"Best of Wives and Best of Women": The Role Eliza Plays in the History of 'Hamilton' and America
Elizabeth Hamilton and Phillipa Soo
Maria Kopke
In 1804, Founding Father Alexander Hamilton wrote a farewell letter to his wife, Elizabeth, in which he described her as “best of wives and best of women”. Both Ron Chernow, author of Alexander Hamilton’s biography, and Lin-Manuel Miranda, author of hit musical Hamilton, make a point to portray her as essential both for Hamilton’s life and legacy and for the history of America.
But what exactly were her contributions, and how do they translate to the musical?
As none of her letters to Alexander have survived, a lot of information about Elizabeth was lost. According to Chernow, her erasure from history was her own choice. His interpretation is that “she was so self-effacing and so reverential toward her husband that […] she apparently destroyed her own letters”.
Miranda implies the opposite in “Burn”: Elizabeth purposely destroys her letters in order to, on one hand, protect her dignity from “future historians” and, on the other, to prevent said historians from using her letters to somehow excuse Alexander’s behavior.
Phillipa Soo in Hamilton
Regardless, the fact is that, due to lack of information, Miranda had to fill in the gaps and add a lot of fictional elements. In the show, for example, Elizabeth has only two sisters, whereas, in reality, she had ten siblings. This allows for an in-depth description of the three sisters. The fact that fictional Eliza has no brothers also contributes to an image of a group of powerful women to mirror the male characters in the story.
In the show, the Schuyler Sisters are presented as advocates for women’s rights, with Angelica quoting The Declaration of Independence and adding that she will compel Thomas Jefferson “to include women in the sequel”. Although Chernow makes no mention of Eliza being an outspoken feminist, Miranda’s portrait of a strong, intelligent, and charismatic woman is in agreement with the picture Chernow paints of her. He describes her as “a stoic woman who never yielded to self-pity”, and he includes accounts by her friend Jessie Benton Frémont, who noted Elizabeth’s “rare sense of justice”, her “brilliancy”, and “charm”.
Both Chernow and Miranda point out that Elizabeth was also compassionate. Chernow writes that she was “blessed with a forgiving heart”, and Miranda uses words such as “trusting” and “kind” to describe her. These traits may at first be perceived as weaknesses, when, for example, she expresses how her love for Hamilton leaves her “helpless”. However, her ability to forgive is praised as strength in “It’s Quiet Uptown”.
In the years of Elizabeth’s widowhood, she did much, both for America and for the memory of her husband. As one of her most important deeds, Chernow names the New York Orphan Asylum Society, the first private orphanage in New York, which Elizabeth and other women co-founded.
In 1821, she became the first directress in the asylum, with 158 children under her supervision, and she kept the position for twenty-seven years.
Miranda uses the musical’s last song, “Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story”, to present Eliza as restless and hard-working. Though he doesn’t go as much into detail as Chernow, he describes the orphanage as her dearest deed.
Chernow relates that it became Elizabeth’s main objective to make sure that Alexander’s contributions to America were known and that they weren’t buried beneath defamatory stories about him. And so, her project began: the publication of her husband’s complete biography.
According to Chernow, she recruited “as many as thirty assistants” to help her look through his writings, interviewed “elderly politicians” who had known and worked with him and consulted correspondence between Alexander and Washington.
Hamilton Eliza does not interview politicians, but rather Hamilton’s fellow soldiers. Nothing is said about her soliciting help from other people to scan through her husband’s writings – the same way there is no mention of the women she co-founded the orphanage with. It may result in a historically inaccurate portrayal of Elizabeth, but it makes the character appear stronger, more influential, and more independent.
Elizabeth outlived most of Alexander’s contemporaries- Chernow’s prologue is titled “The Oldest Revolutionary War Widow”-, which made her task to finish the biography increasingly difficult. This idea is translated into the song, with the constant repetition of the word “time”.
Chernow relates that Alexander’s biography was Elizabeth’s “dearest object”, and, despite the fact that, in the musical, Elizabeth claims to be “proudest of” the orphanage, the lyrics and the title of the song suggest that the most important thing is actually telling the story. The question “Who tells your story?” is repeated over and over, and the answer is “Eliza”.
It is interesting to note that fictional Eliza herself is concerned about the narrative, and, at first, in telling Alexander’s story. Later in the song, she asks: “Will they tell our story?”, now placing herself in the same level of importance as her husband. And, finally, by the end, she poses yet another version of the question: “Will they tell my story?”
Perhaps a good way to answer this is by saying that, while Chernow’s and Miranda’s works are clearly focused on Alexander Hamilton, it is quite telling that Chernow dedicated the first and last pages of his book to Elizabeth and that Miranda closed his show with her first-hand recounting of events.
Both authors agree that, without Elizabeth, much of the existing information regarding Alexander might have been lost, and thus it is difficult to tell his story without telling a bit of hers.
And, lastly, even though Alexander is evidently the protagonist in the musical, one can speculate on the reasons why, instead of using his full name for the title, the author chose to use only his last name- the name that he shares with his wife, Elizabeth.