“A Moment Alone in the Shade:” Walking the Grounds of Mount Vernon

Mount Vernon was the plantation and estate belonging to the first President of the United States, George Washington. It is also the place where he is buried, alongside his wife Martha and 20 other Washington family members. Mount Vernon was originally named “Little Hunting Creek Plantation” and was owned by John Washington, whose son Lawrence inherited the estate upon his passing. Lawrence Washington then passed the estate down to his daughter, Mildred. Mildred’s brother, Augustine, George Washington’s father, bought the estate in 1726 and built the main portion of the plantation house. In 1740, Augustine passed the estate to his eldest son Lawrence, George Washington’s older half-brother, who renamed the plantation Mount Vernon, after English naval officer Admiral Edward Vernon. Future President George Washington only inherited the plantation after his brother Lawrence (and his two heirs, his daughter, Sarah, and his wife, Ann) passed away. George Washington is responsible for the grand additions to the plantation, including an upper and lower garden, a greenhouse, and a botanical garden.

The Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association of the Union is dedicated to the preservation of Mount Vernon so that the legacy of George Washington may continue for generations to come. The virtual tour of Mount Vernon allows people from all over the United States to “walk” the grounds of George Washington’s estate. From the novice to the enthusiast to the professor, this virtual tour is designed so that everyone can take something away and learn something valuable. I would argue that tours of historic estates such as Mount Vernon are some of the most essential elements of history education. They allow the visitor to analyze a time period from a different perspective which is so incredibly important. When it comes to the colonial period, people always talk about the Founding Fathers and the Constitutional Convention and the American Revolution/Revolutionary War. Those are all incredibly large topics that help the learner look at the time period with a wide lens. Touring an estate helps the learner look at the time period through the much smaller lens of the daily life of the people who operated the estate. Mount Vernon’s tour is a wonderful resource, especially for educators. This tour of Mount Vernon has been masterfully executed in terms of making the language accessible and allowing the viewer to learn about early United States history in a new way: through examining the way in which people lived their daily lives as opposed to only looking at large events.

“Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of public happiness.”

George Washington, first annual address | friday, january 08, 1970

When discussing the history of the United States, it is difficult, if not impossible, to find a period of time that was not affected by the enslavement of human beings, racism, or both. The Founding Fathers, despite their monumental efforts towards “freeing” the Americans from British rule, were not without fault. People tend to forget that the Founding Fathers were also enslavers. The text on the tour of Mount Vernon is strictly educational/informational, but the tone does change slightly when referencing the enslaved people on the estate. The language used does draw more attention to the inequity and the subpar conditions experienced by those who were enslaved by George Washington and his wife Martha, but it is not supporting or promoting a certain angle. It’s incredibly easy to put the Founding Fathers on a pedestal because of what they did for this country, but it’s equally as important to humanize them by openly discussing their flaws and their misgivings.

“When only one side of a story is heard and often repeated, the human mind becomes impressed with it insensibly.”

George Washington, letter to edmund pendleton | Thursday, january 22, 1795

Let’s Take A Tour

The virtual tour of Mount Vernon is a panoramic, self-guided walkthrough experience. The image above is the first thing that you will see once the tour has launched. There are not any visible directions on how to navigate the site; the viewer is left to figure it out on their own. The menu in the top left corner allows you to choose what area of Mount Vernon you would like to explore. If you hover your cursor over one of the options, i.e. “Mansion,” it will expand to the right and you will have another list of options to choose from. In the bottom left corner there is a box that tells you what area of the estate you are currently viewing (i.e. “West Front,” in reference to the above image). The + (plus) and – (minus) buttons allow you to zoom in and out of the image. You can also use the ones on your keyboard. The white text box at the bottom of the screen offers the viewer a description of the area they are currently viewing. If you click on the text box, it will disappear, but if you want to view it again, all you have to do is click on the yellow box with the three (3) dots and the checkmark that is to the right of the text box. (If the box is grey, you will have to click on it to turn it yellow, then click it again to get the text box to return.) This box gives the viewer the option to show or hide the tour interface.

When the tour interface is being shown, there are a few extra options that the viewer has. The left and right arrows in the bottom right corner enable the viewer to take a more guided tour of the estate, as the website will direct you to the next viewable area without you having to choose. (If you are just starting the tour, you still can choose the “previous location,” even if you haven’t viewed any other areas. The tour is on a loop.) The icon above the arrows that looks like a pair of goggles enables a VR (virtual reality) experience. It gives the illusion that you are actually walking through Mount Vernon. I do not think that this feature is incredibly necessary as the tour itself is already immersive. The blue map above the goggles opens the estate map, which is an artistic depiction of an aerial view of the estate. You can only choose to visit seven (7) sections of the estate from the map: Leadership Hall, Reception Hall, the Rare Books Suite, the Document Room, the Reading Room, and the Library Front and Rear.

The little landmark icon with the star in it gives the viewer the option to view or hide the “points of interest.” These are the white dots, arrows, and “play” icons encircled in white that are scattered across the screen. If you click on one of the arrows, you will be taken to another part of the estate. For example, if you are looking at the West Front and you click on the far left arrow, you will be taken to the “New Room.” It’s a way of helping guide the viewer to different areas of the estate without having to consistently navigate the menu.

As the tour is panoramic, you can rotate the image on the screen in a complete circle. All you need to do is press the left or right arrow keys on your keyboard. You can also press the up and down arrow keys on your keyboard to shift the view towards the ceiling/sky or the floor/ground. The visual is always really clear, so there is little-to-no lag time when spinning around. The only problem that I could see with this is that the screen moves really fast, which can make people dizzy (me!), and it makes it almost impossible to re-center back to the original angle. Once you get the hang of it, the site is easy to navigate, but it could take a few minutes to adjust to how fast the screen moves.

The virtual tour of Mount Vernon is filled with historical artifacts and reproductions of historical artifacts that would have been present when George Washington owned the estate. These artifacts range from teacups and saucers to paintings to furniture and beyond. Different artifacts will have different stories, so the amount of text that accompanies each one will vary. Each artifact (or reproduction) and its text offers a look into what life was like on the Mount Vernon estate. When looking at an artifact and its description, the background is black and the text is white, which makes it easier to read. The virtual tour of Mount Vernon is a wonderful way to bring the colonial period to life.

To Learn More

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The link above will redirect you to the YouTube Channel for Mount Vernon that is managed by the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association of the Union (the same group who is responsible for the upkeep of the Mount Vernon estate). If you click one of the small icons below the link, you will be redirected to one of their three (3) social media accounts.

The link above will redirect you to PolitiFact, a website managed by the Poynter Institute. The particular article linked discusses Arlen Parsa’s Twitter post regarding John Trumbull’s famous painting, “Declaration of Independence.” The tweet in question is below. (If you click on it, you will be redirected to the tweet on the Twitter website.) The staff for PolitiFact researched each of the signatories of the Declaration of Independence to determine whether or not they enslaved people. The Poynter Institute for Media Studies is a non-profit journalism and research school in Florida. A link to the spreadsheet that was used to organize their research is as follows: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Tq3u2XkluveKhJXAFJNfPq8uaxMnJ3ylM1cXecYrB-Q/edit#gid=0

The founders with red dots are the slaveholders. The founders in yellow are the only ones who freed all the people they held.

Thomas Jefferson, who wrote the Declaration of Independence, raped one of the women he enslaved.

He freed his illegitimate children. But not their mom. pic.twitter.com/9D1aurjZUD

— Arlen Parsa (@arlenparsa) September 1, 2019