, her champions, elite men and later women from established families, had a particular vision and version of motherhood and the founding era that they wanted to promote. The story is less about who Mary Washington actually was and more about how people shaped her story for their own purposes. Once we see how it worked for her, we can start looking for it in other places.When events and people from the past are remembered in idealized terms, it’s important to consider who is behind the memory and why.
If you could invite readers into one scene from your book, what moment would you choose and why?
The ceremony held in 1833, which kicked off construction of the original monument to Mary with great fanfare, is a compelling scene in the book’s second chapter, one that captures much about the meaning and uses of Mary’s memory. Many in Fredericksburg and beyond mobilized for this event, and President Andrew Jackson traveled down from Washington (and was attacked en route!) to lay the monument’s cornerstone. He gave a speech lauding the Mother of Washington as an exemplary mother who had raised an ideal son—what further proof did anyone need than George? Mary lived only in the domestic sphere and for her children, serving as an example that American women should emulate, Jackson held. During a time of women’s public engagement in issues such as abolition and the violent displacement of Indigenous groups, Mary provided an alternative model of republican motherhood, one drawn directly from the founding past.
What's one historical source, artifact, or place you'd recommend for readers who want to explore this topic further?
The Mary Washington Monument in Fredericksburg, which is under new stewardship and undergoing a reinterpretation, is worth a visit. On one side is inscribed “Mary Mother of Washington” and on the other, “Erected by her Country-Women,” referencing the two women’s organizations that completed the monument in 1894.
Related, the first stand-alone biography of Mary, Marion Harland’s The Story of Mary Washington was published in 1892, in part to promote awareness of and raise funds for the monument. Harland’s account of Mary’s life—her virtues and the canon of stories about her—captures the Mother of Washington figure of the late nineteenth century, one that would change dramatically in the twentieth.
Kate’s work reminds us that public memory and history can be different. As many communities celebrate America’s 250th, have you noticed any differences in memory and history? What histories are you looking forward to remembering this year?
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