Elizabeth Hamilton's Efforts Made HAMILTON Possible, Says Biographer Ron Chernow

While she certainly didn't have musical theatre on her mind during the decades after her husband was killed in a duel by Aaron Burr, Alexander Hamilton biographer Ron Chernow believes that his best-selling book that inspired Lin-Manuel Miranda's hit musical Hamilton would have been difficult to conceive without the efforts of Elizabeth Hamilton.

"Her efforts made it easier to research Alexander's life, because after his death, his enemies were in power," Chernow says. To collect the material, "Elizabeth was working against the political system of the time, and time itself."

For fifty years after her husband's death, as explained in a Smithsonian article, Elizabeth recast her public image as a philanthropist and protector of Hamilton's legacy, while privately struggling to keep her family fed and housed on a budget.

While they were married, her husband shaped the economic philosophy of the new nation while Elizabeth bore eight children, helped her husband write speeches (including Washington's Farewell Address) and presided over a happy, lively home. Today, the National Park Service manages the yellow Federal-style mansion as Hamilton Grange National Memorial

But Alexander only lived there for two years before his death. As a widow, Elizabeth faced tragedy on top of tragedy. Her father died and her eldest daughter suffered a nervous breakdown. Creditors repossessed the Grange, but Elizabeth scraped together enough money to buy it back.

Meanwhile, with her husband unable to defend his own legacy, Elizabeth fiercely defended his accomplishments. She insisted that Hamilton had been the principal author of the final version of Washington's Farewell Address, and not James Madison, who had written an early draft of the speech. She wanted to further burnish his Federalist legacy, which had by then fallen out of favor, by collecting his papers for publication. She sent questionnaires to dozens of his former colleagues to verify details in Hamilton's letters and affairs. After hunting in vain for a suitable editor, she had her son John Church Hamilton edit the collection, which was finally completed in 1861.

"I think anyone else would have been broken" by the tragedies Elizabeth faced, Chernow says. "Not only did she live, she prevailed."

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