Library dedicated to 1st president

MOUNT VERNON, Va. - George Washington’s Mount Vernon estate on Friday formally opened a new $47 million library dedicated to the study of America’s first president, with plans to host a series of scholars who will examine the lives of Washington and the Founding Fathers.

And if those scholars occasionally knock Washington off his lofty perch as the flawless Father of Our Country, that’s OK by Mount Vernon.

Since 1853, the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association has been dedicated to preserving and promoting Washington’s legacy. But with Friday’s opening of the Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington, Mount Vernon is committing itself to sponsoring a formal level of scholarship about Washington, and Mount Vernon officials say they have no intention of insisting on a glossy interpretation.

“There is this vision of Washington as a man on a pedestal,” said Curt Viebranz, Mount Vernon’s president and CEO. “I actually think if you take him down off the pedestal, it’s an even more compelling story. We’re not going to try to control the message.”

The library’s director, Douglas Bradburn, said there is a neo-Progressive trend among historians who may be more likely to look at the American Revolution through perhaps a more cynical lens, resurrecting arguments from a century ago that Washington and the other Founding Fathers were motivated more out of securing their own economic interests than by any lofty notions of liberty and self-governance.

Front Section, Pages 3 on 09/28/2013

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