Alexander Hamilton: A Brief Biography

By Dianne L. Durante

What were the important events of Hamilton's life? What were the ideas that drove him? This brief biography includes substantial quotes from Hamilton's writings, dozens of full-color images of Hamilton and his times, and a timeline setting Hamilton's life in the context of events in Europe and the United States. If you're a fan of Hamilton: An A

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dianne L. Durante
• Release date: Sep 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9781088298145

Dianne L. Durante

At age five, I won my first writing award: a three-foot-long fire truck with an ear-splitting siren. I've been addicted to writing ever since. Today I'm an independent researcher, freelance writer, and lecturer. The challenge of figuring out how ideas and facts fit together, and then sharing what I know with others, clearly and concisely - that's what makes me leap out of bed in the morning. Janson's *History of Art*, lent to me by a high-school art teacher, was my first clue that art was more than the rock-star posters and garden gnomes that I saw in Catawissa, Pennsylvania, and that history wasn't just a series of names, dates, and statistics. Soon afterwards I read Ayn Rand's fiction and nonfiction works, and discovered that art and history - as well as politics, ethics, science, and all fields of human knowledge - are integrated by philosophy. My approach to studying art is based on Rand's *The Romantic Manifesto*. (See my review of it on Amazon.) As an art historian I'm a passionate amateur, and I write for other passionate amateurs. I love looking at art, and thinking about art, and helping other people have a blast looking at it, too. *Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan: A Historical Guide* (New York University Press, 2007), which includes 54 sculptures, was described by Sam Roberts in the *New York Times* as "a perfect walking-tour accompaniment to help New Yorkers and visitors find, identify and better appreciate statues famous and obscure" (1/28/2007). Every week I issue four art-related recommendations to my supporters, which have been collected in *Starry Solitudes* (poetry) and *Sunny Sundays* (painting, sculpture, architecture, literature, and more). For more of my works, see https://diannedurantewriter.com/books-essays .

Book preview

CHAPTER 1: Introduction: History Geek Meets Fangirl

1.1. REFERENCES AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I enjoy balancing on the fine line between history geek and fangirl. For this book, that meant keeping the biography brief enough to make it easy reading for fans of Hamilton: An American Musical, but offering enough quotes and references so that those who are interested in more details will know where to look.

For the full text of the numerous quotes from Hamilton in this bio, I’ve usually linked to the Founders Online. Many of the quotes also appear in the Library of America edition of Hamilton’s writings—a great option if you prefer a printed text.

For overviews of Hamilton’s life, I’m particularly indebted to Ron Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton, 2004, and Michael E. Newton’s Alexander Hamilton: The Formative Years, 2015.

Thanks to Robert Begley, who got me hooked on the soundtrack to Hamilton: An American Musical, and to Richard Salsman and Ray Niles, who improved my understanding of Hamilton’s economic policies. Many thanks, also, to Rand Scholet of the Alexander Hamilton Awareness Society for his encouragement as I worked my way through Hamilton’s life via a series of 68 blog posts related (more or less) to the Hamilton musical.

Most of all, thanks to my husband Sal, who’s always there when ideas need bouncing and pages need proofing. He makes living in the twenty-first century worthwhile.

1.2 MAN AND MUSICAL

I write on both art and history, so let’s start with a question too few people ask: what’s the difference between art and history?

History covers the whole world, past and present, almost up to this moment. As a historian, I choose a topic and search out the relevant facts. I look for actions and motivations, causes and effects, long-term consequences. My task isn’t to collect and then regurgitate the facts—it’s to make a coherent narrative out of them. If I find facts that seem to conflict, I must seek a way to reconcile them. At the very least, if there are inconsistencies in the record, I have to mention them.

As a historian, I’m part of a dialogue. When I uncover new information or when others do, the narrative has to be revised to include it. That’s why history—even when it deals with events 200 or 2,000 years ago—is never finished, sealed, and locked away for safekeeping. There’s always the chance that new evidence will pop up, or that we can make a more precise integration of the known facts, or that we’ll find a new way to apply a lesson from history to our own lives and times.

On the other hand, an artwork such as a musical is a self-contained world, complete in itself. Whatever the influences the artist had in music, whatever references he used for his story ... when the curtain rises, the work has to stand on its own. Why? Because art has a different purpose from history.

Art doesn’t teach us facts or lessons. It shows us the artist’s point of view about life: what matters, what’s important, how the world can and ought to be. The artist shows us that by his choice of characters, by their actions and words, and by who’s smiling when the curtain drops. If you have the soundtrack to Hamilton: An American Musical on a repeating loop, then some aspect of it is showing you the world as you think it is or ought to be.

The medium of any artwork imposes certain restrictions. For a musical, the artist has to tell the story within two or three hours. In a musical based on someone’s life, that will require eliminating many events. No song about the Newburgh Conspiracy! (See Chapter 44A.) It may also mean shifting the timeline. Hamilton didn’t meet Mulligan, Lafayette, and Laurens on the same day in a bar.

So: history is an ongoing attempt to find the truth about the past, to make sense of it, and to learn from it. An artwork is a self-contained world that shows us what the artist thinks is important.

I consider Hamilton: An American Musical a brilliant work of art. I love Hamilton’s character (his energy, drive, and self-confidence) and the way he creates his own destiny. I love the supplementary characters, the pacing, and the words words words words. (I’m a writer. Whaddaya expect?) I love the music that picks you up and hauls you along, the way the music and words reinforce each other, and the positive sense of life.

As a historian, I’m amazed by the number of accurate details and important issues Lin-Manuel Miranda managed to work into 2 3/4 hours. Yes, there are changes in Hamilton’s life that I’d come down on like a ton of bricks (a very polite ton of bricks) if I saw them in a scholarly work. In a musical, such changes are completely acceptable.

In 2016 and 2017, I wrote more than sixty blog posts on Hamilton, the man and the musical. In late 2017, I published them in two volumes as Hamilton: A Friend to America (here and here). Alexander Hamilton: A Brief Biography includes cross-references to those two volumes, in case you want to delve into specific topics. For the time being (as of January 2018), the original posts are still online, with post numbers corresponding to the chapters in Hamilton: A Friend to America.

Related Chapters in Hamilton: A Friend to America

• How I got addicted to Hamilton: An American Musical (Chapter 1), and why I love it (Chapter 8)

• History vs. art—an earlier version of this discussion (Chapter 43)

1.3 MAN AND SCULPTURES

I didn’t become fascinated with Alexander Hamilton because of the musical. My niche in art history is outdoor sculpture in New York City. Back in 2002, I learned that four outdoor sculptures of Hamilton stand in New York—more than of anyone else except George Washington. This book began as my attempt to explain why. It’s an elaboration of my 2004 walking tour of Manhattan’s sculptures of Hamilton. I occasionally offer a version of that tour as a public talk, in which I give the audience the chance to read Hamilton’s words aloud, and to burst into songs from Hamilton: An American Musical. Details on upcoming public tours and arranging a private tour are on my website.

1.4 WHAT THIS BIOGRAPHY FOCUSES ON

Finding information about Hamilton is not a problem. If anything, the amount of available information is itself a problem. Hamilton, who died at age 47, left 32 volumes of writings that fill about five feet of shelf space. Contemporaries such as Washington, Adams and Jefferson have a great deal to say about him. He’s the subject of a couple dozen biographies—too many to count easily, never mind read. One could research for decades and not run out of material; so the question is what to focus on.

I find that biographies can usually be categorized along two ranges. The first deals with content. At one extreme of that range, the biographer tells all sorts of concrete details: the subject’s favorite foods, how he dressed, what sort of furniture he had in his parlor, who he had love affairs with. At the other end of this range is the sort of biographer who discusses only philosophical ideas. In Hamilton’s case, that would most likely be Hamilton’s views on government and on the proper role of the government in the economy.

The second range for biographies concerns judgment. Biographers at one extreme of this range judge the subject strictly within the context of his time: for example, Hamilton