Month: March 2013

Hamilton’s Lighthouses

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As Secretary of Treasury, Hamilton worked diligently to create a network of federally funded lighthouses throughout the country.  Hamilton was the first head of the Lighthouse Services.

According to the National Park Service, “on August 7, 1789, President George Washington signed the ninth act of the United States Congress which provided that the states turn over their lighthouses, including those under construction and those proposed, to the central government. In creating the U.S. Lighthouse Establishment, aids to navigation became the responsibility of the Secretary of the Treasury.”

Once the law was passed, Hamilton began the task of placing each existing lighthouse under federal control.  Hamilton also saw the Lighthouse Services as something properly in the domain of his Treasury Department.  He “urged Congress to dispense with dues levied on passing ships, believing the move would encourage commerce and that the Treasury Department could handle the financial responsibility of navigational aids entirely on its own.”

Cape Henry in Virginia was the first new lighthouse built from federal government funds through Hamilton’s program.  In March 1791, the Government signed a contract with John McComb to build and equip a lighthouse for $17,500.  Once the structure was completed, Hamilton and Washington personally handled many of the minute details of selecting light keepers and funding repairs.   Ron Chernow characterizes the process of building lighthouses as “an administrative routine that stifled the two men with maddening minutiae.”  The first lighthouse keeper selected by Washington, William Lewis, was a former soldier in Washington’s army and was hired in October 1792.

The lighthouse below, at Cape Hatteras in North Carolina, was built on a spot that Hamilton passed as a 17-year old on his first journey from the West Indies to New York.  Reportedly, the ship carrying Hamilton, the Thunderbolt, caught fire and nearly sank a few miles away from the cape.  In 1794, Hamilton, who dubbed Diamond Shoals, the “Graveyard of the Atlantic,” recommended establishing a lighthouse on the Hatteras Sand Banks to Congress.  On July 10, 1797, Congress authorized $44,000 for constructing a lighthouse at Cape Hatteras.

During the early years of the American Republic, Hamilton’s work with the Coast Guard and the Lighthouse Services both facilitated commerce and strengthened the power of the federal government.

Cape Hatteras Lighthouse

 

 

Hamilton’s “Hypomanic Edge?”

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I recently came across a 2005 business psychology book by John D. Gartner entitled The Hypomanic Edge: The Link Between (A Little) Craziness and (A Lot Of) Success in America.

Gartner states:

Hypomania is a mild form of mania, often found in the relatives of manic depressives. Hypomanics are brimming with infectious energy, irrational confidence, and really big ideas. They think, talk, move, and make decisions quickly. Anyone who slows them down with questions “just doesn’t get it.” Hypomanics are not crazy, but “normal” is not the first word that comes to mind when describing them. Hypomanics live on the edge, betweeen normal and abnormal.

The Harvard Mental Health Newsletter states:

The formal DSM-IV diagnostic criteria for hypomania require at least three of the following symptoms for at least four days: inflated self-esteem or grandiosity; decreased need for sleep; increased talkativeness; racing thoughts or ideas; marked distractibility; agitation or increased activity; excessive participation in activities that are pleasurable but invite personal or fiscal harm (shopping sprees, sexual indiscretions, impulsive business investments, and the like).

Gartner’s theory is that “America has an extraordinarily high number of hypomanics,” and that a majority of successful entrepreneurs and innovators have hypomanic characteristics. Gartner also states that hypomania creates a situation in which:

“the drives that motivate behavior surge to a screaming pitch, making the urgency of action irresistible. There isn’t a minute to waste– this is going to be huge– just do it! This pressure to act creates overachievers, but it also leads to impulsive behavior…”

Hamilton is featured prominently in the book as Gartner attempts to analyze Hamilton’s life “through the eyes of a clinician.” Gartner’s theory is that “Hamilton was bipolar, but more important, that if he hadn’t been, he couldn’t have led the charge to launch a nation. Hamilton’s hypomania was an essential ingredient in his accomplishments.” Gartner finds examples of hypomanic behavior throughout Hamilton’s career: his willingness to lead his troops into dangerous battle, his relentless energy in pushing forward the Constitution, and his vision for the Department of Treasury. Gartner states that Hamilton’s grandiose vision was transferred to his “radical and unswerving vision” of America. Gartner points to Hamilton’s unstoppable energy and ability to work on very little sleep for long, intense periods as symptomatic of hypomania.

Gartner has an interesting take, but I don’t fully buy the idea of applying a psychiatric diagnosis to any individual without any firsthand observation.

The first chapter of the book is available here, via the New York Times.

Images of Hamilton: A New Home for Hamilton Portrait

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Earlier, I wrote a post about John Trumbull’s images of Hamilton .   Today, we got some exciting news about one of Trumbull’s most iconic Hamilton portraits!  Credit Suisse, the owner of the portrait,  announced that it will be gifted to two institutions: Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Arkansas and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.  This split ownership arrangement will allow the painting to be seen by audiences in two very different parts of the country.  Credit Suisse had put the painting on view at public institutions for short periods of time, but it decided that the painting should be permanently accessible to the public.  The painting was acquired by Credit Suisse as part of its takeover of another investment bank, DLJ.  The painting had been part of DLJ’s corporate art collection.

CEO Brady Dougan stated:  “Donating this well-known and highly regarded 1792 portrait of Alexander Hamilton by John Trumbull to both Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and The Metropolitan Museum of Art ensures that the widest possible American and international audiences can enjoy and study this historic piece of fine art for perpetuity”

The New York Times description of the portrait’s history states:

The painting’s history is very much a New York story. In 1791 five New York merchants representing the Chamber of Commerce commissioned Trumbull to paint a full-length portrait of Hamilton, President Washington’s secretary of the Treasury.

For Trumbull the assignment was trickier than it seemed. He and his subject were friends, and Hamilton was vocal in wishing his portrait to appear “unconnected with any incident of my political life.” But the men who commissioned the painting wanted it to hang in a public building. How then could Trumbull please his clients, who said they envisioned a work stately enough to be on public view, and the sitter, who shunned anything remotely official?

Taking his inspiration from European Grand Manner portraiture, the artist posed Hamilton standing, one hand on a table that is empty except for an ink stand and papers, devoid of any political references. In the background is an archway on one side and an architectural column on the other, along with a chair with a robe causally thrown over it.

Hamilton’s warm expression reflects the artist’s obvious affection for his subject. Trumbull called Hamilton’s fatal duel with Aaron Burr in 1804, “the unhappy event which deprived the United States of two of their most distinguished citizens.”