Washington College Magazine

PORTFOLIO
THE MANY FACES OF GEORGE WASHINGTON

An 18-month-long commemoration of George Washington’s life promoted greater understanding of his true character. Well-known historians, writers and national figures helped put his remarkable achievements in context. Exhibits of Washingtonian treasures from Mount Vernon and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History and lectures on image, history, and architecture helped explain Washington as symbol. The celebrations, which encompassed music, dance, art and literature, will culminate on December 14, the anniversary of Washington’s death, with a bell-ringing and the ceremonial laying of a wreath at the base of the George Washington statue.

(Clockwise from top right) The Washington Temperance Society Medal was part of an exhibition of material from the National Numismatic Collection of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, organized by Washington College art history professor Donald McColl. Doris Kearns Goodwin told a Washington’s Birthday crowd that the nation’s first president was “above politics yet intensely political.” A bronze bust of Washington, a gift of the senior class, debuted during the Family Day parade in October. John F. Kennedy Jr. told graduates in May 1999 that “a man named Washington loomed large” in his life, too. George Bush (shown with President John Toll at last year's Winter Convocation) remarked that his presidential inauguration fell on the bicentennial of Washington’s own.