Historical Alexander Hamilton - Tumblr Posts

Historically inaccurate Alexander Hamilton & Friends (I’m in Hell but at least I don’t feel cold). I’m trying to grasp the designs

Poor Laurens

A quick teen Lams in modern clothes. Did I mention that I love Laurens’s nose?

“Cold in my professions, warm in [my] friendships, I wish, my Dear Laurens, it m[ight] be in my power, by action rather than words, [to] convince you that I love you.”

It’s such a shame that there are so few John’s letters left

wtf was hamilton actually like

yet another long rant about how little i really know about hamilton! this is in regards to his personality because i can't get him down. i can't figure out what he would've been like in everyday life.

for any historical figure, we take explicitly documented traits and build off of them. even if it's clumsy, i'd be confident "predicting" how washington & jefferson usually act, etc. but for some reason, ham's characterization is all over the place. his recorded personality traits, also mixed with his political attitudes, often conflict and authors end up leaning into certain parts. for instance: there's flirty & flamboyant ham. there's prideful, arrogant, standoffish ham. there's bumbling politics ham, obtuse and belligerent 24/7 - aka musical ham, but that was an intentional choice. there's even kind and warm ham, which definitely seems accurate for his family and close friends least.

was he loud and intense 24/7? or was that just him during work, since we also know that he had a habit of mumbling to himself and looking like a daydreamer to spectators?

some people said that his general countenance was serious and austere, but we also know that he could be a charmer in social spaces. he was described as feminine but also as "martial". some have written that there's an "simplicity" in his manners, and a clear openness, but we also speculate that he closed off some part of his emotions after laurens' death. he was constantly worried about his loved ones' health, like him tucking in judge ford, but we also know that he could ghost people mercilessly. was he guarded or was he not?

i guess i can pinpoint how he might have interacted with select people, like eliza, his children, washington. but i don't know which side of him was shown in the majority of his interactions - what the "real" him, or at least common him, would've been.

one of my fav descriptions of him notes how even his speech fluctuated:

“His language is not always equal; sometimes didactic like Bolingbroke’s; at other times light and tripping, like Sterne’s. His eloquence is not so defusive as to trifle with the senses, but he rambles just enough to strike and keep up the attention...His manners are tinctured with stiffness and sometimes with a degree of vanity that is highly disagreeable. “

and i recall another anecdote about how he was serious and made intelligent conversation at dinner, but became more of the flirty charming persona afterwards while socializing.

like all human beings he was multifaceted, but damn. i really can't confidently say "oh if you ran into hamilton in the street he would be really polite/reserved/kind/charming."

i guess all of this goes to say that this guy was insanely complex and i'm not sure if anyone, let alone himself, really figured it out. that's definitely why i'm interested in him as a figure, but ugh. frustrating when i'm writing and can feel myself slipping into a common ham archetype that i don't think is 100% accurate. and we didn't even get into how much of that is "real" or - adams' version.

historical alexander hamilton and john laurens in 2024? WOAH!

uhhh i was gonna draw a nature background but i got lazy after working on this for a couple hours straight so like pretend its there

i really hate those historical bastard orphans who are sons of whores

also flat colors cause it’s funny to laugh at side by side

LOOK AT THESE SOCKS I GOT!!!!!

hey what’s this

⭐️PRIDE⭐️

i love making edits

all those guilty of loving this man too much say "aye"

What I like to think happened at some point lmao

Idk if this format works, but I’ll post this anyways hehe

thinking about how alexander no-immune-system-to-speak-of hamilton was ill from mid november 1779, only fully recovering in january 1780 and colonel hugh hughes wrote to a friend (general gates) in early december 1779:

“colonel hamilton, who has been very ill of a nervous disorder at peekskill, is out of danger, unless of his own sweet temper.”

it just reads like hughes wanted to support his friend who had received angry letters from a recovering hamilton by being passive aggressive and being like: “bro, i see you, this kid’s an asshole”

it’s so unnecessarily funny to me

there are two worms inside of me:

one tells me i’m cringe and evil for obsessing over my special interests

the other tells me i’m cringe and evil for existing

and if i had to pick one to plague me, it will always be the first, because i’d rather be cringe and evil for my special interests than dead.

conclusion: enjoy the things you enjoy. life is too short to worry about being cringe. let’s be honest here, the actual historical people we obsess over were just as weird as us,

hamilton was ridiculed for being feminine, boyish and physically weak, for being restless and disruptive in court/meetings and too talkative, too aggressive, for fainting whenever he was in distress, for being obsessively religious.

his private studies as an aide included hyper-fixating over how the ancient greeks traded wives with other men… and other pretty graphic shit i’m not gonna talk abt bc it makes me uncomfortable. and he wasn’t even freaked out, just very intrigued.

he grew up in a world where every reject of humanity lived side by side and when he came to new york, im sure that people were sometimes appalled by things he thought were completely normal.

hamilton was more one of us than them. he was just as human as us. just as “weird”. sure he and the others people here talk about lived 200 years ago but there is a connection between our interest patterns (?).

he obsessed over people who lived before him as well (where do you think he got his brilliant ideas for his financial system for)

actual conclusion: one of us, one of us, one of us, one of us, one of us, one of us, one of us, one of us, one of us, one of us, one of us, one of us,

Hamilton is so much more enjoyable without a worm in your ear telling you how “cringe” it is

HELLO!

yes, i’m procrastinating my latin homework.

historical fun facts about hamilton’s relationship with his parents!

his mother died in the same bed with him. he recovered from their shared illness just enough to attend her funeral a week later. that’s fucked up. especially considering that his father abandoned his family only a few years prior without any warning.

later in life, hamilton still had contact to his bio-father, primarily sending him money the teenager needed for himself. his father didn’t write a lot, often just not replying at all. hamilton didn’t give up though and just continued updating him and sending him money. he was desperately seeking attention from his parent. especially after contact with his brother got sparse as well.

when he was in college, he was a very disciplined student, and never once even tried to anger anybody who could even remotely be parent-aged to him, protecting his professors from a crowd of people wanting to lynch him with his life, trying to verbally convince them that what they were doing wasn’t the way to get to their goal. hamilton even agreed with the causes of the revolutionaries, but god forbid (literally) any harm comes to somebody he maybe saw as a pseudo-parental figure.

he had a great relationship with washington for a short time, then - despite them still being close - washington took his anger and frustration out on him, making their relationship complicated. and he didn’t know Martha enough to see her as a mother figure as far as i know. so basically

concluion: hamilton had a lot of parental figures, none of them were… there.

insert classic hamilton trauma joke indeed :3

(Insert Classic Hamilton trauma joke)

WE GOT ANOTHER ONE!!! WELCOME TO THE TRENCHES, MAKE YOURSELF COMFY AND ENJOY 200 YEAR OLD DRAMA BETWEEN GROWN MEN

(in all seriousness, reading AHam and Laurens correspondences is prime entertainment you should check it out if you haven’t already) :3

I will not develop an unhealthy obsession on a founding father and his gay love affair I will not develop an unhealthy obsession on a founding father and his gay love affair I will not develop an unhealthy obsession on a founding father and his gay love affair I will not-

SOURCES PEOPLE SOURCES!!!

hiiii :3

i just read your response to an ask about your reason for disliking ron chernow’s alexander hamilton book, and i wanted to ask if i can still use it as source for some info. i’ve done my fair share of research on various topics and my opinions/what i’ve read differentiated strongly sometimes from what he wrote, but some things are just hard to come by (as somebody not from the US who doesn’t have local resources and has to rely on stuff i can find online). what do you suggest i do if i want more accurate info? i know the founders archive but other than that i haven’t found a lot of trustworthy sources concerning the amrev that aren’t $300 textbooks?

idk- sorry this is really long :,) i’m not sure in im making any sense haha

Girl have you seen the length of my posts? This is not long at all, and you make perfect sense.

And if you have seen my posts, you may notice that Chernow is my most frequent citation because of how valuable his biographies are as sources. He does intensely thorough research and his index and bibliography are so extensive, I can’t even make a joke about getting them as a tramp stamp.

Chernow is a great source and I do recommend any starting Hamilton scholar to get a copy, if you have the means and patience. The downfalls of it are its a hard read and his personal interpretations are heavily skewed and biased in various directions, which is only different from other historians because he doesn’t give proper evidence and substantiation to these claims. All you need to have in order to recognize this is basic critical thinking skills. Tl;dr: Chernow is a great source, he’s just fucking annoying and I hate him.

One very good thing about Chernow is that his book is so (painfully) extensive, that it can serve as a source for more than just Hamilton, so there’s no shame in using him as a source for *checks notes* how the island of St. Kitts and Nevis was formed from a volcano, if you’re into that.

I see your inability to access US propaganda and I raise you youtube documentaries. That may sound crazy, but you can put it on in the background and cross reference between them (usually repeated details are closest to the truth). They can also be entertaining, especially if they’re from the 80s (i love the 80s). Additionally, if you’re looking for archives, @maip--macrothorax can tell you all the benefits of Internet Archive (if they aren’t too busy borrowing all of the books on there /lh). You can also find a lot of things on the Library of Congress’s website, and also my favorite governmental department:

THE NATIONAL PARK SERVICE!!

Go to the national park service, it includes all the battlefields, important buildings, where important buildings used to be, the houses of historical figures, and really pretty parks (also like mount gaymore (rushmore) and shit but wtvr). They have tons of information and great archivists and librarians and i long for their jobs. Also, American Battlefield Trust, Mount Vernon, The Museum of the American Revolution, etc. also have great sources and tons of information- along with wonderful reenactments that they have on youtube!!

I also do my best to make these sources as accessible as possible, so if you do some perusing you might be able to find some of this stuff here, but I am always happy to answer asks with links or research though I am very slow (sorry). And of course, my dms are open and I probably wouldn’t be totally infuriated if you found me at my local library and asked for directions to the non-fiction section. I am the personal librarian of tumblr.com, so ask away and I’ll be there!!

real

And then he went on to cheat on his wife

HSJSJSOANABSHAHA

W H A T

OMFG YES

AINT NO WAY REEEEEEEEEEEEEE

(yes I'm the one who left three emotional asf comments♥️♥️♥️I've missed u charlessss♥️♥️♥️)