A year ago, I couldn’t have told you whose face was on the $10 bill.
I honestly would’nt have cared, even if you had insisted that the man on that particular piece of currency had led an extraordinary and improbable life, and that he had founded our country’s financial system.
If you ask me today who was on the $10 bill, however, I will probably pull out my iPod, hand you some headphones, and play the song “Alexander Hamilton” from the hit Broadway musical Hamilton.
Hamilton has received a lot of praise lately. It won a Grammy, and is predicted to sweep the Tonys this summer. It is sold out through next year, and it has been the subject of many late night talk shows and morning news programs, as well as a feature on 60 Minutes. There are an infinite number of things I could write about this show.
I could tell you how open and in-touch the cast and crew are with their fanbase. I could tell you about how, several times a week, the cast performs for more than 500 people who are queuing in Time Square for a chance to win the 20 or so front row lottery tickets. As someone who, through a series of bizarre events, was able to see the show, I could tell you how incredibly moving the performance is and how much I feel that it has changed and impacted my life.
However, while I think all of those things are wonderful, and important, I would argue that the lasting legacy of Hamilton is its history.
Hamilton is making the story of the Founding Fathers alive and relevant to the people of America today. There were many young children at the performance I attended, and I couldn’t help but be inspired by them. These kids, who probably wouldn’t have been at all interested in the man who started our nation’s banking system, were yelling enthusiastically along with the actors as Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson argued about how to resolve the nation’s debt crisis and establish a sound financial plan.
Hamilton presents the characters as real people. It humanizes history. Instead of learning about our Founding Fathers through textbooks and lectures, the music of Hamilton brings these characters to life and forces us to consider them as flawed human beings who make mistakes and have to live with the consequences.
Quite frankly, I did not know, or really care to know, anything about the Founding Fathers. I knew nothing about Alexander Hamilton, but more than anything this play has helped me realize how my country was formed. Our entire financial system was built by an impoverished immigrant looking for a fresh start.
Hamilton has not only made me want to learn more about my own history; it has made me proud of my country. It made me proud to be a human being. It made me appreciate the complexities of history to a greater degree. It made me want to reach all of my goals and work harder in my own life. Hamilton is history, and Hamilton is making history.
Megan Murphy, a contributing writer for the Voice, can be reached for comment at MMurphy19@wooster.edu.