Virtual Parlor Chat: George Washington’s Legacy as a Military Commander, from the Morris-Jumel Mansion to the Present

Examine George Washington’s legacy as a military commander, taking off from his use of the Morris-Jumel Mansion as a military Headquarters.

George Washington was born in 1732, but his legacy has long outlived his mortal years. Among many things, Washington was a military man, beginning his career as a British militia officer, fighting alongside Roger Morris in the French and Indian War. Later, when he assumed his role as General of the Continental Army, he took over Morris’s summer estate in Harlem Heights as his headquarters in the Fall of 1776. Starting from this pivotal point in time, Dr. Sarah Purcell will join the Mansion for a Virtual Parlor Chat tracing the legacy of Washington as a military leader through the present day.

About the Speaker:

Sarah Purcell, L.F. Parker Professor of History, graduated from Grinnell with a B.A. in history in 1992. She went on to earn an A.M. (1993) and a Ph.D. (1997) from Brown University. She joined the faculty of Grinnell in 2000 after teaching at Central Michigan University. Ms. Purcell’s research interests include: the Early National, Antebellum, and Civil War periods; popular culture and political culture; gender history; and military history. She is author of Sealed with Blood: War, Sacrifice, and Memory in Revolutionary America, published by the University of Pennsylvania Press, and Eyewitness History: The Early American Republic. She is co-author of The Encyclopedia of Battles in North America, 1517-1915 (which won a 2000 Best of Reference award from the New York Public Library) and Critical Lives: The Life and Work of Eleanor Roosevelt. Her latest book, Spectacle of Grief: Public Funerals and Memory in the Civil War Era, was published in April 2022 by UNC Press.