Book Review

A Biography Like A Feminist* Historian Would Write.

Alexis Coe's biography "You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington" takes on male written biographies and our first President down a peg or two...or three.

Alexis Coe's book is a short and breezy biography, a cliff note version of our first President's life and legacy.   Chocking in at around 200 pages of actual biographical writing, the book is well sourced, her writing is concise and she hits all the major milestones in Washington's life. 

The text is peppered throughout with handy one stop shopping lists of  Washington's favorite foods, his frenemies, myths still associated with him, animals that he owned, his battles, his generals, just to name a few. And unlike most conventional Washington biographies, as if Washington's death was not somber enough, Coe ends the book with a reminder, dear reader, that when Martha freed his slaves (which Washington did emancipate in his will upon his death although the author would disagree**), that "about twenty families were separated; many would never see each other again."

Coe's book could be described as the love child of a woman scorned.  She states right up front that the reason she wanted to write a book on Washington is that other biographies written by some males annoyed her (the word she used is "needle").  The authors gloat way too much on Washington and his manliness. For example, Ron Chernow's Pulitizer Prize winning Biography "Washington:  A life" is now a "Dad History" (Dad Histories are books only written about men for men and by men). Coe argues that these male biographers, among other things, focus way too much on Washington's masculinity.1  Especially his thighs.

Those who write too much praise about Washington's lower attributes now have a permanent pet name:  "Thigh Men". 2  These men, according to Coe, are showing bias at worst and neglect at best, focusing their writing too much on Washington's masculinity and, to quote Chernow, "ponderous thighs", and phoning it in when it comes to research on women and people of color.  They neglect stories like the one about the Washingtons' absconding enslaved seamstress Ona Judge and writing (when they even choose to write about the topic) disparagingly about Martha Custis Washington and Mary Ball Washington.3 Coe posits that slogging through Chernow's book feels to her, without further explanation, "as though there's something hinky behind these biographers' repetitive insistence on Washington's conspicuous masculinity...because there is."

Coe is not really clear on what the "is" is.  And I don't know if there is anything "hinky" about an author giving his opinion in describing a man who appears to have had, by 18th century standards, a statement body.  (I mean everything about Washington physical presence was big: his height, his hands, his feet and his thighs.)  I am sure some male writers of Washington biographies might wax on about his physique, not so much from having man love but because Washington's physical presence was impressive. I do find it a bit suspect however when Coe selects only a part of  Chernow's description of Washington as having a "magnificent physique", and neglects to include the entire description.  Especially the part where Chernow also mentions that Washington's body was "oddly shaped, with a small head in proportion to his general frame". 4

To be fair, however, the issue of writing while being a male (historian) goes beyond any one male author's man crush on the great General.  Coe is a champion of the privileged women in Washington's life, especially his mom and wife, two women who, in her opinion, have not been fairly treated by male author's like Chernow. Coe points a wide reaching accusatory finger at those male writers who "would of done well to review scholarship on early American motherhood with the same amount of interest they had for military history."  Ouch.5

For example, Chernow is too bias in his description of Mary Ball Washington, Washington's mother, showing her as an illiterate harpy.  (In fact, Coe makes a specific point by listing in a chart all twenty-eight pejorative adjectives used by him; she definitely does like the use of the word "crusty.") And Coe seems to really take particular umbrage at Chernow's use of the word "illiterate".

The word's definition usually does mean a person who can't read or write.  Yet it also can mean one who has very little education.  Mary Ball Washington definitely would fit the latter.  She could read and did write but not well (like many people of that time), which would certainly fit Chernow's use of the word in describing her. Even "thigh man" Chernow writes sympathetically of her that her "crusty" demeanor may of been due to her "forlorn childhood, characterized by constant loss" which "left innumerable scars and insecurities, producing an anxious personality."

While I agree that Chernow might of been a bit heavy handed in the adjective department, Coe writes, chiding Chernow, that "in the absence of evidence to the contrary, a woman is probably a shrew."  Yet, it is also true, in the absence of the evidence, a woman could still be a shrew.  Coe has no way no way of knowing anymore than Chernow knows (as we really don't know a while lot about Washington's mother, in general, except through secondary sources) about what adjective's should be used to describe Mary Ball Washington apparent challenging personality.6 

Coe's description of Mary Ball Washington as a 18th century "single mom" is different and a bit of a misnomer.  I get the feeling that Coe is trying to equate what it means to be a hard luck single mom living life in the 21st century with a 18th century widowed wealthy woman and falls flat. As Coe writes, Washington's mother decided not to remarry upon her husband's death and to remain single.  Yet no one forced Mary Ball Washington into that life style choice.   She was a wealthy property owning woman who appears to have family to fall back on. Life in the 18th century was difficult for most woman of the time and even though Mary Ball Washington had challenges in her life, she was probably living a better life than most woman (and men) of her age because of her wealth.

Coe's book also takes an weird turn for a Washington biography when she writes that the "thigh men" are obsessed by Washington's apparent habit of shooting blanks.  According to Coe, "thigh men" spend dozens of pages of discussion in their books "on how it happened and why it doesn't detract from his innate virility - as if that's a preoccupation everyone shares."   In a strange construct of thought, Coe cites a scientific journal, Fertility and Sterility, specifically a comment by John K. Amory, a professor and practicing physician who wrote about Washington not wanting to wander because of STD fears and who probably could get it up because he was very healthy.  Then she brings back Chernow on how Washington liked women but was too strong in willpower to stray.  Then we dabble in a bit of animal husbandry (do you know that Washington was a mule breeder?) and then back to Chernow writing about his large body parts. Again.

All this one paragraph muddle leads Coe to suggest that after the "thigh men" defend Washington on this delicate matter, they "turn their sights on Martha, blaming her for the couple's childlessness."  I can't say whether this is true or not.  As part of her thesis is that the boys just don't get it when writing about the girls, it would of been nice to see a citation from her pointing to the primary or secondary course material she referenced.

I am not sure what Coe's book is trying to be.  It could be seen as part feminist polemic against male biographers for their portrayals of Martha and Mary. In fact, in a 2018 interview, Coe was advertising her book as a feminist biography.  She clearly states, in the interview's transcript, that she just turned in her first draft of her "feminist biography on George Washington."  The title was changed, at some point, dropping the word "feminist". 

Even though she changed the title of her book, I believe her main intention in writing her book did not change. This book is a bestseller and so the author has achieved success in reaching her audience of young feminist woman who think like she does and may find the book "refreshing" and/or even "revolutionary"7.  Yet the book's content, aside from the focus on the feminist angle (including an obvious, in my opinion, anti male bias), is really not saying anything new or different about Washington the man that has not been already said by the male writers.

What Alexis Coe has created is a feminist look at the first president of the United States.  Her book is supposed to provide a "fresh perspective" on Washington.  However, for Coe, this means her Washington comes across as a bad male whether she intended it or not:  a "negligent" son, an unrepentant slave owner, and a man guilty of an "extraordinary showing of executive overreach" during the Whiskey Rebellion.8 Of course, she may have her opinions.  Yet it is one thing to make a man of a different time accessible (i.e. more human) to 21st century readers.  It is another thing to judge that man by feminist theory, a word and a theory that even did not exist his lifetime, and failing to give the reader a complete picture of a man full of contradictions as well as brilliance.

George Washington was indeed a man of his time.  He was born into a foreign world, by our standards, where privileged white wealthy males, like himself, ruled over plantations and where owning black human beings was intertwined in the fabric of their lives.  Most of us have the perspective of 220 years of history post Washington's death to understand that slavery, in any form, is evil and that systemic racism, born from our country's original sin, continues to this very day.  To hold Washington to our standards to what we believe is right is a parlor game and, in reality, futile.  Washington, like all our Founders, will always come up lacking because he was, like all of us, a flawed human being. 


 *Coe's book's original title, from a 2018 Medium interview (her book was published in 2019) had a different subtitle "A Mostly Feminist Biography of George Washington", which might explain why Coe is focused so much on male author's writing being too male for her liking?

**Coe, unlike many other Washington biographers that I have read, has a very strong opinion that Washington did not have a change of thought and heart regarding the institution of slavery and but only gave freedom to the slaves he owned outright, upon his death, out of concern about his legacy . While she is certainly entitled to her opinion on this matter, one does not necessarily negate the other. He could still of wanted to protect his legacy and had a change of perspective!  (Chernow makes excellent use of primary sources, especially letters written by Washington and gives an excellent analysis of the topic.) I will counter Coe's argument that Washington, a man of sober and thoughtful action, did eventually realize that the institution of slavery was wrong (even though he probably did not have a change of heart regarding his low opinion of blacks that he owned) and upon his death wanted to make it right. While Washington's aim was always to keep the infant nation together with the hope that slavery would be legislated out of existence, a wide variety of reasons, including economic, can be given as to the why behind him not release his slaves while he was alive.  As Mary Thompson, who Coe describes as the "foremost living George Washington scholar" and author of the superb book "The only Unavoidable Subject of Regret: George Washington, Slavery, and the Enslaved Community at Mount Vernon writes: "When it became possible, Washington found himself beset by economic problems and pulled away into national politics, that drew his time and attention. He never gave up, however, wanting to ultimately do the right thing and free the people he could."

Coe also uses Ben Franklin as an example of a Founder that did the right thing, releasing his slaves while alive (page 199).  What Coe neglects to write about is that Franklin, a man who held very strong negative opinions of certain types of people ("African Americans, he described as "sullen, malicious, revengeful" and "by nature [thieves.]"), was a lot like Washington in his beliefs.  He, nevertheless had an apparent change of heart after visiting a school for black children.  According to one female scholar, Franklin "later in his life, ... ordered that his slaves should be freed — partly out of his concern that slaves and servants made their owners lazy and unambitious" and "But for all this inconsistency of thought, Franklin consistently showed himself to be thoughtful, open, teachable." Although Franklin could have a change of perspective, Coe, curiously, will not give Washington the same acknowledgement. I see no reason why Washington, a man who loved listening. learning and books, could also not be "teachable."

In other areas of her book, Coe makes interesting but non cited claims that that Washington "exploited" Phillis Wheatley's laudatory poem Poem for George Washington for his own political purposes (page 74) and that Wheatley's husband was a "improvident, slackard freeman" (page 225).  She also could be clearer when mentioning that William Lee as being "forced" into retirement when he became injured in Washington's service and was "left behind when he could no longer keep up", being "demoted" to a shoemaker (page 125).  What Coe neglects is that Lee was given a less strenuous job because of his bad knees (which were injured in Washington's service after the war) only after he tried to do his regular job as enslaved valet to the then new President Washington.   She neglects to say that Washington (albeit begrudgingly) allowed Billy to accompany him to the President's residence New York in 1789, even though there was a question whether or not he could do his enslaved job duties. So his demotion, if one calls it that, was not immediate and was not as cruel as leaving him behind "when he could no longer keep up."


1I don't know what bad thing Ron Chernow did to Alexis Coe but she has a special place in her heart and in her book for taking the author to task.

2 While not a academic historian, I am a woman who likes to read books about the American Revolution and George Washington. I had become interested in Washington about 15 years ago and have read a good selection of various sized books, including Chernow's, on Washington: a pretty good compilation of various thigh men biographies and books focused on specific GW topics, like his military history and slave ownership, aspects of his administration and his important writings. And, for the record, I am not imitated by Dad Histories.

3This may be true but I first learned about the story of the courageous Ona Judge, the slave that got away, reading Chernow.

4Just for fun, I perused the small amount of books of George Washington that I still have on my bookshelf (unfortunately all by male authors) and found, curiously, most of those authors did not pontificate on his thighs. However, it is a rather small sample. 

5Coe specifically points out later 19th century men like Paul Leicester Ford, who turned Mary Ball into a "tyrant" and a pipe smoking bloomer girl with a blue edge.  (Ford takes some additional heat from Coe,  continuing "That narrative was well received, too; American loves a self made man, particular one who overcomes the manipulations of a petty woman to seize his great destiny."  Ouch, again.

6In the book's Introduction, Coe does say that Mary did have a "challenging personality."   So I guess she could be a "shrew?"

7Most of the tweets I reviewed commending Coe's book are from woman (no surprise!); these are just two adjectives used to describe her book by one of them.

8Coe's analysis of Washington's involvement and handling of The Whiskey Rebellion is not a complete picture . And I am not sure why she uses the words to describe Washinton's reaction and action as an "extraordinary" use of "executive overreach. She also makes the claim that he "sidestepped" the Constitution.  On the surface, that appears to be correct, but, again, Coe leaves out information. Washington, at the time, was operating under 1792 Militia Act which allowed him to call forth militias to subdue violence.

On page 161, she writes that the press was "stunned" and, in her words, asks "Couldn't he have simply threatened the poor civilians into submission - or, better yet, actually talked to them?"

Yet Washington did try negotiation. Coe fails to mention that Washington tried peace first, to negotiate with the rebels and only resorted to the use of force as a very last resort.