To uncover the secrets behind George Washington’s early political career, one Binghamton University Ph.D. candidate is going straight to the source.
Kenneth Lane, a fourth-year Ph.D. candidate studying history, was one of 20 scholars chosen for a fall fellowship at the Fred W. Smith National Library in Mount Vernon, Virginia for the Study of George Washington. The library is the only place in the world where scholars have access to primary sources, including letters and original documents, from the first President of the United States.
Lane applied for the fellowship with the help of his former mentor and founding director of the library, Douglas Bradburn.
At BU, he now hopes to write his dissertation on the British Empire’s manipulation of people like Washington and expand on not only Washington’s influence in shaping American history, but also aspects of Washington and his family that most Americans are unaware of.
Lane said that he is also looking to focus on how there is a desire to protect Washington as a monument to American values, when in reality, he took advantage of those around him to advance his career.
“Washington was a highly astute political actor,” Lane explained in an email. “He was inventive, aggressively ambitious, at times arrogant and over-bearing and more than willing to play the game of patron and client to achieve his ends.”
According to Robert Parkinson, Lane’s advisor and an assistant professor of history, Lane’s dissertation seeks to explain how Washington’s familial and political connections, as well as his imperial negotiations, helped his family succeed in the Ohio Company of Virginia, a land company involved in western expansion. Particularly, Parkinson said, Lane is looking to examine the few remaining letters of Washington’s half-brother, Lawrence, which can only be found at Mount Vernon.
Lane said that during his time at the fellowship, he will not only be exposed to information he could not have have studied anywhere else, but to experts in the field as well.
“The fellowship provided me with access to a unique set of documents, including Lawrence Washington’s surviving letters and just as importantly, interactions with other scholars of George Washington whose consultation and advice has been invaluable,” Lane wrote.
Parkinson said that he hoped for Lane to return from his time at the library with both scholarly and professional benefits.
“It is where you meet new people and new ideas — you listen to others describe their projects and you ‘pitch’ yours,” he wrote in an email. “Some of my longest and most cherished professional relationships began on a month-long research fellowship such as the one [Lane] earned.”
Diane Sommerville, associate professor and director of graduate studies of history, said that she believes Lane’s fellowship will bring esteem to the history department and encourage others to pursue their graduate degrees at BU.
“The fellowship and the visibility it provides also represents a showcase for our best and brightest,” Sommerville wrote in an email. “When historians and other scholars meet talented and knowledgeable historians-in-the-making like Ken, and they see that he comes from Binghamton University, it furthers the History Department’s reputation as a place to come and study early American history.”
Lane, who hopes to return to Mount Vernon at the end of this semester for further investigation, said his time at the fellowship not only helped him further uncover the mysteries of Washington’s character, but also shaped him as a person.
“My development as a historian relies heavily upon the types of individuals whom are around me and with whom I can bounce ideas off of, even at [1 a.m.],” Lane wrote. “Those are the kinds of individuals I found at Mount Vernon, and the impact they have had on me as a historian cannot be understated.”