Presidents’ Day: Letters Show Fatherly Side Of Washington, Lincoln

January 26, 2001

University Park, Pa. --- Since President George Washington was childless, the "father of our country" title seems honorary, but few citizens realize how much of a real father and grandfather George Washington really was. He considered his stepchildren as his own and was devoted to his step-grandchildren and his sometimes wayward nieces and nephews, often dispensing paternal advice, according to a new book, "Dear Young Friend: The Letters of American Presidents to Children."

Authors Rodelle and Stanley Weintraub, both retired from Penn State, present selected Washington’s letters offering sincere advice to his nieces, nephews, granddaughters and young cousins with adolescent problems. Finally, to Washington’s relief, the girls become safely marriageable. One of them, he writes to his sister, "costs me enough", and he is pleased when she finds a suitor who is "sober, sedate, and attentive."

In his letter to niece Nellie Parke Custis, Washington warns her about an infatuation that "in the composition of the human frame there is a good deal of inflammable matter." To the lazy Sally Ball Haynie, he advises not only virtue, but an occupation, for industry as well as "a chaste and unsullied reputation" were "the surest means of attracting the notice of some man with whom your future fortune will be united." And he signed the letter "your friend G. Washington."

Published by Stackpole Books of Mechanicsburg, Pa., "Dear Young Friend" traces the evolution of the U.S. presidency from aristocratic to mass media through the letters of children to the White House. "Much of the presidential mail to children illuminates little-known aspects of our chief executives, even those whose personalities as well as presidencies seem almost to have faded from history," says Stanley Weintraub, the Evan Pugh Professor Emeritus of Arts and Humanities at Penn State.

Lincoln, one of the few early presidents not from the upper class, may have been the first to attract young correspondents from a new generation learning how to read in public schools. One of his letters from a child may have altered the nation’s future.

As a candidate for president, the lean, clean-shaven Lincoln received a letter from the shrewd, 11-year-old Grace Bedell, who told him that he would look more presidential with a beard, and would be more electable. "All the ladies like whiskers," she wrote, and although they could not vote, they would "tease" their husbands to vote for him. "My dear little Miss," Lincoln wrote back, "As to the whiskers, having never worn any, do you not think people would call it a piece of silly affection if I were to begin it now?" But he did, and the rest is history, according to the Weintraubs.

"On Presidents’ Day we can look beneath the austere images of Washington and Lincoln to see a human dimension often lost in the laying of wreaths," the authors note.

?As part of their research, the Weintraubs reviewed thousands of letters located in state historical societies and modern presidential libraries, no small task. The late John Coolidge gave them copies of letters from his crusty father, which are included in the book.

"Many letters by the less popular presidents such as Martin Van Buren and James Buchanan are not published or even edited due to a lack of resources or support," Rodelle Weintraub says. "Often, the letters were indexed by date, not by adult and children senders so we had to go through many boxes of letters individually. Sometimes we had to determine the sender’s status by reading the salutation the most common for children being "Dear Jimmy" or "Dear Master Jimmy," for example."

Through the letters, issues such as education, citizenship and national purpose appear in tandem with personal problems, from a dog to a bike or a job. A young Fidel Castro asked Franklin D. Roosevelt for a "ten dollar bill green american" in an apparently unanswered letter.

Stanley Weintraub, a distinguished Penn State biographer and historian, notes, "We see the continuing and sometimes changing concerns of the presidential office and its occupants and how these concerns are approached in letters to young people. "

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Contact:

Vicki Fong (814) 865-9481 (o)/ (814) 238-1221 (h) vfong@psu.edu

EDITORS: The Weintraubs can be contacted at 814-466-6057 during the evenings; Dr. Weintraub is at 814-865-0495 (office) during the weekdays or at sqw4@psu.edu by email.