Self-fashioning is something my generation knows very well. We have been trained to cultivate our lives on social media to the point where it depresses a lot of people to go to these sites. No one ever posts a picture of themselves working a job they hate, having a fight with their spouse, yelling at their kids, or going to bed lonely on Facebook. You only put the good stuff, which distorts people's notions of your life. Even when we put the bad stuff in a post we are really only looking for affirmation ("He IS a jerk"; "Being a mom IS so hard, but you're doing great!"; "I can't believe someone called you [fat, ugly, stupid], you are simply wonderful"; etc.).
Sometimes I am tempted to think that this current malaise is unique. Certainly to a degree it is. Never before have people on such a scale been so careful to present to the world an idealized picture of their life. But a fastidiously guarded care about how we are perceived is nothing new, it simply used to be mostly confined to the upper classes. Nor has it been uncommon to assume that other people--coworkers, friends, fellow parishioners--have it better than you. "The grass is always greener" wasn't coined in 2005, after all.
Washington was convinced of his place in history. He knew this war he was leading was an epochal event. His desire was that posterity have a sense of his management of the colonial forces. As such he was conscious with every letter he wrote that it would one day be read by historians of the war. In fact in the middle of the conflict he assembled a team whose sole duty was to transcribe and bind his correspondence. He gave meticulous directions for how to copy it out and make it look presentable. There was certainly vanity to this, but there was also a desire for a measure of control.
Another aspect of Washington's self-fashioning is found in the number of times he sat for a portrait. This was a tedious and time-consuming affair yet Washington found time in an already overly-packed schedule to sit for numerous portraits. There is no record if he did the duck face for any of these.
Washington carefully molded and often manipulated his public image. By all accounts he was a naturally temperamental and passionate man who subdued himself at all occasions to become the staid, dignified figure demanded of the Father of his nation.
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