Background.

Even during his lifetime, Americans began to mythologize George Washington. Washington himself consciously cultivated the public image of a virtuous and self-sacrificing republican citizen. This characterization gained widespread acceptance among Americans of the early republic as they projected onto Washington the traits they desired for their new nation.

Mason Locke Weems.

In 1800 Mason Locke Weems took the glorification of Washington to new heights in his biography of Washington. Ordained as an Anglican minister, Weems had become an itinerant bookseller by 1792. In this occupation Weems developed a sensitivity to popular taste, which proved useful when he wrote one of the many popular biographies of the first U.S. president that followed Washington's death in December 1799. Weems revised and expanded this immensely popular work several times as it went through some forty editions in twenty-five years and decisively shaped Washington's popular image...