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Sarah Johnson's Mount Vernon: The Forgotten History of an American Shrine
New Stories from an Old American Shrine
The home of our first president has come to symbolize the ideals of our freedom for all, national solidarity, and universal democracy. Mount Vernon is a place where the memories of George Washington and the era of America’s birth are carefully preserved and re-created for the nearly one million tourists who visit it every year. But behind the familiar stories lies a history that visitors never hear. Sarah Johnson’s Mount Vernon recounts the experience of the hundreds of African Americans who are forgotten in Mount Vernon’s narrative.
Historian and archival sleuth Scott E. Casper recovers the remarkable history of former slave Sarah Johnson, who spent more than fifty years at Mount Vernon, before and after emancipation. Through her life and the lives of her family and friends, Casper provides an intimate picture of Mount Vernon’s operation during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, years that are rarely part of its story. Working for the Washington heirs and then the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association, these African Americans played an essential part in creating the legacy of Mount Vernon as an American shrine. Their lives and contributions have long been lost to history and erased from memory. Casper restores them both, and in so doing adds a new layer of significance to America’s most popular historical estate.
The home of our first president has come to symbolize the ideals of our freedom for all, national solidarity, and universal democracy. Mount Vernon is a place where the memories of George Washington and the era of America’s birth are carefully preserved and re-created for the nearly one million tourists who visit it every year. But behind the familiar stories lies a history that visitors never hear. Sarah Johnson’s Mount Vernon recounts the experience of the hundreds of African Americans who are forgotten in Mount Vernon’s narrative.
Historian and archival sleuth Scott E. Casper recovers the remarkable history of former slave Sarah Johnson, who spent more than fifty years at Mount Vernon, before and after emancipation. Through her life and the lives of her family and friends, Casper provides an intimate picture of Mount Vernon’s operation during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, years that are rarely part of its story. Working for the Washington heirs and then the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association, these African Americans played an essential part in creating the legacy of Mount Vernon as an American shrine. Their lives and contributions have long been lost to history and erased from memory. Casper restores them both, and in so doing adds a new layer of significance to America’s most popular historical estate.
286 pages, Hardcover
First published January 22, 2008
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
May 10, 2013
This is a history of Mount Vernon following the death of George Washington. Because it is a story of the everyday life on and operation of the estate, it is a story of 200 years of African American history. There is a parallel history here too, about the pioneer days of the historic preservation movement.
Early visitors to Mount Vernon believed what they wanted to believe. Knowing Washington's will had freed his slaves (upon the death of Martha, who released them early) one could ignore reality and presume that those who labored in the field and encountered visitors were free. For 60 years it bubbles into public consciousness only every now and then that they are not.
In the first part of the book, Sarah is in the background as we learn about Washington's heirs, Martha's dower slaves, crops, the buying, selling and renting of people, and the precursors of the tourist trade yet to come. Sarah becomes the central vehicle for the story in the later half of the book. Sarah is a perfect vehicle for this history because her life illustrates her times.
Augustine Washington assumed control of this estate at age 21. From his mother, he received Sarah's mother Hannah, and noted her additions to his assets when she bore children. In 1844 he hired Hannah out to a cousin for $24 for the year. She returned from this forced labor pregnant and delivered a mulatto child. She named her Sarah with her grandfather's last name, Parker. Later, when Mount Vernon was sold to a preservation society, which in part preserved it from the ravages of the Civil War, Sarah was also sold. In freedom she returned to her home, Mount Vernon, and became an employee of the new society.
The saga of Sarah's family, a metaphor for the contemporaneous sagas of thousands of African Americans, is told against the growth of Mount Vernon as a national shrine and tourist destination. While Mount Vernon is buffered, it cannot help but be effected by the secessionist fervor, the civil war, the war's unsettling aftermath, Jim Crow, and World Wars I and II. Scott Casper takes the reader through all this, up to today's nascent awareness of the role of African Americans in history. On p. 219 there is a eloquent piece on Sarah who we know she was and who she may have been.
This is a short book, but its ideas will stay with you a long time.
Early visitors to Mount Vernon believed what they wanted to believe. Knowing Washington's will had freed his slaves (upon the death of Martha, who released them early) one could ignore reality and presume that those who labored in the field and encountered visitors were free. For 60 years it bubbles into public consciousness only every now and then that they are not.
In the first part of the book, Sarah is in the background as we learn about Washington's heirs, Martha's dower slaves, crops, the buying, selling and renting of people, and the precursors of the tourist trade yet to come. Sarah becomes the central vehicle for the story in the later half of the book. Sarah is a perfect vehicle for this history because her life illustrates her times.
Augustine Washington assumed control of this estate at age 21. From his mother, he received Sarah's mother Hannah, and noted her additions to his assets when she bore children. In 1844 he hired Hannah out to a cousin for $24 for the year. She returned from this forced labor pregnant and delivered a mulatto child. She named her Sarah with her grandfather's last name, Parker. Later, when Mount Vernon was sold to a preservation society, which in part preserved it from the ravages of the Civil War, Sarah was also sold. In freedom she returned to her home, Mount Vernon, and became an employee of the new society.
The saga of Sarah's family, a metaphor for the contemporaneous sagas of thousands of African Americans, is told against the growth of Mount Vernon as a national shrine and tourist destination. While Mount Vernon is buffered, it cannot help but be effected by the secessionist fervor, the civil war, the war's unsettling aftermath, Jim Crow, and World Wars I and II. Scott Casper takes the reader through all this, up to today's nascent awareness of the role of African Americans in history. On p. 219 there is a eloquent piece on Sarah who we know she was and who she may have been.
This is a short book, but its ideas will stay with you a long time.
November 13, 2009
Just ok. I thought it could of been better written. It felt like a college thesis.
March 11, 2009
Interesting concept, tediously executed.
February 13, 2020
I found several things very interesting in this book - the details of the lives of enslaved and free people of color from George Washington’s day forward, the complex story of enslaved and free people at the museum that is now called George Washington’s Mount Vernon and the different choices the white people in charge at the museum made as the tides of war and politics shifted.
I clearly need to learn more about the Jim Crow era, because the expansion and contraction of small and large freedoms was an eye opener. It’s easy to choose to turn away from the ugliness of that period but we can’t understand where we are today without understanding our past.
I was also interested to learn about how the idea of what Mount Vernon had been and how to portray that to the public shifted over the years. One of the author’s footnotes expressed this succinctly: “Mount Vernon is not alone: American sacred places have possessed changeable, often contested meanings that reflect, rather than transcend, historical context.” The author then list 3 books that “examine the difficult balances between preservation and erasure, museum and theater, scholarship and interpretation - especially when historians seek to transform the fundamental stories that a place tells.”
I clearly need to learn more about the Jim Crow era, because the expansion and contraction of small and large freedoms was an eye opener. It’s easy to choose to turn away from the ugliness of that period but we can’t understand where we are today without understanding our past.
I was also interested to learn about how the idea of what Mount Vernon had been and how to portray that to the public shifted over the years. One of the author’s footnotes expressed this succinctly: “Mount Vernon is not alone: American sacred places have possessed changeable, often contested meanings that reflect, rather than transcend, historical context.” The author then list 3 books that “examine the difficult balances between preservation and erasure, museum and theater, scholarship and interpretation - especially when historians seek to transform the fundamental stories that a place tells.”
July 15, 2025
This is a slow read but worth the time. It's about a hidden history. You'll learn of the enslaved who toiled at Mount Vernon for decades after Washington's death. Then you'll go in depth about a few of their family lines and learn how their descendents played critical roles as the site evolved into an American shrine and how they built their lives amid tough challenges. Sarah Johnson towers in this narrative. I came to admire her strength, dignity and skills as she navigated freedom and carved a life for herself against tough odds.
One challenge in reading this book is keeping track of the many characters and family lines. Also, it is like an academic book but one that is accessible to the general reader.
One challenge in reading this book is keeping track of the many characters and family lines. Also, it is like an academic book but one that is accessible to the general reader.
December 2, 2017
I give it a 3.5. Provides a great, unique overview of the evolution of black lives from the time of George Washington to now as well as the development of Mount Vernon as a national shrine. As a past visitor I appreciated this take very much.
October 31, 2020
Great book for a perspective of Mount Vernon seldom told today. One can only hope the MVLA will one day devote interpretation to former slaves and free black people who's lives were just as connected, if not more, to Mount Vernon than Washington himself.
August 27, 2017
Fantastic! Fascinating! Easily understood by an armchair historian yet also meticulously researched and referenced for scholars.
Look forward to more works by him.
Look forward to more works by him.
April 1, 2010
Well researched book regarding Sarah Johnson-first a slave and then an emancipated worker at Mt. Vernon for over fifty years. An interestingly different point of view of the African Americans and the Ladies of Mount Vernon who kept traditions and history going during 19th century. P.S. Author is a prof at UNR>
September 1, 2014
A fascinating story of the African Americans, both enslaved and free, that lived at and cared for George Washington's Mount Vernon estate in the long years after his death. Wonderfully written and researched. Reading this book really gives you a different way of looking at places like that.
June 8, 2009
An important look at how a national shrine has distorted history.
December 28, 2012
Interesting information, but could have been presented in a more interesting way...
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews