UNSUNG LABOUR
The musical Hamilton offers a glimpse of some influential wives throughout history
Since the release of Hamilton on Disney+ in July, the musical has prompted considerable debate — over its “racebent” casting, over its treatment of slavery and over its historical accuracy.
The play’s ambiguous ending has also launched discussion about the role of Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton in both the play and in her husband’s legacy. “Who tells your story?” asks the play’s final refrain. The answer, in this case, is clear: Eliza.
By leaving viewers with the final image of Eliza — alone — at centre stage, creator Lin-Manuel Miranda marks her as an extraordinary figure. As Alexander Hamilton describes her, in both his private letters and in the musical, Eliza was the “best of wives and best of women.” In the years after Hamilton’s death, Eliza co-founded the first private orphanage in New York City, which still exists today.
But it is also Eliza who “tells the stories” of men such as Hamilton, George Washington and others, securing their legacies as America’s “Founding Fathers.” Alongside first wives Dolley Todd Madison and Louisa Adams, Eliza raised funds to build the Washington Monument. She also recovered and organized Hamilton’s writings and petitioned for their preservation in the Library of Congress.
But in highlighting Eliza’s role as Alexander’s caretaker, curator and champion, Hamilton praises her for performing the kind of work that women — and especially wives — have carried out for millennia. In fact, women’s work was integral in creating the legacies of Socrates, Machiavelli, John Locke and many other “great men” we remember for their political and intellectual endeavours. Our political and intellectual heritage, in other words, is largely the product of women’s unsung labour.
Women have, throughout history, supported and preserved their husbands’ legacies. Historian Jennifer Jones shows that Thérèse Levasseur, for example, worked for years after the death in 1778 of her husband, JeanJacques Rousseau, sending letters to the French National Assembly, Catherine the Great and others, to establish herself as guardian of Rousseau’s estate and legacy. Like Eliza’s work, Thérèse’s petitions were ultimately rewarded — the National Assembly granted her an annual pension of 600 livres for her work.
Yet Thérèse, ridiculed by many of her husband’s contemporaries as being beneath his station, was kept out of view in commemorations of her husband. She was, for instance, not allowed to accompany Rousseau’s ashes when they were reburied at the Pantheon in 1794.
Likewise, Alexis de Tocqueville entrusted his wife, Mary Mottley, with the sole responsibility for handling his papers after his death in 1859. She also, on Tocqueville’s wishes, destroyed or returned all letters written to him — something later historians would denounce as overstepping the “prerogatives of a widow.” And, in the U.S. context, Dolley Madison organized, edited and published the papers of her husband, James Madison — including his notes on the Constitutional Convention. After his death in 1836, James bequeathed them to his wife in his will, “having entire confidence in her discreet and proper use of them.” In both cases, the couples had engaged in collaborative conversations throughout their relationships, with the wives acting as early sounding boards, editors and critics of the ideas for which their husbands are known. In entrusting their wives with the care and curation of their legacies, then, Alexis de Tocqueville and James Madison simply continued the intellectual partnerships that had existed during their lifetimes.
But in addition to curating their husband’s legacies, wives have also directly shaped the ideas and institutions for which their husbands are famous. Harriet Taylor Mill, for example, was credited by her husband, John Stuart Mill, for inspiring and co-writing works he is famous for. Nevertheless, later readers have insisted she could not be considered in any “meaningful sense” a joint author with the famed 19th-century writer. By sidelining women’s collaborative roles, these kinds of erasures generate the all-too-common image of the “great man” — the singular genius who moves history in extraordinary ways. That image, however, is both inaccurate and gendered.
It is impossible, for instance, to understand Karl Marx’s “intellectual” writings apart from the context of his activism — the collective work of researching, editing, translating and distributing pamphlets, as well as fundraising and organizing for the movement — in which his wife, Jenny von Westphalen, was just as intimately involved. Similarly, Booker T. Washington’s legacy at the Tuskegee Institute relied in significant measure on the contributions of his three wives — Fannie Smith, Olivia Davidson and Margaret James Murray — who not only helped run and teach at the institute but also expanded its curriculum for women.
What makes all these women extraordinary is not that there are so few of them, but that there are so many. Facing public ridicule and private enmity, these wives nevertheless made foundational contributions under conditions that were directly hostile to women’s social and political activity. Yet in the histories written about these men and their revolutionary works, the work of wives as editors, curators, collaborators and facilitators are largely absent.
This is due, in no small part, to the fact that the archival silences surrounding some women have wrongly been conflated with their passivity. Indeed, as Hamilton illustrates, there are often good reasons women might choose to remove themselves from the historical record.
Silences may be strategic, as perhaps was the case with Jeanne de Lartigue, wife of Baron de Montesquieu and a devout Calvinist living during a time of intense Calvinist persecution by the French state. As historian Bryan Banks argues, Jeanne’s desire to protect herself and her family from harm might reasonably have motivated her to keep herself out of the record. These historical women may also be driven by personal desires for privacy — as Hamilton suggests in relation to Alexander’s infidelity — or, perhaps paradoxically, by a desire to actively preserve one’s legacy through the act of omitting inconvenient details.
In some cases, too, as with Anna Murray-Douglass, Frederick Douglass’s
first wife, silence is not an indication of inaction — but of how history is recorded. Anna was largely responsible for helping Frederick escape slavery, having saved and sent him the funds to do so. Her careful household management also enabled his travels and political career, but she is often overlooked in discussions of Douglass’s legacy. That omission is attributed to the fact that Murray “didn’t read or write, so there are no letters to her or by her.” But we can turn to the recollections left by their children. A fuller accounting of our history, then, necessitates more attention to wives — both to the character of their absences and to the variety of sources that might reflect upon their lives.
This is partly what makes Hamilton’s ending so significant: When Eliza takes centre stage to put herself “back in the narrative,” the play reasserts her agency, emphasizing Eliza’s many efforts — as helpmate, collaborator and advocate in shaping her own (and Alexander’s) legacy. In so doing, Hamilton encourages us to consider the past and present contributions of women who, because they are positioned as wives, are rarely viewed as partners in the fullest sense.
Women, and particularly wives like Eliza Hamilton, have been essential to our political and intellectual histories.
It’s long past time we tell their stories.