Furstenberg, François

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Furstenberg, François

PERSONAL:

Born in Washington, DC. Education: Columbia University, B.A., 1994, M.A., 1998; Johns Hopkins University, Ph.D., 2003.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Département d'histoire, Université de Montréal, Montréal, Quebec H3C 3J7, Canada. E-mail—f.furstenberg@umontreal.ca.

CAREER:

Kings College, Cambridge University, London, England, Mellon postdoctoral fellow 2002-03; Université de Montréal, Montréal, Quebec, Canada, assistant professor of history, 2003—.

MEMBER:

Organization of American Historians, Society for Historians of the Early American Republic.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Richard Hofstadter Fellowship, Columbia University, 1997-98; Jacob Javits Fellowship, United States Department of Education, 1997-2001; Johns Hopkins University fellowship, 1998-2002; Johns Hopkins University Dean's fellowship, 2001; Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellowship, Library Company of Philadelphia and Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 2001; Delmas Fellowship, New York Historical Society, 2001; Gilder Lehrman Fellowship, New York City (declined), 2001; grant from Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada and l'Université de Montréal, 2004-05; Program in Early American Economy and Society postdoctoral fellowship, Library Company of Philadelphia, 2005; ABC-Clio America: History and Life Award, Organization of American Historians, for "Beyond Freedom and Slavery," 2005; grant from Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada, 2005-08.

WRITINGS:

In the Name of the Father: Washington's Legacy, Slavery, and the Making of a Nation, Penguin Press (New York, NY), 2006.

Contributor to books, including France and the Americas: Culture, Politics, History, edited by Bill Marshall, ABC-Clio (Santa Barbara, CA), 2005. Contributor to periodicals, including Business History Review, New York Times, and Journal of American History.

SIDELIGHTS:

Historian and educator François Furstenberg is the author of In the Name of the Father: Washington's Legacy, Slavery, and the Making of a Nation, "a scholarly work on the development of the American national spirit," observed Library Journal contributor Karen Sutherland. According to Marc Arkin, writing in the New Criterion, "Furstenberg's self-described goal is to study how iconic civic texts both fostered political loyalties and created personal identities in the early years of the republic. His primary focus is on the role that George Washington's image played in creating an American nationalist identity that valued autonomy while accepting slavery."

Using almanacs, newspaper articles, sermons, and schoolbooks, as well such famous documents as the Declaration of Independence and Washington's farewell address, Furstenberg "describes the slow but inexorable march toward a vision of what constituted an American identity," wrote Jay Freeman in Booklist. In one chapter, the author looks at the writings of Parson Mason Weems, whose biography of the nation's first president introduced the myth of a young Washington chopping down a cherry tree. Through that work and others, a Publishers Weekly critic noted: "Washington—or, rather, images of Washington—became central to American political education." Arkin stated that the author "has actually unearthed some very interesting material about Washington's place in early popular culture."