Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Benjamin Banneker" in English language version.
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{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 394, Reference 7.
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 394, Reference 8.
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 394, Reference 9.
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 12..{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 15.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 19.
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) In "Cover: Benjamin Bannaker" (Document). Baltimore, Maryland: Maryland Historical Society. 2018.
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{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 26.
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 27.
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 28.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) In Bedini, 1999, p. 224. Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 29.Benjamin Banneker. Holographic manuscript of his 1792 almanac and ephemeris, with the published edition: Benjamin Banneker's Almanack. Baltimore: William Goddard and James Angell …, both 1791. Manuscript: Gift of William Goddard, 1813. Published almanac: Gift of Samuel L. Munson, 1925
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help).{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 394, Reference 7.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 394, Reference 8.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 394, Reference 9.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 12..{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 15.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 19.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) In "Cover: Benjamin Bannaker" (Document). Baltimore, Maryland: Maryland Historical Society. 2018.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)(b) {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 26.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 27.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 28.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) In Bedini, 1999, p. 224. Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 29.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) In "Cover: Benjamin Bannaker" (Document). Baltimore, Maryland: Maryland Historical Society. 2018.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 12..{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 15.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) In "Cover: Benjamin Bannaker" (Document). Baltimore, Maryland: Maryland Historical Society. 2018.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 26.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 27.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 28.Benjamin Banneker. Holographic manuscript of his 1792 almanac and ephemeris, with the published edition: Benjamin Banneker's Almanack. Baltimore: William Goddard and James Angell …, both 1791. Manuscript: Gift of William Goddard, 1813. Published almanac: Gift of Samuel L. Munson, 1925.Note: This web page contains links to three digitized images of pages in the manuscript for the almanac and to 12 digitized images of printed pages of the published almanac.
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Note: This manuscript, attributed to Banneker by Baltimore printer William Goddard (1740–1817), was printed as Banneker's Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia Almanack and Ephemeris for the Year of Our Lord 1792, Baltimore: Printed and Sold, Wholesale and Retail, by William Goddard and James Angell, at their
Printing-Office, in Market Street. The web page contains 19 links to digitized images of handwritten editorial notes describing the provenance of the manuscript, sequential digitized images of each page in the manuscript, and additional digitized images of pages in the manuscript.Banneker, Benjamin (09 November 1731–19 October 1806), farmer and astronomer, ...
{{cite encyclopedia}}: |author= has generic name (help)A number of fictional accounts of Banneker are available. All of them were dependent upon the following: Proceedings of the Maryland Historical Society for 1837 and 1854 which respectively contain the accounts of Banneker by John B. H. Latrobe and Martha E. Tyson. They were subsequently reprinted as pamphlets.
Recent biographical accounts of Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), a mulatto whose father was a native African and whose grandmother was English, have done his memory a disservice by obscuring his real achievements under a cloud of extravagant claims to scientific accomplishment that have no foundation in fact. The single notable exception is Silvio A. Bedini's The Life of Benjamin Banneker (New York, 1972), a work of painstaking research and scrupulous attention to accuracy which also benefits from the author's discovery of important and hitherto unavailable manuscript sources. However, as Bedini points out, the story of Banneker's involvement in the survey of the Federal District "rests on extremely meager documentation" (p. 104). This consists of a single mention by TJ, two brief statements by Banneker himself, and the newspaper allusion quoted above. In consequence, Bedini's otherwise reliable biography accepts the version of Banneker's role in this episode as presented in reminiscences of nineteenth-century authors. These recollections, deriving in large part from members of the Ellicott family, who were prompted by Quaker inclinations to justice and equality, have compounded the confusion. The nature of TJ's connection with Banneker is treated in the Editorial Note to the group of documents under 30 Aug. 1791, but because of the obscured record it is necessary here to attempt a clarification of the role of this modest, self-taught tobacco farmer in the laying out of the national capital.
First of all, because of unwarranted claims to the contrary, it must be pointed out that there is no evidence whatever that Banneker had anything to do with the survey of the Federal City or indeed with the final establishment of the boundaries of the Federal District. All available testimony shows that he was present only during the few weeks early in 1791 when the rough preliminary survey of the ten mile square was made; that, after this was concluded and before the final survey was begun, he returned to his farm and his astronomical studies in April, accompanying Ellicott part way on his brief journey back to Philadelphia; and that thenceforth he had no connection with the mapping of the seat of government. ...
In any case, Banneker's participation in the surveying of the Federal District was unquestionably brief and his role uncertain.
Teachers who want reliable information on African American history often don't know where to turn. Many have unfortunately looked to unreliable books and publications by Afrocentric writers. The African American Baseline Essays, developed by the public school system in Portland, Ore., are the most widespread Afrocentric teaching material. Educators should be aware of their crippling flaws. ....
"Thomas Jefferson appointed Benjamin Banneker to survey the site for the capital, Washington, D.C.; ...." according to the essay on African American scientists.
Had the author consulted "The Life of Benjamin Banneker" by Silvio Bedini, considered the definitive biography, he would have discovered no evidence for these claims. Jefferson appointed Andrew Ellicott to conduct the survey; Ellicott made Banneker his assistant for three months in 1791.
The Banneker story, impressive as it was, got embellished in 1987, when the public school system in Portland, Oregon, published African-American Baseline Essays, a thick stack of loose-leaf background papers for teachers, commissioned to encourage black history instruction. They have been used in Detroit, Atlanta, Fort Lauderdale, Newark, and scattered schools elsewhere, although they have been attacked for gross inaccuracy in an entire literature of detailed criticism by respected historians. ....
Austin H. Kiplinger and Walter E. Washington write that a proposed city museum at Mount Vernon Square will remind visitors that "George Washington engaged Pierre L' Enfant to map the city and about how Benjamin Banneker [helped] complete the project" [Close to Home, May 7]. Let's hope not.
Benjamin Banneker performed astronomical observations in 1791 when assisting Maj. Andrew Ellicott in a survey of the federal District's boundaries. He departed three months after the survey began, more than a year before its completion.
Meanwhile, a "Plan for the City of Washington" was drawn by one "Peter Charles L'Enfant" (sic). When George Washington chose to dismiss L'Enfant, it was Ellicott who revised L'Enfant's plan and completed the city's mapping. Banneker played no part in this.
This very well-researched book also helps lay to rest some of the myths about what Banneker did and did not do during his most unusual lifetime; unfortunately, many websites and books continue to propagate these myths, probably because those authors do not understand what Banneker actually accomplished. Many state, for example, that Banneker's clock was an exact copy of one he saw, which is not true – he figured out the mathematics and physics on his own for a clock made out of wood, instead of trying simply to copy the small pocket watch that he was lent to observe. However remarkable this clock was, it was not the first clock made in America. Other sources continually repeat the myth that when Pierre l'Enfant was fired from the job of laying out the new Federal City, Benjamin Banneker recreated l'Enfant's plans from memory. Bedini lays this myth to rest .....
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)Benjamin Banneker's achievements, against the odds, made him an American hero, but he has been mythologized to some extent.
For example, John Lockwood said Banneker "helped re-create the plans for the city of Washington," but Banneker actually finished his work on the survey of the perimeter of the District and went home to Ellicott Mills in April 1791, never to return. Pierre L'Enfant did not depart Washington until the following February, leaving Benjamin Ellicott, a brother of the principal surveyor, to draw a small version of the plan to be engraved.
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The conflicts surrounding L'Enfant gave rise to an often–repeated story that involved Banneker. According to the story, Banneker, having seen the original design for the city only once, re-created it in detail after L'Enfant returned to France with the original plans. This legend has led some people to credit Banneker with a greater role in creating the capital city. However, there is no evidence that Banneker contributed anything to the design of the city or that he ever met L'Enfant.
Modern historians acknowledge that the inaccurate information—the myths surrounding Banneker—resulted in his contributions to the city being overvalued. Unfortunately, those myths sometimes obscure Banneker's greatest contribution to society—the almanacs that he would publish in his later years.
(Banneker's) life and work have become enshrouded in legend and anecdote.
How did the myth of Banneker helping Ellicott remember the plan take hold? I believe it is because the first name of the brother who helped Ellicott is Benjamin, and so Benjamin Banneker was mistaken for Benjamin Ellicott. I think it is nonsense to assume that when L'Enfant refused access to the "original" plan that meant that Ellicott had to rely on memory to reconstruct the plan. L'Enfant had the "large" plan. Ellicott probably had access to small renditions or drafts of the plan which, of course, he and his brother had helped create by their surveys of the city.
Over the 200 years since the death of Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), his story has become a muddled combination of fact, inference, misinformation, hyperbole, and legend. Like many other figures throughout history, the small amount of surviving source material has nurtured the development of a degree of mythology surrounding his story.
In 1806, shortly after Banneker's death, a fire at his home destroyed most of his personal papers (Gillispie). This gap in substantial archival material has hardly hindered the development of the Benjamin Banneker legend; perhaps it has even aided its growth. ..... The narrative that tells of Banneker's life as one of mythical success and unprecedented exceptionalism easily draws an audience, but it washes over what might be more intellectually rewarding questions about the man's life. .... For now, the legend of Benjamin Banneker will continue to exist in his old almanacs and in present culture, serving as an inspiring enigma for those who wonder what lies beyond the surface-level stories of the past.
Meanwhile Andrew Ellicott, the nation's Surveyor General, finished surveying the boundary lines of the federal district, and joined L'Enfant in laying out the city. (Ellicott showed a fine sense of the opportunity presented by the project by hiring a mathematician who was a "free Negro," to help with the survey. The Georgetown newspaper noted the significance of Benjamin Banneker's participation but, nearly sixty years old, he left the arduous project in May and returned to Baltimore to publish his almanac, and thus, contrary to legend, had nothing to do with L'Enfant's plan.)
..., much myth and anecdote surround the life and work of Banneker. An uncertain legacy grew, in part, from the destruction of almost all his papers and possessions when his log cabin home burnt down at the moment he was being buried.
Banneker's life became the source of legend after his death, with many attributing certain accomplishments to him for which there is little or no evidence in the historical record.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)(Banneker's clock) may have been the first clock ever assembled completely from American parts, according to (Elizabeth Ross) Haynes (although other historians have since disputed this). ... The plans for the large city were laid out by French architect and engineer Pierre Charles L'Enfant, who volunteered for service in the American Revolution's Continental Army and was hired for the project by George Washington in 1791. Before long, however, tensions mounted over its direction and progress of the project, and when L'Enfant was fired in 1792, he took off with the plans in tow.
But according to legend, the plans weren't actually lost: Banneker and the Ellicotts had worked closely with L'Enfant and his plans while surveying the city's site. As the University of Massachusetts explains, Banneker had actually committed the plans to memory "[and] was able to reproduce the complete layout—streets, parks, major buildings." However, the University of Massachusetts also points out that other historians doubt Banneker had any involvement in this part of the survey at all, instead saying that Andrew and his brother were the ones who recreated L'Enfant's plan. It's an intriguing myth, but it may only be that.
With limited materials having been preserved related to Banneker's life and career, there's been a fair amount of legend and misinformation presented.
{{cite web}}: |author= has generic name (help)Perhaps owing to the scarcity of recorded fact about his remarkable life, and because he was often invoked symbolically to advance social causes like abolition, Banneker's story has been susceptible to mythmaking. He has been incorrectly credited with drawing the street grid of Washington, D.C., making the first clock on the Eastern seaboard, being the first professional astronomer in America, and discovering the seventeen-year birth cycle of cicadas.
Washington's core was laid out by Pierre L'Enfant, a French-American engineer and city planner, when the federal government decided it needed a new capitol. George Washington carved out 10 miles square on the Potomac River, and appointed L'Enfant in 1791 to plan an ambitious new seat of government.
But L'Enfant didn't exactly carry out his vision alone: He was dismissed from the job in 1792—and he reportedly took his layout with him. That's when Benjamin Banneker, a free black man who had surveyed the capital and helped establish its boundary points, stepped in. Banneker is said to have redrawn L'Enfant's plans from memory in two days, though whether actually he did has been debated by historians; his history and legacy have yet to be fully excavated.
L'Enfant's plans were well received, but he proved to be extremely difficult to work with, arguing incessantly with the commissioners in charge of the capital project. .... When L'Enfant left the project, he took all the designs with him, leaving the project in disarray.
Unsure of how to proceed, Ellicott and the other planners feared they might have to start from scratch. According to writer Gaius Chamberlain, "Banneker surprised them when he asserted that he could reproduce the plans from memory and in two days did exactly as he had promised."
There has been much controversy over the years about whether such an event actually happened. Some historians claim that many of the facts about Banneker's life were embellished or mythologized, leaving the fact that he was able to reimagine L'Enfant's plans in dispute. Others have theorized that it was Andrew Ellicott's brother Benjamin who aided in redrawing the plans from memory, theorizing that he was confused with Banneker because they shared the same first name.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)So when a lot of people think of Benjamin Banneker, they may know him because of the story of him assisting with the layout of the nation's capital in Washington, DC. And I was troubled to find out that with no real evidence legend has it that Benjamin, Banneker single handedly laid out in, develop the plans for Washington DC himself with no help.
And this is the popular narrative in a lot of circles. And even in the mainstream media, the Washington Post published the story citing this is fact, and this is part of his mythology and it's probably untrue, but it made me wonder, like, why do people embellish history? Why would someone take a man like Banneker with the real moral and professional greatness, and then exaggerate a story with things uncertain. Why do we embellish historical figures in general? Maybe in this case, there is something to prove black people have latched onto the great figures to prove competence and to prove value. Maybe it really was thought to be the truth.
The earliest observable change in the agricultural system of Maryland, was occasioned by a purchase made in 1772, by the brothers Joseph, Andrew and John Ellicott, of lands and mill-sites on the Patapsco river, 10 miles west of Baltimore, and by the building of their mills for grinding wheat and other grains. The purchase embraced the lands, on both sides of the Patapsco, for four miles in extent, and included all the water power within that distance, .....
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)In the city, and within the compass of twenty miles around it, there were upwards of sixty grain mills, of various descriptions, in which it was said that fully a million and a quarter of dollars were invested. This, of course, was an element of great prospective wealth, especially as the water power for manufactures, within the radius of those twenty miles, at Patapsco Falls, ....
After the war, he (Ellicott) returned to Fountainvale, the family home in Ellicott Upper Mills, and published a series of almanacs, The United States Almanack. (The earliest known copy is dated 1782.)
Benjamin Banneker. Holographic manuscript of his 1792 almanac and ephemeris, with the published edition: Benjamin Banneker's Almanack. Baltimore: William Goddard and James Angell …, both 1791. Manuscript: Gift of William Goddard, 1813. Published almanac: Gift of Samuel L. Munson, 1925
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help).{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 394, Reference 7.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 394, Reference 8.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 394, Reference 9.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 12..{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 15.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 19.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) In "Cover: Benjamin Bannaker" (Document). Baltimore, Maryland: Maryland Historical Society. 2018.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)(b) {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 26.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 27.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 28.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) In Bedini, 1999, p. 224. Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 29.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) In "Cover: Benjamin Bannaker" (Document). Baltimore, Maryland: Maryland Historical Society. 2018.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) On display in the Benjamin Banneker Museum, Oella, Maryland. Photographed by F. Delventhal, February 18, 2017.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 12..{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 15.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) In "Cover: Benjamin Bannaker" (Document). Baltimore, Maryland: Maryland Historical Society. 2018.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: editors list (link){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 26.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 27.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 28.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)On Sunday, this 9th instant, departed this life at his residence in Baltimore county, in the 73rd year of his age, Mr. BENJAMIN BANNEKER, a black man, and immediate descendant of an African father.In Maryland Historical Society Library Department (February 6, 2014). "The Dreams of Benjamin Banneker". H. Furlong Baldwin Library: Underbelly. Maryland Historical Society. Archived from the original on September 17, 2020. Retrieved September 17, 2020.
{{cite encyclopedia}}: |author= has generic name (help)Benjamin Banneker. Holographic manuscript of his 1792 almanac and ephemeris, with the published edition: Benjamin Banneker's Almanack. Baltimore: William Goddard and James Angell …, both 1791. Manuscript: Gift of William Goddard, 1813. Published almanac: Gift of Samuel L. Munson, 1925.Note: This web page contains links to three digitized images of pages in the manuscript for the almanac and to 12 digitized images of printed pages of the published almanac.
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Note: This manuscript, attributed to Banneker by Baltimore printer William Goddard (1740–1817), was printed as Banneker's Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia Almanack and Ephemeris for the Year of Our Lord 1792, Baltimore: Printed and Sold, Wholesale and Retail, by William Goddard and James Angell, at their
Printing-Office, in Market Street. The web page contains 19 links to digitized images of handwritten editorial notes describing the provenance of the manuscript, sequential digitized images of each page in the manuscript, and additional digitized images of pages in the manuscript.Volumes 8–12 (1790–1793) contain papers covering Jefferson's service as secretary of state, including letters from Jefferson to his daughters at Monticello and many promissory notes demonstrating the degree of his indebtedness.
The astronomical journal is the only remaining artifact written in Banneker's hand, as his cabin and most of his belongings burned down in a fire as his body was being laid in the ground in 1806. On his instruction, the astronomical journal and some other loose manuscripts were removed upon his death and left to George Ellicott (1760–1832). The journal stayed in the hands of the Ellicott family until 1844 when it was deposited here at MdHS, where it was used by John H.B. Latrobe the following year. Quaker philanthropist and MdHS member Moses Sheppard (1771–1857) had the book rebound in Russian leather in 1852, and at this date most likely combined the astronomical journal with some of Banneker's loose manuscripts as well as a day book. At some unknown date the astronomical journal left MdHS and returned to the hands of the Ellicott family. It stayed there, away from the public's eye until 1987 when Ellicott family descendant Dorothea West Fitzhugh donated it in honor of her late husband Robert Tyson Fitzhugh. In 1999 MdHS sent the journal to the Center for Conservation in Philadelphia where it was rebound, deacidified, and given full conservation treatment.
More than 190 years after his death, some prized possessions of renowned black scientist Benjamin Banneker soon will be coming home. The collection, which Banneker historians, relatives and admirers once feared would be dispersed forever when it was auctioned in Sep 1996, will be sent to two Maryland museums that bear his name.
A happy ending is in sight for the planned Benjamin Banneker Historical Park and Museum in Oella, outbid at auction last fall for valuable artifacts once owned by the noted African-American astronomer and inventor. Next week, the Virginia-based investment banker who paid $85,000 for a table, candlesticks, documents and other items is expected to sign an agreement allowing the museum to display the artifacts for 20 years. .... Items auctioned in Bethesda in September came from a descendant of the Ellicotts, a white family that forged a strong friendship with the scientist, who died in 1806. Among them: a maple and pine drop-leaf table believed to have been lent to Banneker by the Ellicott family, two candlesticks and a candle mold, a ledger from the Ellicott & Co. general store noting purchases by Banneker, and several documents and letters pertaining to Banneker and the Ellicotts. ..... Friedman, a history buff, donated the artifacts to a Civil War monument and visitors center being built by his friend Frank Smith Jr., a Washington councilman. He said the entire collection, which includes other items of Banneker's period that did not relate to him, will be part of a Black History exhibit at The Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington. They will then be turned over to the Banneker-Douglas Museum in Annapolis, until construction of the Oella museum is completed.
This exhibition and related materials is made possible by a generous grant from Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co., Inc.
The artifacts donated by Mr. Friedman, including a William and Mary drop-leaf table, candlesticks and documents, will be brought to the museum next year.
Teachers who want reliable information on African American history often don't know where to turn. Many have unfortunately looked to unreliable books and publications by Afrocentric writers. The African American Baseline Essays, developed by the public school system in Portland, Ore., are the most widespread Afrocentric teaching material. Educators should be aware of their crippling flaws. ....
"Thomas Jefferson appointed Benjamin Banneker to survey the site for the capital, Washington, D.C.; ...." according to the essay on African American scientists.
Had the author consulted "The Life of Benjamin Banneker" by Silvio Bedini, considered the definitive biography, he would have discovered no evidence for these claims. Jefferson appointed Andrew Ellicott to conduct the survey; Ellicott made Banneker his assistant for three months in 1791.
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The conflicts surrounding L'Enfant gave rise to an often—repeated story that involved Banneker. According to the story, Banneker, having seen the original design for the city only once, re-created it in detail after L'Enfant returned to France with the original plans. This legend has led some people to credit Banneker with a greater role in creating the capital city. However, there is no evidence that Banneker contributed anything to the design of the city or that he ever met L'Enfant.
Modern historians acknowledge that the inaccurate information—the myths surrounding Banneker—resulted in his contributions to the city being overvalued. Unfortunately, those myths sometimes obscure Banneker's greatest contribution to society—the almanacs that he would publish in his later years.
Perhaps owing to the scarcity of recorded fact about his remarkable life, and because he was often invoked symbolically to advance social causes like abolition, Banneker's story has been susceptible to mythmaking. He has been incorrectly credited with drawing the street grid of Washington, D.C., ....
.... "Banneker "wrote a proposal for the establishment of a United States Department of Peace," according to the essay on African American scientists.
Had the author consulted "The Life of Benjamin Banneker" by Silvio Bedini, considered the definitive biography, he would have discovered no evidence for these claims. .... Benjamin Rush authored the Department of Peace proposal; the confusion arose among earlier biographers because the proposal appeared in Banneker's 1793 almanac.
Perhaps owing to the scarcity of recorded fact about his remarkable life, and because he was often invoked symbolically to advance social causes like abolition, Banneker's story has been susceptible to mythmaking. He has been incorrectly credited with ......, making the first clock on the Eastern seaboard, being the first professional astronomer in America, and discovering the seventeen-year birth cycle of cicadas.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: editors list (link)Footnote: RC (MHi); at head of text: "Thomas Jefferson Secretary of State"; endorsed by TJ as received 26 Aug. 1791 and so recorded in SJL." (Abbreviations: "MHi": "Massachusetts Historical Society"; "RC": Recipient's Copy"; "SJL": "Jefferson's "Summary Journal of Letters" written and received"; "TJ": "Thomas Jefferson").(Original source: Cullen, Charles T., ed. (1986). The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 22: 6 August 1791 – 31 December 1791. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. p. 52. ISBN 9780691184654. LCCN 50007486. OCLC 1043555596. Retrieved August 31, 2019.
Footnote: RC (MHi); at head of text: "Thomas Jefferson Secretary of State"; endorsed by TJ as received 26 Aug. 1791 and so recorded in SJL.)
Footnote: "PrC (DLC)". (Abbreviations: "DLC": "Library of Congress"; "PrC": "Press Copy".)(Original source: Cullen, Charles T., ed. (1986). The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 22: 6 August 1791 – 31 December 1791. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. pp. 97–98. ISBN 9780691184654. LCCN 50007486. OCLC 1043555596. Retrieved August 31, 2019.
Footnote: PrC (DLC))
In 1785, Jefferson was using both stationary and portable presses made by James Watt & Co.(Reference: Bedini, Silvio A., Thomas Jefferson and His Copying Machines, University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville, 1984.)
Marked "Hawkins & Peale's Patent Polygraph No. 57," this machine was used by Jefferson from 1806 until his death. Jefferson first acquired the letter-copying device he called "the finest invention of the present age" in March of 1804.
the use of the polygraph has spoiled me for the old copying press the copies of which are hardly ever legible, ... I could not, now therefore, live without the Polygraph. ....
Footnote: "PrC (DLC); at foot of first page of text: "M. de Condorcet."" (Abbreviations: "DLC": "Library of Congress"; "PrC": "Press Copy".)(Original source: Cullen, Charles T., ed. (1986). The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 22: 6 August 1791 – 31 December 1791. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. pp. 98–99. ISBN 9780691184654. LCCN 50007486. OCLC 1043555596. Retrieved August 31, 2019.
Footnote: "PrC (DLC); at foot of first page of text: "M. de Condorcet.""
Footnote: "RC (NjP: Straus Autograph Collection); endorsed by Barlow. PoC (DLC)" (Abbreviations: "DLC: "Library of Congress"" "NjP: "Princeton University"; "Poc": "Polygraph Copy";"RC": "Recipient's copy".)(Original source: Looney, J. Jefferson, ed. (2004). The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Retirement Series, vol. 1, 4 March 1809 to 15 November 1809. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. pp. 588–590. ISBN 9780691184593. LCCN 2004048327. OCLC 1045069067. Retrieved August 31, 2019.
Footnote: "RC (NjP: Straus Autograph Collection); endorsed by Barlow. PoC (DLC)")
The collection consists of Americana dating, primarily, from the period of the American Revolution and the thirty years immediately following, collected by Straus. Included are autograph letters from, and documents signed by, some of the leading figures of the period, such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, ....
Hawkins & Peale patented a polygraph in the US in 1803, and beginning in 1804 Thomas Jefferson collaborated with them in working on improvements in the machine. Jefferson used a polygraph for the rest of his life.(Reference: Bedini, Silvio A., Thomas Jefferson and His Copying Machines, University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville, 1984.)
Historical Notes: Marked "Hawkins & Peale's Patent Polygraph No. 57," this machine was used by Jefferson from 1806 until his death. Jefferson first acquired the letter-copying device he called "the finest invention of the present age" in March of 1804. Invented and named by Englishman John Isaac Hawkins, the polygraph used the principles of the pantograph, a draftsman's tool for reducing and enlarging drawings. The writer's hand moves one pen whose action is duplicated by the second one, producing a copy strikingly like the original.
Before he returned to England in 1803, Hawkins assigned his American patent rights to Charles Willson Peale, who developed and marketed the invention. Jefferson was one of his most eager clients, purchasing one for the President's House and one for Monticello. He soon exchanged these machines for new ones, as Peale continued to perfect the design — often according to Jefferson's suggestions. By 1809 Jefferson wrote that "the use of the polygraph has spoiled me for the old copying press the copies of which are hardly ever legible . . . . I could not, now therefore, live without the Polygraph."
the use of the polygraph has spoiled me for the old copying press the copies of which are hardly ever legible, ... I could not, now therefore, live without the Polygraph. ....
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)A number of fictional accounts of Banneker are available. All of them were dependent upon the following: Proceedings of the Maryland Historical Society for 1837 and 1854 which respectively contain the accounts of Banneker by John B. H. Latrobe and Martha E. Tyson. They were subsequently reprinted as pamphlets.
Recent biographical accounts of Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), a mulatto whose father was a native African and whose grandmother was English, have done his memory a disservice by obscuring his real achievements under a cloud of extravagant claims to scientific accomplishment that have no foundation in fact. The single notable exception is Silvio A. Bedini's The Life of Benjamin Banneker (New York, 1972), a work of painstaking research and scrupulous attention to accuracy which also benefits from the author's discovery of important and hitherto unavailable manuscript sources. However, as Bedini points out, the story of Banneker's involvement in the survey of the Federal District "rests on extremely meager documentation" (p. 104). This consists of a single mention by TJ, two brief statements by Banneker himself, and the newspaper allusion quoted above. In consequence, Bedini's otherwise reliable biography accepts the version of Banneker's role in this episode as presented in reminiscences of nineteenth-century authors. These recollections, deriving in large part from members of the Ellicott family, who were prompted by Quaker inclinations to justice and equality, have compounded the confusion. The nature of TJ's connection with Banneker is treated in the Editorial Note to the group of documents under 30 Aug. 1791, but because of the obscured record it is necessary here to attempt a clarification of the role of this modest, self-taught tobacco farmer in the laying out of the national capital.
First of all, because of unwarranted claims to the contrary, it must be pointed out that there is no evidence whatever that Banneker had anything to do with the survey of the Federal City or indeed with the final establishment of the boundaries of the Federal District. All available testimony shows that he was present only during the few weeks early in 1791 when the rough preliminary survey of the ten mile square was made; that, after this was concluded and before the final survey was begun, he returned to his farm and his astronomical studies in April, accompanying Ellicott part way on his brief journey back to Philadelphia; and that thenceforth he had no connection with the mapping of the seat of government. ...
In any case, Banneker's participation in the surveying of the Federal District was unquestionably brief and his role uncertain.
Teachers who want reliable information on African American history often don't know where to turn. Many have unfortunately looked to unreliable books and publications by Afrocentric writers. The African American Baseline Essays, developed by the public school system in Portland, Ore., are the most widespread Afrocentric teaching material. Educators should be aware of their crippling flaws. ....
"Thomas Jefferson appointed Benjamin Banneker to survey the site for the capital, Washington, D.C.; ...." according to the essay on African American scientists.
Had the author consulted "The Life of Benjamin Banneker" by Silvio Bedini, considered the definitive biography, he would have discovered no evidence for these claims. Jefferson appointed Andrew Ellicott to conduct the survey; Ellicott made Banneker his assistant for three months in 1791.
The Banneker story, impressive as it was, got embellished in 1987, when the public school system in Portland, Oregon, published African-American Baseline Essays, a thick stack of loose-leaf background papers for teachers, commissioned to encourage black history instruction. They have been used in Detroit, Atlanta, Fort Lauderdale, Newark, and scattered schools elsewhere, although they have been attacked for gross inaccuracy in an entire literature of detailed criticism by respected historians. ....
Austin H. Kiplinger and Walter E. Washington write that a proposed city museum at Mount Vernon Square will remind visitors that "George Washington engaged Pierre L' Enfant to map the city and about how Benjamin Banneker [helped] complete the project" [Close to Home, May 7]. Let's hope not.
Benjamin Banneker performed astronomical observations in 1791 when assisting Maj. Andrew Ellicott in a survey of the federal District's boundaries. He departed three months after the survey began, more than a year before its completion.
Meanwhile, a "Plan for the City of Washington" was drawn by one "Peter Charles L'Enfant" (sic). When George Washington chose to dismiss L'Enfant, it was Ellicott who revised L'Enfant's plan and completed the city's mapping. Banneker played no part in this.
This very well-researched book also helps lay to rest some of the myths about what Banneker did and did not do during his most unusual lifetime; unfortunately, many websites and books continue to propagate these myths, probably because those authors do not understand what Banneker actually accomplished. Many state, for example, that Banneker's clock was an exact copy of one he saw, which is not true – he figured out the mathematics and physics on his own for a clock made out of wood, instead of trying simply to copy the small pocket watch that he was lent to observe. However remarkable this clock was, it was not the first clock made in America. Other sources continually repeat the myth that when Pierre l'Enfant was fired from the job of laying out the new Federal City, Benjamin Banneker recreated l'Enfant's plans from memory. Bedini lays this myth to rest .....
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)Benjamin Banneker's achievements, against the odds, made him an American hero, but he has been mythologized to some extent.
For example, John Lockwood said Banneker "helped re-create the plans for the city of Washington," but Banneker actually finished his work on the survey of the perimeter of the District and went home to Ellicott Mills in April 1791, never to return. Pierre L'Enfant did not depart Washington until the following February, leaving Benjamin Ellicott, a brother of the principal surveyor, to draw a small version of the plan to be engraved.
.
The conflicts surrounding L'Enfant gave rise to an often–repeated story that involved Banneker. According to the story, Banneker, having seen the original design for the city only once, re-created it in detail after L'Enfant returned to France with the original plans. This legend has led some people to credit Banneker with a greater role in creating the capital city. However, there is no evidence that Banneker contributed anything to the design of the city or that he ever met L'Enfant.
Modern historians acknowledge that the inaccurate information—the myths surrounding Banneker—resulted in his contributions to the city being overvalued. Unfortunately, those myths sometimes obscure Banneker's greatest contribution to society—the almanacs that he would publish in his later years.
(Banneker's) life and work have become enshrouded in legend and anecdote.
How did the myth of Banneker helping Ellicott remember the plan take hold? I believe it is because the first name of the brother who helped Ellicott is Benjamin, and so Benjamin Banneker was mistaken for Benjamin Ellicott. I think it is nonsense to assume that when L'Enfant refused access to the "original" plan that meant that Ellicott had to rely on memory to reconstruct the plan. L'Enfant had the "large" plan. Ellicott probably had access to small renditions or drafts of the plan which, of course, he and his brother had helped create by their surveys of the city.
Over the 200 years since the death of Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), his story has become a muddled combination of fact, inference, misinformation, hyperbole, and legend. Like many other figures throughout history, the small amount of surviving source material has nurtured the development of a degree of mythology surrounding his story.
In 1806, shortly after Banneker's death, a fire at his home destroyed most of his personal papers (Gillispie). This gap in substantial archival material has hardly hindered the development of the Benjamin Banneker legend; perhaps it has even aided its growth. ..... The narrative that tells of Banneker's life as one of mythical success and unprecedented exceptionalism easily draws an audience, but it washes over what might be more intellectually rewarding questions about the man's life. .... For now, the legend of Benjamin Banneker will continue to exist in his old almanacs and in present culture, serving as an inspiring enigma for those who wonder what lies beyond the surface-level stories of the past.
Meanwhile Andrew Ellicott, the nation's Surveyor General, finished surveying the boundary lines of the federal district, and joined L'Enfant in laying out the city. (Ellicott showed a fine sense of the opportunity presented by the project by hiring a mathematician who was a "free Negro," to help with the survey. The Georgetown newspaper noted the significance of Benjamin Banneker's participation but, nearly sixty years old, he left the arduous project in May and returned to Baltimore to publish his almanac, and thus, contrary to legend, had nothing to do with L'Enfant's plan.)
..., much myth and anecdote surround the life and work of Banneker. An uncertain legacy grew, in part, from the destruction of almost all his papers and possessions when his log cabin home burnt down at the moment he was being buried.
Banneker's life became the source of legend after his death, with many attributing certain accomplishments to him for which there is little or no evidence in the historical record.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)(Banneker's clock) may have been the first clock ever assembled completely from American parts, according to (Elizabeth Ross) Haynes (although other historians have since disputed this). ... The plans for the large city were laid out by French architect and engineer Pierre Charles L'Enfant, who volunteered for service in the American Revolution's Continental Army and was hired for the project by George Washington in 1791. Before long, however, tensions mounted over its direction and progress of the project, and when L'Enfant was fired in 1792, he took off with the plans in tow.
But according to legend, the plans weren't actually lost: Banneker and the Ellicotts had worked closely with L'Enfant and his plans while surveying the city's site. As the University of Massachusetts explains, Banneker had actually committed the plans to memory "[and] was able to reproduce the complete layout—streets, parks, major buildings." However, the University of Massachusetts also points out that other historians doubt Banneker had any involvement in this part of the survey at all, instead saying that Andrew and his brother were the ones who recreated L'Enfant's plan. It's an intriguing myth, but it may only be that.
With limited materials having been preserved related to Banneker's life and career, there's been a fair amount of legend and misinformation presented.
{{cite web}}: |author= has generic name (help)Perhaps owing to the scarcity of recorded fact about his remarkable life, and because he was often invoked symbolically to advance social causes like abolition, Banneker's story has been susceptible to mythmaking. He has been incorrectly credited with drawing the street grid of Washington, D.C., making the first clock on the Eastern seaboard, being the first professional astronomer in America, and discovering the seventeen-year birth cycle of cicadas.
Washington's core was laid out by Pierre L'Enfant, a French-American engineer and city planner, when the federal government decided it needed a new capitol. George Washington carved out 10 miles square on the Potomac River, and appointed L'Enfant in 1791 to plan an ambitious new seat of government.
But L'Enfant didn't exactly carry out his vision alone: He was dismissed from the job in 1792—and he reportedly took his layout with him. That's when Benjamin Banneker, a free black man who had surveyed the capital and helped establish its boundary points, stepped in. Banneker is said to have redrawn L'Enfant's plans from memory in two days, though whether actually he did has been debated by historians; his history and legacy have yet to be fully excavated.
L'Enfant's plans were well received, but he proved to be extremely difficult to work with, arguing incessantly with the commissioners in charge of the capital project. .... When L'Enfant left the project, he took all the designs with him, leaving the project in disarray.
Unsure of how to proceed, Ellicott and the other planners feared they might have to start from scratch. According to writer Gaius Chamberlain, "Banneker surprised them when he asserted that he could reproduce the plans from memory and in two days did exactly as he had promised."
There has been much controversy over the years about whether such an event actually happened. Some historians claim that many of the facts about Banneker's life were embellished or mythologized, leaving the fact that he was able to reimagine L'Enfant's plans in dispute. Others have theorized that it was Andrew Ellicott's brother Benjamin who aided in redrawing the plans from memory, theorizing that he was confused with Banneker because they shared the same first name.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)So when a lot of people think of Benjamin Banneker, they may know him because of the story of him assisting with the layout of the nation's capital in Washington, DC. And I was troubled to find out that with no real evidence legend has it that Benjamin, Banneker single handedly laid out in, develop the plans for Washington DC himself with no help.
And this is the popular narrative in a lot of circles. And even in the mainstream media, the Washington Post published the story citing this is fact, and this is part of his mythology and it's probably untrue, but it made me wonder, like, why do people embellish history? Why would someone take a man like Banneker with the real moral and professional greatness, and then exaggerate a story with things uncertain. Why do we embellish historical figures in general? Maybe in this case, there is something to prove black people have latched onto the great figures to prove competence and to prove value. Maybe it really was thought to be the truth.
Teachers who want reliable information on African American history often don't know where to turn. Many have unfortunately looked to unreliable books and publications by Afrocentric writers. The African American Baseline Essays, developed by the public school system in Portland, Ore., are the most widespread Afrocentric teaching material. Educators should be aware of their crippling flaws. ....
"Thomas Jefferson appointed Benjamin Banneker to survey the site for the capital, Washington, D.C.; ...." according to the essay on African American scientists.
Had the author consulted "The Life of Benjamin Banneker" by Silvio Bedini, considered the definitive biography, he would have discovered no evidence for these claims. Jefferson appointed Andrew Ellicott to conduct the survey; Ellicott made Banneker his assistant for three months in 1791.
.
The conflicts surrounding L'Enfant gave rise to an often—repeated story that involved Banneker. According to the story, Banneker, having seen the original design for the city only once, re-created it in detail after L'Enfant returned to France with the original plans. This legend has led some people to credit Banneker with a greater role in creating the capital city. However, there is no evidence that Banneker contributed anything to the design of the city or that he ever met L'Enfant.
Modern historians acknowledge that the inaccurate information—the myths surrounding Banneker—resulted in his contributions to the city being overvalued. Unfortunately, those myths sometimes obscure Banneker's greatest contribution to society—the almanacs that he would publish in his later years.
Perhaps owing to the scarcity of recorded fact about his remarkable life, and because he was often invoked symbolically to advance social causes like abolition, Banneker's story has been susceptible to mythmaking. He has been incorrectly credited with drawing the street grid of Washington, D.C., ....
A selection of rare items used by Benjamin Banneker, noted black American scientist, is to be auctioned early next month, but organizers of the planned Banneker museum and park in Baltimore County hope to raise money to buy the artifacts first..
The items – which include a William and Mary drop-leaf table, candlesticks and molds, and several documents – are scheduled to be put on the block at Sloane's Auction House in Bethesda.
Jean Walsh, a member of the Friends of Benjamin Banneker Historical Park, said the items had been in the possession of a descendant of George Ellicott, who at age 17 befriended the much older Banneker – known as "the first black man of science."
"George was interested in astronomy, and he loaned a number of things to Banneker, including the table and several books," Walsh said....
Groundbreaking is planned for September for the long-awaited Benjamin Banneker Historical Park and Museum in Oella, and Walsh and other supporters would like to exhibit the items there.
Gwen Marable, president of the organization, said an attempt had been made to persuade the owner, Elizabeth Wilde of Indianapolis, to donate or sell some of the artifacts to the museum.
"We want to spearhead an effort to keep these things here in Maryland," said Marable, a descendant of one of Banneker's three sisters.
Samuel Hopkins – a descendant of the Ellicott family, who were mill owners and co-founders of Ellicott City – said he encouraged Wilde to turn the artifacts over to the museum.
"I spoke to her some time ago and told her I thought it would be fine if she gave some of the stuff to the museum," Hopkins said. "I suggested to her that, if she did not give it to the society, that she might let the society make copies of the documents for display."
Patrick O'Neill, who is helping to arrange the auction for Sloane's, said the items are being appraised. Appraisal of historic pieces can be difficult, though officials expect the table to sell for $10,000 to $30,000. ....
According to Silvio A. Bedini, author of The Life of Benjamin Banneker, the scientist instructed his nephews to return the table and books to the Ellicott family and give them some of his effects. The day of his funeral in 1806, Banneker's log cabin burned to the ground. It is on that site where the museum and park are to be built.
Bedini said the artifacts are especially valuable because they are among the few remaining privately owned Banneker items.
Elizabeth Wilde, the Ellicott family member who inherited the Banneker-related items, plans to sell more than 20 Banneker artifacts and documents next month through C. G. Sloan auction house in Bethesda. Wilde, who lives in Indianapolis, has rebuffed appeals from Banneker historians, relatives and admirers to donate the artifacts to the new Banneker museum or give the sponsoring group more time to raise money so it can buy the items itself.
The items, including a drop-leaf table, candlestick and candle mold, maps, letters and diaries, .... .
Emanuel Friedman, an investment banker and chairman of Friedman, Billings and Ramsey in Rosslyn, Va., made winning bids of $32,500 for the table, $7,500 for letters, a scrapbook and personal papers from the Ellicott estate, $6,000 for the candlesticks, and $3,750 for the ledger. .... Friedman said he planned to keep some for a personal collection and donate the rest to a new African-American Civil War Foundation museum being planned in Washington, which he believed would be willing to share the artifacts with the Banneker museum. ....
Richard B. Hughes, chief of the Maryland Office of Archaeology, said the consortium still wants to buy other artifacts such as a book containing Banneker's scientific notations that Elizabeth Wilde – an Ellicott descendant who owned the artifacts – did not include in yesterday's auction.
"Because of the involvement of public money, we had to set limits on what we could spend based on the advice we received from appraisers," Hughes said of the consortium, which put in winning bids only on two books with accompanying manuscripts – for $75 – on the settlement of Ellicott Mills and the history of the mills.
The stranger with the deep pockets was Emanuel Freedman, and, when the auction was over, he had dropped a cool $85,000 on the collection of artifacts. He single-handedly thwarted the museum supporters' efforts to round up the prized pieces. In the end, the contingent of supporters had managed to buy only a handwritten ledger once owned by Banneker, who helped to chart the boundaries of the area that would become the District of Columbia.
More than 190 years after his death, some prized possessions of renowned black scientist Benjamin Banneker soon will be coming home. The collection, which Banneker historians, relatives and admirers once feared would be dispersed forever when it was auctioned in Sep 1996, will be sent to two Maryland museums that bear his name.
A happy ending is in sight for the planned Benjamin Banneker Historical Park and Museum in Oella, outbid at auction last fall for valuable artifacts once owned by the noted African-American astronomer and inventor. Next week, the Virginia-based investment banker who paid $85,000 for a table, candlesticks, documents and other items is expected to sign an agreement allowing the museum to display the artifacts for 20 years. .... Items auctioned in Bethesda in September came from a descendant of the Ellicotts, a white family that forged a strong friendship with the scientist, who died in 1806. Among them: a maple and pine drop-leaf table believed to have been lent to Banneker by the Ellicott family, two candlesticks and a candle mold, a ledger from the Ellicott & Co. general store noting purchases by Banneker, and several documents and letters pertaining to Banneker and the Ellicotts. ..... Friedman, a history buff, donated the artifacts to a Civil War monument and visitors center being built by his friend Frank Smith Jr., a Washington councilman. He said the entire collection, which includes other items of Banneker's period that did not relate to him, will be part of a Black History exhibit at The Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington. They will then be turned over to the Banneker-Douglas Museum in Annapolis, until construction of the Oella museum is completed.
This exhibition and related materials is made possible by a generous grant from Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co., Inc.
The artifacts donated by Mr. Friedman, including a William and Mary drop-leaf table, candlesticks and documents, will be brought to the museum next year.
The museum has desk and candle molds used by Benjamin.
The earliest observable change in the agricultural system of Maryland, was occasioned by a purchase made in 1772, by the brothers Joseph, Andrew and John Ellicott, of lands and mill-sites on the Patapsco river, 10 miles west of Baltimore, and by the building of their mills for grinding wheat and other grains. The purchase embraced the lands, on both sides of the Patapsco, for four miles in extent, and included all the water power within that distance, .....
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)In the city, and within the compass of twenty miles around it, there were upwards of sixty grain mills, of various descriptions, in which it was said that fully a million and a quarter of dollars were invested. This, of course, was an element of great prospective wealth, especially as the water power for manufactures, within the radius of those twenty miles, at Patapsco Falls, ....
... Wefald writes that when Jefferson received a letter and almanac from Benjamin Banneker, Jefferson was "honest enough to change his position." Jefferson did not say that he had changed his opinion of the intellectual abilities of blacks. In his letter to Banneker, Aug. 30, 1791, Jefferson merely said: "No body wishes more than I do to see such proofs as you exhibit, that nature has given to our black brethren, talents equal to those of the other colors of men, and that the appearance of a want of them is owing merely to the degraded condition of their existence, both in Africa & America." Closely read, Jefferson's letter is only an indication that he "wishes to see such proofs", but there is no definite indication that he changed his mind. On Banneker's abilities Jefferson was ambivalent.
Jefferson's letter in reply was tepid and noncommittal:
Jefferson replied promptly and politely – but ambiguously on the subject of slavery:
In "Exhibition: Thomas Jefferson: Creating A Virginia Republic: Benjamin Banneker: Talents equal to those of the other colors of men". Library of Congress. April 24, 2000. Archived from the original on February 5, 2021. Retrieved February 28, 2021.
Notes: ... . While serving as secretary of state, Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), one of Virginia's largest planters and slaveholders, wrote this 30 August 1791 response to Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), an African-American mathematician and surveyor living in Maryland, who had written a forceful letter to Jefferson the day before, chastising him for holding slaves and questioning his sincerity as a "friend of liberty." .... In a polite response to Banneker's August 1791 letter, Jefferson expressed his ambivalent feelings about slavery and assured the surveyor that "no body wishes more ardently to see a good system commenced for raising the condition" of blacks "to what it ought to be."
A number of fictional accounts of Banneker are available. All of them were dependent upon the following: Proceedings of the Maryland Historical Society for 1837 and 1854 which respectively contain the accounts of Banneker by John B. H. Latrobe and Martha E. Tyson. They were subsequently reprinted as pamphlets.
Recent biographical accounts of Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), a mulatto whose father was a native African and whose grandmother was English, have done his memory a disservice by obscuring his real achievements under a cloud of extravagant claims to scientific accomplishment that have no foundation in fact. The single notable exception is Silvio A. Bedini's The Life of Benjamin Banneker (New York, 1972), a work of painstaking research and scrupulous attention to accuracy which also benefits from the author's discovery of important and hitherto unavailable manuscript sources. However, as Bedini points out, the story of Banneker's involvement in the survey of the Federal District "rests on extremely meager documentation" (p. 104). This consists of a single mention by TJ, two brief statements by Banneker himself, and the newspaper allusion quoted above. In consequence, Bedini's otherwise reliable biography accepts the version of Banneker's role in this episode as presented in reminiscences of nineteenth-century authors. These recollections, deriving in large part from members of the Ellicott family, who were prompted by Quaker inclinations to justice and equality, have compounded the confusion. The nature of TJ's connection with Banneker is treated in the Editorial Note to the group of documents under 30 Aug. 1791, but because of the obscured record it is necessary here to attempt a clarification of the role of this modest, self-taught tobacco farmer in the laying out of the national capital.
First of all, because of unwarranted claims to the contrary, it must be pointed out that there is no evidence whatever that Banneker had anything to do with the survey of the Federal City or indeed with the final establishment of the boundaries of the Federal District. All available testimony shows that he was present only during the few weeks early in 1791 when the rough preliminary survey of the ten mile square was made; that, after this was concluded and before the final survey was begun, he returned to his farm and his astronomical studies in April, accompanying Ellicott part way on his brief journey back to Philadelphia; and that thenceforth he had no connection with the mapping of the seat of government. ...
In any case, Banneker's participation in the surveying of the Federal District was unquestionably brief and his role uncertain.
Teachers who want reliable information on African American history often don't know where to turn. Many have unfortunately looked to unreliable books and publications by Afrocentric writers. The African American Baseline Essays, developed by the public school system in Portland, Ore., are the most widespread Afrocentric teaching material. Educators should be aware of their crippling flaws. ....
"Thomas Jefferson appointed Benjamin Banneker to survey the site for the capital, Washington, D.C.; ...." according to the essay on African American scientists.
Had the author consulted "The Life of Benjamin Banneker" by Silvio Bedini, considered the definitive biography, he would have discovered no evidence for these claims. Jefferson appointed Andrew Ellicott to conduct the survey; Ellicott made Banneker his assistant for three months in 1791.
The Banneker story, impressive as it was, got embellished in 1987, when the public school system in Portland, Oregon, published African-American Baseline Essays, a thick stack of loose-leaf background papers for teachers, commissioned to encourage black history instruction. They have been used in Detroit, Atlanta, Fort Lauderdale, Newark, and scattered schools elsewhere, although they have been attacked for gross inaccuracy in an entire literature of detailed criticism by respected historians. ....
Austin H. Kiplinger and Walter E. Washington write that a proposed city museum at Mount Vernon Square will remind visitors that "George Washington engaged Pierre L' Enfant to map the city and about how Benjamin Banneker [helped] complete the project" [Close to Home, May 7]. Let's hope not.
Benjamin Banneker performed astronomical observations in 1791 when assisting Maj. Andrew Ellicott in a survey of the federal District's boundaries. He departed three months after the survey began, more than a year before its completion.
Meanwhile, a "Plan for the City of Washington" was drawn by one "Peter Charles L'Enfant" (sic). When George Washington chose to dismiss L'Enfant, it was Ellicott who revised L'Enfant's plan and completed the city's mapping. Banneker played no part in this.
This very well-researched book also helps lay to rest some of the myths about what Banneker did and did not do during his most unusual lifetime; unfortunately, many websites and books continue to propagate these myths, probably because those authors do not understand what Banneker actually accomplished. Many state, for example, that Banneker's clock was an exact copy of one he saw, which is not true – he figured out the mathematics and physics on his own for a clock made out of wood, instead of trying simply to copy the small pocket watch that he was lent to observe. However remarkable this clock was, it was not the first clock made in America. Other sources continually repeat the myth that when Pierre l'Enfant was fired from the job of laying out the new Federal City, Benjamin Banneker recreated l'Enfant's plans from memory. Bedini lays this myth to rest .....
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)Benjamin Banneker's achievements, against the odds, made him an American hero, but he has been mythologized to some extent.
For example, John Lockwood said Banneker "helped re-create the plans for the city of Washington," but Banneker actually finished his work on the survey of the perimeter of the District and went home to Ellicott Mills in April 1791, never to return. Pierre L'Enfant did not depart Washington until the following February, leaving Benjamin Ellicott, a brother of the principal surveyor, to draw a small version of the plan to be engraved.
.
The conflicts surrounding L'Enfant gave rise to an often–repeated story that involved Banneker. According to the story, Banneker, having seen the original design for the city only once, re-created it in detail after L'Enfant returned to France with the original plans. This legend has led some people to credit Banneker with a greater role in creating the capital city. However, there is no evidence that Banneker contributed anything to the design of the city or that he ever met L'Enfant.
Modern historians acknowledge that the inaccurate information—the myths surrounding Banneker—resulted in his contributions to the city being overvalued. Unfortunately, those myths sometimes obscure Banneker's greatest contribution to society—the almanacs that he would publish in his later years.
(Banneker's) life and work have become enshrouded in legend and anecdote.
How did the myth of Banneker helping Ellicott remember the plan take hold? I believe it is because the first name of the brother who helped Ellicott is Benjamin, and so Benjamin Banneker was mistaken for Benjamin Ellicott. I think it is nonsense to assume that when L'Enfant refused access to the "original" plan that meant that Ellicott had to rely on memory to reconstruct the plan. L'Enfant had the "large" plan. Ellicott probably had access to small renditions or drafts of the plan which, of course, he and his brother had helped create by their surveys of the city.
Over the 200 years since the death of Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), his story has become a muddled combination of fact, inference, misinformation, hyperbole, and legend. Like many other figures throughout history, the small amount of surviving source material has nurtured the development of a degree of mythology surrounding his story.
In 1806, shortly after Banneker's death, a fire at his home destroyed most of his personal papers (Gillispie). This gap in substantial archival material has hardly hindered the development of the Benjamin Banneker legend; perhaps it has even aided its growth. ..... The narrative that tells of Banneker's life as one of mythical success and unprecedented exceptionalism easily draws an audience, but it washes over what might be more intellectually rewarding questions about the man's life. .... For now, the legend of Benjamin Banneker will continue to exist in his old almanacs and in present culture, serving as an inspiring enigma for those who wonder what lies beyond the surface-level stories of the past.
Meanwhile Andrew Ellicott, the nation's Surveyor General, finished surveying the boundary lines of the federal district, and joined L'Enfant in laying out the city. (Ellicott showed a fine sense of the opportunity presented by the project by hiring a mathematician who was a "free Negro," to help with the survey. The Georgetown newspaper noted the significance of Benjamin Banneker's participation but, nearly sixty years old, he left the arduous project in May and returned to Baltimore to publish his almanac, and thus, contrary to legend, had nothing to do with L'Enfant's plan.)
..., much myth and anecdote surround the life and work of Banneker. An uncertain legacy grew, in part, from the destruction of almost all his papers and possessions when his log cabin home burnt down at the moment he was being buried.
Banneker's life became the source of legend after his death, with many attributing certain accomplishments to him for which there is little or no evidence in the historical record.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)(Banneker's clock) may have been the first clock ever assembled completely from American parts, according to (Elizabeth Ross) Haynes (although other historians have since disputed this). ... The plans for the large city were laid out by French architect and engineer Pierre Charles L'Enfant, who volunteered for service in the American Revolution's Continental Army and was hired for the project by George Washington in 1791. Before long, however, tensions mounted over its direction and progress of the project, and when L'Enfant was fired in 1792, he took off with the plans in tow.
But according to legend, the plans weren't actually lost: Banneker and the Ellicotts had worked closely with L'Enfant and his plans while surveying the city's site. As the University of Massachusetts explains, Banneker had actually committed the plans to memory "[and] was able to reproduce the complete layout—streets, parks, major buildings." However, the University of Massachusetts also points out that other historians doubt Banneker had any involvement in this part of the survey at all, instead saying that Andrew and his brother were the ones who recreated L'Enfant's plan. It's an intriguing myth, but it may only be that.
With limited materials having been preserved related to Banneker's life and career, there's been a fair amount of legend and misinformation presented.
{{cite web}}: |author= has generic name (help)Perhaps owing to the scarcity of recorded fact about his remarkable life, and because he was often invoked symbolically to advance social causes like abolition, Banneker's story has been susceptible to mythmaking. He has been incorrectly credited with drawing the street grid of Washington, D.C., making the first clock on the Eastern seaboard, being the first professional astronomer in America, and discovering the seventeen-year birth cycle of cicadas.
Washington's core was laid out by Pierre L'Enfant, a French-American engineer and city planner, when the federal government decided it needed a new capitol. George Washington carved out 10 miles square on the Potomac River, and appointed L'Enfant in 1791 to plan an ambitious new seat of government.
But L'Enfant didn't exactly carry out his vision alone: He was dismissed from the job in 1792—and he reportedly took his layout with him. That's when Benjamin Banneker, a free black man who had surveyed the capital and helped establish its boundary points, stepped in. Banneker is said to have redrawn L'Enfant's plans from memory in two days, though whether actually he did has been debated by historians; his history and legacy have yet to be fully excavated.
L'Enfant's plans were well received, but he proved to be extremely difficult to work with, arguing incessantly with the commissioners in charge of the capital project. .... When L'Enfant left the project, he took all the designs with him, leaving the project in disarray.
Unsure of how to proceed, Ellicott and the other planners feared they might have to start from scratch. According to writer Gaius Chamberlain, "Banneker surprised them when he asserted that he could reproduce the plans from memory and in two days did exactly as he had promised."
There has been much controversy over the years about whether such an event actually happened. Some historians claim that many of the facts about Banneker's life were embellished or mythologized, leaving the fact that he was able to reimagine L'Enfant's plans in dispute. Others have theorized that it was Andrew Ellicott's brother Benjamin who aided in redrawing the plans from memory, theorizing that he was confused with Banneker because they shared the same first name.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)So when a lot of people think of Benjamin Banneker, they may know him because of the story of him assisting with the layout of the nation's capital in Washington, DC. And I was troubled to find out that with no real evidence legend has it that Benjamin, Banneker single handedly laid out in, develop the plans for Washington DC himself with no help.
And this is the popular narrative in a lot of circles. And even in the mainstream media, the Washington Post published the story citing this is fact, and this is part of his mythology and it's probably untrue, but it made me wonder, like, why do people embellish history? Why would someone take a man like Banneker with the real moral and professional greatness, and then exaggerate a story with things uncertain. Why do we embellish historical figures in general? Maybe in this case, there is something to prove black people have latched onto the great figures to prove competence and to prove value. Maybe it really was thought to be the truth.
A number of fictional accounts of Banneker are available. All of them were dependent upon the following: Proceedings of the Maryland Historical Society for 1837 and 1854 which respectively contain the accounts of Banneker by John B. H. Latrobe and Martha E. Tyson. They were subsequently reprinted as pamphlets.
Recent biographical accounts of Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), a mulatto whose father was a native African and whose grandmother was English, have done his memory a disservice by obscuring his real achievements under a cloud of extravagant claims to scientific accomplishment that have no foundation in fact. The single notable exception is Silvio A. Bedini's The Life of Benjamin Banneker (New York, 1972), a work of painstaking research and scrupulous attention to accuracy which also benefits from the author's discovery of important and hitherto unavailable manuscript sources. However, as Bedini points out, the story of Banneker's involvement in the survey of the Federal District "rests on extremely meager documentation" (p. 104). This consists of a single mention by TJ, two brief statements by Banneker himself, and the newspaper allusion quoted above. In consequence, Bedini's otherwise reliable biography accepts the version of Banneker's role in this episode as presented in reminiscences of nineteenth-century authors. These recollections, deriving in large part from members of the Ellicott family, who were prompted by Quaker inclinations to justice and equality, have compounded the confusion. The nature of TJ's connection with Banneker is treated in the Editorial Note to the group of documents under 30 Aug. 1791, but because of the obscured record it is necessary here to attempt a clarification of the role of this modest, self-taught tobacco farmer in the laying out of the national capital.
First of all, because of unwarranted claims to the contrary, it must be pointed out that there is no evidence whatever that Banneker had anything to do with the survey of the Federal City or indeed with the final establishment of the boundaries of the Federal District. All available testimony shows that he was present only during the few weeks early in 1791 when the rough preliminary survey of the ten mile square was made; that, after this was concluded and before the final survey was begun, he returned to his farm and his astronomical studies in April, accompanying Ellicott part way on his brief journey back to Philadelphia; and that thenceforth he had no connection with the mapping of the seat of government. ...
In any case, Banneker's participation in the surveying of the Federal District was unquestionably brief and his role uncertain.
Teachers who want reliable information on African American history often don't know where to turn. Many have unfortunately looked to unreliable books and publications by Afrocentric writers. The African American Baseline Essays, developed by the public school system in Portland, Ore., are the most widespread Afrocentric teaching material. Educators should be aware of their crippling flaws. ....
"Thomas Jefferson appointed Benjamin Banneker to survey the site for the capital, Washington, D.C.; ...." according to the essay on African American scientists.
Had the author consulted "The Life of Benjamin Banneker" by Silvio Bedini, considered the definitive biography, he would have discovered no evidence for these claims. Jefferson appointed Andrew Ellicott to conduct the survey; Ellicott made Banneker his assistant for three months in 1791.
The Banneker story, impressive as it was, got embellished in 1987, when the public school system in Portland, Oregon, published African-American Baseline Essays, a thick stack of loose-leaf background papers for teachers, commissioned to encourage black history instruction. They have been used in Detroit, Atlanta, Fort Lauderdale, Newark, and scattered schools elsewhere, although they have been attacked for gross inaccuracy in an entire literature of detailed criticism by respected historians. ....
Austin H. Kiplinger and Walter E. Washington write that a proposed city museum at Mount Vernon Square will remind visitors that "George Washington engaged Pierre L' Enfant to map the city and about how Benjamin Banneker [helped] complete the project" [Close to Home, May 7]. Let's hope not.
Benjamin Banneker performed astronomical observations in 1791 when assisting Maj. Andrew Ellicott in a survey of the federal District's boundaries. He departed three months after the survey began, more than a year before its completion.
Meanwhile, a "Plan for the City of Washington" was drawn by one "Peter Charles L'Enfant" (sic). When George Washington chose to dismiss L'Enfant, it was Ellicott who revised L'Enfant's plan and completed the city's mapping. Banneker played no part in this.
This very well-researched book also helps lay to rest some of the myths about what Banneker did and did not do during his most unusual lifetime; unfortunately, many websites and books continue to propagate these myths, probably because those authors do not understand what Banneker actually accomplished. Many state, for example, that Banneker's clock was an exact copy of one he saw, which is not true – he figured out the mathematics and physics on his own for a clock made out of wood, instead of trying simply to copy the small pocket watch that he was lent to observe. However remarkable this clock was, it was not the first clock made in America. Other sources continually repeat the myth that when Pierre l'Enfant was fired from the job of laying out the new Federal City, Benjamin Banneker recreated l'Enfant's plans from memory. Bedini lays this myth to rest .....
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)Benjamin Banneker's achievements, against the odds, made him an American hero, but he has been mythologized to some extent.
For example, John Lockwood said Banneker "helped re-create the plans for the city of Washington," but Banneker actually finished his work on the survey of the perimeter of the District and went home to Ellicott Mills in April 1791, never to return. Pierre L'Enfant did not depart Washington until the following February, leaving Benjamin Ellicott, a brother of the principal surveyor, to draw a small version of the plan to be engraved.
.
The conflicts surrounding L'Enfant gave rise to an often–repeated story that involved Banneker. According to the story, Banneker, having seen the original design for the city only once, re-created it in detail after L'Enfant returned to France with the original plans. This legend has led some people to credit Banneker with a greater role in creating the capital city. However, there is no evidence that Banneker contributed anything to the design of the city or that he ever met L'Enfant.
Modern historians acknowledge that the inaccurate information—the myths surrounding Banneker—resulted in his contributions to the city being overvalued. Unfortunately, those myths sometimes obscure Banneker's greatest contribution to society—the almanacs that he would publish in his later years.
(Banneker's) life and work have become enshrouded in legend and anecdote.
How did the myth of Banneker helping Ellicott remember the plan take hold? I believe it is because the first name of the brother who helped Ellicott is Benjamin, and so Benjamin Banneker was mistaken for Benjamin Ellicott. I think it is nonsense to assume that when L'Enfant refused access to the "original" plan that meant that Ellicott had to rely on memory to reconstruct the plan. L'Enfant had the "large" plan. Ellicott probably had access to small renditions or drafts of the plan which, of course, he and his brother had helped create by their surveys of the city.
Over the 200 years since the death of Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), his story has become a muddled combination of fact, inference, misinformation, hyperbole, and legend. Like many other figures throughout history, the small amount of surviving source material has nurtured the development of a degree of mythology surrounding his story.
In 1806, shortly after Banneker's death, a fire at his home destroyed most of his personal papers (Gillispie). This gap in substantial archival material has hardly hindered the development of the Benjamin Banneker legend; perhaps it has even aided its growth. ..... The narrative that tells of Banneker's life as one of mythical success and unprecedented exceptionalism easily draws an audience, but it washes over what might be more intellectually rewarding questions about the man's life. .... For now, the legend of Benjamin Banneker will continue to exist in his old almanacs and in present culture, serving as an inspiring enigma for those who wonder what lies beyond the surface-level stories of the past.
Meanwhile Andrew Ellicott, the nation's Surveyor General, finished surveying the boundary lines of the federal district, and joined L'Enfant in laying out the city. (Ellicott showed a fine sense of the opportunity presented by the project by hiring a mathematician who was a "free Negro," to help with the survey. The Georgetown newspaper noted the significance of Benjamin Banneker's participation but, nearly sixty years old, he left the arduous project in May and returned to Baltimore to publish his almanac, and thus, contrary to legend, had nothing to do with L'Enfant's plan.)
..., much myth and anecdote surround the life and work of Banneker. An uncertain legacy grew, in part, from the destruction of almost all his papers and possessions when his log cabin home burnt down at the moment he was being buried.
Banneker's life became the source of legend after his death, with many attributing certain accomplishments to him for which there is little or no evidence in the historical record.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)(Banneker's clock) may have been the first clock ever assembled completely from American parts, according to (Elizabeth Ross) Haynes (although other historians have since disputed this). ... The plans for the large city were laid out by French architect and engineer Pierre Charles L'Enfant, who volunteered for service in the American Revolution's Continental Army and was hired for the project by George Washington in 1791. Before long, however, tensions mounted over its direction and progress of the project, and when L'Enfant was fired in 1792, he took off with the plans in tow.
But according to legend, the plans weren't actually lost: Banneker and the Ellicotts had worked closely with L'Enfant and his plans while surveying the city's site. As the University of Massachusetts explains, Banneker had actually committed the plans to memory "[and] was able to reproduce the complete layout—streets, parks, major buildings." However, the University of Massachusetts also points out that other historians doubt Banneker had any involvement in this part of the survey at all, instead saying that Andrew and his brother were the ones who recreated L'Enfant's plan. It's an intriguing myth, but it may only be that.
With limited materials having been preserved related to Banneker's life and career, there's been a fair amount of legend and misinformation presented.
{{cite web}}: |author= has generic name (help)Perhaps owing to the scarcity of recorded fact about his remarkable life, and because he was often invoked symbolically to advance social causes like abolition, Banneker's story has been susceptible to mythmaking. He has been incorrectly credited with drawing the street grid of Washington, D.C., making the first clock on the Eastern seaboard, being the first professional astronomer in America, and discovering the seventeen-year birth cycle of cicadas.
Washington's core was laid out by Pierre L'Enfant, a French-American engineer and city planner, when the federal government decided it needed a new capitol. George Washington carved out 10 miles square on the Potomac River, and appointed L'Enfant in 1791 to plan an ambitious new seat of government.
But L'Enfant didn't exactly carry out his vision alone: He was dismissed from the job in 1792—and he reportedly took his layout with him. That's when Benjamin Banneker, a free black man who had surveyed the capital and helped establish its boundary points, stepped in. Banneker is said to have redrawn L'Enfant's plans from memory in two days, though whether actually he did has been debated by historians; his history and legacy have yet to be fully excavated.
L'Enfant's plans were well received, but he proved to be extremely difficult to work with, arguing incessantly with the commissioners in charge of the capital project. .... When L'Enfant left the project, he took all the designs with him, leaving the project in disarray.
Unsure of how to proceed, Ellicott and the other planners feared they might have to start from scratch. According to writer Gaius Chamberlain, "Banneker surprised them when he asserted that he could reproduce the plans from memory and in two days did exactly as he had promised."
There has been much controversy over the years about whether such an event actually happened. Some historians claim that many of the facts about Banneker's life were embellished or mythologized, leaving the fact that he was able to reimagine L'Enfant's plans in dispute. Others have theorized that it was Andrew Ellicott's brother Benjamin who aided in redrawing the plans from memory, theorizing that he was confused with Banneker because they shared the same first name.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)So when a lot of people think of Benjamin Banneker, they may know him because of the story of him assisting with the layout of the nation's capital in Washington, DC. And I was troubled to find out that with no real evidence legend has it that Benjamin, Banneker single handedly laid out in, develop the plans for Washington DC himself with no help.
And this is the popular narrative in a lot of circles. And even in the mainstream media, the Washington Post published the story citing this is fact, and this is part of his mythology and it's probably untrue, but it made me wonder, like, why do people embellish history? Why would someone take a man like Banneker with the real moral and professional greatness, and then exaggerate a story with things uncertain. Why do we embellish historical figures in general? Maybe in this case, there is something to prove black people have latched onto the great figures to prove competence and to prove value. Maybe it really was thought to be the truth.
A number of fictional accounts of Banneker are available. All of them were dependent upon the following: Proceedings of the Maryland Historical Society for 1837 and 1854 which respectively contain the accounts of Banneker by John B. H. Latrobe and Martha E. Tyson. They were subsequently reprinted as pamphlets.
Recent biographical accounts of Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), a mulatto whose father was a native African and whose grandmother was English, have done his memory a disservice by obscuring his real achievements under a cloud of extravagant claims to scientific accomplishment that have no foundation in fact. The single notable exception is Silvio A. Bedini's The Life of Benjamin Banneker (New York, 1972), a work of painstaking research and scrupulous attention to accuracy which also benefits from the author's discovery of important and hitherto unavailable manuscript sources. However, as Bedini points out, the story of Banneker's involvement in the survey of the Federal District "rests on extremely meager documentation" (p. 104). This consists of a single mention by TJ, two brief statements by Banneker himself, and the newspaper allusion quoted above. In consequence, Bedini's otherwise reliable biography accepts the version of Banneker's role in this episode as presented in reminiscences of nineteenth-century authors. These recollections, deriving in large part from members of the Ellicott family, who were prompted by Quaker inclinations to justice and equality, have compounded the confusion. The nature of TJ's connection with Banneker is treated in the Editorial Note to the group of documents under 30 Aug. 1791, but because of the obscured record it is necessary here to attempt a clarification of the role of this modest, self-taught tobacco farmer in the laying out of the national capital.
First of all, because of unwarranted claims to the contrary, it must be pointed out that there is no evidence whatever that Banneker had anything to do with the survey of the Federal City or indeed with the final establishment of the boundaries of the Federal District. All available testimony shows that he was present only during the few weeks early in 1791 when the rough preliminary survey of the ten mile square was made; that, after this was concluded and before the final survey was begun, he returned to his farm and his astronomical studies in April, accompanying Ellicott part way on his brief journey back to Philadelphia; and that thenceforth he had no connection with the mapping of the seat of government. ...
In any case, Banneker's participation in the surveying of the Federal District was unquestionably brief and his role uncertain.
Teachers who want reliable information on African American history often don't know where to turn. Many have unfortunately looked to unreliable books and publications by Afrocentric writers. The African American Baseline Essays, developed by the public school system in Portland, Ore., are the most widespread Afrocentric teaching material. Educators should be aware of their crippling flaws. ....
"Thomas Jefferson appointed Benjamin Banneker to survey the site for the capital, Washington, D.C.; ...." according to the essay on African American scientists.
Had the author consulted "The Life of Benjamin Banneker" by Silvio Bedini, considered the definitive biography, he would have discovered no evidence for these claims. Jefferson appointed Andrew Ellicott to conduct the survey; Ellicott made Banneker his assistant for three months in 1791.
The Banneker story, impressive as it was, got embellished in 1987, when the public school system in Portland, Oregon, published African-American Baseline Essays, a thick stack of loose-leaf background papers for teachers, commissioned to encourage black history instruction. They have been used in Detroit, Atlanta, Fort Lauderdale, Newark, and scattered schools elsewhere, although they have been attacked for gross inaccuracy in an entire literature of detailed criticism by respected historians. ....
Austin H. Kiplinger and Walter E. Washington write that a proposed city museum at Mount Vernon Square will remind visitors that "George Washington engaged Pierre L' Enfant to map the city and about how Benjamin Banneker [helped] complete the project" [Close to Home, May 7]. Let's hope not.
Benjamin Banneker performed astronomical observations in 1791 when assisting Maj. Andrew Ellicott in a survey of the federal District's boundaries. He departed three months after the survey began, more than a year before its completion.
Meanwhile, a "Plan for the City of Washington" was drawn by one "Peter Charles L'Enfant" (sic). When George Washington chose to dismiss L'Enfant, it was Ellicott who revised L'Enfant's plan and completed the city's mapping. Banneker played no part in this.
This very well-researched book also helps lay to rest some of the myths about what Banneker did and did not do during his most unusual lifetime; unfortunately, many websites and books continue to propagate these myths, probably because those authors do not understand what Banneker actually accomplished. Many state, for example, that Banneker's clock was an exact copy of one he saw, which is not true – he figured out the mathematics and physics on his own for a clock made out of wood, instead of trying simply to copy the small pocket watch that he was lent to observe. However remarkable this clock was, it was not the first clock made in America. Other sources continually repeat the myth that when Pierre l'Enfant was fired from the job of laying out the new Federal City, Benjamin Banneker recreated l'Enfant's plans from memory. Bedini lays this myth to rest .....
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)Benjamin Banneker's achievements, against the odds, made him an American hero, but he has been mythologized to some extent.
For example, John Lockwood said Banneker "helped re-create the plans for the city of Washington," but Banneker actually finished his work on the survey of the perimeter of the District and went home to Ellicott Mills in April 1791, never to return. Pierre L'Enfant did not depart Washington until the following February, leaving Benjamin Ellicott, a brother of the principal surveyor, to draw a small version of the plan to be engraved.
.
The conflicts surrounding L'Enfant gave rise to an often–repeated story that involved Banneker. According to the story, Banneker, having seen the original design for the city only once, re-created it in detail after L'Enfant returned to France with the original plans. This legend has led some people to credit Banneker with a greater role in creating the capital city. However, there is no evidence that Banneker contributed anything to the design of the city or that he ever met L'Enfant.
Modern historians acknowledge that the inaccurate information—the myths surrounding Banneker—resulted in his contributions to the city being overvalued. Unfortunately, those myths sometimes obscure Banneker's greatest contribution to society—the almanacs that he would publish in his later years.
(Banneker's) life and work have become enshrouded in legend and anecdote.
How did the myth of Banneker helping Ellicott remember the plan take hold? I believe it is because the first name of the brother who helped Ellicott is Benjamin, and so Benjamin Banneker was mistaken for Benjamin Ellicott. I think it is nonsense to assume that when L'Enfant refused access to the "original" plan that meant that Ellicott had to rely on memory to reconstruct the plan. L'Enfant had the "large" plan. Ellicott probably had access to small renditions or drafts of the plan which, of course, he and his brother had helped create by their surveys of the city.
Over the 200 years since the death of Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), his story has become a muddled combination of fact, inference, misinformation, hyperbole, and legend. Like many other figures throughout history, the small amount of surviving source material has nurtured the development of a degree of mythology surrounding his story.
In 1806, shortly after Banneker's death, a fire at his home destroyed most of his personal papers (Gillispie). This gap in substantial archival material has hardly hindered the development of the Benjamin Banneker legend; perhaps it has even aided its growth. ..... The narrative that tells of Banneker's life as one of mythical success and unprecedented exceptionalism easily draws an audience, but it washes over what might be more intellectually rewarding questions about the man's life. .... For now, the legend of Benjamin Banneker will continue to exist in his old almanacs and in present culture, serving as an inspiring enigma for those who wonder what lies beyond the surface-level stories of the past.
Meanwhile Andrew Ellicott, the nation's Surveyor General, finished surveying the boundary lines of the federal district, and joined L'Enfant in laying out the city. (Ellicott showed a fine sense of the opportunity presented by the project by hiring a mathematician who was a "free Negro," to help with the survey. The Georgetown newspaper noted the significance of Benjamin Banneker's participation but, nearly sixty years old, he left the arduous project in May and returned to Baltimore to publish his almanac, and thus, contrary to legend, had nothing to do with L'Enfant's plan.)
..., much myth and anecdote surround the life and work of Banneker. An uncertain legacy grew, in part, from the destruction of almost all his papers and possessions when his log cabin home burnt down at the moment he was being buried.
Banneker's life became the source of legend after his death, with many attributing certain accomplishments to him for which there is little or no evidence in the historical record.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)(Banneker's clock) may have been the first clock ever assembled completely from American parts, according to (Elizabeth Ross) Haynes (although other historians have since disputed this). ... The plans for the large city were laid out by French architect and engineer Pierre Charles L'Enfant, who volunteered for service in the American Revolution's Continental Army and was hired for the project by George Washington in 1791. Before long, however, tensions mounted over its direction and progress of the project, and when L'Enfant was fired in 1792, he took off with the plans in tow.
But according to legend, the plans weren't actually lost: Banneker and the Ellicotts had worked closely with L'Enfant and his plans while surveying the city's site. As the University of Massachusetts explains, Banneker had actually committed the plans to memory "[and] was able to reproduce the complete layout—streets, parks, major buildings." However, the University of Massachusetts also points out that other historians doubt Banneker had any involvement in this part of the survey at all, instead saying that Andrew and his brother were the ones who recreated L'Enfant's plan. It's an intriguing myth, but it may only be that.
With limited materials having been preserved related to Banneker's life and career, there's been a fair amount of legend and misinformation presented.
{{cite web}}: |author= has generic name (help)Perhaps owing to the scarcity of recorded fact about his remarkable life, and because he was often invoked symbolically to advance social causes like abolition, Banneker's story has been susceptible to mythmaking. He has been incorrectly credited with drawing the street grid of Washington, D.C., making the first clock on the Eastern seaboard, being the first professional astronomer in America, and discovering the seventeen-year birth cycle of cicadas.
Washington's core was laid out by Pierre L'Enfant, a French-American engineer and city planner, when the federal government decided it needed a new capitol. George Washington carved out 10 miles square on the Potomac River, and appointed L'Enfant in 1791 to plan an ambitious new seat of government.
But L'Enfant didn't exactly carry out his vision alone: He was dismissed from the job in 1792—and he reportedly took his layout with him. That's when Benjamin Banneker, a free black man who had surveyed the capital and helped establish its boundary points, stepped in. Banneker is said to have redrawn L'Enfant's plans from memory in two days, though whether actually he did has been debated by historians; his history and legacy have yet to be fully excavated.
L'Enfant's plans were well received, but he proved to be extremely difficult to work with, arguing incessantly with the commissioners in charge of the capital project. .... When L'Enfant left the project, he took all the designs with him, leaving the project in disarray.
Unsure of how to proceed, Ellicott and the other planners feared they might have to start from scratch. According to writer Gaius Chamberlain, "Banneker surprised them when he asserted that he could reproduce the plans from memory and in two days did exactly as he had promised."
There has been much controversy over the years about whether such an event actually happened. Some historians claim that many of the facts about Banneker's life were embellished or mythologized, leaving the fact that he was able to reimagine L'Enfant's plans in dispute. Others have theorized that it was Andrew Ellicott's brother Benjamin who aided in redrawing the plans from memory, theorizing that he was confused with Banneker because they shared the same first name.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)So when a lot of people think of Benjamin Banneker, they may know him because of the story of him assisting with the layout of the nation's capital in Washington, DC. And I was troubled to find out that with no real evidence legend has it that Benjamin, Banneker single handedly laid out in, develop the plans for Washington DC himself with no help.
And this is the popular narrative in a lot of circles. And even in the mainstream media, the Washington Post published the story citing this is fact, and this is part of his mythology and it's probably untrue, but it made me wonder, like, why do people embellish history? Why would someone take a man like Banneker with the real moral and professional greatness, and then exaggerate a story with things uncertain. Why do we embellish historical figures in general? Maybe in this case, there is something to prove black people have latched onto the great figures to prove competence and to prove value. Maybe it really was thought to be the truth.
A number of fictional accounts of Banneker are available. All of them were dependent upon the following: Proceedings of the Maryland Historical Society for 1837 and 1854 which respectively contain the accounts of Banneker by John B. H. Latrobe and Martha E. Tyson. They were subsequently reprinted as pamphlets.
Recent biographical accounts of Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), a mulatto whose father was a native African and whose grandmother was English, have done his memory a disservice by obscuring his real achievements under a cloud of extravagant claims to scientific accomplishment that have no foundation in fact. The single notable exception is Silvio A. Bedini's The Life of Benjamin Banneker (New York, 1972), a work of painstaking research and scrupulous attention to accuracy which also benefits from the author's discovery of important and hitherto unavailable manuscript sources. However, as Bedini points out, the story of Banneker's involvement in the survey of the Federal District "rests on extremely meager documentation" (p. 104). This consists of a single mention by TJ, two brief statements by Banneker himself, and the newspaper allusion quoted above. In consequence, Bedini's otherwise reliable biography accepts the version of Banneker's role in this episode as presented in reminiscences of nineteenth-century authors. These recollections, deriving in large part from members of the Ellicott family, who were prompted by Quaker inclinations to justice and equality, have compounded the confusion. The nature of TJ's connection with Banneker is treated in the Editorial Note to the group of documents under 30 Aug. 1791, but because of the obscured record it is necessary here to attempt a clarification of the role of this modest, self-taught tobacco farmer in the laying out of the national capital.
First of all, because of unwarranted claims to the contrary, it must be pointed out that there is no evidence whatever that Banneker had anything to do with the survey of the Federal City or indeed with the final establishment of the boundaries of the Federal District. All available testimony shows that he was present only during the few weeks early in 1791 when the rough preliminary survey of the ten mile square was made; that, after this was concluded and before the final survey was begun, he returned to his farm and his astronomical studies in April, accompanying Ellicott part way on his brief journey back to Philadelphia; and that thenceforth he had no connection with the mapping of the seat of government. ...
In any case, Banneker's participation in the surveying of the Federal District was unquestionably brief and his role uncertain.
Teachers who want reliable information on African American history often don't know where to turn. Many have unfortunately looked to unreliable books and publications by Afrocentric writers. The African American Baseline Essays, developed by the public school system in Portland, Ore., are the most widespread Afrocentric teaching material. Educators should be aware of their crippling flaws. ....
"Thomas Jefferson appointed Benjamin Banneker to survey the site for the capital, Washington, D.C.; ...." according to the essay on African American scientists.
Had the author consulted "The Life of Benjamin Banneker" by Silvio Bedini, considered the definitive biography, he would have discovered no evidence for these claims. Jefferson appointed Andrew Ellicott to conduct the survey; Ellicott made Banneker his assistant for three months in 1791.
The Banneker story, impressive as it was, got embellished in 1987, when the public school system in Portland, Oregon, published African-American Baseline Essays, a thick stack of loose-leaf background papers for teachers, commissioned to encourage black history instruction. They have been used in Detroit, Atlanta, Fort Lauderdale, Newark, and scattered schools elsewhere, although they have been attacked for gross inaccuracy in an entire literature of detailed criticism by respected historians. ....
Austin H. Kiplinger and Walter E. Washington write that a proposed city museum at Mount Vernon Square will remind visitors that "George Washington engaged Pierre L' Enfant to map the city and about how Benjamin Banneker [helped] complete the project" [Close to Home, May 7]. Let's hope not.
Benjamin Banneker performed astronomical observations in 1791 when assisting Maj. Andrew Ellicott in a survey of the federal District's boundaries. He departed three months after the survey began, more than a year before its completion.
Meanwhile, a "Plan for the City of Washington" was drawn by one "Peter Charles L'Enfant" (sic). When George Washington chose to dismiss L'Enfant, it was Ellicott who revised L'Enfant's plan and completed the city's mapping. Banneker played no part in this.
This very well-researched book also helps lay to rest some of the myths about what Banneker did and did not do during his most unusual lifetime; unfortunately, many websites and books continue to propagate these myths, probably because those authors do not understand what Banneker actually accomplished. Many state, for example, that Banneker's clock was an exact copy of one he saw, which is not true – he figured out the mathematics and physics on his own for a clock made out of wood, instead of trying simply to copy the small pocket watch that he was lent to observe. However remarkable this clock was, it was not the first clock made in America. Other sources continually repeat the myth that when Pierre l'Enfant was fired from the job of laying out the new Federal City, Benjamin Banneker recreated l'Enfant's plans from memory. Bedini lays this myth to rest .....
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)Benjamin Banneker's achievements, against the odds, made him an American hero, but he has been mythologized to some extent.
For example, John Lockwood said Banneker "helped re-create the plans for the city of Washington," but Banneker actually finished his work on the survey of the perimeter of the District and went home to Ellicott Mills in April 1791, never to return. Pierre L'Enfant did not depart Washington until the following February, leaving Benjamin Ellicott, a brother of the principal surveyor, to draw a small version of the plan to be engraved.
.
The conflicts surrounding L'Enfant gave rise to an often–repeated story that involved Banneker. According to the story, Banneker, having seen the original design for the city only once, re-created it in detail after L'Enfant returned to France with the original plans. This legend has led some people to credit Banneker with a greater role in creating the capital city. However, there is no evidence that Banneker contributed anything to the design of the city or that he ever met L'Enfant.
Modern historians acknowledge that the inaccurate information—the myths surrounding Banneker—resulted in his contributions to the city being overvalued. Unfortunately, those myths sometimes obscure Banneker's greatest contribution to society—the almanacs that he would publish in his later years.
(Banneker's) life and work have become enshrouded in legend and anecdote.
How did the myth of Banneker helping Ellicott remember the plan take hold? I believe it is because the first name of the brother who helped Ellicott is Benjamin, and so Benjamin Banneker was mistaken for Benjamin Ellicott. I think it is nonsense to assume that when L'Enfant refused access to the "original" plan that meant that Ellicott had to rely on memory to reconstruct the plan. L'Enfant had the "large" plan. Ellicott probably had access to small renditions or drafts of the plan which, of course, he and his brother had helped create by their surveys of the city.
Over the 200 years since the death of Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), his story has become a muddled combination of fact, inference, misinformation, hyperbole, and legend. Like many other figures throughout history, the small amount of surviving source material has nurtured the development of a degree of mythology surrounding his story.
In 1806, shortly after Banneker's death, a fire at his home destroyed most of his personal papers (Gillispie). This gap in substantial archival material has hardly hindered the development of the Benjamin Banneker legend; perhaps it has even aided its growth. ..... The narrative that tells of Banneker's life as one of mythical success and unprecedented exceptionalism easily draws an audience, but it washes over what might be more intellectually rewarding questions about the man's life. .... For now, the legend of Benjamin Banneker will continue to exist in his old almanacs and in present culture, serving as an inspiring enigma for those who wonder what lies beyond the surface-level stories of the past.
Meanwhile Andrew Ellicott, the nation's Surveyor General, finished surveying the boundary lines of the federal district, and joined L'Enfant in laying out the city. (Ellicott showed a fine sense of the opportunity presented by the project by hiring a mathematician who was a "free Negro," to help with the survey. The Georgetown newspaper noted the significance of Benjamin Banneker's participation but, nearly sixty years old, he left the arduous project in May and returned to Baltimore to publish his almanac, and thus, contrary to legend, had nothing to do with L'Enfant's plan.)
..., much myth and anecdote surround the life and work of Banneker. An uncertain legacy grew, in part, from the destruction of almost all his papers and possessions when his log cabin home burnt down at the moment he was being buried.
Banneker's life became the source of legend after his death, with many attributing certain accomplishments to him for which there is little or no evidence in the historical record.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)(Banneker's clock) may have been the first clock ever assembled completely from American parts, according to (Elizabeth Ross) Haynes (although other historians have since disputed this). ... The plans for the large city were laid out by French architect and engineer Pierre Charles L'Enfant, who volunteered for service in the American Revolution's Continental Army and was hired for the project by George Washington in 1791. Before long, however, tensions mounted over its direction and progress of the project, and when L'Enfant was fired in 1792, he took off with the plans in tow.
But according to legend, the plans weren't actually lost: Banneker and the Ellicotts had worked closely with L'Enfant and his plans while surveying the city's site. As the University of Massachusetts explains, Banneker had actually committed the plans to memory "[and] was able to reproduce the complete layout—streets, parks, major buildings." However, the University of Massachusetts also points out that other historians doubt Banneker had any involvement in this part of the survey at all, instead saying that Andrew and his brother were the ones who recreated L'Enfant's plan. It's an intriguing myth, but it may only be that.
With limited materials having been preserved related to Banneker's life and career, there's been a fair amount of legend and misinformation presented.
{{cite web}}: |author= has generic name (help)Perhaps owing to the scarcity of recorded fact about his remarkable life, and because he was often invoked symbolically to advance social causes like abolition, Banneker's story has been susceptible to mythmaking. He has been incorrectly credited with drawing the street grid of Washington, D.C., making the first clock on the Eastern seaboard, being the first professional astronomer in America, and discovering the seventeen-year birth cycle of cicadas.
Washington's core was laid out by Pierre L'Enfant, a French-American engineer and city planner, when the federal government decided it needed a new capitol. George Washington carved out 10 miles square on the Potomac River, and appointed L'Enfant in 1791 to plan an ambitious new seat of government.
But L'Enfant didn't exactly carry out his vision alone: He was dismissed from the job in 1792—and he reportedly took his layout with him. That's when Benjamin Banneker, a free black man who had surveyed the capital and helped establish its boundary points, stepped in. Banneker is said to have redrawn L'Enfant's plans from memory in two days, though whether actually he did has been debated by historians; his history and legacy have yet to be fully excavated.
L'Enfant's plans were well received, but he proved to be extremely difficult to work with, arguing incessantly with the commissioners in charge of the capital project. .... When L'Enfant left the project, he took all the designs with him, leaving the project in disarray.
Unsure of how to proceed, Ellicott and the other planners feared they might have to start from scratch. According to writer Gaius Chamberlain, "Banneker surprised them when he asserted that he could reproduce the plans from memory and in two days did exactly as he had promised."
There has been much controversy over the years about whether such an event actually happened. Some historians claim that many of the facts about Banneker's life were embellished or mythologized, leaving the fact that he was able to reimagine L'Enfant's plans in dispute. Others have theorized that it was Andrew Ellicott's brother Benjamin who aided in redrawing the plans from memory, theorizing that he was confused with Banneker because they shared the same first name.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)So when a lot of people think of Benjamin Banneker, they may know him because of the story of him assisting with the layout of the nation's capital in Washington, DC. And I was troubled to find out that with no real evidence legend has it that Benjamin, Banneker single handedly laid out in, develop the plans for Washington DC himself with no help.
And this is the popular narrative in a lot of circles. And even in the mainstream media, the Washington Post published the story citing this is fact, and this is part of his mythology and it's probably untrue, but it made me wonder, like, why do people embellish history? Why would someone take a man like Banneker with the real moral and professional greatness, and then exaggerate a story with things uncertain. Why do we embellish historical figures in general? Maybe in this case, there is something to prove black people have latched onto the great figures to prove competence and to prove value. Maybe it really was thought to be the truth.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: editors list (link)Footnote: RC (MHi); at head of text: "Thomas Jefferson Secretary of State"; endorsed by TJ as received 26 Aug. 1791 and so recorded in SJL." (Abbreviations: "MHi": "Massachusetts Historical Society"; "RC": Recipient's Copy"; "SJL": "Jefferson's "Summary Journal of Letters" written and received"; "TJ": "Thomas Jefferson").(Original source: Cullen, Charles T., ed. (1986). The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 22: 6 August 1791 – 31 December 1791. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. p. 52. ISBN 9780691184654. LCCN 50007486. OCLC 1043555596. Retrieved August 31, 2019.
Footnote: RC (MHi); at head of text: "Thomas Jefferson Secretary of State"; endorsed by TJ as received 26 Aug. 1791 and so recorded in SJL.)
Footnote: "PrC (DLC)". (Abbreviations: "DLC": "Library of Congress"; "PrC": "Press Copy".)(Original source: Cullen, Charles T., ed. (1986). The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 22: 6 August 1791 – 31 December 1791. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. pp. 97–98. ISBN 9780691184654. LCCN 50007486. OCLC 1043555596. Retrieved August 31, 2019.
Footnote: PrC (DLC))
In 1785, Jefferson was using both stationary and portable presses made by James Watt & Co.(Reference: Bedini, Silvio A., Thomas Jefferson and His Copying Machines, University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville, 1984.)
Marked "Hawkins & Peale's Patent Polygraph No. 57," this machine was used by Jefferson from 1806 until his death. Jefferson first acquired the letter-copying device he called "the finest invention of the present age" in March of 1804.
the use of the polygraph has spoiled me for the old copying press the copies of which are hardly ever legible, ... I could not, now therefore, live without the Polygraph. ....
Footnote: "PrC (DLC); at foot of first page of text: "M. de Condorcet."" (Abbreviations: "DLC": "Library of Congress"; "PrC": "Press Copy".)(Original source: Cullen, Charles T., ed. (1986). The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 22: 6 August 1791 – 31 December 1791. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. pp. 98–99. ISBN 9780691184654. LCCN 50007486. OCLC 1043555596. Retrieved August 31, 2019.
Footnote: "PrC (DLC); at foot of first page of text: "M. de Condorcet.""
Footnote: "RC (NjP: Straus Autograph Collection); endorsed by Barlow. PoC (DLC)" (Abbreviations: "DLC: "Library of Congress"" "NjP: "Princeton University"; "Poc": "Polygraph Copy";"RC": "Recipient's copy".)(Original source: Looney, J. Jefferson, ed. (2004). The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Retirement Series, vol. 1, 4 March 1809 to 15 November 1809. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. pp. 588–590. ISBN 9780691184593. LCCN 2004048327. OCLC 1045069067. Retrieved August 31, 2019.
Footnote: "RC (NjP: Straus Autograph Collection); endorsed by Barlow. PoC (DLC)")
The collection consists of Americana dating, primarily, from the period of the American Revolution and the thirty years immediately following, collected by Straus. Included are autograph letters from, and documents signed by, some of the leading figures of the period, such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, ....
Hawkins & Peale patented a polygraph in the US in 1803, and beginning in 1804 Thomas Jefferson collaborated with them in working on improvements in the machine. Jefferson used a polygraph for the rest of his life.(Reference: Bedini, Silvio A., Thomas Jefferson and His Copying Machines, University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville, 1984.)
Historical Notes: Marked "Hawkins & Peale's Patent Polygraph No. 57," this machine was used by Jefferson from 1806 until his death. Jefferson first acquired the letter-copying device he called "the finest invention of the present age" in March of 1804. Invented and named by Englishman John Isaac Hawkins, the polygraph used the principles of the pantograph, a draftsman's tool for reducing and enlarging drawings. The writer's hand moves one pen whose action is duplicated by the second one, producing a copy strikingly like the original.
Before he returned to England in 1803, Hawkins assigned his American patent rights to Charles Willson Peale, who developed and marketed the invention. Jefferson was one of his most eager clients, purchasing one for the President's House and one for Monticello. He soon exchanged these machines for new ones, as Peale continued to perfect the design — often according to Jefferson's suggestions. By 1809 Jefferson wrote that "the use of the polygraph has spoiled me for the old copying press the copies of which are hardly ever legible . . . . I could not, now therefore, live without the Polygraph."
the use of the polygraph has spoiled me for the old copying press the copies of which are hardly ever legible, ... I could not, now therefore, live without the Polygraph. ....
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)The Banneker story, impressive as it was, got embellished in 1987, when the public school system in Portland, Oregon, published African-American Baseline Essays, a thick stack of loose-leaf background papers for teachers, commissioned to encourage black history instruction. They have been used in Detroit, Atlanta, Fort Lauderdale, Newark, and scattered schools elsewhere, although they have been attacked for gross inaccuracy in an entire literature of detailed criticism by respected historians. ....
Teachers who want reliable information on African American history often don't know where to turn. Many have unfortunately looked to unreliable books and publications by Afrocentric writers. The African American Baseline Essays, developed by the public school system in Portland, Ore., are the most widespread Afrocentric teaching material. Educators should be aware of their crippling flaws. ....
"Thomas Jefferson appointed Benjamin Banneker to survey the site for the capital, Washington, D.C.; ...." according to the essay on African American scientists.
Had the author consulted "The Life of Benjamin Banneker" by Silvio Bedini, considered the definitive biography, he would have discovered no evidence for these claims. Jefferson appointed Andrew Ellicott to conduct the survey; Ellicott made Banneker his assistant for three months in 1791.
.
The conflicts surrounding L'Enfant gave rise to an often—repeated story that involved Banneker. According to the story, Banneker, having seen the original design for the city only once, re-created it in detail after L'Enfant returned to France with the original plans. This legend has led some people to credit Banneker with a greater role in creating the capital city. However, there is no evidence that Banneker contributed anything to the design of the city or that he ever met L'Enfant.
Modern historians acknowledge that the inaccurate information—the myths surrounding Banneker—resulted in his contributions to the city being overvalued. Unfortunately, those myths sometimes obscure Banneker's greatest contribution to society—the almanacs that he would publish in his later years.
Perhaps owing to the scarcity of recorded fact about his remarkable life, and because he was often invoked symbolically to advance social causes like abolition, Banneker's story has been susceptible to mythmaking. He has been incorrectly credited with drawing the street grid of Washington, D.C., ....
A number of fictional accounts of Banneker are available. All of them were dependent upon the following: Proceedings of the Maryland Historical Society for 1837 and 1854 which respectively contain the accounts of Banneker by John B. H. Latrobe and Martha E. Tyson. They were subsequently reprinted as pamphlets.
Recent biographical accounts of Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), a mulatto whose father was a native African and whose grandmother was English, have done his memory a disservice by obscuring his real achievements under a cloud of extravagant claims to scientific accomplishment that have no foundation in fact. The single notable exception is Silvio A. Bedini's The Life of Benjamin Banneker (New York, 1972), a work of painstaking research and scrupulous attention to accuracy which also benefits from the author's discovery of important and hitherto unavailable manuscript sources. However, as Bedini points out, the story of Banneker's involvement in the survey of the Federal District "rests on extremely meager documentation" (p. 104). This consists of a single mention by TJ, two brief statements by Banneker himself, and the newspaper allusion quoted above. In consequence, Bedini's otherwise reliable biography accepts the version of Banneker's role in this episode as presented in reminiscences of nineteenth-century authors. These recollections, deriving in large part from members of the Ellicott family, who were prompted by Quaker inclinations to justice and equality, have compounded the confusion. The nature of TJ's connection with Banneker is treated in the Editorial Note to the group of documents under 30 Aug. 1791, but because of the obscured record it is necessary here to attempt a clarification of the role of this modest, self-taught tobacco farmer in the laying out of the national capital.
First of all, because of unwarranted claims to the contrary, it must be pointed out that there is no evidence whatever that Banneker had anything to do with the survey of the Federal City or indeed with the final establishment of the boundaries of the Federal District. All available testimony shows that he was present only during the few weeks early in 1791 when the rough preliminary survey of the ten mile square was made; that, after this was concluded and before the final survey was begun, he returned to his farm and his astronomical studies in April, accompanying Ellicott part way on his brief journey back to Philadelphia; and that thenceforth he had no connection with the mapping of the seat of government. ...
In any case, Banneker's participation in the surveying of the Federal District was unquestionably brief and his role uncertain.
Teachers who want reliable information on African American history often don't know where to turn. Many have unfortunately looked to unreliable books and publications by Afrocentric writers. The African American Baseline Essays, developed by the public school system in Portland, Ore., are the most widespread Afrocentric teaching material. Educators should be aware of their crippling flaws. ....
"Thomas Jefferson appointed Benjamin Banneker to survey the site for the capital, Washington, D.C.; ...." according to the essay on African American scientists.
Had the author consulted "The Life of Benjamin Banneker" by Silvio Bedini, considered the definitive biography, he would have discovered no evidence for these claims. Jefferson appointed Andrew Ellicott to conduct the survey; Ellicott made Banneker his assistant for three months in 1791.
The Banneker story, impressive as it was, got embellished in 1987, when the public school system in Portland, Oregon, published African-American Baseline Essays, a thick stack of loose-leaf background papers for teachers, commissioned to encourage black history instruction. They have been used in Detroit, Atlanta, Fort Lauderdale, Newark, and scattered schools elsewhere, although they have been attacked for gross inaccuracy in an entire literature of detailed criticism by respected historians. ....
Austin H. Kiplinger and Walter E. Washington write that a proposed city museum at Mount Vernon Square will remind visitors that "George Washington engaged Pierre L' Enfant to map the city and about how Benjamin Banneker [helped] complete the project" [Close to Home, May 7]. Let's hope not.
Benjamin Banneker performed astronomical observations in 1791 when assisting Maj. Andrew Ellicott in a survey of the federal District's boundaries. He departed three months after the survey began, more than a year before its completion.
Meanwhile, a "Plan for the City of Washington" was drawn by one "Peter Charles L'Enfant" (sic). When George Washington chose to dismiss L'Enfant, it was Ellicott who revised L'Enfant's plan and completed the city's mapping. Banneker played no part in this.
This very well-researched book also helps lay to rest some of the myths about what Banneker did and did not do during his most unusual lifetime; unfortunately, many websites and books continue to propagate these myths, probably because those authors do not understand what Banneker actually accomplished. Many state, for example, that Banneker's clock was an exact copy of one he saw, which is not true – he figured out the mathematics and physics on his own for a clock made out of wood, instead of trying simply to copy the small pocket watch that he was lent to observe. However remarkable this clock was, it was not the first clock made in America. Other sources continually repeat the myth that when Pierre l'Enfant was fired from the job of laying out the new Federal City, Benjamin Banneker recreated l'Enfant's plans from memory. Bedini lays this myth to rest .....
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)Benjamin Banneker's achievements, against the odds, made him an American hero, but he has been mythologized to some extent.
For example, John Lockwood said Banneker "helped re-create the plans for the city of Washington," but Banneker actually finished his work on the survey of the perimeter of the District and went home to Ellicott Mills in April 1791, never to return. Pierre L'Enfant did not depart Washington until the following February, leaving Benjamin Ellicott, a brother of the principal surveyor, to draw a small version of the plan to be engraved.
.
The conflicts surrounding L'Enfant gave rise to an often–repeated story that involved Banneker. According to the story, Banneker, having seen the original design for the city only once, re-created it in detail after L'Enfant returned to France with the original plans. This legend has led some people to credit Banneker with a greater role in creating the capital city. However, there is no evidence that Banneker contributed anything to the design of the city or that he ever met L'Enfant.
Modern historians acknowledge that the inaccurate information—the myths surrounding Banneker—resulted in his contributions to the city being overvalued. Unfortunately, those myths sometimes obscure Banneker's greatest contribution to society—the almanacs that he would publish in his later years.
(Banneker's) life and work have become enshrouded in legend and anecdote.
How did the myth of Banneker helping Ellicott remember the plan take hold? I believe it is because the first name of the brother who helped Ellicott is Benjamin, and so Benjamin Banneker was mistaken for Benjamin Ellicott. I think it is nonsense to assume that when L'Enfant refused access to the "original" plan that meant that Ellicott had to rely on memory to reconstruct the plan. L'Enfant had the "large" plan. Ellicott probably had access to small renditions or drafts of the plan which, of course, he and his brother had helped create by their surveys of the city.
Over the 200 years since the death of Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), his story has become a muddled combination of fact, inference, misinformation, hyperbole, and legend. Like many other figures throughout history, the small amount of surviving source material has nurtured the development of a degree of mythology surrounding his story.
In 1806, shortly after Banneker's death, a fire at his home destroyed most of his personal papers (Gillispie). This gap in substantial archival material has hardly hindered the development of the Benjamin Banneker legend; perhaps it has even aided its growth. ..... The narrative that tells of Banneker's life as one of mythical success and unprecedented exceptionalism easily draws an audience, but it washes over what might be more intellectually rewarding questions about the man's life. .... For now, the legend of Benjamin Banneker will continue to exist in his old almanacs and in present culture, serving as an inspiring enigma for those who wonder what lies beyond the surface-level stories of the past.
Meanwhile Andrew Ellicott, the nation's Surveyor General, finished surveying the boundary lines of the federal district, and joined L'Enfant in laying out the city. (Ellicott showed a fine sense of the opportunity presented by the project by hiring a mathematician who was a "free Negro," to help with the survey. The Georgetown newspaper noted the significance of Benjamin Banneker's participation but, nearly sixty years old, he left the arduous project in May and returned to Baltimore to publish his almanac, and thus, contrary to legend, had nothing to do with L'Enfant's plan.)
..., much myth and anecdote surround the life and work of Banneker. An uncertain legacy grew, in part, from the destruction of almost all his papers and possessions when his log cabin home burnt down at the moment he was being buried.
Banneker's life became the source of legend after his death, with many attributing certain accomplishments to him for which there is little or no evidence in the historical record.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)(Banneker's clock) may have been the first clock ever assembled completely from American parts, according to (Elizabeth Ross) Haynes (although other historians have since disputed this). ... The plans for the large city were laid out by French architect and engineer Pierre Charles L'Enfant, who volunteered for service in the American Revolution's Continental Army and was hired for the project by George Washington in 1791. Before long, however, tensions mounted over its direction and progress of the project, and when L'Enfant was fired in 1792, he took off with the plans in tow.
But according to legend, the plans weren't actually lost: Banneker and the Ellicotts had worked closely with L'Enfant and his plans while surveying the city's site. As the University of Massachusetts explains, Banneker had actually committed the plans to memory "[and] was able to reproduce the complete layout—streets, parks, major buildings." However, the University of Massachusetts also points out that other historians doubt Banneker had any involvement in this part of the survey at all, instead saying that Andrew and his brother were the ones who recreated L'Enfant's plan. It's an intriguing myth, but it may only be that.
With limited materials having been preserved related to Banneker's life and career, there's been a fair amount of legend and misinformation presented.
{{cite web}}: |author= has generic name (help)Perhaps owing to the scarcity of recorded fact about his remarkable life, and because he was often invoked symbolically to advance social causes like abolition, Banneker's story has been susceptible to mythmaking. He has been incorrectly credited with drawing the street grid of Washington, D.C., making the first clock on the Eastern seaboard, being the first professional astronomer in America, and discovering the seventeen-year birth cycle of cicadas.
Washington's core was laid out by Pierre L'Enfant, a French-American engineer and city planner, when the federal government decided it needed a new capitol. George Washington carved out 10 miles square on the Potomac River, and appointed L'Enfant in 1791 to plan an ambitious new seat of government.
But L'Enfant didn't exactly carry out his vision alone: He was dismissed from the job in 1792—and he reportedly took his layout with him. That's when Benjamin Banneker, a free black man who had surveyed the capital and helped establish its boundary points, stepped in. Banneker is said to have redrawn L'Enfant's plans from memory in two days, though whether actually he did has been debated by historians; his history and legacy have yet to be fully excavated.
L'Enfant's plans were well received, but he proved to be extremely difficult to work with, arguing incessantly with the commissioners in charge of the capital project. .... When L'Enfant left the project, he took all the designs with him, leaving the project in disarray.
Unsure of how to proceed, Ellicott and the other planners feared they might have to start from scratch. According to writer Gaius Chamberlain, "Banneker surprised them when he asserted that he could reproduce the plans from memory and in two days did exactly as he had promised."
There has been much controversy over the years about whether such an event actually happened. Some historians claim that many of the facts about Banneker's life were embellished or mythologized, leaving the fact that he was able to reimagine L'Enfant's plans in dispute. Others have theorized that it was Andrew Ellicott's brother Benjamin who aided in redrawing the plans from memory, theorizing that he was confused with Banneker because they shared the same first name.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)So when a lot of people think of Benjamin Banneker, they may know him because of the story of him assisting with the layout of the nation's capital in Washington, DC. And I was troubled to find out that with no real evidence legend has it that Benjamin, Banneker single handedly laid out in, develop the plans for Washington DC himself with no help.
And this is the popular narrative in a lot of circles. And even in the mainstream media, the Washington Post published the story citing this is fact, and this is part of his mythology and it's probably untrue, but it made me wonder, like, why do people embellish history? Why would someone take a man like Banneker with the real moral and professional greatness, and then exaggerate a story with things uncertain. Why do we embellish historical figures in general? Maybe in this case, there is something to prove black people have latched onto the great figures to prove competence and to prove value. Maybe it really was thought to be the truth.
Teachers who want reliable information on African American history often don't know where to turn. Many have unfortunately looked to unreliable books and publications by Afrocentric writers. The African American Baseline Essays, developed by the public school system in Portland, Ore., are the most widespread Afrocentric teaching material. Educators should be aware of their crippling flaws. ....
"Thomas Jefferson appointed Benjamin Banneker to survey the site for the capital, Washington, D.C.; ...." according to the essay on African American scientists.
Had the author consulted "The Life of Benjamin Banneker" by Silvio Bedini, considered the definitive biography, he would have discovered no evidence for these claims. Jefferson appointed Andrew Ellicott to conduct the survey; Ellicott made Banneker his assistant for three months in 1791.
.
The conflicts surrounding L'Enfant gave rise to an often—repeated story that involved Banneker. According to the story, Banneker, having seen the original design for the city only once, re-created it in detail after L'Enfant returned to France with the original plans. This legend has led some people to credit Banneker with a greater role in creating the capital city. However, there is no evidence that Banneker contributed anything to the design of the city or that he ever met L'Enfant.
Modern historians acknowledge that the inaccurate information—the myths surrounding Banneker—resulted in his contributions to the city being overvalued. Unfortunately, those myths sometimes obscure Banneker's greatest contribution to society—the almanacs that he would publish in his later years.
Perhaps owing to the scarcity of recorded fact about his remarkable life, and because he was often invoked symbolically to advance social causes like abolition, Banneker's story has been susceptible to mythmaking. He has been incorrectly credited with drawing the street grid of Washington, D.C., ....
Banneker, Benjamin (09 November 1731–19 October 1806), farmer and astronomer, ...
{{cite encyclopedia}}: |author= has generic name (help)On Sunday, this 9th instant, departed this life at his residence in Baltimore county, in the 73rd year of his age, Mr. BENJAMIN BANNEKER, a black man, and immediate descendant of an African father.In Maryland Historical Society Library Department (February 6, 2014). "The Dreams of Benjamin Banneker". H. Furlong Baldwin Library: Underbelly. Maryland Historical Society. Archived from the original on September 17, 2020. Retrieved September 17, 2020.
{{cite encyclopedia}}: |author= has generic name (help)The museum has desk and candle molds used by Benjamin.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)A number of fictional accounts of Banneker are available. All of them were dependent upon the following: Proceedings of the Maryland Historical Society for 1837 and 1854 which respectively contain the accounts of Banneker by John B. H. Latrobe and Martha E. Tyson. They were subsequently reprinted as pamphlets.
Recent biographical accounts of Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), a mulatto whose father was a native African and whose grandmother was English, have done his memory a disservice by obscuring his real achievements under a cloud of extravagant claims to scientific accomplishment that have no foundation in fact. The single notable exception is Silvio A. Bedini's The Life of Benjamin Banneker (New York, 1972), a work of painstaking research and scrupulous attention to accuracy which also benefits from the author's discovery of important and hitherto unavailable manuscript sources. However, as Bedini points out, the story of Banneker's involvement in the survey of the Federal District "rests on extremely meager documentation" (p. 104). This consists of a single mention by TJ, two brief statements by Banneker himself, and the newspaper allusion quoted above. In consequence, Bedini's otherwise reliable biography accepts the version of Banneker's role in this episode as presented in reminiscences of nineteenth-century authors. These recollections, deriving in large part from members of the Ellicott family, who were prompted by Quaker inclinations to justice and equality, have compounded the confusion. The nature of TJ's connection with Banneker is treated in the Editorial Note to the group of documents under 30 Aug. 1791, but because of the obscured record it is necessary here to attempt a clarification of the role of this modest, self-taught tobacco farmer in the laying out of the national capital.
First of all, because of unwarranted claims to the contrary, it must be pointed out that there is no evidence whatever that Banneker had anything to do with the survey of the Federal City or indeed with the final establishment of the boundaries of the Federal District. All available testimony shows that he was present only during the few weeks early in 1791 when the rough preliminary survey of the ten mile square was made; that, after this was concluded and before the final survey was begun, he returned to his farm and his astronomical studies in April, accompanying Ellicott part way on his brief journey back to Philadelphia; and that thenceforth he had no connection with the mapping of the seat of government. ...
In any case, Banneker's participation in the surveying of the Federal District was unquestionably brief and his role uncertain.
Teachers who want reliable information on African American history often don't know where to turn. Many have unfortunately looked to unreliable books and publications by Afrocentric writers. The African American Baseline Essays, developed by the public school system in Portland, Ore., are the most widespread Afrocentric teaching material. Educators should be aware of their crippling flaws. ....
"Thomas Jefferson appointed Benjamin Banneker to survey the site for the capital, Washington, D.C.; ...." according to the essay on African American scientists.
Had the author consulted "The Life of Benjamin Banneker" by Silvio Bedini, considered the definitive biography, he would have discovered no evidence for these claims. Jefferson appointed Andrew Ellicott to conduct the survey; Ellicott made Banneker his assistant for three months in 1791.
The Banneker story, impressive as it was, got embellished in 1987, when the public school system in Portland, Oregon, published African-American Baseline Essays, a thick stack of loose-leaf background papers for teachers, commissioned to encourage black history instruction. They have been used in Detroit, Atlanta, Fort Lauderdale, Newark, and scattered schools elsewhere, although they have been attacked for gross inaccuracy in an entire literature of detailed criticism by respected historians. ....
Austin H. Kiplinger and Walter E. Washington write that a proposed city museum at Mount Vernon Square will remind visitors that "George Washington engaged Pierre L' Enfant to map the city and about how Benjamin Banneker [helped] complete the project" [Close to Home, May 7]. Let's hope not.
Benjamin Banneker performed astronomical observations in 1791 when assisting Maj. Andrew Ellicott in a survey of the federal District's boundaries. He departed three months after the survey began, more than a year before its completion.
Meanwhile, a "Plan for the City of Washington" was drawn by one "Peter Charles L'Enfant" (sic). When George Washington chose to dismiss L'Enfant, it was Ellicott who revised L'Enfant's plan and completed the city's mapping. Banneker played no part in this.
This very well-researched book also helps lay to rest some of the myths about what Banneker did and did not do during his most unusual lifetime; unfortunately, many websites and books continue to propagate these myths, probably because those authors do not understand what Banneker actually accomplished. Many state, for example, that Banneker's clock was an exact copy of one he saw, which is not true – he figured out the mathematics and physics on his own for a clock made out of wood, instead of trying simply to copy the small pocket watch that he was lent to observe. However remarkable this clock was, it was not the first clock made in America. Other sources continually repeat the myth that when Pierre l'Enfant was fired from the job of laying out the new Federal City, Benjamin Banneker recreated l'Enfant's plans from memory. Bedini lays this myth to rest .....
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)Benjamin Banneker's achievements, against the odds, made him an American hero, but he has been mythologized to some extent.
For example, John Lockwood said Banneker "helped re-create the plans for the city of Washington," but Banneker actually finished his work on the survey of the perimeter of the District and went home to Ellicott Mills in April 1791, never to return. Pierre L'Enfant did not depart Washington until the following February, leaving Benjamin Ellicott, a brother of the principal surveyor, to draw a small version of the plan to be engraved.
.
The conflicts surrounding L'Enfant gave rise to an often–repeated story that involved Banneker. According to the story, Banneker, having seen the original design for the city only once, re-created it in detail after L'Enfant returned to France with the original plans. This legend has led some people to credit Banneker with a greater role in creating the capital city. However, there is no evidence that Banneker contributed anything to the design of the city or that he ever met L'Enfant.
Modern historians acknowledge that the inaccurate information—the myths surrounding Banneker—resulted in his contributions to the city being overvalued. Unfortunately, those myths sometimes obscure Banneker's greatest contribution to society—the almanacs that he would publish in his later years.
(Banneker's) life and work have become enshrouded in legend and anecdote.
How did the myth of Banneker helping Ellicott remember the plan take hold? I believe it is because the first name of the brother who helped Ellicott is Benjamin, and so Benjamin Banneker was mistaken for Benjamin Ellicott. I think it is nonsense to assume that when L'Enfant refused access to the "original" plan that meant that Ellicott had to rely on memory to reconstruct the plan. L'Enfant had the "large" plan. Ellicott probably had access to small renditions or drafts of the plan which, of course, he and his brother had helped create by their surveys of the city.
Over the 200 years since the death of Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), his story has become a muddled combination of fact, inference, misinformation, hyperbole, and legend. Like many other figures throughout history, the small amount of surviving source material has nurtured the development of a degree of mythology surrounding his story.
In 1806, shortly after Banneker's death, a fire at his home destroyed most of his personal papers (Gillispie). This gap in substantial archival material has hardly hindered the development of the Benjamin Banneker legend; perhaps it has even aided its growth. ..... The narrative that tells of Banneker's life as one of mythical success and unprecedented exceptionalism easily draws an audience, but it washes over what might be more intellectually rewarding questions about the man's life. .... For now, the legend of Benjamin Banneker will continue to exist in his old almanacs and in present culture, serving as an inspiring enigma for those who wonder what lies beyond the surface-level stories of the past.
Meanwhile Andrew Ellicott, the nation's Surveyor General, finished surveying the boundary lines of the federal district, and joined L'Enfant in laying out the city. (Ellicott showed a fine sense of the opportunity presented by the project by hiring a mathematician who was a "free Negro," to help with the survey. The Georgetown newspaper noted the significance of Benjamin Banneker's participation but, nearly sixty years old, he left the arduous project in May and returned to Baltimore to publish his almanac, and thus, contrary to legend, had nothing to do with L'Enfant's plan.)
..., much myth and anecdote surround the life and work of Banneker. An uncertain legacy grew, in part, from the destruction of almost all his papers and possessions when his log cabin home burnt down at the moment he was being buried.
Banneker's life became the source of legend after his death, with many attributing certain accomplishments to him for which there is little or no evidence in the historical record.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)(Banneker's clock) may have been the first clock ever assembled completely from American parts, according to (Elizabeth Ross) Haynes (although other historians have since disputed this). ... The plans for the large city were laid out by French architect and engineer Pierre Charles L'Enfant, who volunteered for service in the American Revolution's Continental Army and was hired for the project by George Washington in 1791. Before long, however, tensions mounted over its direction and progress of the project, and when L'Enfant was fired in 1792, he took off with the plans in tow.
But according to legend, the plans weren't actually lost: Banneker and the Ellicotts had worked closely with L'Enfant and his plans while surveying the city's site. As the University of Massachusetts explains, Banneker had actually committed the plans to memory "[and] was able to reproduce the complete layout—streets, parks, major buildings." However, the University of Massachusetts also points out that other historians doubt Banneker had any involvement in this part of the survey at all, instead saying that Andrew and his brother were the ones who recreated L'Enfant's plan. It's an intriguing myth, but it may only be that.
With limited materials having been preserved related to Banneker's life and career, there's been a fair amount of legend and misinformation presented.
{{cite web}}: |author= has generic name (help)Perhaps owing to the scarcity of recorded fact about his remarkable life, and because he was often invoked symbolically to advance social causes like abolition, Banneker's story has been susceptible to mythmaking. He has been incorrectly credited with drawing the street grid of Washington, D.C., making the first clock on the Eastern seaboard, being the first professional astronomer in America, and discovering the seventeen-year birth cycle of cicadas.
Washington's core was laid out by Pierre L'Enfant, a French-American engineer and city planner, when the federal government decided it needed a new capitol. George Washington carved out 10 miles square on the Potomac River, and appointed L'Enfant in 1791 to plan an ambitious new seat of government.
But L'Enfant didn't exactly carry out his vision alone: He was dismissed from the job in 1792—and he reportedly took his layout with him. That's when Benjamin Banneker, a free black man who had surveyed the capital and helped establish its boundary points, stepped in. Banneker is said to have redrawn L'Enfant's plans from memory in two days, though whether actually he did has been debated by historians; his history and legacy have yet to be fully excavated.
L'Enfant's plans were well received, but he proved to be extremely difficult to work with, arguing incessantly with the commissioners in charge of the capital project. .... When L'Enfant left the project, he took all the designs with him, leaving the project in disarray.
Unsure of how to proceed, Ellicott and the other planners feared they might have to start from scratch. According to writer Gaius Chamberlain, "Banneker surprised them when he asserted that he could reproduce the plans from memory and in two days did exactly as he had promised."
There has been much controversy over the years about whether such an event actually happened. Some historians claim that many of the facts about Banneker's life were embellished or mythologized, leaving the fact that he was able to reimagine L'Enfant's plans in dispute. Others have theorized that it was Andrew Ellicott's brother Benjamin who aided in redrawing the plans from memory, theorizing that he was confused with Banneker because they shared the same first name.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)So when a lot of people think of Benjamin Banneker, they may know him because of the story of him assisting with the layout of the nation's capital in Washington, DC. And I was troubled to find out that with no real evidence legend has it that Benjamin, Banneker single handedly laid out in, develop the plans for Washington DC himself with no help.
And this is the popular narrative in a lot of circles. And even in the mainstream media, the Washington Post published the story citing this is fact, and this is part of his mythology and it's probably untrue, but it made me wonder, like, why do people embellish history? Why would someone take a man like Banneker with the real moral and professional greatness, and then exaggerate a story with things uncertain. Why do we embellish historical figures in general? Maybe in this case, there is something to prove black people have latched onto the great figures to prove competence and to prove value. Maybe it really was thought to be the truth.
A number of fictional accounts of Banneker are available. All of them were dependent upon the following: Proceedings of the Maryland Historical Society for 1837 and 1854 which respectively contain the accounts of Banneker by John B. H. Latrobe and Martha E. Tyson. They were subsequently reprinted as pamphlets.
Recent biographical accounts of Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), a mulatto whose father was a native African and whose grandmother was English, have done his memory a disservice by obscuring his real achievements under a cloud of extravagant claims to scientific accomplishment that have no foundation in fact. The single notable exception is Silvio A. Bedini's The Life of Benjamin Banneker (New York, 1972), a work of painstaking research and scrupulous attention to accuracy which also benefits from the author's discovery of important and hitherto unavailable manuscript sources. However, as Bedini points out, the story of Banneker's involvement in the survey of the Federal District "rests on extremely meager documentation" (p. 104). This consists of a single mention by TJ, two brief statements by Banneker himself, and the newspaper allusion quoted above. In consequence, Bedini's otherwise reliable biography accepts the version of Banneker's role in this episode as presented in reminiscences of nineteenth-century authors. These recollections, deriving in large part from members of the Ellicott family, who were prompted by Quaker inclinations to justice and equality, have compounded the confusion. The nature of TJ's connection with Banneker is treated in the Editorial Note to the group of documents under 30 Aug. 1791, but because of the obscured record it is necessary here to attempt a clarification of the role of this modest, self-taught tobacco farmer in the laying out of the national capital.
First of all, because of unwarranted claims to the contrary, it must be pointed out that there is no evidence whatever that Banneker had anything to do with the survey of the Federal City or indeed with the final establishment of the boundaries of the Federal District. All available testimony shows that he was present only during the few weeks early in 1791 when the rough preliminary survey of the ten mile square was made; that, after this was concluded and before the final survey was begun, he returned to his farm and his astronomical studies in April, accompanying Ellicott part way on his brief journey back to Philadelphia; and that thenceforth he had no connection with the mapping of the seat of government. ...
In any case, Banneker's participation in the surveying of the Federal District was unquestionably brief and his role uncertain.
Teachers who want reliable information on African American history often don't know where to turn. Many have unfortunately looked to unreliable books and publications by Afrocentric writers. The African American Baseline Essays, developed by the public school system in Portland, Ore., are the most widespread Afrocentric teaching material. Educators should be aware of their crippling flaws. ....
"Thomas Jefferson appointed Benjamin Banneker to survey the site for the capital, Washington, D.C.; ...." according to the essay on African American scientists.
Had the author consulted "The Life of Benjamin Banneker" by Silvio Bedini, considered the definitive biography, he would have discovered no evidence for these claims. Jefferson appointed Andrew Ellicott to conduct the survey; Ellicott made Banneker his assistant for three months in 1791.
The Banneker story, impressive as it was, got embellished in 1987, when the public school system in Portland, Oregon, published African-American Baseline Essays, a thick stack of loose-leaf background papers for teachers, commissioned to encourage black history instruction. They have been used in Detroit, Atlanta, Fort Lauderdale, Newark, and scattered schools elsewhere, although they have been attacked for gross inaccuracy in an entire literature of detailed criticism by respected historians. ....
Austin H. Kiplinger and Walter E. Washington write that a proposed city museum at Mount Vernon Square will remind visitors that "George Washington engaged Pierre L' Enfant to map the city and about how Benjamin Banneker [helped] complete the project" [Close to Home, May 7]. Let's hope not.
Benjamin Banneker performed astronomical observations in 1791 when assisting Maj. Andrew Ellicott in a survey of the federal District's boundaries. He departed three months after the survey began, more than a year before its completion.
Meanwhile, a "Plan for the City of Washington" was drawn by one "Peter Charles L'Enfant" (sic). When George Washington chose to dismiss L'Enfant, it was Ellicott who revised L'Enfant's plan and completed the city's mapping. Banneker played no part in this.
This very well-researched book also helps lay to rest some of the myths about what Banneker did and did not do during his most unusual lifetime; unfortunately, many websites and books continue to propagate these myths, probably because those authors do not understand what Banneker actually accomplished. Many state, for example, that Banneker's clock was an exact copy of one he saw, which is not true – he figured out the mathematics and physics on his own for a clock made out of wood, instead of trying simply to copy the small pocket watch that he was lent to observe. However remarkable this clock was, it was not the first clock made in America. Other sources continually repeat the myth that when Pierre l'Enfant was fired from the job of laying out the new Federal City, Benjamin Banneker recreated l'Enfant's plans from memory. Bedini lays this myth to rest .....
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)Benjamin Banneker's achievements, against the odds, made him an American hero, but he has been mythologized to some extent.
For example, John Lockwood said Banneker "helped re-create the plans for the city of Washington," but Banneker actually finished his work on the survey of the perimeter of the District and went home to Ellicott Mills in April 1791, never to return. Pierre L'Enfant did not depart Washington until the following February, leaving Benjamin Ellicott, a brother of the principal surveyor, to draw a small version of the plan to be engraved.
.
The conflicts surrounding L'Enfant gave rise to an often–repeated story that involved Banneker. According to the story, Banneker, having seen the original design for the city only once, re-created it in detail after L'Enfant returned to France with the original plans. This legend has led some people to credit Banneker with a greater role in creating the capital city. However, there is no evidence that Banneker contributed anything to the design of the city or that he ever met L'Enfant.
Modern historians acknowledge that the inaccurate information—the myths surrounding Banneker—resulted in his contributions to the city being overvalued. Unfortunately, those myths sometimes obscure Banneker's greatest contribution to society—the almanacs that he would publish in his later years.
(Banneker's) life and work have become enshrouded in legend and anecdote.
How did the myth of Banneker helping Ellicott remember the plan take hold? I believe it is because the first name of the brother who helped Ellicott is Benjamin, and so Benjamin Banneker was mistaken for Benjamin Ellicott. I think it is nonsense to assume that when L'Enfant refused access to the "original" plan that meant that Ellicott had to rely on memory to reconstruct the plan. L'Enfant had the "large" plan. Ellicott probably had access to small renditions or drafts of the plan which, of course, he and his brother had helped create by their surveys of the city.
Over the 200 years since the death of Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), his story has become a muddled combination of fact, inference, misinformation, hyperbole, and legend. Like many other figures throughout history, the small amount of surviving source material has nurtured the development of a degree of mythology surrounding his story.
In 1806, shortly after Banneker's death, a fire at his home destroyed most of his personal papers (Gillispie). This gap in substantial archival material has hardly hindered the development of the Benjamin Banneker legend; perhaps it has even aided its growth. ..... The narrative that tells of Banneker's life as one of mythical success and unprecedented exceptionalism easily draws an audience, but it washes over what might be more intellectually rewarding questions about the man's life. .... For now, the legend of Benjamin Banneker will continue to exist in his old almanacs and in present culture, serving as an inspiring enigma for those who wonder what lies beyond the surface-level stories of the past.
Meanwhile Andrew Ellicott, the nation's Surveyor General, finished surveying the boundary lines of the federal district, and joined L'Enfant in laying out the city. (Ellicott showed a fine sense of the opportunity presented by the project by hiring a mathematician who was a "free Negro," to help with the survey. The Georgetown newspaper noted the significance of Benjamin Banneker's participation but, nearly sixty years old, he left the arduous project in May and returned to Baltimore to publish his almanac, and thus, contrary to legend, had nothing to do with L'Enfant's plan.)
..., much myth and anecdote surround the life and work of Banneker. An uncertain legacy grew, in part, from the destruction of almost all his papers and possessions when his log cabin home burnt down at the moment he was being buried.
Banneker's life became the source of legend after his death, with many attributing certain accomplishments to him for which there is little or no evidence in the historical record.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)(Banneker's clock) may have been the first clock ever assembled completely from American parts, according to (Elizabeth Ross) Haynes (although other historians have since disputed this). ... The plans for the large city were laid out by French architect and engineer Pierre Charles L'Enfant, who volunteered for service in the American Revolution's Continental Army and was hired for the project by George Washington in 1791. Before long, however, tensions mounted over its direction and progress of the project, and when L'Enfant was fired in 1792, he took off with the plans in tow.
But according to legend, the plans weren't actually lost: Banneker and the Ellicotts had worked closely with L'Enfant and his plans while surveying the city's site. As the University of Massachusetts explains, Banneker had actually committed the plans to memory "[and] was able to reproduce the complete layout—streets, parks, major buildings." However, the University of Massachusetts also points out that other historians doubt Banneker had any involvement in this part of the survey at all, instead saying that Andrew and his brother were the ones who recreated L'Enfant's plan. It's an intriguing myth, but it may only be that.
With limited materials having been preserved related to Banneker's life and career, there's been a fair amount of legend and misinformation presented.
{{cite web}}: |author= has generic name (help)Perhaps owing to the scarcity of recorded fact about his remarkable life, and because he was often invoked symbolically to advance social causes like abolition, Banneker's story has been susceptible to mythmaking. He has been incorrectly credited with drawing the street grid of Washington, D.C., making the first clock on the Eastern seaboard, being the first professional astronomer in America, and discovering the seventeen-year birth cycle of cicadas.
Washington's core was laid out by Pierre L'Enfant, a French-American engineer and city planner, when the federal government decided it needed a new capitol. George Washington carved out 10 miles square on the Potomac River, and appointed L'Enfant in 1791 to plan an ambitious new seat of government.
But L'Enfant didn't exactly carry out his vision alone: He was dismissed from the job in 1792—and he reportedly took his layout with him. That's when Benjamin Banneker, a free black man who had surveyed the capital and helped establish its boundary points, stepped in. Banneker is said to have redrawn L'Enfant's plans from memory in two days, though whether actually he did has been debated by historians; his history and legacy have yet to be fully excavated.
L'Enfant's plans were well received, but he proved to be extremely difficult to work with, arguing incessantly with the commissioners in charge of the capital project. .... When L'Enfant left the project, he took all the designs with him, leaving the project in disarray.
Unsure of how to proceed, Ellicott and the other planners feared they might have to start from scratch. According to writer Gaius Chamberlain, "Banneker surprised them when he asserted that he could reproduce the plans from memory and in two days did exactly as he had promised."
There has been much controversy over the years about whether such an event actually happened. Some historians claim that many of the facts about Banneker's life were embellished or mythologized, leaving the fact that he was able to reimagine L'Enfant's plans in dispute. Others have theorized that it was Andrew Ellicott's brother Benjamin who aided in redrawing the plans from memory, theorizing that he was confused with Banneker because they shared the same first name.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)So when a lot of people think of Benjamin Banneker, they may know him because of the story of him assisting with the layout of the nation's capital in Washington, DC. And I was troubled to find out that with no real evidence legend has it that Benjamin, Banneker single handedly laid out in, develop the plans for Washington DC himself with no help.
And this is the popular narrative in a lot of circles. And even in the mainstream media, the Washington Post published the story citing this is fact, and this is part of his mythology and it's probably untrue, but it made me wonder, like, why do people embellish history? Why would someone take a man like Banneker with the real moral and professional greatness, and then exaggerate a story with things uncertain. Why do we embellish historical figures in general? Maybe in this case, there is something to prove black people have latched onto the great figures to prove competence and to prove value. Maybe it really was thought to be the truth.
A number of fictional accounts of Banneker are available. All of them were dependent upon the following: Proceedings of the Maryland Historical Society for 1837 and 1854 which respectively contain the accounts of Banneker by John B. H. Latrobe and Martha E. Tyson. They were subsequently reprinted as pamphlets.
Recent biographical accounts of Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), a mulatto whose father was a native African and whose grandmother was English, have done his memory a disservice by obscuring his real achievements under a cloud of extravagant claims to scientific accomplishment that have no foundation in fact. The single notable exception is Silvio A. Bedini's The Life of Benjamin Banneker (New York, 1972), a work of painstaking research and scrupulous attention to accuracy which also benefits from the author's discovery of important and hitherto unavailable manuscript sources. However, as Bedini points out, the story of Banneker's involvement in the survey of the Federal District "rests on extremely meager documentation" (p. 104). This consists of a single mention by TJ, two brief statements by Banneker himself, and the newspaper allusion quoted above. In consequence, Bedini's otherwise reliable biography accepts the version of Banneker's role in this episode as presented in reminiscences of nineteenth-century authors. These recollections, deriving in large part from members of the Ellicott family, who were prompted by Quaker inclinations to justice and equality, have compounded the confusion. The nature of TJ's connection with Banneker is treated in the Editorial Note to the group of documents under 30 Aug. 1791, but because of the obscured record it is necessary here to attempt a clarification of the role of this modest, self-taught tobacco farmer in the laying out of the national capital.
First of all, because of unwarranted claims to the contrary, it must be pointed out that there is no evidence whatever that Banneker had anything to do with the survey of the Federal City or indeed with the final establishment of the boundaries of the Federal District. All available testimony shows that he was present only during the few weeks early in 1791 when the rough preliminary survey of the ten mile square was made; that, after this was concluded and before the final survey was begun, he returned to his farm and his astronomical studies in April, accompanying Ellicott part way on his brief journey back to Philadelphia; and that thenceforth he had no connection with the mapping of the seat of government. ...
In any case, Banneker's participation in the surveying of the Federal District was unquestionably brief and his role uncertain.
Teachers who want reliable information on African American history often don't know where to turn. Many have unfortunately looked to unreliable books and publications by Afrocentric writers. The African American Baseline Essays, developed by the public school system in Portland, Ore., are the most widespread Afrocentric teaching material. Educators should be aware of their crippling flaws. ....
"Thomas Jefferson appointed Benjamin Banneker to survey the site for the capital, Washington, D.C.; ...." according to the essay on African American scientists.
Had the author consulted "The Life of Benjamin Banneker" by Silvio Bedini, considered the definitive biography, he would have discovered no evidence for these claims. Jefferson appointed Andrew Ellicott to conduct the survey; Ellicott made Banneker his assistant for three months in 1791.
The Banneker story, impressive as it was, got embellished in 1987, when the public school system in Portland, Oregon, published African-American Baseline Essays, a thick stack of loose-leaf background papers for teachers, commissioned to encourage black history instruction. They have been used in Detroit, Atlanta, Fort Lauderdale, Newark, and scattered schools elsewhere, although they have been attacked for gross inaccuracy in an entire literature of detailed criticism by respected historians. ....
Austin H. Kiplinger and Walter E. Washington write that a proposed city museum at Mount Vernon Square will remind visitors that "George Washington engaged Pierre L' Enfant to map the city and about how Benjamin Banneker [helped] complete the project" [Close to Home, May 7]. Let's hope not.
Benjamin Banneker performed astronomical observations in 1791 when assisting Maj. Andrew Ellicott in a survey of the federal District's boundaries. He departed three months after the survey began, more than a year before its completion.
Meanwhile, a "Plan for the City of Washington" was drawn by one "Peter Charles L'Enfant" (sic). When George Washington chose to dismiss L'Enfant, it was Ellicott who revised L'Enfant's plan and completed the city's mapping. Banneker played no part in this.
This very well-researched book also helps lay to rest some of the myths about what Banneker did and did not do during his most unusual lifetime; unfortunately, many websites and books continue to propagate these myths, probably because those authors do not understand what Banneker actually accomplished. Many state, for example, that Banneker's clock was an exact copy of one he saw, which is not true – he figured out the mathematics and physics on his own for a clock made out of wood, instead of trying simply to copy the small pocket watch that he was lent to observe. However remarkable this clock was, it was not the first clock made in America. Other sources continually repeat the myth that when Pierre l'Enfant was fired from the job of laying out the new Federal City, Benjamin Banneker recreated l'Enfant's plans from memory. Bedini lays this myth to rest .....
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)Benjamin Banneker's achievements, against the odds, made him an American hero, but he has been mythologized to some extent.
For example, John Lockwood said Banneker "helped re-create the plans for the city of Washington," but Banneker actually finished his work on the survey of the perimeter of the District and went home to Ellicott Mills in April 1791, never to return. Pierre L'Enfant did not depart Washington until the following February, leaving Benjamin Ellicott, a brother of the principal surveyor, to draw a small version of the plan to be engraved.
.
The conflicts surrounding L'Enfant gave rise to an often–repeated story that involved Banneker. According to the story, Banneker, having seen the original design for the city only once, re-created it in detail after L'Enfant returned to France with the original plans. This legend has led some people to credit Banneker with a greater role in creating the capital city. However, there is no evidence that Banneker contributed anything to the design of the city or that he ever met L'Enfant.
Modern historians acknowledge that the inaccurate information—the myths surrounding Banneker—resulted in his contributions to the city being overvalued. Unfortunately, those myths sometimes obscure Banneker's greatest contribution to society—the almanacs that he would publish in his later years.
(Banneker's) life and work have become enshrouded in legend and anecdote.
How did the myth of Banneker helping Ellicott remember the plan take hold? I believe it is because the first name of the brother who helped Ellicott is Benjamin, and so Benjamin Banneker was mistaken for Benjamin Ellicott. I think it is nonsense to assume that when L'Enfant refused access to the "original" plan that meant that Ellicott had to rely on memory to reconstruct the plan. L'Enfant had the "large" plan. Ellicott probably had access to small renditions or drafts of the plan which, of course, he and his brother had helped create by their surveys of the city.
Over the 200 years since the death of Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), his story has become a muddled combination of fact, inference, misinformation, hyperbole, and legend. Like many other figures throughout history, the small amount of surviving source material has nurtured the development of a degree of mythology surrounding his story.
In 1806, shortly after Banneker's death, a fire at his home destroyed most of his personal papers (Gillispie). This gap in substantial archival material has hardly hindered the development of the Benjamin Banneker legend; perhaps it has even aided its growth. ..... The narrative that tells of Banneker's life as one of mythical success and unprecedented exceptionalism easily draws an audience, but it washes over what might be more intellectually rewarding questions about the man's life. .... For now, the legend of Benjamin Banneker will continue to exist in his old almanacs and in present culture, serving as an inspiring enigma for those who wonder what lies beyond the surface-level stories of the past.
Meanwhile Andrew Ellicott, the nation's Surveyor General, finished surveying the boundary lines of the federal district, and joined L'Enfant in laying out the city. (Ellicott showed a fine sense of the opportunity presented by the project by hiring a mathematician who was a "free Negro," to help with the survey. The Georgetown newspaper noted the significance of Benjamin Banneker's participation but, nearly sixty years old, he left the arduous project in May and returned to Baltimore to publish his almanac, and thus, contrary to legend, had nothing to do with L'Enfant's plan.)
..., much myth and anecdote surround the life and work of Banneker. An uncertain legacy grew, in part, from the destruction of almost all his papers and possessions when his log cabin home burnt down at the moment he was being buried.
Banneker's life became the source of legend after his death, with many attributing certain accomplishments to him for which there is little or no evidence in the historical record.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)(Banneker's clock) may have been the first clock ever assembled completely from American parts, according to (Elizabeth Ross) Haynes (although other historians have since disputed this). ... The plans for the large city were laid out by French architect and engineer Pierre Charles L'Enfant, who volunteered for service in the American Revolution's Continental Army and was hired for the project by George Washington in 1791. Before long, however, tensions mounted over its direction and progress of the project, and when L'Enfant was fired in 1792, he took off with the plans in tow.
But according to legend, the plans weren't actually lost: Banneker and the Ellicotts had worked closely with L'Enfant and his plans while surveying the city's site. As the University of Massachusetts explains, Banneker had actually committed the plans to memory "[and] was able to reproduce the complete layout—streets, parks, major buildings." However, the University of Massachusetts also points out that other historians doubt Banneker had any involvement in this part of the survey at all, instead saying that Andrew and his brother were the ones who recreated L'Enfant's plan. It's an intriguing myth, but it may only be that.
With limited materials having been preserved related to Banneker's life and career, there's been a fair amount of legend and misinformation presented.
{{cite web}}: |author= has generic name (help)Perhaps owing to the scarcity of recorded fact about his remarkable life, and because he was often invoked symbolically to advance social causes like abolition, Banneker's story has been susceptible to mythmaking. He has been incorrectly credited with drawing the street grid of Washington, D.C., making the first clock on the Eastern seaboard, being the first professional astronomer in America, and discovering the seventeen-year birth cycle of cicadas.
Washington's core was laid out by Pierre L'Enfant, a French-American engineer and city planner, when the federal government decided it needed a new capitol. George Washington carved out 10 miles square on the Potomac River, and appointed L'Enfant in 1791 to plan an ambitious new seat of government.
But L'Enfant didn't exactly carry out his vision alone: He was dismissed from the job in 1792—and he reportedly took his layout with him. That's when Benjamin Banneker, a free black man who had surveyed the capital and helped establish its boundary points, stepped in. Banneker is said to have redrawn L'Enfant's plans from memory in two days, though whether actually he did has been debated by historians; his history and legacy have yet to be fully excavated.
L'Enfant's plans were well received, but he proved to be extremely difficult to work with, arguing incessantly with the commissioners in charge of the capital project. .... When L'Enfant left the project, he took all the designs with him, leaving the project in disarray.
Unsure of how to proceed, Ellicott and the other planners feared they might have to start from scratch. According to writer Gaius Chamberlain, "Banneker surprised them when he asserted that he could reproduce the plans from memory and in two days did exactly as he had promised."
There has been much controversy over the years about whether such an event actually happened. Some historians claim that many of the facts about Banneker's life were embellished or mythologized, leaving the fact that he was able to reimagine L'Enfant's plans in dispute. Others have theorized that it was Andrew Ellicott's brother Benjamin who aided in redrawing the plans from memory, theorizing that he was confused with Banneker because they shared the same first name.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)So when a lot of people think of Benjamin Banneker, they may know him because of the story of him assisting with the layout of the nation's capital in Washington, DC. And I was troubled to find out that with no real evidence legend has it that Benjamin, Banneker single handedly laid out in, develop the plans for Washington DC himself with no help.
And this is the popular narrative in a lot of circles. And even in the mainstream media, the Washington Post published the story citing this is fact, and this is part of his mythology and it's probably untrue, but it made me wonder, like, why do people embellish history? Why would someone take a man like Banneker with the real moral and professional greatness, and then exaggerate a story with things uncertain. Why do we embellish historical figures in general? Maybe in this case, there is something to prove black people have latched onto the great figures to prove competence and to prove value. Maybe it really was thought to be the truth.
Teachers who want reliable information on African American history often don't know where to turn. Many have unfortunately looked to unreliable books and publications by Afrocentric writers. The African American Baseline Essays, developed by the public school system in Portland, Ore., are the most widespread Afrocentric teaching material. Educators should be aware of their crippling flaws. ....
"Thomas Jefferson appointed Benjamin Banneker to survey the site for the capital, Washington, D.C.; ...." according to the essay on African American scientists.
Had the author consulted "The Life of Benjamin Banneker" by Silvio Bedini, considered the definitive biography, he would have discovered no evidence for these claims. Jefferson appointed Andrew Ellicott to conduct the survey; Ellicott made Banneker his assistant for three months in 1791.
.
The conflicts surrounding L'Enfant gave rise to an often—repeated story that involved Banneker. According to the story, Banneker, having seen the original design for the city only once, re-created it in detail after L'Enfant returned to France with the original plans. This legend has led some people to credit Banneker with a greater role in creating the capital city. However, there is no evidence that Banneker contributed anything to the design of the city or that he ever met L'Enfant.
Modern historians acknowledge that the inaccurate information—the myths surrounding Banneker—resulted in his contributions to the city being overvalued. Unfortunately, those myths sometimes obscure Banneker's greatest contribution to society—the almanacs that he would publish in his later years.
Perhaps owing to the scarcity of recorded fact about his remarkable life, and because he was often invoked symbolically to advance social causes like abolition, Banneker's story has been susceptible to mythmaking. He has been incorrectly credited with drawing the street grid of Washington, D.C., ....
... Wefald writes that when Jefferson received a letter and almanac from Benjamin Banneker, Jefferson was "honest enough to change his position." Jefferson did not say that he had changed his opinion of the intellectual abilities of blacks. In his letter to Banneker, Aug. 30, 1791, Jefferson merely said: "No body wishes more than I do to see such proofs as you exhibit, that nature has given to our black brethren, talents equal to those of the other colors of men, and that the appearance of a want of them is owing merely to the degraded condition of their existence, both in Africa & America." Closely read, Jefferson's letter is only an indication that he "wishes to see such proofs", but there is no definite indication that he changed his mind. On Banneker's abilities Jefferson was ambivalent.
Jefferson's letter in reply was tepid and noncommittal:
Jefferson replied promptly and politely – but ambiguously on the subject of slavery:
In "Exhibition: Thomas Jefferson: Creating A Virginia Republic: Benjamin Banneker: Talents equal to those of the other colors of men". Library of Congress. April 24, 2000. Archived from the original on February 5, 2021. Retrieved February 28, 2021.
Notes: ... . While serving as secretary of state, Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), one of Virginia's largest planters and slaveholders, wrote this 30 August 1791 response to Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), an African-American mathematician and surveyor living in Maryland, who had written a forceful letter to Jefferson the day before, chastising him for holding slaves and questioning his sincerity as a "friend of liberty." .... In a polite response to Banneker's August 1791 letter, Jefferson expressed his ambivalent feelings about slavery and assured the surveyor that "no body wishes more ardently to see a good system commenced for raising the condition" of blacks "to what it ought to be."
Banneker, Benjamin (09 November 1731–19 October 1806), farmer and astronomer, ...
{{cite encyclopedia}}: |author= has generic name (help)The astronomical journal is the only remaining artifact written in Banneker's hand, as his cabin and most of his belongings burned down in a fire as his body was being laid in the ground in 1806. On his instruction, the astronomical journal and some other loose manuscripts were removed upon his death and left to George Ellicott (1760–1832). The journal stayed in the hands of the Ellicott family until 1844 when it was deposited here at MdHS, where it was used by John H.B. Latrobe the following year. Quaker philanthropist and MdHS member Moses Sheppard (1771–1857) had the book rebound in Russian leather in 1852, and at this date most likely combined the astronomical journal with some of Banneker's loose manuscripts as well as a day book. At some unknown date the astronomical journal left MdHS and returned to the hands of the Ellicott family. It stayed there, away from the public's eye until 1987 when Ellicott family descendant Dorothea West Fitzhugh donated it in honor of her late husband Robert Tyson Fitzhugh. In 1999 MdHS sent the journal to the Center for Conservation in Philadelphia where it was rebound, deacidified, and given full conservation treatment.
The museum has desk and candle molds used by Benjamin.
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help).{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 394, Reference 7.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 394, Reference 8.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 394, Reference 9.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 12..{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 15.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 19.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) In "Cover: Benjamin Bannaker" (Document). Baltimore, Maryland: Maryland Historical Society. 2018.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)(b) {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 26.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 27.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 28.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) In Bedini, 1999, p. 224. Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 29.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) On display in the Benjamin Banneker Museum, Oella, Maryland. Photographed by F. Delventhal, February 18, 2017.Benjamin Banneker (page 551)
This place is situated in Klay, Bomi Terr., Liberia, its geographical coordinates are 6° 49' 44" North, 10° 46' 21" West and its original name (with diacritics) is Banaka.
Banaka (Banaka) is a populated place .... in Bomi County (Bomi), Liberia (Africa) .... . It is located at an elevation of 117 meters above sea level.
Banaka is a place with a very small population in the country of Liberia .... . Cities, towns and places near Banaka include Bonja, Kuodi, Wuefa and Fassa. The closest major cities include Monrovia, Freetown, Conakry and Daloa.
This place is situated in Klay, Bomi Terr., Liberia, its geographical coordinates are 6° 49' 44" North, 10° 46' 21" West and its original name (with diacritics) is Banaka.
Banaka (Banaka) is a populated place .... in Bomi County (Bomi), Liberia (Africa) .... . It is located at an elevation of 117 meters above sea level.
Banaka is a place with a very small population in the country of Liberia .... . Cities, towns and places near Banaka include Bonja, Kuodi, Wuefa and Fassa. The closest major cities include Monrovia, Freetown, Conakry and Daloa.
This place is situated in Klay, Bomi Terr., Liberia, its geographical coordinates are 6° 49' 44" North, 10° 46' 21" West and its original name (with diacritics) is Banaka.
Banaka (Banaka) is a populated place .... in Bomi County (Bomi), Liberia (Africa) .... . It is located at an elevation of 117 meters above sea level.
Banaka is a place with a very small population in the country of Liberia .... . Cities, towns and places near Banaka include Bonja, Kuodi, Wuefa and Fassa. The closest major cities include Monrovia, Freetown, Conakry and Daloa.
A number of fictional accounts of Banneker are available. All of them were dependent upon the following: Proceedings of the Maryland Historical Society for 1837 and 1854 which respectively contain the accounts of Banneker by John B. H. Latrobe and Martha E. Tyson. They were subsequently reprinted as pamphlets.
Recent biographical accounts of Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), a mulatto whose father was a native African and whose grandmother was English, have done his memory a disservice by obscuring his real achievements under a cloud of extravagant claims to scientific accomplishment that have no foundation in fact. The single notable exception is Silvio A. Bedini's The Life of Benjamin Banneker (New York, 1972), a work of painstaking research and scrupulous attention to accuracy which also benefits from the author's discovery of important and hitherto unavailable manuscript sources. However, as Bedini points out, the story of Banneker's involvement in the survey of the Federal District "rests on extremely meager documentation" (p. 104). This consists of a single mention by TJ, two brief statements by Banneker himself, and the newspaper allusion quoted above. In consequence, Bedini's otherwise reliable biography accepts the version of Banneker's role in this episode as presented in reminiscences of nineteenth-century authors. These recollections, deriving in large part from members of the Ellicott family, who were prompted by Quaker inclinations to justice and equality, have compounded the confusion. The nature of TJ's connection with Banneker is treated in the Editorial Note to the group of documents under 30 Aug. 1791, but because of the obscured record it is necessary here to attempt a clarification of the role of this modest, self-taught tobacco farmer in the laying out of the national capital.
First of all, because of unwarranted claims to the contrary, it must be pointed out that there is no evidence whatever that Banneker had anything to do with the survey of the Federal City or indeed with the final establishment of the boundaries of the Federal District. All available testimony shows that he was present only during the few weeks early in 1791 when the rough preliminary survey of the ten mile square was made; that, after this was concluded and before the final survey was begun, he returned to his farm and his astronomical studies in April, accompanying Ellicott part way on his brief journey back to Philadelphia; and that thenceforth he had no connection with the mapping of the seat of government. ...
In any case, Banneker's participation in the surveying of the Federal District was unquestionably brief and his role uncertain.
Teachers who want reliable information on African American history often don't know where to turn. Many have unfortunately looked to unreliable books and publications by Afrocentric writers. The African American Baseline Essays, developed by the public school system in Portland, Ore., are the most widespread Afrocentric teaching material. Educators should be aware of their crippling flaws. ....
"Thomas Jefferson appointed Benjamin Banneker to survey the site for the capital, Washington, D.C.; ...." according to the essay on African American scientists.
Had the author consulted "The Life of Benjamin Banneker" by Silvio Bedini, considered the definitive biography, he would have discovered no evidence for these claims. Jefferson appointed Andrew Ellicott to conduct the survey; Ellicott made Banneker his assistant for three months in 1791.
The Banneker story, impressive as it was, got embellished in 1987, when the public school system in Portland, Oregon, published African-American Baseline Essays, a thick stack of loose-leaf background papers for teachers, commissioned to encourage black history instruction. They have been used in Detroit, Atlanta, Fort Lauderdale, Newark, and scattered schools elsewhere, although they have been attacked for gross inaccuracy in an entire literature of detailed criticism by respected historians. ....
Austin H. Kiplinger and Walter E. Washington write that a proposed city museum at Mount Vernon Square will remind visitors that "George Washington engaged Pierre L' Enfant to map the city and about how Benjamin Banneker [helped] complete the project" [Close to Home, May 7]. Let's hope not.
Benjamin Banneker performed astronomical observations in 1791 when assisting Maj. Andrew Ellicott in a survey of the federal District's boundaries. He departed three months after the survey began, more than a year before its completion.
Meanwhile, a "Plan for the City of Washington" was drawn by one "Peter Charles L'Enfant" (sic). When George Washington chose to dismiss L'Enfant, it was Ellicott who revised L'Enfant's plan and completed the city's mapping. Banneker played no part in this.
This very well-researched book also helps lay to rest some of the myths about what Banneker did and did not do during his most unusual lifetime; unfortunately, many websites and books continue to propagate these myths, probably because those authors do not understand what Banneker actually accomplished. Many state, for example, that Banneker's clock was an exact copy of one he saw, which is not true – he figured out the mathematics and physics on his own for a clock made out of wood, instead of trying simply to copy the small pocket watch that he was lent to observe. However remarkable this clock was, it was not the first clock made in America. Other sources continually repeat the myth that when Pierre l'Enfant was fired from the job of laying out the new Federal City, Benjamin Banneker recreated l'Enfant's plans from memory. Bedini lays this myth to rest .....
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)Benjamin Banneker's achievements, against the odds, made him an American hero, but he has been mythologized to some extent.
For example, John Lockwood said Banneker "helped re-create the plans for the city of Washington," but Banneker actually finished his work on the survey of the perimeter of the District and went home to Ellicott Mills in April 1791, never to return. Pierre L'Enfant did not depart Washington until the following February, leaving Benjamin Ellicott, a brother of the principal surveyor, to draw a small version of the plan to be engraved.
.
The conflicts surrounding L'Enfant gave rise to an often–repeated story that involved Banneker. According to the story, Banneker, having seen the original design for the city only once, re-created it in detail after L'Enfant returned to France with the original plans. This legend has led some people to credit Banneker with a greater role in creating the capital city. However, there is no evidence that Banneker contributed anything to the design of the city or that he ever met L'Enfant.
Modern historians acknowledge that the inaccurate information—the myths surrounding Banneker—resulted in his contributions to the city being overvalued. Unfortunately, those myths sometimes obscure Banneker's greatest contribution to society—the almanacs that he would publish in his later years.
(Banneker's) life and work have become enshrouded in legend and anecdote.
How did the myth of Banneker helping Ellicott remember the plan take hold? I believe it is because the first name of the brother who helped Ellicott is Benjamin, and so Benjamin Banneker was mistaken for Benjamin Ellicott. I think it is nonsense to assume that when L'Enfant refused access to the "original" plan that meant that Ellicott had to rely on memory to reconstruct the plan. L'Enfant had the "large" plan. Ellicott probably had access to small renditions or drafts of the plan which, of course, he and his brother had helped create by their surveys of the city.
Over the 200 years since the death of Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), his story has become a muddled combination of fact, inference, misinformation, hyperbole, and legend. Like many other figures throughout history, the small amount of surviving source material has nurtured the development of a degree of mythology surrounding his story.
In 1806, shortly after Banneker's death, a fire at his home destroyed most of his personal papers (Gillispie). This gap in substantial archival material has hardly hindered the development of the Benjamin Banneker legend; perhaps it has even aided its growth. ..... The narrative that tells of Banneker's life as one of mythical success and unprecedented exceptionalism easily draws an audience, but it washes over what might be more intellectually rewarding questions about the man's life. .... For now, the legend of Benjamin Banneker will continue to exist in his old almanacs and in present culture, serving as an inspiring enigma for those who wonder what lies beyond the surface-level stories of the past.
Meanwhile Andrew Ellicott, the nation's Surveyor General, finished surveying the boundary lines of the federal district, and joined L'Enfant in laying out the city. (Ellicott showed a fine sense of the opportunity presented by the project by hiring a mathematician who was a "free Negro," to help with the survey. The Georgetown newspaper noted the significance of Benjamin Banneker's participation but, nearly sixty years old, he left the arduous project in May and returned to Baltimore to publish his almanac, and thus, contrary to legend, had nothing to do with L'Enfant's plan.)
..., much myth and anecdote surround the life and work of Banneker. An uncertain legacy grew, in part, from the destruction of almost all his papers and possessions when his log cabin home burnt down at the moment he was being buried.
Banneker's life became the source of legend after his death, with many attributing certain accomplishments to him for which there is little or no evidence in the historical record.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)(Banneker's clock) may have been the first clock ever assembled completely from American parts, according to (Elizabeth Ross) Haynes (although other historians have since disputed this). ... The plans for the large city were laid out by French architect and engineer Pierre Charles L'Enfant, who volunteered for service in the American Revolution's Continental Army and was hired for the project by George Washington in 1791. Before long, however, tensions mounted over its direction and progress of the project, and when L'Enfant was fired in 1792, he took off with the plans in tow.
But according to legend, the plans weren't actually lost: Banneker and the Ellicotts had worked closely with L'Enfant and his plans while surveying the city's site. As the University of Massachusetts explains, Banneker had actually committed the plans to memory "[and] was able to reproduce the complete layout—streets, parks, major buildings." However, the University of Massachusetts also points out that other historians doubt Banneker had any involvement in this part of the survey at all, instead saying that Andrew and his brother were the ones who recreated L'Enfant's plan. It's an intriguing myth, but it may only be that.
With limited materials having been preserved related to Banneker's life and career, there's been a fair amount of legend and misinformation presented.
{{cite web}}: |author= has generic name (help)Perhaps owing to the scarcity of recorded fact about his remarkable life, and because he was often invoked symbolically to advance social causes like abolition, Banneker's story has been susceptible to mythmaking. He has been incorrectly credited with drawing the street grid of Washington, D.C., making the first clock on the Eastern seaboard, being the first professional astronomer in America, and discovering the seventeen-year birth cycle of cicadas.
Washington's core was laid out by Pierre L'Enfant, a French-American engineer and city planner, when the federal government decided it needed a new capitol. George Washington carved out 10 miles square on the Potomac River, and appointed L'Enfant in 1791 to plan an ambitious new seat of government.
But L'Enfant didn't exactly carry out his vision alone: He was dismissed from the job in 1792—and he reportedly took his layout with him. That's when Benjamin Banneker, a free black man who had surveyed the capital and helped establish its boundary points, stepped in. Banneker is said to have redrawn L'Enfant's plans from memory in two days, though whether actually he did has been debated by historians; his history and legacy have yet to be fully excavated.
L'Enfant's plans were well received, but he proved to be extremely difficult to work with, arguing incessantly with the commissioners in charge of the capital project. .... When L'Enfant left the project, he took all the designs with him, leaving the project in disarray.
Unsure of how to proceed, Ellicott and the other planners feared they might have to start from scratch. According to writer Gaius Chamberlain, "Banneker surprised them when he asserted that he could reproduce the plans from memory and in two days did exactly as he had promised."
There has been much controversy over the years about whether such an event actually happened. Some historians claim that many of the facts about Banneker's life were embellished or mythologized, leaving the fact that he was able to reimagine L'Enfant's plans in dispute. Others have theorized that it was Andrew Ellicott's brother Benjamin who aided in redrawing the plans from memory, theorizing that he was confused with Banneker because they shared the same first name.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)So when a lot of people think of Benjamin Banneker, they may know him because of the story of him assisting with the layout of the nation's capital in Washington, DC. And I was troubled to find out that with no real evidence legend has it that Benjamin, Banneker single handedly laid out in, develop the plans for Washington DC himself with no help.
And this is the popular narrative in a lot of circles. And even in the mainstream media, the Washington Post published the story citing this is fact, and this is part of his mythology and it's probably untrue, but it made me wonder, like, why do people embellish history? Why would someone take a man like Banneker with the real moral and professional greatness, and then exaggerate a story with things uncertain. Why do we embellish historical figures in general? Maybe in this case, there is something to prove black people have latched onto the great figures to prove competence and to prove value. Maybe it really was thought to be the truth.
(Arith.) the method of solving problems by proceeding with each of two assumed numbers, according to the conditions of the problem, and by comparing the difference of the results with those of the numbers, deducing the correction to be applied to one of them to obtain the true result.
... Andrew Ellicott retained Banneker to make the astronomical calculations necessary to establish the location of the south corner stone, while Ellicott and the field crews did the actual surveying.
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help).{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 394, Reference 7.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 394, Reference 8.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 394, Reference 9.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 12..{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 15.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 19.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) In "Cover: Benjamin Bannaker" (Document). Baltimore, Maryland: Maryland Historical Society. 2018.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)(b) {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 26.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 27.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 28.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) In Bedini, 1999, p. 224. Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 29.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) On display in the Benjamin Banneker Museum, Oella, Maryland. Photographed by F. Delventhal, February 18, 2017.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) In Banneker, 1794, pp. 16–39.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 12..{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 15.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) In "Cover: Benjamin Bannaker" (Document). Baltimore, Maryland: Maryland Historical Society. 2018.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help).... "Banneker "wrote a proposal for the establishment of a United States Department of Peace," according to the essay on African American scientists.
Had the author consulted "The Life of Benjamin Banneker" by Silvio Bedini, considered the definitive biography, he would have discovered no evidence for these claims. .... Benjamin Rush authored the Department of Peace proposal; the confusion arose among earlier biographers because the proposal appeared in Banneker's 1793 almanac.
Perhaps owing to the scarcity of recorded fact about his remarkable life, and because he was often invoked symbolically to advance social causes like abolition, Banneker's story has been susceptible to mythmaking. He has been incorrectly credited with ......, making the first clock on the Eastern seaboard, being the first professional astronomer in America, and discovering the seventeen-year birth cycle of cicadas.
A number of fictional accounts of Banneker are available. All of them were dependent upon the following: Proceedings of the Maryland Historical Society for 1837 and 1854 which respectively contain the accounts of Banneker by John B. H. Latrobe and Martha E. Tyson. They were subsequently reprinted as pamphlets.
Recent biographical accounts of Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), a mulatto whose father was a native African and whose grandmother was English, have done his memory a disservice by obscuring his real achievements under a cloud of extravagant claims to scientific accomplishment that have no foundation in fact. The single notable exception is Silvio A. Bedini's The Life of Benjamin Banneker (New York, 1972), a work of painstaking research and scrupulous attention to accuracy which also benefits from the author's discovery of important and hitherto unavailable manuscript sources. However, as Bedini points out, the story of Banneker's involvement in the survey of the Federal District "rests on extremely meager documentation" (p. 104). This consists of a single mention by TJ, two brief statements by Banneker himself, and the newspaper allusion quoted above. In consequence, Bedini's otherwise reliable biography accepts the version of Banneker's role in this episode as presented in reminiscences of nineteenth-century authors. These recollections, deriving in large part from members of the Ellicott family, who were prompted by Quaker inclinations to justice and equality, have compounded the confusion. The nature of TJ's connection with Banneker is treated in the Editorial Note to the group of documents under 30 Aug. 1791, but because of the obscured record it is necessary here to attempt a clarification of the role of this modest, self-taught tobacco farmer in the laying out of the national capital.
First of all, because of unwarranted claims to the contrary, it must be pointed out that there is no evidence whatever that Banneker had anything to do with the survey of the Federal City or indeed with the final establishment of the boundaries of the Federal District. All available testimony shows that he was present only during the few weeks early in 1791 when the rough preliminary survey of the ten mile square was made; that, after this was concluded and before the final survey was begun, he returned to his farm and his astronomical studies in April, accompanying Ellicott part way on his brief journey back to Philadelphia; and that thenceforth he had no connection with the mapping of the seat of government. ...
In any case, Banneker's participation in the surveying of the Federal District was unquestionably brief and his role uncertain.
Teachers who want reliable information on African American history often don't know where to turn. Many have unfortunately looked to unreliable books and publications by Afrocentric writers. The African American Baseline Essays, developed by the public school system in Portland, Ore., are the most widespread Afrocentric teaching material. Educators should be aware of their crippling flaws. ....
"Thomas Jefferson appointed Benjamin Banneker to survey the site for the capital, Washington, D.C.; ...." according to the essay on African American scientists.
Had the author consulted "The Life of Benjamin Banneker" by Silvio Bedini, considered the definitive biography, he would have discovered no evidence for these claims. Jefferson appointed Andrew Ellicott to conduct the survey; Ellicott made Banneker his assistant for three months in 1791.
The Banneker story, impressive as it was, got embellished in 1987, when the public school system in Portland, Oregon, published African-American Baseline Essays, a thick stack of loose-leaf background papers for teachers, commissioned to encourage black history instruction. They have been used in Detroit, Atlanta, Fort Lauderdale, Newark, and scattered schools elsewhere, although they have been attacked for gross inaccuracy in an entire literature of detailed criticism by respected historians. ....
Austin H. Kiplinger and Walter E. Washington write that a proposed city museum at Mount Vernon Square will remind visitors that "George Washington engaged Pierre L' Enfant to map the city and about how Benjamin Banneker [helped] complete the project" [Close to Home, May 7]. Let's hope not.
Benjamin Banneker performed astronomical observations in 1791 when assisting Maj. Andrew Ellicott in a survey of the federal District's boundaries. He departed three months after the survey began, more than a year before its completion.
Meanwhile, a "Plan for the City of Washington" was drawn by one "Peter Charles L'Enfant" (sic). When George Washington chose to dismiss L'Enfant, it was Ellicott who revised L'Enfant's plan and completed the city's mapping. Banneker played no part in this.
This very well-researched book also helps lay to rest some of the myths about what Banneker did and did not do during his most unusual lifetime; unfortunately, many websites and books continue to propagate these myths, probably because those authors do not understand what Banneker actually accomplished. Many state, for example, that Banneker's clock was an exact copy of one he saw, which is not true – he figured out the mathematics and physics on his own for a clock made out of wood, instead of trying simply to copy the small pocket watch that he was lent to observe. However remarkable this clock was, it was not the first clock made in America. Other sources continually repeat the myth that when Pierre l'Enfant was fired from the job of laying out the new Federal City, Benjamin Banneker recreated l'Enfant's plans from memory. Bedini lays this myth to rest .....
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)Benjamin Banneker's achievements, against the odds, made him an American hero, but he has been mythologized to some extent.
For example, John Lockwood said Banneker "helped re-create the plans for the city of Washington," but Banneker actually finished his work on the survey of the perimeter of the District and went home to Ellicott Mills in April 1791, never to return. Pierre L'Enfant did not depart Washington until the following February, leaving Benjamin Ellicott, a brother of the principal surveyor, to draw a small version of the plan to be engraved.
.
The conflicts surrounding L'Enfant gave rise to an often–repeated story that involved Banneker. According to the story, Banneker, having seen the original design for the city only once, re-created it in detail after L'Enfant returned to France with the original plans. This legend has led some people to credit Banneker with a greater role in creating the capital city. However, there is no evidence that Banneker contributed anything to the design of the city or that he ever met L'Enfant.
Modern historians acknowledge that the inaccurate information—the myths surrounding Banneker—resulted in his contributions to the city being overvalued. Unfortunately, those myths sometimes obscure Banneker's greatest contribution to society—the almanacs that he would publish in his later years.
(Banneker's) life and work have become enshrouded in legend and anecdote.
How did the myth of Banneker helping Ellicott remember the plan take hold? I believe it is because the first name of the brother who helped Ellicott is Benjamin, and so Benjamin Banneker was mistaken for Benjamin Ellicott. I think it is nonsense to assume that when L'Enfant refused access to the "original" plan that meant that Ellicott had to rely on memory to reconstruct the plan. L'Enfant had the "large" plan. Ellicott probably had access to small renditions or drafts of the plan which, of course, he and his brother had helped create by their surveys of the city.
Over the 200 years since the death of Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), his story has become a muddled combination of fact, inference, misinformation, hyperbole, and legend. Like many other figures throughout history, the small amount of surviving source material has nurtured the development of a degree of mythology surrounding his story.
In 1806, shortly after Banneker's death, a fire at his home destroyed most of his personal papers (Gillispie). This gap in substantial archival material has hardly hindered the development of the Benjamin Banneker legend; perhaps it has even aided its growth. ..... The narrative that tells of Banneker's life as one of mythical success and unprecedented exceptionalism easily draws an audience, but it washes over what might be more intellectually rewarding questions about the man's life. .... For now, the legend of Benjamin Banneker will continue to exist in his old almanacs and in present culture, serving as an inspiring enigma for those who wonder what lies beyond the surface-level stories of the past.
Meanwhile Andrew Ellicott, the nation's Surveyor General, finished surveying the boundary lines of the federal district, and joined L'Enfant in laying out the city. (Ellicott showed a fine sense of the opportunity presented by the project by hiring a mathematician who was a "free Negro," to help with the survey. The Georgetown newspaper noted the significance of Benjamin Banneker's participation but, nearly sixty years old, he left the arduous project in May and returned to Baltimore to publish his almanac, and thus, contrary to legend, had nothing to do with L'Enfant's plan.)
..., much myth and anecdote surround the life and work of Banneker. An uncertain legacy grew, in part, from the destruction of almost all his papers and possessions when his log cabin home burnt down at the moment he was being buried.
Banneker's life became the source of legend after his death, with many attributing certain accomplishments to him for which there is little or no evidence in the historical record.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)(Banneker's clock) may have been the first clock ever assembled completely from American parts, according to (Elizabeth Ross) Haynes (although other historians have since disputed this). ... The plans for the large city were laid out by French architect and engineer Pierre Charles L'Enfant, who volunteered for service in the American Revolution's Continental Army and was hired for the project by George Washington in 1791. Before long, however, tensions mounted over its direction and progress of the project, and when L'Enfant was fired in 1792, he took off with the plans in tow.
But according to legend, the plans weren't actually lost: Banneker and the Ellicotts had worked closely with L'Enfant and his plans while surveying the city's site. As the University of Massachusetts explains, Banneker had actually committed the plans to memory "[and] was able to reproduce the complete layout—streets, parks, major buildings." However, the University of Massachusetts also points out that other historians doubt Banneker had any involvement in this part of the survey at all, instead saying that Andrew and his brother were the ones who recreated L'Enfant's plan. It's an intriguing myth, but it may only be that.
With limited materials having been preserved related to Banneker's life and career, there's been a fair amount of legend and misinformation presented.
{{cite web}}: |author= has generic name (help)Perhaps owing to the scarcity of recorded fact about his remarkable life, and because he was often invoked symbolically to advance social causes like abolition, Banneker's story has been susceptible to mythmaking. He has been incorrectly credited with drawing the street grid of Washington, D.C., making the first clock on the Eastern seaboard, being the first professional astronomer in America, and discovering the seventeen-year birth cycle of cicadas.
Washington's core was laid out by Pierre L'Enfant, a French-American engineer and city planner, when the federal government decided it needed a new capitol. George Washington carved out 10 miles square on the Potomac River, and appointed L'Enfant in 1791 to plan an ambitious new seat of government.
But L'Enfant didn't exactly carry out his vision alone: He was dismissed from the job in 1792—and he reportedly took his layout with him. That's when Benjamin Banneker, a free black man who had surveyed the capital and helped establish its boundary points, stepped in. Banneker is said to have redrawn L'Enfant's plans from memory in two days, though whether actually he did has been debated by historians; his history and legacy have yet to be fully excavated.
L'Enfant's plans were well received, but he proved to be extremely difficult to work with, arguing incessantly with the commissioners in charge of the capital project. .... When L'Enfant left the project, he took all the designs with him, leaving the project in disarray.
Unsure of how to proceed, Ellicott and the other planners feared they might have to start from scratch. According to writer Gaius Chamberlain, "Banneker surprised them when he asserted that he could reproduce the plans from memory and in two days did exactly as he had promised."
There has been much controversy over the years about whether such an event actually happened. Some historians claim that many of the facts about Banneker's life were embellished or mythologized, leaving the fact that he was able to reimagine L'Enfant's plans in dispute. Others have theorized that it was Andrew Ellicott's brother Benjamin who aided in redrawing the plans from memory, theorizing that he was confused with Banneker because they shared the same first name.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)So when a lot of people think of Benjamin Banneker, they may know him because of the story of him assisting with the layout of the nation's capital in Washington, DC. And I was troubled to find out that with no real evidence legend has it that Benjamin, Banneker single handedly laid out in, develop the plans for Washington DC himself with no help.
And this is the popular narrative in a lot of circles. And even in the mainstream media, the Washington Post published the story citing this is fact, and this is part of his mythology and it's probably untrue, but it made me wonder, like, why do people embellish history? Why would someone take a man like Banneker with the real moral and professional greatness, and then exaggerate a story with things uncertain. Why do we embellish historical figures in general? Maybe in this case, there is something to prove black people have latched onto the great figures to prove competence and to prove value. Maybe it really was thought to be the truth.
The museum has desk and candle molds used by Benjamin.
A number of fictional accounts of Banneker are available. All of them were dependent upon the following: Proceedings of the Maryland Historical Society for 1837 and 1854 which respectively contain the accounts of Banneker by John B. H. Latrobe and Martha E. Tyson. They were subsequently reprinted as pamphlets.
Recent biographical accounts of Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), a mulatto whose father was a native African and whose grandmother was English, have done his memory a disservice by obscuring his real achievements under a cloud of extravagant claims to scientific accomplishment that have no foundation in fact. The single notable exception is Silvio A. Bedini's The Life of Benjamin Banneker (New York, 1972), a work of painstaking research and scrupulous attention to accuracy which also benefits from the author's discovery of important and hitherto unavailable manuscript sources. However, as Bedini points out, the story of Banneker's involvement in the survey of the Federal District "rests on extremely meager documentation" (p. 104). This consists of a single mention by TJ, two brief statements by Banneker himself, and the newspaper allusion quoted above. In consequence, Bedini's otherwise reliable biography accepts the version of Banneker's role in this episode as presented in reminiscences of nineteenth-century authors. These recollections, deriving in large part from members of the Ellicott family, who were prompted by Quaker inclinations to justice and equality, have compounded the confusion. The nature of TJ's connection with Banneker is treated in the Editorial Note to the group of documents under 30 Aug. 1791, but because of the obscured record it is necessary here to attempt a clarification of the role of this modest, self-taught tobacco farmer in the laying out of the national capital.
First of all, because of unwarranted claims to the contrary, it must be pointed out that there is no evidence whatever that Banneker had anything to do with the survey of the Federal City or indeed with the final establishment of the boundaries of the Federal District. All available testimony shows that he was present only during the few weeks early in 1791 when the rough preliminary survey of the ten mile square was made; that, after this was concluded and before the final survey was begun, he returned to his farm and his astronomical studies in April, accompanying Ellicott part way on his brief journey back to Philadelphia; and that thenceforth he had no connection with the mapping of the seat of government. ...
In any case, Banneker's participation in the surveying of the Federal District was unquestionably brief and his role uncertain.
Teachers who want reliable information on African American history often don't know where to turn. Many have unfortunately looked to unreliable books and publications by Afrocentric writers. The African American Baseline Essays, developed by the public school system in Portland, Ore., are the most widespread Afrocentric teaching material. Educators should be aware of their crippling flaws. ....
"Thomas Jefferson appointed Benjamin Banneker to survey the site for the capital, Washington, D.C.; ...." according to the essay on African American scientists.
Had the author consulted "The Life of Benjamin Banneker" by Silvio Bedini, considered the definitive biography, he would have discovered no evidence for these claims. Jefferson appointed Andrew Ellicott to conduct the survey; Ellicott made Banneker his assistant for three months in 1791.
The Banneker story, impressive as it was, got embellished in 1987, when the public school system in Portland, Oregon, published African-American Baseline Essays, a thick stack of loose-leaf background papers for teachers, commissioned to encourage black history instruction. They have been used in Detroit, Atlanta, Fort Lauderdale, Newark, and scattered schools elsewhere, although they have been attacked for gross inaccuracy in an entire literature of detailed criticism by respected historians. ....
Austin H. Kiplinger and Walter E. Washington write that a proposed city museum at Mount Vernon Square will remind visitors that "George Washington engaged Pierre L' Enfant to map the city and about how Benjamin Banneker [helped] complete the project" [Close to Home, May 7]. Let's hope not.
Benjamin Banneker performed astronomical observations in 1791 when assisting Maj. Andrew Ellicott in a survey of the federal District's boundaries. He departed three months after the survey began, more than a year before its completion.
Meanwhile, a "Plan for the City of Washington" was drawn by one "Peter Charles L'Enfant" (sic). When George Washington chose to dismiss L'Enfant, it was Ellicott who revised L'Enfant's plan and completed the city's mapping. Banneker played no part in this.
This very well-researched book also helps lay to rest some of the myths about what Banneker did and did not do during his most unusual lifetime; unfortunately, many websites and books continue to propagate these myths, probably because those authors do not understand what Banneker actually accomplished. Many state, for example, that Banneker's clock was an exact copy of one he saw, which is not true – he figured out the mathematics and physics on his own for a clock made out of wood, instead of trying simply to copy the small pocket watch that he was lent to observe. However remarkable this clock was, it was not the first clock made in America. Other sources continually repeat the myth that when Pierre l'Enfant was fired from the job of laying out the new Federal City, Benjamin Banneker recreated l'Enfant's plans from memory. Bedini lays this myth to rest .....
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)Benjamin Banneker's achievements, against the odds, made him an American hero, but he has been mythologized to some extent.
For example, John Lockwood said Banneker "helped re-create the plans for the city of Washington," but Banneker actually finished his work on the survey of the perimeter of the District and went home to Ellicott Mills in April 1791, never to return. Pierre L'Enfant did not depart Washington until the following February, leaving Benjamin Ellicott, a brother of the principal surveyor, to draw a small version of the plan to be engraved.
.
The conflicts surrounding L'Enfant gave rise to an often–repeated story that involved Banneker. According to the story, Banneker, having seen the original design for the city only once, re-created it in detail after L'Enfant returned to France with the original plans. This legend has led some people to credit Banneker with a greater role in creating the capital city. However, there is no evidence that Banneker contributed anything to the design of the city or that he ever met L'Enfant.
Modern historians acknowledge that the inaccurate information—the myths surrounding Banneker—resulted in his contributions to the city being overvalued. Unfortunately, those myths sometimes obscure Banneker's greatest contribution to society—the almanacs that he would publish in his later years.
(Banneker's) life and work have become enshrouded in legend and anecdote.
How did the myth of Banneker helping Ellicott remember the plan take hold? I believe it is because the first name of the brother who helped Ellicott is Benjamin, and so Benjamin Banneker was mistaken for Benjamin Ellicott. I think it is nonsense to assume that when L'Enfant refused access to the "original" plan that meant that Ellicott had to rely on memory to reconstruct the plan. L'Enfant had the "large" plan. Ellicott probably had access to small renditions or drafts of the plan which, of course, he and his brother had helped create by their surveys of the city.
Over the 200 years since the death of Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), his story has become a muddled combination of fact, inference, misinformation, hyperbole, and legend. Like many other figures throughout history, the small amount of surviving source material has nurtured the development of a degree of mythology surrounding his story.
In 1806, shortly after Banneker's death, a fire at his home destroyed most of his personal papers (Gillispie). This gap in substantial archival material has hardly hindered the development of the Benjamin Banneker legend; perhaps it has even aided its growth. ..... The narrative that tells of Banneker's life as one of mythical success and unprecedented exceptionalism easily draws an audience, but it washes over what might be more intellectually rewarding questions about the man's life. .... For now, the legend of Benjamin Banneker will continue to exist in his old almanacs and in present culture, serving as an inspiring enigma for those who wonder what lies beyond the surface-level stories of the past.
Meanwhile Andrew Ellicott, the nation's Surveyor General, finished surveying the boundary lines of the federal district, and joined L'Enfant in laying out the city. (Ellicott showed a fine sense of the opportunity presented by the project by hiring a mathematician who was a "free Negro," to help with the survey. The Georgetown newspaper noted the significance of Benjamin Banneker's participation but, nearly sixty years old, he left the arduous project in May and returned to Baltimore to publish his almanac, and thus, contrary to legend, had nothing to do with L'Enfant's plan.)
..., much myth and anecdote surround the life and work of Banneker. An uncertain legacy grew, in part, from the destruction of almost all his papers and possessions when his log cabin home burnt down at the moment he was being buried.
Banneker's life became the source of legend after his death, with many attributing certain accomplishments to him for which there is little or no evidence in the historical record.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)(Banneker's clock) may have been the first clock ever assembled completely from American parts, according to (Elizabeth Ross) Haynes (although other historians have since disputed this). ... The plans for the large city were laid out by French architect and engineer Pierre Charles L'Enfant, who volunteered for service in the American Revolution's Continental Army and was hired for the project by George Washington in 1791. Before long, however, tensions mounted over its direction and progress of the project, and when L'Enfant was fired in 1792, he took off with the plans in tow.
But according to legend, the plans weren't actually lost: Banneker and the Ellicotts had worked closely with L'Enfant and his plans while surveying the city's site. As the University of Massachusetts explains, Banneker had actually committed the plans to memory "[and] was able to reproduce the complete layout—streets, parks, major buildings." However, the University of Massachusetts also points out that other historians doubt Banneker had any involvement in this part of the survey at all, instead saying that Andrew and his brother were the ones who recreated L'Enfant's plan. It's an intriguing myth, but it may only be that.
With limited materials having been preserved related to Banneker's life and career, there's been a fair amount of legend and misinformation presented.
{{cite web}}: |author= has generic name (help)Perhaps owing to the scarcity of recorded fact about his remarkable life, and because he was often invoked symbolically to advance social causes like abolition, Banneker's story has been susceptible to mythmaking. He has been incorrectly credited with drawing the street grid of Washington, D.C., making the first clock on the Eastern seaboard, being the first professional astronomer in America, and discovering the seventeen-year birth cycle of cicadas.
Washington's core was laid out by Pierre L'Enfant, a French-American engineer and city planner, when the federal government decided it needed a new capitol. George Washington carved out 10 miles square on the Potomac River, and appointed L'Enfant in 1791 to plan an ambitious new seat of government.
But L'Enfant didn't exactly carry out his vision alone: He was dismissed from the job in 1792—and he reportedly took his layout with him. That's when Benjamin Banneker, a free black man who had surveyed the capital and helped establish its boundary points, stepped in. Banneker is said to have redrawn L'Enfant's plans from memory in two days, though whether actually he did has been debated by historians; his history and legacy have yet to be fully excavated.
L'Enfant's plans were well received, but he proved to be extremely difficult to work with, arguing incessantly with the commissioners in charge of the capital project. .... When L'Enfant left the project, he took all the designs with him, leaving the project in disarray.
Unsure of how to proceed, Ellicott and the other planners feared they might have to start from scratch. According to writer Gaius Chamberlain, "Banneker surprised them when he asserted that he could reproduce the plans from memory and in two days did exactly as he had promised."
There has been much controversy over the years about whether such an event actually happened. Some historians claim that many of the facts about Banneker's life were embellished or mythologized, leaving the fact that he was able to reimagine L'Enfant's plans in dispute. Others have theorized that it was Andrew Ellicott's brother Benjamin who aided in redrawing the plans from memory, theorizing that he was confused with Banneker because they shared the same first name.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)So when a lot of people think of Benjamin Banneker, they may know him because of the story of him assisting with the layout of the nation's capital in Washington, DC. And I was troubled to find out that with no real evidence legend has it that Benjamin, Banneker single handedly laid out in, develop the plans for Washington DC himself with no help.
And this is the popular narrative in a lot of circles. And even in the mainstream media, the Washington Post published the story citing this is fact, and this is part of his mythology and it's probably untrue, but it made me wonder, like, why do people embellish history? Why would someone take a man like Banneker with the real moral and professional greatness, and then exaggerate a story with things uncertain. Why do we embellish historical figures in general? Maybe in this case, there is something to prove black people have latched onto the great figures to prove competence and to prove value. Maybe it really was thought to be the truth.
After the war, he (Ellicott) returned to Fountainvale, the family home in Ellicott Upper Mills, and published a series of almanacs, The United States Almanack. (The earliest known copy is dated 1782.)
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help).{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 394, Reference 7.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 394, Reference 8.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 394, Reference 9.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 12..{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 15.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 19.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) In "Cover: Benjamin Bannaker" (Document). Baltimore, Maryland: Maryland Historical Society. 2018.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)(b) {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 26.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 27.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 28.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) In Bedini, 1999, p. 224. Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 29.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 12..{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 15.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) In "Cover: Benjamin Bannaker" (Document). Baltimore, Maryland: Maryland Historical Society. 2018.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)A number of fictional accounts of Banneker are available. All of them were dependent upon the following: Proceedings of the Maryland Historical Society for 1837 and 1854 which respectively contain the accounts of Banneker by John B. H. Latrobe and Martha E. Tyson. They were subsequently reprinted as pamphlets.
Recent biographical accounts of Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), a mulatto whose father was a native African and whose grandmother was English, have done his memory a disservice by obscuring his real achievements under a cloud of extravagant claims to scientific accomplishment that have no foundation in fact. The single notable exception is Silvio A. Bedini's The Life of Benjamin Banneker (New York, 1972), a work of painstaking research and scrupulous attention to accuracy which also benefits from the author's discovery of important and hitherto unavailable manuscript sources. However, as Bedini points out, the story of Banneker's involvement in the survey of the Federal District "rests on extremely meager documentation" (p. 104). This consists of a single mention by TJ, two brief statements by Banneker himself, and the newspaper allusion quoted above. In consequence, Bedini's otherwise reliable biography accepts the version of Banneker's role in this episode as presented in reminiscences of nineteenth-century authors. These recollections, deriving in large part from members of the Ellicott family, who were prompted by Quaker inclinations to justice and equality, have compounded the confusion. The nature of TJ's connection with Banneker is treated in the Editorial Note to the group of documents under 30 Aug. 1791, but because of the obscured record it is necessary here to attempt a clarification of the role of this modest, self-taught tobacco farmer in the laying out of the national capital.
First of all, because of unwarranted claims to the contrary, it must be pointed out that there is no evidence whatever that Banneker had anything to do with the survey of the Federal City or indeed with the final establishment of the boundaries of the Federal District. All available testimony shows that he was present only during the few weeks early in 1791 when the rough preliminary survey of the ten mile square was made; that, after this was concluded and before the final survey was begun, he returned to his farm and his astronomical studies in April, accompanying Ellicott part way on his brief journey back to Philadelphia; and that thenceforth he had no connection with the mapping of the seat of government. ...
In any case, Banneker's participation in the surveying of the Federal District was unquestionably brief and his role uncertain.
Teachers who want reliable information on African American history often don't know where to turn. Many have unfortunately looked to unreliable books and publications by Afrocentric writers. The African American Baseline Essays, developed by the public school system in Portland, Ore., are the most widespread Afrocentric teaching material. Educators should be aware of their crippling flaws. ....
"Thomas Jefferson appointed Benjamin Banneker to survey the site for the capital, Washington, D.C.; ...." according to the essay on African American scientists.
Had the author consulted "The Life of Benjamin Banneker" by Silvio Bedini, considered the definitive biography, he would have discovered no evidence for these claims. Jefferson appointed Andrew Ellicott to conduct the survey; Ellicott made Banneker his assistant for three months in 1791.
The Banneker story, impressive as it was, got embellished in 1987, when the public school system in Portland, Oregon, published African-American Baseline Essays, a thick stack of loose-leaf background papers for teachers, commissioned to encourage black history instruction. They have been used in Detroit, Atlanta, Fort Lauderdale, Newark, and scattered schools elsewhere, although they have been attacked for gross inaccuracy in an entire literature of detailed criticism by respected historians. ....
Austin H. Kiplinger and Walter E. Washington write that a proposed city museum at Mount Vernon Square will remind visitors that "George Washington engaged Pierre L' Enfant to map the city and about how Benjamin Banneker [helped] complete the project" [Close to Home, May 7]. Let's hope not.
Benjamin Banneker performed astronomical observations in 1791 when assisting Maj. Andrew Ellicott in a survey of the federal District's boundaries. He departed three months after the survey began, more than a year before its completion.
Meanwhile, a "Plan for the City of Washington" was drawn by one "Peter Charles L'Enfant" (sic). When George Washington chose to dismiss L'Enfant, it was Ellicott who revised L'Enfant's plan and completed the city's mapping. Banneker played no part in this.
This very well-researched book also helps lay to rest some of the myths about what Banneker did and did not do during his most unusual lifetime; unfortunately, many websites and books continue to propagate these myths, probably because those authors do not understand what Banneker actually accomplished. Many state, for example, that Banneker's clock was an exact copy of one he saw, which is not true – he figured out the mathematics and physics on his own for a clock made out of wood, instead of trying simply to copy the small pocket watch that he was lent to observe. However remarkable this clock was, it was not the first clock made in America. Other sources continually repeat the myth that when Pierre l'Enfant was fired from the job of laying out the new Federal City, Benjamin Banneker recreated l'Enfant's plans from memory. Bedini lays this myth to rest .....
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)Benjamin Banneker's achievements, against the odds, made him an American hero, but he has been mythologized to some extent.
For example, John Lockwood said Banneker "helped re-create the plans for the city of Washington," but Banneker actually finished his work on the survey of the perimeter of the District and went home to Ellicott Mills in April 1791, never to return. Pierre L'Enfant did not depart Washington until the following February, leaving Benjamin Ellicott, a brother of the principal surveyor, to draw a small version of the plan to be engraved.
.
The conflicts surrounding L'Enfant gave rise to an often–repeated story that involved Banneker. According to the story, Banneker, having seen the original design for the city only once, re-created it in detail after L'Enfant returned to France with the original plans. This legend has led some people to credit Banneker with a greater role in creating the capital city. However, there is no evidence that Banneker contributed anything to the design of the city or that he ever met L'Enfant.
Modern historians acknowledge that the inaccurate information—the myths surrounding Banneker—resulted in his contributions to the city being overvalued. Unfortunately, those myths sometimes obscure Banneker's greatest contribution to society—the almanacs that he would publish in his later years.
(Banneker's) life and work have become enshrouded in legend and anecdote.
How did the myth of Banneker helping Ellicott remember the plan take hold? I believe it is because the first name of the brother who helped Ellicott is Benjamin, and so Benjamin Banneker was mistaken for Benjamin Ellicott. I think it is nonsense to assume that when L'Enfant refused access to the "original" plan that meant that Ellicott had to rely on memory to reconstruct the plan. L'Enfant had the "large" plan. Ellicott probably had access to small renditions or drafts of the plan which, of course, he and his brother had helped create by their surveys of the city.
Over the 200 years since the death of Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), his story has become a muddled combination of fact, inference, misinformation, hyperbole, and legend. Like many other figures throughout history, the small amount of surviving source material has nurtured the development of a degree of mythology surrounding his story.
In 1806, shortly after Banneker's death, a fire at his home destroyed most of his personal papers (Gillispie). This gap in substantial archival material has hardly hindered the development of the Benjamin Banneker legend; perhaps it has even aided its growth. ..... The narrative that tells of Banneker's life as one of mythical success and unprecedented exceptionalism easily draws an audience, but it washes over what might be more intellectually rewarding questions about the man's life. .... For now, the legend of Benjamin Banneker will continue to exist in his old almanacs and in present culture, serving as an inspiring enigma for those who wonder what lies beyond the surface-level stories of the past.
Meanwhile Andrew Ellicott, the nation's Surveyor General, finished surveying the boundary lines of the federal district, and joined L'Enfant in laying out the city. (Ellicott showed a fine sense of the opportunity presented by the project by hiring a mathematician who was a "free Negro," to help with the survey. The Georgetown newspaper noted the significance of Benjamin Banneker's participation but, nearly sixty years old, he left the arduous project in May and returned to Baltimore to publish his almanac, and thus, contrary to legend, had nothing to do with L'Enfant's plan.)
..., much myth and anecdote surround the life and work of Banneker. An uncertain legacy grew, in part, from the destruction of almost all his papers and possessions when his log cabin home burnt down at the moment he was being buried.
Banneker's life became the source of legend after his death, with many attributing certain accomplishments to him for which there is little or no evidence in the historical record.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)(Banneker's clock) may have been the first clock ever assembled completely from American parts, according to (Elizabeth Ross) Haynes (although other historians have since disputed this). ... The plans for the large city were laid out by French architect and engineer Pierre Charles L'Enfant, who volunteered for service in the American Revolution's Continental Army and was hired for the project by George Washington in 1791. Before long, however, tensions mounted over its direction and progress of the project, and when L'Enfant was fired in 1792, he took off with the plans in tow.
But according to legend, the plans weren't actually lost: Banneker and the Ellicotts had worked closely with L'Enfant and his plans while surveying the city's site. As the University of Massachusetts explains, Banneker had actually committed the plans to memory "[and] was able to reproduce the complete layout—streets, parks, major buildings." However, the University of Massachusetts also points out that other historians doubt Banneker had any involvement in this part of the survey at all, instead saying that Andrew and his brother were the ones who recreated L'Enfant's plan. It's an intriguing myth, but it may only be that.
With limited materials having been preserved related to Banneker's life and career, there's been a fair amount of legend and misinformation presented.
{{cite web}}: |author= has generic name (help)Perhaps owing to the scarcity of recorded fact about his remarkable life, and because he was often invoked symbolically to advance social causes like abolition, Banneker's story has been susceptible to mythmaking. He has been incorrectly credited with drawing the street grid of Washington, D.C., making the first clock on the Eastern seaboard, being the first professional astronomer in America, and discovering the seventeen-year birth cycle of cicadas.
Washington's core was laid out by Pierre L'Enfant, a French-American engineer and city planner, when the federal government decided it needed a new capitol. George Washington carved out 10 miles square on the Potomac River, and appointed L'Enfant in 1791 to plan an ambitious new seat of government.
But L'Enfant didn't exactly carry out his vision alone: He was dismissed from the job in 1792—and he reportedly took his layout with him. That's when Benjamin Banneker, a free black man who had surveyed the capital and helped establish its boundary points, stepped in. Banneker is said to have redrawn L'Enfant's plans from memory in two days, though whether actually he did has been debated by historians; his history and legacy have yet to be fully excavated.
L'Enfant's plans were well received, but he proved to be extremely difficult to work with, arguing incessantly with the commissioners in charge of the capital project. .... When L'Enfant left the project, he took all the designs with him, leaving the project in disarray.
Unsure of how to proceed, Ellicott and the other planners feared they might have to start from scratch. According to writer Gaius Chamberlain, "Banneker surprised them when he asserted that he could reproduce the plans from memory and in two days did exactly as he had promised."
There has been much controversy over the years about whether such an event actually happened. Some historians claim that many of the facts about Banneker's life were embellished or mythologized, leaving the fact that he was able to reimagine L'Enfant's plans in dispute. Others have theorized that it was Andrew Ellicott's brother Benjamin who aided in redrawing the plans from memory, theorizing that he was confused with Banneker because they shared the same first name.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)So when a lot of people think of Benjamin Banneker, they may know him because of the story of him assisting with the layout of the nation's capital in Washington, DC. And I was troubled to find out that with no real evidence legend has it that Benjamin, Banneker single handedly laid out in, develop the plans for Washington DC himself with no help.
And this is the popular narrative in a lot of circles. And even in the mainstream media, the Washington Post published the story citing this is fact, and this is part of his mythology and it's probably untrue, but it made me wonder, like, why do people embellish history? Why would someone take a man like Banneker with the real moral and professional greatness, and then exaggerate a story with things uncertain. Why do we embellish historical figures in general? Maybe in this case, there is something to prove black people have latched onto the great figures to prove competence and to prove value. Maybe it really was thought to be the truth.
(Arith.) the method of solving problems by proceeding with each of two assumed numbers, according to the conditions of the problem, and by comparing the difference of the results with those of the numbers, deducing the correction to be applied to one of them to obtain the true result.
The earliest observable change in the agricultural system of Maryland, was occasioned by a purchase made in 1772, by the brothers Joseph, Andrew and John Ellicott, of lands and mill-sites on the Patapsco river, 10 miles west of Baltimore, and by the building of their mills for grinding wheat and other grains. The purchase embraced the lands, on both sides of the Patapsco, for four miles in extent, and included all the water power within that distance, .....
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)In the city, and within the compass of twenty miles around it, there were upwards of sixty grain mills, of various descriptions, in which it was said that fully a million and a quarter of dollars were invested. This, of course, was an element of great prospective wealth, especially as the water power for manufactures, within the radius of those twenty miles, at Patapsco Falls, ....
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help).{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 394, Reference 7.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 394, Reference 8.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 394, Reference 9.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 12..{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 15.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 19.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) In "Cover: Benjamin Bannaker" (Document). Baltimore, Maryland: Maryland Historical Society. 2018.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)(b) {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 26.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 27.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 28.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) In Bedini, 1999, p. 224. Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 29.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) On display in the Benjamin Banneker Museum, Oella, Maryland. Photographed by F. Delventhal, February 18, 2017.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 12..{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 15.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) In "Cover: Benjamin Bannaker" (Document). Baltimore, Maryland: Maryland Historical Society. 2018.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
... Wefald writes that when Jefferson received a letter and almanac from Benjamin Banneker, Jefferson was "honest enough to change his position." Jefferson did not say that he had changed his opinion of the intellectual abilities of blacks. In his letter to Banneker, Aug. 30, 1791, Jefferson merely said: "No body wishes more than I do to see such proofs as you exhibit, that nature has given to our black brethren, talents equal to those of the other colors of men, and that the appearance of a want of them is owing merely to the degraded condition of their existence, both in Africa & America." Closely read, Jefferson's letter is only an indication that he "wishes to see such proofs", but there is no definite indication that he changed his mind. On Banneker's abilities Jefferson was ambivalent.
Jefferson's letter in reply was tepid and noncommittal:
Jefferson replied promptly and politely – but ambiguously on the subject of slavery:
In "Exhibition: Thomas Jefferson: Creating A Virginia Republic: Benjamin Banneker: Talents equal to those of the other colors of men". Library of Congress. April 24, 2000. Archived from the original on February 5, 2021. Retrieved February 28, 2021.
Notes: ... . While serving as secretary of state, Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), one of Virginia's largest planters and slaveholders, wrote this 30 August 1791 response to Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), an African-American mathematician and surveyor living in Maryland, who had written a forceful letter to Jefferson the day before, chastising him for holding slaves and questioning his sincerity as a "friend of liberty." .... In a polite response to Banneker's August 1791 letter, Jefferson expressed his ambivalent feelings about slavery and assured the surveyor that "no body wishes more ardently to see a good system commenced for raising the condition" of blacks "to what it ought to be."
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: editors list (link)Banneker, Benjamin (09 November 1731–19 October 1806), farmer and astronomer, ...
{{cite encyclopedia}}: |author= has generic name (help)Footnote: RC (MHi); at head of text: "Thomas Jefferson Secretary of State"; endorsed by TJ as received 26 Aug. 1791 and so recorded in SJL." (Abbreviations: "MHi": "Massachusetts Historical Society"; "RC": Recipient's Copy"; "SJL": "Jefferson's "Summary Journal of Letters" written and received"; "TJ": "Thomas Jefferson").(Original source: Cullen, Charles T., ed. (1986). The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 22: 6 August 1791 – 31 December 1791. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. p. 52. ISBN 9780691184654. LCCN 50007486. OCLC 1043555596. Retrieved August 31, 2019.
Footnote: RC (MHi); at head of text: "Thomas Jefferson Secretary of State"; endorsed by TJ as received 26 Aug. 1791 and so recorded in SJL.)
Footnote: "PrC (DLC)". (Abbreviations: "DLC": "Library of Congress"; "PrC": "Press Copy".)(Original source: Cullen, Charles T., ed. (1986). The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 22: 6 August 1791 – 31 December 1791. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. pp. 97–98. ISBN 9780691184654. LCCN 50007486. OCLC 1043555596. Retrieved August 31, 2019.
Footnote: PrC (DLC))
In 1785, Jefferson was using both stationary and portable presses made by James Watt & Co.(Reference: Bedini, Silvio A., Thomas Jefferson and His Copying Machines, University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville, 1984.)
Marked "Hawkins & Peale's Patent Polygraph No. 57," this machine was used by Jefferson from 1806 until his death. Jefferson first acquired the letter-copying device he called "the finest invention of the present age" in March of 1804.
the use of the polygraph has spoiled me for the old copying press the copies of which are hardly ever legible, ... I could not, now therefore, live without the Polygraph. ....
Footnote: "PrC (DLC); at foot of first page of text: "M. de Condorcet."" (Abbreviations: "DLC": "Library of Congress"; "PrC": "Press Copy".)(Original source: Cullen, Charles T., ed. (1986). The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 22: 6 August 1791 – 31 December 1791. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. pp. 98–99. ISBN 9780691184654. LCCN 50007486. OCLC 1043555596. Retrieved August 31, 2019.
Footnote: "PrC (DLC); at foot of first page of text: "M. de Condorcet.""
Footnote: "RC (NjP: Straus Autograph Collection); endorsed by Barlow. PoC (DLC)" (Abbreviations: "DLC: "Library of Congress"" "NjP: "Princeton University"; "Poc": "Polygraph Copy";"RC": "Recipient's copy".)(Original source: Looney, J. Jefferson, ed. (2004). The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Retirement Series, vol. 1, 4 March 1809 to 15 November 1809. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. pp. 588–590. ISBN 9780691184593. LCCN 2004048327. OCLC 1045069067. Retrieved August 31, 2019.
Footnote: "RC (NjP: Straus Autograph Collection); endorsed by Barlow. PoC (DLC)")
The collection consists of Americana dating, primarily, from the period of the American Revolution and the thirty years immediately following, collected by Straus. Included are autograph letters from, and documents signed by, some of the leading figures of the period, such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, ....
The Banneker story, impressive as it was, got embellished in 1987, when the public school system in Portland, Oregon, published African-American Baseline Essays, a thick stack of loose-leaf background papers for teachers, commissioned to encourage black history instruction. They have been used in Detroit, Atlanta, Fort Lauderdale, Newark, and scattered schools elsewhere, although they have been attacked for gross inaccuracy in an entire literature of detailed criticism by respected historians. ....
Teachers who want reliable information on African American history often don't know where to turn. Many have unfortunately looked to unreliable books and publications by Afrocentric writers. The African American Baseline Essays, developed by the public school system in Portland, Ore., are the most widespread Afrocentric teaching material. Educators should be aware of their crippling flaws. ....
"Thomas Jefferson appointed Benjamin Banneker to survey the site for the capital, Washington, D.C.; ...." according to the essay on African American scientists.
Had the author consulted "The Life of Benjamin Banneker" by Silvio Bedini, considered the definitive biography, he would have discovered no evidence for these claims. Jefferson appointed Andrew Ellicott to conduct the survey; Ellicott made Banneker his assistant for three months in 1791.
.
The conflicts surrounding L'Enfant gave rise to an often—repeated story that involved Banneker. According to the story, Banneker, having seen the original design for the city only once, re-created it in detail after L'Enfant returned to France with the original plans. This legend has led some people to credit Banneker with a greater role in creating the capital city. However, there is no evidence that Banneker contributed anything to the design of the city or that he ever met L'Enfant.
Modern historians acknowledge that the inaccurate information—the myths surrounding Banneker—resulted in his contributions to the city being overvalued. Unfortunately, those myths sometimes obscure Banneker's greatest contribution to society—the almanacs that he would publish in his later years.
Perhaps owing to the scarcity of recorded fact about his remarkable life, and because he was often invoked symbolically to advance social causes like abolition, Banneker's story has been susceptible to mythmaking. He has been incorrectly credited with drawing the street grid of Washington, D.C., ....
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help).{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 394, Reference 7.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 394, Reference 8.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 394, Reference 9.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 12..{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 15.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 19.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) In "Cover: Benjamin Bannaker" (Document). Baltimore, Maryland: Maryland Historical Society. 2018.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)(b) {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 26.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 27.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 28.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) In Bedini, 1999, p. 224. Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 29.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 12..{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 15.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) In "Cover: Benjamin Bannaker" (Document). Baltimore, Maryland: Maryland Historical Society. 2018.
... Wefald writes that when Jefferson received a letter and almanac from Benjamin Banneker, Jefferson was "honest enough to change his position." Jefferson did not say that he had changed his opinion of the intellectual abilities of blacks. In his letter to Banneker, Aug. 30, 1791, Jefferson merely said: "No body wishes more than I do to see such proofs as you exhibit, that nature has given to our black brethren, talents equal to those of the other colors of men, and that the appearance of a want of them is owing merely to the degraded condition of their existence, both in Africa & America." Closely read, Jefferson's letter is only an indication that he "wishes to see such proofs", but there is no definite indication that he changed his mind. On Banneker's abilities Jefferson was ambivalent.
Jefferson's letter in reply was tepid and noncommittal:
Jefferson replied promptly and politely – but ambiguously on the subject of slavery:
In "Exhibition: Thomas Jefferson: Creating A Virginia Republic: Benjamin Banneker: Talents equal to those of the other colors of men". Library of Congress. April 24, 2000. Archived from the original on February 5, 2021. Retrieved February 28, 2021.
Notes: ... . While serving as secretary of state, Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), one of Virginia's largest planters and slaveholders, wrote this 30 August 1791 response to Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), an African-American mathematician and surveyor living in Maryland, who had written a forceful letter to Jefferson the day before, chastising him for holding slaves and questioning his sincerity as a "friend of liberty." .... In a polite response to Banneker's August 1791 letter, Jefferson expressed his ambivalent feelings about slavery and assured the surveyor that "no body wishes more ardently to see a good system commenced for raising the condition" of blacks "to what it ought to be."
Hawkins & Peale patented a polygraph in the US in 1803, and beginning in 1804 Thomas Jefferson collaborated with them in working on improvements in the machine. Jefferson used a polygraph for the rest of his life.(Reference: Bedini, Silvio A., Thomas Jefferson and His Copying Machines, University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville, 1984.)
Historical Notes: Marked "Hawkins & Peale's Patent Polygraph No. 57," this machine was used by Jefferson from 1806 until his death. Jefferson first acquired the letter-copying device he called "the finest invention of the present age" in March of 1804. Invented and named by Englishman John Isaac Hawkins, the polygraph used the principles of the pantograph, a draftsman's tool for reducing and enlarging drawings. The writer's hand moves one pen whose action is duplicated by the second one, producing a copy strikingly like the original.
Before he returned to England in 1803, Hawkins assigned his American patent rights to Charles Willson Peale, who developed and marketed the invention. Jefferson was one of his most eager clients, purchasing one for the President's House and one for Monticello. He soon exchanged these machines for new ones, as Peale continued to perfect the design — often according to Jefferson's suggestions. By 1809 Jefferson wrote that "the use of the polygraph has spoiled me for the old copying press the copies of which are hardly ever legible . . . . I could not, now therefore, live without the Polygraph."
the use of the polygraph has spoiled me for the old copying press the copies of which are hardly ever legible, ... I could not, now therefore, live without the Polygraph. ....
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) On display in the Benjamin Banneker Museum, Oella, Maryland. Photographed by F. Delventhal, February 18, 2017.A number of fictional accounts of Banneker are available. All of them were dependent upon the following: Proceedings of the Maryland Historical Society for 1837 and 1854 which respectively contain the accounts of Banneker by John B. H. Latrobe and Martha E. Tyson. They were subsequently reprinted as pamphlets.
Recent biographical accounts of Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), a mulatto whose father was a native African and whose grandmother was English, have done his memory a disservice by obscuring his real achievements under a cloud of extravagant claims to scientific accomplishment that have no foundation in fact. The single notable exception is Silvio A. Bedini's The Life of Benjamin Banneker (New York, 1972), a work of painstaking research and scrupulous attention to accuracy which also benefits from the author's discovery of important and hitherto unavailable manuscript sources. However, as Bedini points out, the story of Banneker's involvement in the survey of the Federal District "rests on extremely meager documentation" (p. 104). This consists of a single mention by TJ, two brief statements by Banneker himself, and the newspaper allusion quoted above. In consequence, Bedini's otherwise reliable biography accepts the version of Banneker's role in this episode as presented in reminiscences of nineteenth-century authors. These recollections, deriving in large part from members of the Ellicott family, who were prompted by Quaker inclinations to justice and equality, have compounded the confusion. The nature of TJ's connection with Banneker is treated in the Editorial Note to the group of documents under 30 Aug. 1791, but because of the obscured record it is necessary here to attempt a clarification of the role of this modest, self-taught tobacco farmer in the laying out of the national capital.
First of all, because of unwarranted claims to the contrary, it must be pointed out that there is no evidence whatever that Banneker had anything to do with the survey of the Federal City or indeed with the final establishment of the boundaries of the Federal District. All available testimony shows that he was present only during the few weeks early in 1791 when the rough preliminary survey of the ten mile square was made; that, after this was concluded and before the final survey was begun, he returned to his farm and his astronomical studies in April, accompanying Ellicott part way on his brief journey back to Philadelphia; and that thenceforth he had no connection with the mapping of the seat of government. ...
In any case, Banneker's participation in the surveying of the Federal District was unquestionably brief and his role uncertain.
Teachers who want reliable information on African American history often don't know where to turn. Many have unfortunately looked to unreliable books and publications by Afrocentric writers. The African American Baseline Essays, developed by the public school system in Portland, Ore., are the most widespread Afrocentric teaching material. Educators should be aware of their crippling flaws. ....
"Thomas Jefferson appointed Benjamin Banneker to survey the site for the capital, Washington, D.C.; ...." according to the essay on African American scientists.
Had the author consulted "The Life of Benjamin Banneker" by Silvio Bedini, considered the definitive biography, he would have discovered no evidence for these claims. Jefferson appointed Andrew Ellicott to conduct the survey; Ellicott made Banneker his assistant for three months in 1791.
The Banneker story, impressive as it was, got embellished in 1987, when the public school system in Portland, Oregon, published African-American Baseline Essays, a thick stack of loose-leaf background papers for teachers, commissioned to encourage black history instruction. They have been used in Detroit, Atlanta, Fort Lauderdale, Newark, and scattered schools elsewhere, although they have been attacked for gross inaccuracy in an entire literature of detailed criticism by respected historians. ....
Austin H. Kiplinger and Walter E. Washington write that a proposed city museum at Mount Vernon Square will remind visitors that "George Washington engaged Pierre L' Enfant to map the city and about how Benjamin Banneker [helped] complete the project" [Close to Home, May 7]. Let's hope not.
Benjamin Banneker performed astronomical observations in 1791 when assisting Maj. Andrew Ellicott in a survey of the federal District's boundaries. He departed three months after the survey began, more than a year before its completion.
Meanwhile, a "Plan for the City of Washington" was drawn by one "Peter Charles L'Enfant" (sic). When George Washington chose to dismiss L'Enfant, it was Ellicott who revised L'Enfant's plan and completed the city's mapping. Banneker played no part in this.
This very well-researched book also helps lay to rest some of the myths about what Banneker did and did not do during his most unusual lifetime; unfortunately, many websites and books continue to propagate these myths, probably because those authors do not understand what Banneker actually accomplished. Many state, for example, that Banneker's clock was an exact copy of one he saw, which is not true – he figured out the mathematics and physics on his own for a clock made out of wood, instead of trying simply to copy the small pocket watch that he was lent to observe. However remarkable this clock was, it was not the first clock made in America. Other sources continually repeat the myth that when Pierre l'Enfant was fired from the job of laying out the new Federal City, Benjamin Banneker recreated l'Enfant's plans from memory. Bedini lays this myth to rest .....
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)Benjamin Banneker's achievements, against the odds, made him an American hero, but he has been mythologized to some extent.
For example, John Lockwood said Banneker "helped re-create the plans for the city of Washington," but Banneker actually finished his work on the survey of the perimeter of the District and went home to Ellicott Mills in April 1791, never to return. Pierre L'Enfant did not depart Washington until the following February, leaving Benjamin Ellicott, a brother of the principal surveyor, to draw a small version of the plan to be engraved.
.
The conflicts surrounding L'Enfant gave rise to an often–repeated story that involved Banneker. According to the story, Banneker, having seen the original design for the city only once, re-created it in detail after L'Enfant returned to France with the original plans. This legend has led some people to credit Banneker with a greater role in creating the capital city. However, there is no evidence that Banneker contributed anything to the design of the city or that he ever met L'Enfant.
Modern historians acknowledge that the inaccurate information—the myths surrounding Banneker—resulted in his contributions to the city being overvalued. Unfortunately, those myths sometimes obscure Banneker's greatest contribution to society—the almanacs that he would publish in his later years.
(Banneker's) life and work have become enshrouded in legend and anecdote.
How did the myth of Banneker helping Ellicott remember the plan take hold? I believe it is because the first name of the brother who helped Ellicott is Benjamin, and so Benjamin Banneker was mistaken for Benjamin Ellicott. I think it is nonsense to assume that when L'Enfant refused access to the "original" plan that meant that Ellicott had to rely on memory to reconstruct the plan. L'Enfant had the "large" plan. Ellicott probably had access to small renditions or drafts of the plan which, of course, he and his brother had helped create by their surveys of the city.
Over the 200 years since the death of Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), his story has become a muddled combination of fact, inference, misinformation, hyperbole, and legend. Like many other figures throughout history, the small amount of surviving source material has nurtured the development of a degree of mythology surrounding his story.
In 1806, shortly after Banneker's death, a fire at his home destroyed most of his personal papers (Gillispie). This gap in substantial archival material has hardly hindered the development of the Benjamin Banneker legend; perhaps it has even aided its growth. ..... The narrative that tells of Banneker's life as one of mythical success and unprecedented exceptionalism easily draws an audience, but it washes over what might be more intellectually rewarding questions about the man's life. .... For now, the legend of Benjamin Banneker will continue to exist in his old almanacs and in present culture, serving as an inspiring enigma for those who wonder what lies beyond the surface-level stories of the past.
Meanwhile Andrew Ellicott, the nation's Surveyor General, finished surveying the boundary lines of the federal district, and joined L'Enfant in laying out the city. (Ellicott showed a fine sense of the opportunity presented by the project by hiring a mathematician who was a "free Negro," to help with the survey. The Georgetown newspaper noted the significance of Benjamin Banneker's participation but, nearly sixty years old, he left the arduous project in May and returned to Baltimore to publish his almanac, and thus, contrary to legend, had nothing to do with L'Enfant's plan.)
..., much myth and anecdote surround the life and work of Banneker. An uncertain legacy grew, in part, from the destruction of almost all his papers and possessions when his log cabin home burnt down at the moment he was being buried.
Banneker's life became the source of legend after his death, with many attributing certain accomplishments to him for which there is little or no evidence in the historical record.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)(Banneker's clock) may have been the first clock ever assembled completely from American parts, according to (Elizabeth Ross) Haynes (although other historians have since disputed this). ... The plans for the large city were laid out by French architect and engineer Pierre Charles L'Enfant, who volunteered for service in the American Revolution's Continental Army and was hired for the project by George Washington in 1791. Before long, however, tensions mounted over its direction and progress of the project, and when L'Enfant was fired in 1792, he took off with the plans in tow.
But according to legend, the plans weren't actually lost: Banneker and the Ellicotts had worked closely with L'Enfant and his plans while surveying the city's site. As the University of Massachusetts explains, Banneker had actually committed the plans to memory "[and] was able to reproduce the complete layout—streets, parks, major buildings." However, the University of Massachusetts also points out that other historians doubt Banneker had any involvement in this part of the survey at all, instead saying that Andrew and his brother were the ones who recreated L'Enfant's plan. It's an intriguing myth, but it may only be that.
With limited materials having been preserved related to Banneker's life and career, there's been a fair amount of legend and misinformation presented.
{{cite web}}: |author= has generic name (help)Perhaps owing to the scarcity of recorded fact about his remarkable life, and because he was often invoked symbolically to advance social causes like abolition, Banneker's story has been susceptible to mythmaking. He has been incorrectly credited with drawing the street grid of Washington, D.C., making the first clock on the Eastern seaboard, being the first professional astronomer in America, and discovering the seventeen-year birth cycle of cicadas.
Washington's core was laid out by Pierre L'Enfant, a French-American engineer and city planner, when the federal government decided it needed a new capitol. George Washington carved out 10 miles square on the Potomac River, and appointed L'Enfant in 1791 to plan an ambitious new seat of government.
But L'Enfant didn't exactly carry out his vision alone: He was dismissed from the job in 1792—and he reportedly took his layout with him. That's when Benjamin Banneker, a free black man who had surveyed the capital and helped establish its boundary points, stepped in. Banneker is said to have redrawn L'Enfant's plans from memory in two days, though whether actually he did has been debated by historians; his history and legacy have yet to be fully excavated.
L'Enfant's plans were well received, but he proved to be extremely difficult to work with, arguing incessantly with the commissioners in charge of the capital project. .... When L'Enfant left the project, he took all the designs with him, leaving the project in disarray.
Unsure of how to proceed, Ellicott and the other planners feared they might have to start from scratch. According to writer Gaius Chamberlain, "Banneker surprised them when he asserted that he could reproduce the plans from memory and in two days did exactly as he had promised."
There has been much controversy over the years about whether such an event actually happened. Some historians claim that many of the facts about Banneker's life were embellished or mythologized, leaving the fact that he was able to reimagine L'Enfant's plans in dispute. Others have theorized that it was Andrew Ellicott's brother Benjamin who aided in redrawing the plans from memory, theorizing that he was confused with Banneker because they shared the same first name.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)So when a lot of people think of Benjamin Banneker, they may know him because of the story of him assisting with the layout of the nation's capital in Washington, DC. And I was troubled to find out that with no real evidence legend has it that Benjamin, Banneker single handedly laid out in, develop the plans for Washington DC himself with no help.
And this is the popular narrative in a lot of circles. And even in the mainstream media, the Washington Post published the story citing this is fact, and this is part of his mythology and it's probably untrue, but it made me wonder, like, why do people embellish history? Why would someone take a man like Banneker with the real moral and professional greatness, and then exaggerate a story with things uncertain. Why do we embellish historical figures in general? Maybe in this case, there is something to prove black people have latched onto the great figures to prove competence and to prove value. Maybe it really was thought to be the truth.
This place is situated in Klay, Bomi Terr., Liberia, its geographical coordinates are 6° 49' 44" North, 10° 46' 21" West and its original name (with diacritics) is Banaka.
Banaka (Banaka) is a populated place .... in Bomi County (Bomi), Liberia (Africa) .... . It is located at an elevation of 117 meters above sea level.
Banaka is a place with a very small population in the country of Liberia .... . Cities, towns and places near Banaka include Bonja, Kuodi, Wuefa and Fassa. The closest major cities include Monrovia, Freetown, Conakry and Daloa.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)Benjamin Banneker (page 551)
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)Volumes 8–12 (1790–1793) contain papers covering Jefferson's service as secretary of state, including letters from Jefferson to his daughters at Monticello and many promissory notes demonstrating the degree of his indebtedness.
A number of fictional accounts of Banneker are available. All of them were dependent upon the following: Proceedings of the Maryland Historical Society for 1837 and 1854 which respectively contain the accounts of Banneker by John B. H. Latrobe and Martha E. Tyson. They were subsequently reprinted as pamphlets.
Recent biographical accounts of Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), a mulatto whose father was a native African and whose grandmother was English, have done his memory a disservice by obscuring his real achievements under a cloud of extravagant claims to scientific accomplishment that have no foundation in fact. The single notable exception is Silvio A. Bedini's The Life of Benjamin Banneker (New York, 1972), a work of painstaking research and scrupulous attention to accuracy which also benefits from the author's discovery of important and hitherto unavailable manuscript sources. However, as Bedini points out, the story of Banneker's involvement in the survey of the Federal District "rests on extremely meager documentation" (p. 104). This consists of a single mention by TJ, two brief statements by Banneker himself, and the newspaper allusion quoted above. In consequence, Bedini's otherwise reliable biography accepts the version of Banneker's role in this episode as presented in reminiscences of nineteenth-century authors. These recollections, deriving in large part from members of the Ellicott family, who were prompted by Quaker inclinations to justice and equality, have compounded the confusion. The nature of TJ's connection with Banneker is treated in the Editorial Note to the group of documents under 30 Aug. 1791, but because of the obscured record it is necessary here to attempt a clarification of the role of this modest, self-taught tobacco farmer in the laying out of the national capital.
First of all, because of unwarranted claims to the contrary, it must be pointed out that there is no evidence whatever that Banneker had anything to do with the survey of the Federal City or indeed with the final establishment of the boundaries of the Federal District. All available testimony shows that he was present only during the few weeks early in 1791 when the rough preliminary survey of the ten mile square was made; that, after this was concluded and before the final survey was begun, he returned to his farm and his astronomical studies in April, accompanying Ellicott part way on his brief journey back to Philadelphia; and that thenceforth he had no connection with the mapping of the seat of government. ...
In any case, Banneker's participation in the surveying of the Federal District was unquestionably brief and his role uncertain.
Teachers who want reliable information on African American history often don't know where to turn. Many have unfortunately looked to unreliable books and publications by Afrocentric writers. The African American Baseline Essays, developed by the public school system in Portland, Ore., are the most widespread Afrocentric teaching material. Educators should be aware of their crippling flaws. ....
"Thomas Jefferson appointed Benjamin Banneker to survey the site for the capital, Washington, D.C.; ...." according to the essay on African American scientists.
Had the author consulted "The Life of Benjamin Banneker" by Silvio Bedini, considered the definitive biography, he would have discovered no evidence for these claims. Jefferson appointed Andrew Ellicott to conduct the survey; Ellicott made Banneker his assistant for three months in 1791.
The Banneker story, impressive as it was, got embellished in 1987, when the public school system in Portland, Oregon, published African-American Baseline Essays, a thick stack of loose-leaf background papers for teachers, commissioned to encourage black history instruction. They have been used in Detroit, Atlanta, Fort Lauderdale, Newark, and scattered schools elsewhere, although they have been attacked for gross inaccuracy in an entire literature of detailed criticism by respected historians. ....
Austin H. Kiplinger and Walter E. Washington write that a proposed city museum at Mount Vernon Square will remind visitors that "George Washington engaged Pierre L' Enfant to map the city and about how Benjamin Banneker [helped] complete the project" [Close to Home, May 7]. Let's hope not.
Benjamin Banneker performed astronomical observations in 1791 when assisting Maj. Andrew Ellicott in a survey of the federal District's boundaries. He departed three months after the survey began, more than a year before its completion.
Meanwhile, a "Plan for the City of Washington" was drawn by one "Peter Charles L'Enfant" (sic). When George Washington chose to dismiss L'Enfant, it was Ellicott who revised L'Enfant's plan and completed the city's mapping. Banneker played no part in this.
This very well-researched book also helps lay to rest some of the myths about what Banneker did and did not do during his most unusual lifetime; unfortunately, many websites and books continue to propagate these myths, probably because those authors do not understand what Banneker actually accomplished. Many state, for example, that Banneker's clock was an exact copy of one he saw, which is not true – he figured out the mathematics and physics on his own for a clock made out of wood, instead of trying simply to copy the small pocket watch that he was lent to observe. However remarkable this clock was, it was not the first clock made in America. Other sources continually repeat the myth that when Pierre l'Enfant was fired from the job of laying out the new Federal City, Benjamin Banneker recreated l'Enfant's plans from memory. Bedini lays this myth to rest .....
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)Benjamin Banneker's achievements, against the odds, made him an American hero, but he has been mythologized to some extent.
For example, John Lockwood said Banneker "helped re-create the plans for the city of Washington," but Banneker actually finished his work on the survey of the perimeter of the District and went home to Ellicott Mills in April 1791, never to return. Pierre L'Enfant did not depart Washington until the following February, leaving Benjamin Ellicott, a brother of the principal surveyor, to draw a small version of the plan to be engraved.
.
The conflicts surrounding L'Enfant gave rise to an often–repeated story that involved Banneker. According to the story, Banneker, having seen the original design for the city only once, re-created it in detail after L'Enfant returned to France with the original plans. This legend has led some people to credit Banneker with a greater role in creating the capital city. However, there is no evidence that Banneker contributed anything to the design of the city or that he ever met L'Enfant.
Modern historians acknowledge that the inaccurate information—the myths surrounding Banneker—resulted in his contributions to the city being overvalued. Unfortunately, those myths sometimes obscure Banneker's greatest contribution to society—the almanacs that he would publish in his later years.
(Banneker's) life and work have become enshrouded in legend and anecdote.
How did the myth of Banneker helping Ellicott remember the plan take hold? I believe it is because the first name of the brother who helped Ellicott is Benjamin, and so Benjamin Banneker was mistaken for Benjamin Ellicott. I think it is nonsense to assume that when L'Enfant refused access to the "original" plan that meant that Ellicott had to rely on memory to reconstruct the plan. L'Enfant had the "large" plan. Ellicott probably had access to small renditions or drafts of the plan which, of course, he and his brother had helped create by their surveys of the city.
Over the 200 years since the death of Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), his story has become a muddled combination of fact, inference, misinformation, hyperbole, and legend. Like many other figures throughout history, the small amount of surviving source material has nurtured the development of a degree of mythology surrounding his story.
In 1806, shortly after Banneker's death, a fire at his home destroyed most of his personal papers (Gillispie). This gap in substantial archival material has hardly hindered the development of the Benjamin Banneker legend; perhaps it has even aided its growth. ..... The narrative that tells of Banneker's life as one of mythical success and unprecedented exceptionalism easily draws an audience, but it washes over what might be more intellectually rewarding questions about the man's life. .... For now, the legend of Benjamin Banneker will continue to exist in his old almanacs and in present culture, serving as an inspiring enigma for those who wonder what lies beyond the surface-level stories of the past.
Meanwhile Andrew Ellicott, the nation's Surveyor General, finished surveying the boundary lines of the federal district, and joined L'Enfant in laying out the city. (Ellicott showed a fine sense of the opportunity presented by the project by hiring a mathematician who was a "free Negro," to help with the survey. The Georgetown newspaper noted the significance of Benjamin Banneker's participation but, nearly sixty years old, he left the arduous project in May and returned to Baltimore to publish his almanac, and thus, contrary to legend, had nothing to do with L'Enfant's plan.)
..., much myth and anecdote surround the life and work of Banneker. An uncertain legacy grew, in part, from the destruction of almost all his papers and possessions when his log cabin home burnt down at the moment he was being buried.
Banneker's life became the source of legend after his death, with many attributing certain accomplishments to him for which there is little or no evidence in the historical record.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)(Banneker's clock) may have been the first clock ever assembled completely from American parts, according to (Elizabeth Ross) Haynes (although other historians have since disputed this). ... The plans for the large city were laid out by French architect and engineer Pierre Charles L'Enfant, who volunteered for service in the American Revolution's Continental Army and was hired for the project by George Washington in 1791. Before long, however, tensions mounted over its direction and progress of the project, and when L'Enfant was fired in 1792, he took off with the plans in tow.
But according to legend, the plans weren't actually lost: Banneker and the Ellicotts had worked closely with L'Enfant and his plans while surveying the city's site. As the University of Massachusetts explains, Banneker had actually committed the plans to memory "[and] was able to reproduce the complete layout—streets, parks, major buildings." However, the University of Massachusetts also points out that other historians doubt Banneker had any involvement in this part of the survey at all, instead saying that Andrew and his brother were the ones who recreated L'Enfant's plan. It's an intriguing myth, but it may only be that.
With limited materials having been preserved related to Banneker's life and career, there's been a fair amount of legend and misinformation presented.
{{cite web}}: |author= has generic name (help)Perhaps owing to the scarcity of recorded fact about his remarkable life, and because he was often invoked symbolically to advance social causes like abolition, Banneker's story has been susceptible to mythmaking. He has been incorrectly credited with drawing the street grid of Washington, D.C., making the first clock on the Eastern seaboard, being the first professional astronomer in America, and discovering the seventeen-year birth cycle of cicadas.
Washington's core was laid out by Pierre L'Enfant, a French-American engineer and city planner, when the federal government decided it needed a new capitol. George Washington carved out 10 miles square on the Potomac River, and appointed L'Enfant in 1791 to plan an ambitious new seat of government.
But L'Enfant didn't exactly carry out his vision alone: He was dismissed from the job in 1792—and he reportedly took his layout with him. That's when Benjamin Banneker, a free black man who had surveyed the capital and helped establish its boundary points, stepped in. Banneker is said to have redrawn L'Enfant's plans from memory in two days, though whether actually he did has been debated by historians; his history and legacy have yet to be fully excavated.
L'Enfant's plans were well received, but he proved to be extremely difficult to work with, arguing incessantly with the commissioners in charge of the capital project. .... When L'Enfant left the project, he took all the designs with him, leaving the project in disarray.
Unsure of how to proceed, Ellicott and the other planners feared they might have to start from scratch. According to writer Gaius Chamberlain, "Banneker surprised them when he asserted that he could reproduce the plans from memory and in two days did exactly as he had promised."
There has been much controversy over the years about whether such an event actually happened. Some historians claim that many of the facts about Banneker's life were embellished or mythologized, leaving the fact that he was able to reimagine L'Enfant's plans in dispute. Others have theorized that it was Andrew Ellicott's brother Benjamin who aided in redrawing the plans from memory, theorizing that he was confused with Banneker because they shared the same first name.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)So when a lot of people think of Benjamin Banneker, they may know him because of the story of him assisting with the layout of the nation's capital in Washington, DC. And I was troubled to find out that with no real evidence legend has it that Benjamin, Banneker single handedly laid out in, develop the plans for Washington DC himself with no help.
And this is the popular narrative in a lot of circles. And even in the mainstream media, the Washington Post published the story citing this is fact, and this is part of his mythology and it's probably untrue, but it made me wonder, like, why do people embellish history? Why would someone take a man like Banneker with the real moral and professional greatness, and then exaggerate a story with things uncertain. Why do we embellish historical figures in general? Maybe in this case, there is something to prove black people have latched onto the great figures to prove competence and to prove value. Maybe it really was thought to be the truth.
On Sunday, this 9th instant, departed this life at his residence in Baltimore county, in the 73rd year of his age, Mr. BENJAMIN BANNEKER, a black man, and immediate descendant of an African father.In Maryland Historical Society Library Department (February 6, 2014). "The Dreams of Benjamin Banneker". H. Furlong Baldwin Library: Underbelly. Maryland Historical Society. Archived from the original on September 17, 2020. Retrieved September 17, 2020.
{{cite encyclopedia}}: |author= has generic name (help)The astronomical journal is the only remaining artifact written in Banneker's hand, as his cabin and most of his belongings burned down in a fire as his body was being laid in the ground in 1806. On his instruction, the astronomical journal and some other loose manuscripts were removed upon his death and left to George Ellicott (1760–1832). The journal stayed in the hands of the Ellicott family until 1844 when it was deposited here at MdHS, where it was used by John H.B. Latrobe the following year. Quaker philanthropist and MdHS member Moses Sheppard (1771–1857) had the book rebound in Russian leather in 1852, and at this date most likely combined the astronomical journal with some of Banneker's loose manuscripts as well as a day book. At some unknown date the astronomical journal left MdHS and returned to the hands of the Ellicott family. It stayed there, away from the public's eye until 1987 when Ellicott family descendant Dorothea West Fitzhugh donated it in honor of her late husband Robert Tyson Fitzhugh. In 1999 MdHS sent the journal to the Center for Conservation in Philadelphia where it was rebound, deacidified, and given full conservation treatment.
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help).{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 394, Reference 7.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 394, Reference 8.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 394, Reference 9.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 12..{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 15.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 19.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) In "Cover: Benjamin Bannaker" (Document). Baltimore, Maryland: Maryland Historical Society. 2018.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)(b) {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 26.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 27.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 28.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) In Bedini, 1999, p. 224. Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 29.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) In "Cover: Benjamin Bannaker" (Document). Baltimore, Maryland: Maryland Historical Society. 2018.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 12..{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 15.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) In "Cover: Benjamin Bannaker" (Document). Baltimore, Maryland: Maryland Historical Society. 2018.Footnote: "PrC (DLC)". (Abbreviations: "DLC": "Library of Congress"; "PrC": "Press Copy".)(Original source: Cullen, Charles T., ed. (1986). The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 22: 6 August 1791 – 31 December 1791. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. pp. 97–98. ISBN 9780691184654. LCCN 50007486. OCLC 1043555596. Retrieved August 31, 2019.
Footnote: PrC (DLC))
In 1785, Jefferson was using both stationary and portable presses made by James Watt & Co.(Reference: Bedini, Silvio A., Thomas Jefferson and His Copying Machines, University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville, 1984.)
Marked "Hawkins & Peale's Patent Polygraph No. 57," this machine was used by Jefferson from 1806 until his death. Jefferson first acquired the letter-copying device he called "the finest invention of the present age" in March of 1804.
the use of the polygraph has spoiled me for the old copying press the copies of which are hardly ever legible, ... I could not, now therefore, live without the Polygraph. ....
Hawkins & Peale patented a polygraph in the US in 1803, and beginning in 1804 Thomas Jefferson collaborated with them in working on improvements in the machine. Jefferson used a polygraph for the rest of his life.(Reference: Bedini, Silvio A., Thomas Jefferson and His Copying Machines, University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville, 1984.)
Historical Notes: Marked "Hawkins & Peale's Patent Polygraph No. 57," this machine was used by Jefferson from 1806 until his death. Jefferson first acquired the letter-copying device he called "the finest invention of the present age" in March of 1804. Invented and named by Englishman John Isaac Hawkins, the polygraph used the principles of the pantograph, a draftsman's tool for reducing and enlarging drawings. The writer's hand moves one pen whose action is duplicated by the second one, producing a copy strikingly like the original.
Before he returned to England in 1803, Hawkins assigned his American patent rights to Charles Willson Peale, who developed and marketed the invention. Jefferson was one of his most eager clients, purchasing one for the President's House and one for Monticello. He soon exchanged these machines for new ones, as Peale continued to perfect the design — often according to Jefferson's suggestions. By 1809 Jefferson wrote that "the use of the polygraph has spoiled me for the old copying press the copies of which are hardly ever legible . . . . I could not, now therefore, live without the Polygraph."
the use of the polygraph has spoiled me for the old copying press the copies of which are hardly ever legible, ... I could not, now therefore, live without the Polygraph. ....
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help).{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 394, Reference 7.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 394, Reference 8.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 394, Reference 9.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 12..{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 15.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 19.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) In "Cover: Benjamin Bannaker" (Document). Baltimore, Maryland: Maryland Historical Society. 2018.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)(b) {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 26.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 27.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 28.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) In Bedini, 1999, p. 224. Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 29.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 12..{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 15.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) In "Cover: Benjamin Bannaker" (Document). Baltimore, Maryland: Maryland Historical Society. 2018.Benjamin Banneker. Holographic manuscript of his 1792 almanac and ephemeris, with the published edition: Benjamin Banneker's Almanack. Baltimore: William Goddard and James Angell …, both 1791. Manuscript: Gift of William Goddard, 1813. Published almanac: Gift of Samuel L. Munson, 1925.Note: This web page contains links to three digitized images of pages in the manuscript for the almanac and to 12 digitized images of printed pages of the published almanac.
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Note: This manuscript, attributed to Banneker by Baltimore printer William Goddard (1740–1817), was printed as Banneker's Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia Almanack and Ephemeris for the Year of Our Lord 1792, Baltimore: Printed and Sold, Wholesale and Retail, by William Goddard and James Angell, at their
Printing-Office, in Market Street. The web page contains 19 links to digitized images of handwritten editorial notes describing the provenance of the manuscript, sequential digitized images of each page in the manuscript, and additional digitized images of pages in the manuscript.Footnote: "PrC (DLC)". (Abbreviations: "DLC": "Library of Congress"; "PrC": "Press Copy".)(Original source: Cullen, Charles T., ed. (1986). The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 22: 6 August 1791 – 31 December 1791. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. pp. 97–98. ISBN 9780691184654. LCCN 50007486. OCLC 1043555596. Retrieved August 31, 2019.
Footnote: PrC (DLC))
In 1785, Jefferson was using both stationary and portable presses made by James Watt & Co.(Reference: Bedini, Silvio A., Thomas Jefferson and His Copying Machines, University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville, 1984.)
Marked "Hawkins & Peale's Patent Polygraph No. 57," this machine was used by Jefferson from 1806 until his death. Jefferson first acquired the letter-copying device he called "the finest invention of the present age" in March of 1804.
the use of the polygraph has spoiled me for the old copying press the copies of which are hardly ever legible, ... I could not, now therefore, live without the Polygraph. ....
Hawkins & Peale patented a polygraph in the US in 1803, and beginning in 1804 Thomas Jefferson collaborated with them in working on improvements in the machine. Jefferson used a polygraph for the rest of his life.(Reference: Bedini, Silvio A., Thomas Jefferson and His Copying Machines, University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville, 1984.)
Historical Notes: Marked "Hawkins & Peale's Patent Polygraph No. 57," this machine was used by Jefferson from 1806 until his death. Jefferson first acquired the letter-copying device he called "the finest invention of the present age" in March of 1804. Invented and named by Englishman John Isaac Hawkins, the polygraph used the principles of the pantograph, a draftsman's tool for reducing and enlarging drawings. The writer's hand moves one pen whose action is duplicated by the second one, producing a copy strikingly like the original.
Before he returned to England in 1803, Hawkins assigned his American patent rights to Charles Willson Peale, who developed and marketed the invention. Jefferson was one of his most eager clients, purchasing one for the President's House and one for Monticello. He soon exchanged these machines for new ones, as Peale continued to perfect the design — often according to Jefferson's suggestions. By 1809 Jefferson wrote that "the use of the polygraph has spoiled me for the old copying press the copies of which are hardly ever legible . . . . I could not, now therefore, live without the Polygraph."
the use of the polygraph has spoiled me for the old copying press the copies of which are hardly ever legible, ... I could not, now therefore, live without the Polygraph. ....
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help).{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 394, Reference 7.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 394, Reference 8.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 394, Reference 9.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 12..{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 15.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 19.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) In "Cover: Benjamin Bannaker" (Document). Baltimore, Maryland: Maryland Historical Society. 2018.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)(b) {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 26.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 27.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 28.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) In Bedini, 1999, p. 224. Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 29.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) In "Cover: Benjamin Bannaker" (Document). Baltimore, Maryland: Maryland Historical Society. 2018.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 12..{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 15.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) In "Cover: Benjamin Bannaker" (Document). Baltimore, Maryland: Maryland Historical Society. 2018.In 1993 Rita Dove was appointed Poet Laureate of the United States and Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, making her the youngest person — and the first African-American — to receive this highest official honor in American poetry. She held the position for two years. .... Ms. Dove taught creative writing at Arizona State University from 1981 to 1989; subsequently she joined the faculty of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, where, since 1993, she holds the chair of Commonwealth Professor of English.
A number of fictional accounts of Banneker are available. All of them were dependent upon the following: Proceedings of the Maryland Historical Society for 1837 and 1854 which respectively contain the accounts of Banneker by John B. H. Latrobe and Martha E. Tyson. They were subsequently reprinted as pamphlets.
Recent biographical accounts of Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), a mulatto whose father was a native African and whose grandmother was English, have done his memory a disservice by obscuring his real achievements under a cloud of extravagant claims to scientific accomplishment that have no foundation in fact. The single notable exception is Silvio A. Bedini's The Life of Benjamin Banneker (New York, 1972), a work of painstaking research and scrupulous attention to accuracy which also benefits from the author's discovery of important and hitherto unavailable manuscript sources. However, as Bedini points out, the story of Banneker's involvement in the survey of the Federal District "rests on extremely meager documentation" (p. 104). This consists of a single mention by TJ, two brief statements by Banneker himself, and the newspaper allusion quoted above. In consequence, Bedini's otherwise reliable biography accepts the version of Banneker's role in this episode as presented in reminiscences of nineteenth-century authors. These recollections, deriving in large part from members of the Ellicott family, who were prompted by Quaker inclinations to justice and equality, have compounded the confusion. The nature of TJ's connection with Banneker is treated in the Editorial Note to the group of documents under 30 Aug. 1791, but because of the obscured record it is necessary here to attempt a clarification of the role of this modest, self-taught tobacco farmer in the laying out of the national capital.
First of all, because of unwarranted claims to the contrary, it must be pointed out that there is no evidence whatever that Banneker had anything to do with the survey of the Federal City or indeed with the final establishment of the boundaries of the Federal District. All available testimony shows that he was present only during the few weeks early in 1791 when the rough preliminary survey of the ten mile square was made; that, after this was concluded and before the final survey was begun, he returned to his farm and his astronomical studies in April, accompanying Ellicott part way on his brief journey back to Philadelphia; and that thenceforth he had no connection with the mapping of the seat of government. ...
In any case, Banneker's participation in the surveying of the Federal District was unquestionably brief and his role uncertain.
Teachers who want reliable information on African American history often don't know where to turn. Many have unfortunately looked to unreliable books and publications by Afrocentric writers. The African American Baseline Essays, developed by the public school system in Portland, Ore., are the most widespread Afrocentric teaching material. Educators should be aware of their crippling flaws. ....
"Thomas Jefferson appointed Benjamin Banneker to survey the site for the capital, Washington, D.C.; ...." according to the essay on African American scientists.
Had the author consulted "The Life of Benjamin Banneker" by Silvio Bedini, considered the definitive biography, he would have discovered no evidence for these claims. Jefferson appointed Andrew Ellicott to conduct the survey; Ellicott made Banneker his assistant for three months in 1791.
The Banneker story, impressive as it was, got embellished in 1987, when the public school system in Portland, Oregon, published African-American Baseline Essays, a thick stack of loose-leaf background papers for teachers, commissioned to encourage black history instruction. They have been used in Detroit, Atlanta, Fort Lauderdale, Newark, and scattered schools elsewhere, although they have been attacked for gross inaccuracy in an entire literature of detailed criticism by respected historians. ....
Austin H. Kiplinger and Walter E. Washington write that a proposed city museum at Mount Vernon Square will remind visitors that "George Washington engaged Pierre L' Enfant to map the city and about how Benjamin Banneker [helped] complete the project" [Close to Home, May 7]. Let's hope not.
Benjamin Banneker performed astronomical observations in 1791 when assisting Maj. Andrew Ellicott in a survey of the federal District's boundaries. He departed three months after the survey began, more than a year before its completion.
Meanwhile, a "Plan for the City of Washington" was drawn by one "Peter Charles L'Enfant" (sic). When George Washington chose to dismiss L'Enfant, it was Ellicott who revised L'Enfant's plan and completed the city's mapping. Banneker played no part in this.
This very well-researched book also helps lay to rest some of the myths about what Banneker did and did not do during his most unusual lifetime; unfortunately, many websites and books continue to propagate these myths, probably because those authors do not understand what Banneker actually accomplished. Many state, for example, that Banneker's clock was an exact copy of one he saw, which is not true – he figured out the mathematics and physics on his own for a clock made out of wood, instead of trying simply to copy the small pocket watch that he was lent to observe. However remarkable this clock was, it was not the first clock made in America. Other sources continually repeat the myth that when Pierre l'Enfant was fired from the job of laying out the new Federal City, Benjamin Banneker recreated l'Enfant's plans from memory. Bedini lays this myth to rest .....
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)Benjamin Banneker's achievements, against the odds, made him an American hero, but he has been mythologized to some extent.
For example, John Lockwood said Banneker "helped re-create the plans for the city of Washington," but Banneker actually finished his work on the survey of the perimeter of the District and went home to Ellicott Mills in April 1791, never to return. Pierre L'Enfant did not depart Washington until the following February, leaving Benjamin Ellicott, a brother of the principal surveyor, to draw a small version of the plan to be engraved.
.
The conflicts surrounding L'Enfant gave rise to an often–repeated story that involved Banneker. According to the story, Banneker, having seen the original design for the city only once, re-created it in detail after L'Enfant returned to France with the original plans. This legend has led some people to credit Banneker with a greater role in creating the capital city. However, there is no evidence that Banneker contributed anything to the design of the city or that he ever met L'Enfant.
Modern historians acknowledge that the inaccurate information—the myths surrounding Banneker—resulted in his contributions to the city being overvalued. Unfortunately, those myths sometimes obscure Banneker's greatest contribution to society—the almanacs that he would publish in his later years.
(Banneker's) life and work have become enshrouded in legend and anecdote.
How did the myth of Banneker helping Ellicott remember the plan take hold? I believe it is because the first name of the brother who helped Ellicott is Benjamin, and so Benjamin Banneker was mistaken for Benjamin Ellicott. I think it is nonsense to assume that when L'Enfant refused access to the "original" plan that meant that Ellicott had to rely on memory to reconstruct the plan. L'Enfant had the "large" plan. Ellicott probably had access to small renditions or drafts of the plan which, of course, he and his brother had helped create by their surveys of the city.
Over the 200 years since the death of Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), his story has become a muddled combination of fact, inference, misinformation, hyperbole, and legend. Like many other figures throughout history, the small amount of surviving source material has nurtured the development of a degree of mythology surrounding his story.
In 1806, shortly after Banneker's death, a fire at his home destroyed most of his personal papers (Gillispie). This gap in substantial archival material has hardly hindered the development of the Benjamin Banneker legend; perhaps it has even aided its growth. ..... The narrative that tells of Banneker's life as one of mythical success and unprecedented exceptionalism easily draws an audience, but it washes over what might be more intellectually rewarding questions about the man's life. .... For now, the legend of Benjamin Banneker will continue to exist in his old almanacs and in present culture, serving as an inspiring enigma for those who wonder what lies beyond the surface-level stories of the past.
Meanwhile Andrew Ellicott, the nation's Surveyor General, finished surveying the boundary lines of the federal district, and joined L'Enfant in laying out the city. (Ellicott showed a fine sense of the opportunity presented by the project by hiring a mathematician who was a "free Negro," to help with the survey. The Georgetown newspaper noted the significance of Benjamin Banneker's participation but, nearly sixty years old, he left the arduous project in May and returned to Baltimore to publish his almanac, and thus, contrary to legend, had nothing to do with L'Enfant's plan.)
..., much myth and anecdote surround the life and work of Banneker. An uncertain legacy grew, in part, from the destruction of almost all his papers and possessions when his log cabin home burnt down at the moment he was being buried.
Banneker's life became the source of legend after his death, with many attributing certain accomplishments to him for which there is little or no evidence in the historical record.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)(Banneker's clock) may have been the first clock ever assembled completely from American parts, according to (Elizabeth Ross) Haynes (although other historians have since disputed this). ... The plans for the large city were laid out by French architect and engineer Pierre Charles L'Enfant, who volunteered for service in the American Revolution's Continental Army and was hired for the project by George Washington in 1791. Before long, however, tensions mounted over its direction and progress of the project, and when L'Enfant was fired in 1792, he took off with the plans in tow.
But according to legend, the plans weren't actually lost: Banneker and the Ellicotts had worked closely with L'Enfant and his plans while surveying the city's site. As the University of Massachusetts explains, Banneker had actually committed the plans to memory "[and] was able to reproduce the complete layout—streets, parks, major buildings." However, the University of Massachusetts also points out that other historians doubt Banneker had any involvement in this part of the survey at all, instead saying that Andrew and his brother were the ones who recreated L'Enfant's plan. It's an intriguing myth, but it may only be that.
With limited materials having been preserved related to Banneker's life and career, there's been a fair amount of legend and misinformation presented.
{{cite web}}: |author= has generic name (help)Perhaps owing to the scarcity of recorded fact about his remarkable life, and because he was often invoked symbolically to advance social causes like abolition, Banneker's story has been susceptible to mythmaking. He has been incorrectly credited with drawing the street grid of Washington, D.C., making the first clock on the Eastern seaboard, being the first professional astronomer in America, and discovering the seventeen-year birth cycle of cicadas.
Washington's core was laid out by Pierre L'Enfant, a French-American engineer and city planner, when the federal government decided it needed a new capitol. George Washington carved out 10 miles square on the Potomac River, and appointed L'Enfant in 1791 to plan an ambitious new seat of government.
But L'Enfant didn't exactly carry out his vision alone: He was dismissed from the job in 1792—and he reportedly took his layout with him. That's when Benjamin Banneker, a free black man who had surveyed the capital and helped establish its boundary points, stepped in. Banneker is said to have redrawn L'Enfant's plans from memory in two days, though whether actually he did has been debated by historians; his history and legacy have yet to be fully excavated.
L'Enfant's plans were well received, but he proved to be extremely difficult to work with, arguing incessantly with the commissioners in charge of the capital project. .... When L'Enfant left the project, he took all the designs with him, leaving the project in disarray.
Unsure of how to proceed, Ellicott and the other planners feared they might have to start from scratch. According to writer Gaius Chamberlain, "Banneker surprised them when he asserted that he could reproduce the plans from memory and in two days did exactly as he had promised."
There has been much controversy over the years about whether such an event actually happened. Some historians claim that many of the facts about Banneker's life were embellished or mythologized, leaving the fact that he was able to reimagine L'Enfant's plans in dispute. Others have theorized that it was Andrew Ellicott's brother Benjamin who aided in redrawing the plans from memory, theorizing that he was confused with Banneker because they shared the same first name.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)So when a lot of people think of Benjamin Banneker, they may know him because of the story of him assisting with the layout of the nation's capital in Washington, DC. And I was troubled to find out that with no real evidence legend has it that Benjamin, Banneker single handedly laid out in, develop the plans for Washington DC himself with no help.
And this is the popular narrative in a lot of circles. And even in the mainstream media, the Washington Post published the story citing this is fact, and this is part of his mythology and it's probably untrue, but it made me wonder, like, why do people embellish history? Why would someone take a man like Banneker with the real moral and professional greatness, and then exaggerate a story with things uncertain. Why do we embellish historical figures in general? Maybe in this case, there is something to prove black people have latched onto the great figures to prove competence and to prove value. Maybe it really was thought to be the truth.
... Wefald writes that when Jefferson received a letter and almanac from Benjamin Banneker, Jefferson was "honest enough to change his position." Jefferson did not say that he had changed his opinion of the intellectual abilities of blacks. In his letter to Banneker, Aug. 30, 1791, Jefferson merely said: "No body wishes more than I do to see such proofs as you exhibit, that nature has given to our black brethren, talents equal to those of the other colors of men, and that the appearance of a want of them is owing merely to the degraded condition of their existence, both in Africa & America." Closely read, Jefferson's letter is only an indication that he "wishes to see such proofs", but there is no definite indication that he changed his mind. On Banneker's abilities Jefferson was ambivalent.
Jefferson's letter in reply was tepid and noncommittal:
Jefferson replied promptly and politely – but ambiguously on the subject of slavery:
In "Exhibition: Thomas Jefferson: Creating A Virginia Republic: Benjamin Banneker: Talents equal to those of the other colors of men". Library of Congress. April 24, 2000. Archived from the original on February 5, 2021. Retrieved February 28, 2021.
Notes: ... . While serving as secretary of state, Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), one of Virginia's largest planters and slaveholders, wrote this 30 August 1791 response to Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), an African-American mathematician and surveyor living in Maryland, who had written a forceful letter to Jefferson the day before, chastising him for holding slaves and questioning his sincerity as a "friend of liberty." .... In a polite response to Banneker's August 1791 letter, Jefferson expressed his ambivalent feelings about slavery and assured the surveyor that "no body wishes more ardently to see a good system commenced for raising the condition" of blacks "to what it ought to be."
Footnote: "RC (NjP: Straus Autograph Collection); endorsed by Barlow. PoC (DLC)" (Abbreviations: "DLC: "Library of Congress"" "NjP: "Princeton University"; "Poc": "Polygraph Copy";"RC": "Recipient's copy".)(Original source: Looney, J. Jefferson, ed. (2004). The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Retirement Series, vol. 1, 4 March 1809 to 15 November 1809. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. pp. 588–590. ISBN 9780691184593. LCCN 2004048327. OCLC 1045069067. Retrieved August 31, 2019.
Footnote: "RC (NjP: Straus Autograph Collection); endorsed by Barlow. PoC (DLC)")
The collection consists of Americana dating, primarily, from the period of the American Revolution and the thirty years immediately following, collected by Straus. Included are autograph letters from, and documents signed by, some of the leading figures of the period, such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, ....
A number of fictional accounts of Banneker are available. All of them were dependent upon the following: Proceedings of the Maryland Historical Society for 1837 and 1854 which respectively contain the accounts of Banneker by John B. H. Latrobe and Martha E. Tyson. They were subsequently reprinted as pamphlets.
Recent biographical accounts of Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), a mulatto whose father was a native African and whose grandmother was English, have done his memory a disservice by obscuring his real achievements under a cloud of extravagant claims to scientific accomplishment that have no foundation in fact. The single notable exception is Silvio A. Bedini's The Life of Benjamin Banneker (New York, 1972), a work of painstaking research and scrupulous attention to accuracy which also benefits from the author's discovery of important and hitherto unavailable manuscript sources. However, as Bedini points out, the story of Banneker's involvement in the survey of the Federal District "rests on extremely meager documentation" (p. 104). This consists of a single mention by TJ, two brief statements by Banneker himself, and the newspaper allusion quoted above. In consequence, Bedini's otherwise reliable biography accepts the version of Banneker's role in this episode as presented in reminiscences of nineteenth-century authors. These recollections, deriving in large part from members of the Ellicott family, who were prompted by Quaker inclinations to justice and equality, have compounded the confusion. The nature of TJ's connection with Banneker is treated in the Editorial Note to the group of documents under 30 Aug. 1791, but because of the obscured record it is necessary here to attempt a clarification of the role of this modest, self-taught tobacco farmer in the laying out of the national capital.
First of all, because of unwarranted claims to the contrary, it must be pointed out that there is no evidence whatever that Banneker had anything to do with the survey of the Federal City or indeed with the final establishment of the boundaries of the Federal District. All available testimony shows that he was present only during the few weeks early in 1791 when the rough preliminary survey of the ten mile square was made; that, after this was concluded and before the final survey was begun, he returned to his farm and his astronomical studies in April, accompanying Ellicott part way on his brief journey back to Philadelphia; and that thenceforth he had no connection with the mapping of the seat of government. ...
In any case, Banneker's participation in the surveying of the Federal District was unquestionably brief and his role uncertain.
Teachers who want reliable information on African American history often don't know where to turn. Many have unfortunately looked to unreliable books and publications by Afrocentric writers. The African American Baseline Essays, developed by the public school system in Portland, Ore., are the most widespread Afrocentric teaching material. Educators should be aware of their crippling flaws. ....
"Thomas Jefferson appointed Benjamin Banneker to survey the site for the capital, Washington, D.C.; ...." according to the essay on African American scientists.
Had the author consulted "The Life of Benjamin Banneker" by Silvio Bedini, considered the definitive biography, he would have discovered no evidence for these claims. Jefferson appointed Andrew Ellicott to conduct the survey; Ellicott made Banneker his assistant for three months in 1791.
The Banneker story, impressive as it was, got embellished in 1987, when the public school system in Portland, Oregon, published African-American Baseline Essays, a thick stack of loose-leaf background papers for teachers, commissioned to encourage black history instruction. They have been used in Detroit, Atlanta, Fort Lauderdale, Newark, and scattered schools elsewhere, although they have been attacked for gross inaccuracy in an entire literature of detailed criticism by respected historians. ....
Austin H. Kiplinger and Walter E. Washington write that a proposed city museum at Mount Vernon Square will remind visitors that "George Washington engaged Pierre L' Enfant to map the city and about how Benjamin Banneker [helped] complete the project" [Close to Home, May 7]. Let's hope not.
Benjamin Banneker performed astronomical observations in 1791 when assisting Maj. Andrew Ellicott in a survey of the federal District's boundaries. He departed three months after the survey began, more than a year before its completion.
Meanwhile, a "Plan for the City of Washington" was drawn by one "Peter Charles L'Enfant" (sic). When George Washington chose to dismiss L'Enfant, it was Ellicott who revised L'Enfant's plan and completed the city's mapping. Banneker played no part in this.
This very well-researched book also helps lay to rest some of the myths about what Banneker did and did not do during his most unusual lifetime; unfortunately, many websites and books continue to propagate these myths, probably because those authors do not understand what Banneker actually accomplished. Many state, for example, that Banneker's clock was an exact copy of one he saw, which is not true – he figured out the mathematics and physics on his own for a clock made out of wood, instead of trying simply to copy the small pocket watch that he was lent to observe. However remarkable this clock was, it was not the first clock made in America. Other sources continually repeat the myth that when Pierre l'Enfant was fired from the job of laying out the new Federal City, Benjamin Banneker recreated l'Enfant's plans from memory. Bedini lays this myth to rest .....
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)Benjamin Banneker's achievements, against the odds, made him an American hero, but he has been mythologized to some extent.
For example, John Lockwood said Banneker "helped re-create the plans for the city of Washington," but Banneker actually finished his work on the survey of the perimeter of the District and went home to Ellicott Mills in April 1791, never to return. Pierre L'Enfant did not depart Washington until the following February, leaving Benjamin Ellicott, a brother of the principal surveyor, to draw a small version of the plan to be engraved.
.
The conflicts surrounding L'Enfant gave rise to an often–repeated story that involved Banneker. According to the story, Banneker, having seen the original design for the city only once, re-created it in detail after L'Enfant returned to France with the original plans. This legend has led some people to credit Banneker with a greater role in creating the capital city. However, there is no evidence that Banneker contributed anything to the design of the city or that he ever met L'Enfant.
Modern historians acknowledge that the inaccurate information—the myths surrounding Banneker—resulted in his contributions to the city being overvalued. Unfortunately, those myths sometimes obscure Banneker's greatest contribution to society—the almanacs that he would publish in his later years.
(Banneker's) life and work have become enshrouded in legend and anecdote.
How did the myth of Banneker helping Ellicott remember the plan take hold? I believe it is because the first name of the brother who helped Ellicott is Benjamin, and so Benjamin Banneker was mistaken for Benjamin Ellicott. I think it is nonsense to assume that when L'Enfant refused access to the "original" plan that meant that Ellicott had to rely on memory to reconstruct the plan. L'Enfant had the "large" plan. Ellicott probably had access to small renditions or drafts of the plan which, of course, he and his brother had helped create by their surveys of the city.
Over the 200 years since the death of Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), his story has become a muddled combination of fact, inference, misinformation, hyperbole, and legend. Like many other figures throughout history, the small amount of surviving source material has nurtured the development of a degree of mythology surrounding his story.
In 1806, shortly after Banneker's death, a fire at his home destroyed most of his personal papers (Gillispie). This gap in substantial archival material has hardly hindered the development of the Benjamin Banneker legend; perhaps it has even aided its growth. ..... The narrative that tells of Banneker's life as one of mythical success and unprecedented exceptionalism easily draws an audience, but it washes over what might be more intellectually rewarding questions about the man's life. .... For now, the legend of Benjamin Banneker will continue to exist in his old almanacs and in present culture, serving as an inspiring enigma for those who wonder what lies beyond the surface-level stories of the past.
Meanwhile Andrew Ellicott, the nation's Surveyor General, finished surveying the boundary lines of the federal district, and joined L'Enfant in laying out the city. (Ellicott showed a fine sense of the opportunity presented by the project by hiring a mathematician who was a "free Negro," to help with the survey. The Georgetown newspaper noted the significance of Benjamin Banneker's participation but, nearly sixty years old, he left the arduous project in May and returned to Baltimore to publish his almanac, and thus, contrary to legend, had nothing to do with L'Enfant's plan.)
..., much myth and anecdote surround the life and work of Banneker. An uncertain legacy grew, in part, from the destruction of almost all his papers and possessions when his log cabin home burnt down at the moment he was being buried.
Banneker's life became the source of legend after his death, with many attributing certain accomplishments to him for which there is little or no evidence in the historical record.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)(Banneker's clock) may have been the first clock ever assembled completely from American parts, according to (Elizabeth Ross) Haynes (although other historians have since disputed this). ... The plans for the large city were laid out by French architect and engineer Pierre Charles L'Enfant, who volunteered for service in the American Revolution's Continental Army and was hired for the project by George Washington in 1791. Before long, however, tensions mounted over its direction and progress of the project, and when L'Enfant was fired in 1792, he took off with the plans in tow.
But according to legend, the plans weren't actually lost: Banneker and the Ellicotts had worked closely with L'Enfant and his plans while surveying the city's site. As the University of Massachusetts explains, Banneker had actually committed the plans to memory "[and] was able to reproduce the complete layout—streets, parks, major buildings." However, the University of Massachusetts also points out that other historians doubt Banneker had any involvement in this part of the survey at all, instead saying that Andrew and his brother were the ones who recreated L'Enfant's plan. It's an intriguing myth, but it may only be that.
With limited materials having been preserved related to Banneker's life and career, there's been a fair amount of legend and misinformation presented.
{{cite web}}: |author= has generic name (help)Perhaps owing to the scarcity of recorded fact about his remarkable life, and because he was often invoked symbolically to advance social causes like abolition, Banneker's story has been susceptible to mythmaking. He has been incorrectly credited with drawing the street grid of Washington, D.C., making the first clock on the Eastern seaboard, being the first professional astronomer in America, and discovering the seventeen-year birth cycle of cicadas.
Washington's core was laid out by Pierre L'Enfant, a French-American engineer and city planner, when the federal government decided it needed a new capitol. George Washington carved out 10 miles square on the Potomac River, and appointed L'Enfant in 1791 to plan an ambitious new seat of government.
But L'Enfant didn't exactly carry out his vision alone: He was dismissed from the job in 1792—and he reportedly took his layout with him. That's when Benjamin Banneker, a free black man who had surveyed the capital and helped establish its boundary points, stepped in. Banneker is said to have redrawn L'Enfant's plans from memory in two days, though whether actually he did has been debated by historians; his history and legacy have yet to be fully excavated.
L'Enfant's plans were well received, but he proved to be extremely difficult to work with, arguing incessantly with the commissioners in charge of the capital project. .... When L'Enfant left the project, he took all the designs with him, leaving the project in disarray.
Unsure of how to proceed, Ellicott and the other planners feared they might have to start from scratch. According to writer Gaius Chamberlain, "Banneker surprised them when he asserted that he could reproduce the plans from memory and in two days did exactly as he had promised."
There has been much controversy over the years about whether such an event actually happened. Some historians claim that many of the facts about Banneker's life were embellished or mythologized, leaving the fact that he was able to reimagine L'Enfant's plans in dispute. Others have theorized that it was Andrew Ellicott's brother Benjamin who aided in redrawing the plans from memory, theorizing that he was confused with Banneker because they shared the same first name.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)So when a lot of people think of Benjamin Banneker, they may know him because of the story of him assisting with the layout of the nation's capital in Washington, DC. And I was troubled to find out that with no real evidence legend has it that Benjamin, Banneker single handedly laid out in, develop the plans for Washington DC himself with no help.
And this is the popular narrative in a lot of circles. And even in the mainstream media, the Washington Post published the story citing this is fact, and this is part of his mythology and it's probably untrue, but it made me wonder, like, why do people embellish history? Why would someone take a man like Banneker with the real moral and professional greatness, and then exaggerate a story with things uncertain. Why do we embellish historical figures in general? Maybe in this case, there is something to prove black people have latched onto the great figures to prove competence and to prove value. Maybe it really was thought to be the truth.
Teachers who want reliable information on African American history often don't know where to turn. Many have unfortunately looked to unreliable books and publications by Afrocentric writers. The African American Baseline Essays, developed by the public school system in Portland, Ore., are the most widespread Afrocentric teaching material. Educators should be aware of their crippling flaws. ....
"Thomas Jefferson appointed Benjamin Banneker to survey the site for the capital, Washington, D.C.; ...." according to the essay on African American scientists.
Had the author consulted "The Life of Benjamin Banneker" by Silvio Bedini, considered the definitive biography, he would have discovered no evidence for these claims. Jefferson appointed Andrew Ellicott to conduct the survey; Ellicott made Banneker his assistant for three months in 1791.
.
The conflicts surrounding L'Enfant gave rise to an often—repeated story that involved Banneker. According to the story, Banneker, having seen the original design for the city only once, re-created it in detail after L'Enfant returned to France with the original plans. This legend has led some people to credit Banneker with a greater role in creating the capital city. However, there is no evidence that Banneker contributed anything to the design of the city or that he ever met L'Enfant.
Modern historians acknowledge that the inaccurate information—the myths surrounding Banneker—resulted in his contributions to the city being overvalued. Unfortunately, those myths sometimes obscure Banneker's greatest contribution to society—the almanacs that he would publish in his later years.
Perhaps owing to the scarcity of recorded fact about his remarkable life, and because he was often invoked symbolically to advance social causes like abolition, Banneker's story has been susceptible to mythmaking. He has been incorrectly credited with drawing the street grid of Washington, D.C., ....
In 1993 Rita Dove was appointed Poet Laureate of the United States and Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, making her the youngest person — and the first African-American — to receive this highest official honor in American poetry. She held the position for two years. .... Ms. Dove taught creative writing at Arizona State University from 1981 to 1989; subsequently she joined the faculty of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, where, since 1993, she holds the chair of Commonwealth Professor of English.
... Wefald writes that when Jefferson received a letter and almanac from Benjamin Banneker, Jefferson was "honest enough to change his position." Jefferson did not say that he had changed his opinion of the intellectual abilities of blacks. In his letter to Banneker, Aug. 30, 1791, Jefferson merely said: "No body wishes more than I do to see such proofs as you exhibit, that nature has given to our black brethren, talents equal to those of the other colors of men, and that the appearance of a want of them is owing merely to the degraded condition of their existence, both in Africa & America." Closely read, Jefferson's letter is only an indication that he "wishes to see such proofs", but there is no definite indication that he changed his mind. On Banneker's abilities Jefferson was ambivalent.
Jefferson's letter in reply was tepid and noncommittal:
Jefferson replied promptly and politely – but ambiguously on the subject of slavery:
In "Exhibition: Thomas Jefferson: Creating A Virginia Republic: Benjamin Banneker: Talents equal to those of the other colors of men". Library of Congress. April 24, 2000. Archived from the original on February 5, 2021. Retrieved February 28, 2021.
Notes: ... . While serving as secretary of state, Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), one of Virginia's largest planters and slaveholders, wrote this 30 August 1791 response to Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), an African-American mathematician and surveyor living in Maryland, who had written a forceful letter to Jefferson the day before, chastising him for holding slaves and questioning his sincerity as a "friend of liberty." .... In a polite response to Banneker's August 1791 letter, Jefferson expressed his ambivalent feelings about slavery and assured the surveyor that "no body wishes more ardently to see a good system commenced for raising the condition" of blacks "to what it ought to be."
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help).{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 394, Reference 7.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 394, Reference 8.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 394, Reference 9.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 12..{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 15.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 19.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) In "Cover: Benjamin Bannaker" (Document). Baltimore, Maryland: Maryland Historical Society. 2018.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)(b) {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 26.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 27.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 28.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) In Bedini, 1999, p. 224. Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 29.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)A number of fictional accounts of Banneker are available. All of them were dependent upon the following: Proceedings of the Maryland Historical Society for 1837 and 1854 which respectively contain the accounts of Banneker by John B. H. Latrobe and Martha E. Tyson. They were subsequently reprinted as pamphlets.
Recent biographical accounts of Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), a mulatto whose father was a native African and whose grandmother was English, have done his memory a disservice by obscuring his real achievements under a cloud of extravagant claims to scientific accomplishment that have no foundation in fact. The single notable exception is Silvio A. Bedini's The Life of Benjamin Banneker (New York, 1972), a work of painstaking research and scrupulous attention to accuracy which also benefits from the author's discovery of important and hitherto unavailable manuscript sources. However, as Bedini points out, the story of Banneker's involvement in the survey of the Federal District "rests on extremely meager documentation" (p. 104). This consists of a single mention by TJ, two brief statements by Banneker himself, and the newspaper allusion quoted above. In consequence, Bedini's otherwise reliable biography accepts the version of Banneker's role in this episode as presented in reminiscences of nineteenth-century authors. These recollections, deriving in large part from members of the Ellicott family, who were prompted by Quaker inclinations to justice and equality, have compounded the confusion. The nature of TJ's connection with Banneker is treated in the Editorial Note to the group of documents under 30 Aug. 1791, but because of the obscured record it is necessary here to attempt a clarification of the role of this modest, self-taught tobacco farmer in the laying out of the national capital.
First of all, because of unwarranted claims to the contrary, it must be pointed out that there is no evidence whatever that Banneker had anything to do with the survey of the Federal City or indeed with the final establishment of the boundaries of the Federal District. All available testimony shows that he was present only during the few weeks early in 1791 when the rough preliminary survey of the ten mile square was made; that, after this was concluded and before the final survey was begun, he returned to his farm and his astronomical studies in April, accompanying Ellicott part way on his brief journey back to Philadelphia; and that thenceforth he had no connection with the mapping of the seat of government. ...
In any case, Banneker's participation in the surveying of the Federal District was unquestionably brief and his role uncertain.
Teachers who want reliable information on African American history often don't know where to turn. Many have unfortunately looked to unreliable books and publications by Afrocentric writers. The African American Baseline Essays, developed by the public school system in Portland, Ore., are the most widespread Afrocentric teaching material. Educators should be aware of their crippling flaws. ....
"Thomas Jefferson appointed Benjamin Banneker to survey the site for the capital, Washington, D.C.; ...." according to the essay on African American scientists.
Had the author consulted "The Life of Benjamin Banneker" by Silvio Bedini, considered the definitive biography, he would have discovered no evidence for these claims. Jefferson appointed Andrew Ellicott to conduct the survey; Ellicott made Banneker his assistant for three months in 1791.
The Banneker story, impressive as it was, got embellished in 1987, when the public school system in Portland, Oregon, published African-American Baseline Essays, a thick stack of loose-leaf background papers for teachers, commissioned to encourage black history instruction. They have been used in Detroit, Atlanta, Fort Lauderdale, Newark, and scattered schools elsewhere, although they have been attacked for gross inaccuracy in an entire literature of detailed criticism by respected historians. ....
Austin H. Kiplinger and Walter E. Washington write that a proposed city museum at Mount Vernon Square will remind visitors that "George Washington engaged Pierre L' Enfant to map the city and about how Benjamin Banneker [helped] complete the project" [Close to Home, May 7]. Let's hope not.
Benjamin Banneker performed astronomical observations in 1791 when assisting Maj. Andrew Ellicott in a survey of the federal District's boundaries. He departed three months after the survey began, more than a year before its completion.
Meanwhile, a "Plan for the City of Washington" was drawn by one "Peter Charles L'Enfant" (sic). When George Washington chose to dismiss L'Enfant, it was Ellicott who revised L'Enfant's plan and completed the city's mapping. Banneker played no part in this.
This very well-researched book also helps lay to rest some of the myths about what Banneker did and did not do during his most unusual lifetime; unfortunately, many websites and books continue to propagate these myths, probably because those authors do not understand what Banneker actually accomplished. Many state, for example, that Banneker's clock was an exact copy of one he saw, which is not true – he figured out the mathematics and physics on his own for a clock made out of wood, instead of trying simply to copy the small pocket watch that he was lent to observe. However remarkable this clock was, it was not the first clock made in America. Other sources continually repeat the myth that when Pierre l'Enfant was fired from the job of laying out the new Federal City, Benjamin Banneker recreated l'Enfant's plans from memory. Bedini lays this myth to rest .....
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)Benjamin Banneker's achievements, against the odds, made him an American hero, but he has been mythologized to some extent.
For example, John Lockwood said Banneker "helped re-create the plans for the city of Washington," but Banneker actually finished his work on the survey of the perimeter of the District and went home to Ellicott Mills in April 1791, never to return. Pierre L'Enfant did not depart Washington until the following February, leaving Benjamin Ellicott, a brother of the principal surveyor, to draw a small version of the plan to be engraved.
.
The conflicts surrounding L'Enfant gave rise to an often–repeated story that involved Banneker. According to the story, Banneker, having seen the original design for the city only once, re-created it in detail after L'Enfant returned to France with the original plans. This legend has led some people to credit Banneker with a greater role in creating the capital city. However, there is no evidence that Banneker contributed anything to the design of the city or that he ever met L'Enfant.
Modern historians acknowledge that the inaccurate information—the myths surrounding Banneker—resulted in his contributions to the city being overvalued. Unfortunately, those myths sometimes obscure Banneker's greatest contribution to society—the almanacs that he would publish in his later years.
(Banneker's) life and work have become enshrouded in legend and anecdote.
How did the myth of Banneker helping Ellicott remember the plan take hold? I believe it is because the first name of the brother who helped Ellicott is Benjamin, and so Benjamin Banneker was mistaken for Benjamin Ellicott. I think it is nonsense to assume that when L'Enfant refused access to the "original" plan that meant that Ellicott had to rely on memory to reconstruct the plan. L'Enfant had the "large" plan. Ellicott probably had access to small renditions or drafts of the plan which, of course, he and his brother had helped create by their surveys of the city.
Over the 200 years since the death of Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), his story has become a muddled combination of fact, inference, misinformation, hyperbole, and legend. Like many other figures throughout history, the small amount of surviving source material has nurtured the development of a degree of mythology surrounding his story.
In 1806, shortly after Banneker's death, a fire at his home destroyed most of his personal papers (Gillispie). This gap in substantial archival material has hardly hindered the development of the Benjamin Banneker legend; perhaps it has even aided its growth. ..... The narrative that tells of Banneker's life as one of mythical success and unprecedented exceptionalism easily draws an audience, but it washes over what might be more intellectually rewarding questions about the man's life. .... For now, the legend of Benjamin Banneker will continue to exist in his old almanacs and in present culture, serving as an inspiring enigma for those who wonder what lies beyond the surface-level stories of the past.
Meanwhile Andrew Ellicott, the nation's Surveyor General, finished surveying the boundary lines of the federal district, and joined L'Enfant in laying out the city. (Ellicott showed a fine sense of the opportunity presented by the project by hiring a mathematician who was a "free Negro," to help with the survey. The Georgetown newspaper noted the significance of Benjamin Banneker's participation but, nearly sixty years old, he left the arduous project in May and returned to Baltimore to publish his almanac, and thus, contrary to legend, had nothing to do with L'Enfant's plan.)
..., much myth and anecdote surround the life and work of Banneker. An uncertain legacy grew, in part, from the destruction of almost all his papers and possessions when his log cabin home burnt down at the moment he was being buried.
Banneker's life became the source of legend after his death, with many attributing certain accomplishments to him for which there is little or no evidence in the historical record.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)(Banneker's clock) may have been the first clock ever assembled completely from American parts, according to (Elizabeth Ross) Haynes (although other historians have since disputed this). ... The plans for the large city were laid out by French architect and engineer Pierre Charles L'Enfant, who volunteered for service in the American Revolution's Continental Army and was hired for the project by George Washington in 1791. Before long, however, tensions mounted over its direction and progress of the project, and when L'Enfant was fired in 1792, he took off with the plans in tow.
But according to legend, the plans weren't actually lost: Banneker and the Ellicotts had worked closely with L'Enfant and his plans while surveying the city's site. As the University of Massachusetts explains, Banneker had actually committed the plans to memory "[and] was able to reproduce the complete layout—streets, parks, major buildings." However, the University of Massachusetts also points out that other historians doubt Banneker had any involvement in this part of the survey at all, instead saying that Andrew and his brother were the ones who recreated L'Enfant's plan. It's an intriguing myth, but it may only be that.
With limited materials having been preserved related to Banneker's life and career, there's been a fair amount of legend and misinformation presented.
{{cite web}}: |author= has generic name (help)Perhaps owing to the scarcity of recorded fact about his remarkable life, and because he was often invoked symbolically to advance social causes like abolition, Banneker's story has been susceptible to mythmaking. He has been incorrectly credited with drawing the street grid of Washington, D.C., making the first clock on the Eastern seaboard, being the first professional astronomer in America, and discovering the seventeen-year birth cycle of cicadas.
Washington's core was laid out by Pierre L'Enfant, a French-American engineer and city planner, when the federal government decided it needed a new capitol. George Washington carved out 10 miles square on the Potomac River, and appointed L'Enfant in 1791 to plan an ambitious new seat of government.
But L'Enfant didn't exactly carry out his vision alone: He was dismissed from the job in 1792—and he reportedly took his layout with him. That's when Benjamin Banneker, a free black man who had surveyed the capital and helped establish its boundary points, stepped in. Banneker is said to have redrawn L'Enfant's plans from memory in two days, though whether actually he did has been debated by historians; his history and legacy have yet to be fully excavated.
L'Enfant's plans were well received, but he proved to be extremely difficult to work with, arguing incessantly with the commissioners in charge of the capital project. .... When L'Enfant left the project, he took all the designs with him, leaving the project in disarray.
Unsure of how to proceed, Ellicott and the other planners feared they might have to start from scratch. According to writer Gaius Chamberlain, "Banneker surprised them when he asserted that he could reproduce the plans from memory and in two days did exactly as he had promised."
There has been much controversy over the years about whether such an event actually happened. Some historians claim that many of the facts about Banneker's life were embellished or mythologized, leaving the fact that he was able to reimagine L'Enfant's plans in dispute. Others have theorized that it was Andrew Ellicott's brother Benjamin who aided in redrawing the plans from memory, theorizing that he was confused with Banneker because they shared the same first name.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)So when a lot of people think of Benjamin Banneker, they may know him because of the story of him assisting with the layout of the nation's capital in Washington, DC. And I was troubled to find out that with no real evidence legend has it that Benjamin, Banneker single handedly laid out in, develop the plans for Washington DC himself with no help.
And this is the popular narrative in a lot of circles. And even in the mainstream media, the Washington Post published the story citing this is fact, and this is part of his mythology and it's probably untrue, but it made me wonder, like, why do people embellish history? Why would someone take a man like Banneker with the real moral and professional greatness, and then exaggerate a story with things uncertain. Why do we embellish historical figures in general? Maybe in this case, there is something to prove black people have latched onto the great figures to prove competence and to prove value. Maybe it really was thought to be the truth.
A number of fictional accounts of Banneker are available. All of them were dependent upon the following: Proceedings of the Maryland Historical Society for 1837 and 1854 which respectively contain the accounts of Banneker by John B. H. Latrobe and Martha E. Tyson. They were subsequently reprinted as pamphlets.
Recent biographical accounts of Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), a mulatto whose father was a native African and whose grandmother was English, have done his memory a disservice by obscuring his real achievements under a cloud of extravagant claims to scientific accomplishment that have no foundation in fact. The single notable exception is Silvio A. Bedini's The Life of Benjamin Banneker (New York, 1972), a work of painstaking research and scrupulous attention to accuracy which also benefits from the author's discovery of important and hitherto unavailable manuscript sources. However, as Bedini points out, the story of Banneker's involvement in the survey of the Federal District "rests on extremely meager documentation" (p. 104). This consists of a single mention by TJ, two brief statements by Banneker himself, and the newspaper allusion quoted above. In consequence, Bedini's otherwise reliable biography accepts the version of Banneker's role in this episode as presented in reminiscences of nineteenth-century authors. These recollections, deriving in large part from members of the Ellicott family, who were prompted by Quaker inclinations to justice and equality, have compounded the confusion. The nature of TJ's connection with Banneker is treated in the Editorial Note to the group of documents under 30 Aug. 1791, but because of the obscured record it is necessary here to attempt a clarification of the role of this modest, self-taught tobacco farmer in the laying out of the national capital.
First of all, because of unwarranted claims to the contrary, it must be pointed out that there is no evidence whatever that Banneker had anything to do with the survey of the Federal City or indeed with the final establishment of the boundaries of the Federal District. All available testimony shows that he was present only during the few weeks early in 1791 when the rough preliminary survey of the ten mile square was made; that, after this was concluded and before the final survey was begun, he returned to his farm and his astronomical studies in April, accompanying Ellicott part way on his brief journey back to Philadelphia; and that thenceforth he had no connection with the mapping of the seat of government. ...
In any case, Banneker's participation in the surveying of the Federal District was unquestionably brief and his role uncertain.
Teachers who want reliable information on African American history often don't know where to turn. Many have unfortunately looked to unreliable books and publications by Afrocentric writers. The African American Baseline Essays, developed by the public school system in Portland, Ore., are the most widespread Afrocentric teaching material. Educators should be aware of their crippling flaws. ....
"Thomas Jefferson appointed Benjamin Banneker to survey the site for the capital, Washington, D.C.; ...." according to the essay on African American scientists.
Had the author consulted "The Life of Benjamin Banneker" by Silvio Bedini, considered the definitive biography, he would have discovered no evidence for these claims. Jefferson appointed Andrew Ellicott to conduct the survey; Ellicott made Banneker his assistant for three months in 1791.
The Banneker story, impressive as it was, got embellished in 1987, when the public school system in Portland, Oregon, published African-American Baseline Essays, a thick stack of loose-leaf background papers for teachers, commissioned to encourage black history instruction. They have been used in Detroit, Atlanta, Fort Lauderdale, Newark, and scattered schools elsewhere, although they have been attacked for gross inaccuracy in an entire literature of detailed criticism by respected historians. ....
Austin H. Kiplinger and Walter E. Washington write that a proposed city museum at Mount Vernon Square will remind visitors that "George Washington engaged Pierre L' Enfant to map the city and about how Benjamin Banneker [helped] complete the project" [Close to Home, May 7]. Let's hope not.
Benjamin Banneker performed astronomical observations in 1791 when assisting Maj. Andrew Ellicott in a survey of the federal District's boundaries. He departed three months after the survey began, more than a year before its completion.
Meanwhile, a "Plan for the City of Washington" was drawn by one "Peter Charles L'Enfant" (sic). When George Washington chose to dismiss L'Enfant, it was Ellicott who revised L'Enfant's plan and completed the city's mapping. Banneker played no part in this.
This very well-researched book also helps lay to rest some of the myths about what Banneker did and did not do during his most unusual lifetime; unfortunately, many websites and books continue to propagate these myths, probably because those authors do not understand what Banneker actually accomplished. Many state, for example, that Banneker's clock was an exact copy of one he saw, which is not true – he figured out the mathematics and physics on his own for a clock made out of wood, instead of trying simply to copy the small pocket watch that he was lent to observe. However remarkable this clock was, it was not the first clock made in America. Other sources continually repeat the myth that when Pierre l'Enfant was fired from the job of laying out the new Federal City, Benjamin Banneker recreated l'Enfant's plans from memory. Bedini lays this myth to rest .....
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)Benjamin Banneker's achievements, against the odds, made him an American hero, but he has been mythologized to some extent.
For example, John Lockwood said Banneker "helped re-create the plans for the city of Washington," but Banneker actually finished his work on the survey of the perimeter of the District and went home to Ellicott Mills in April 1791, never to return. Pierre L'Enfant did not depart Washington until the following February, leaving Benjamin Ellicott, a brother of the principal surveyor, to draw a small version of the plan to be engraved.
.
The conflicts surrounding L'Enfant gave rise to an often–repeated story that involved Banneker. According to the story, Banneker, having seen the original design for the city only once, re-created it in detail after L'Enfant returned to France with the original plans. This legend has led some people to credit Banneker with a greater role in creating the capital city. However, there is no evidence that Banneker contributed anything to the design of the city or that he ever met L'Enfant.
Modern historians acknowledge that the inaccurate information—the myths surrounding Banneker—resulted in his contributions to the city being overvalued. Unfortunately, those myths sometimes obscure Banneker's greatest contribution to society—the almanacs that he would publish in his later years.
(Banneker's) life and work have become enshrouded in legend and anecdote.
How did the myth of Banneker helping Ellicott remember the plan take hold? I believe it is because the first name of the brother who helped Ellicott is Benjamin, and so Benjamin Banneker was mistaken for Benjamin Ellicott. I think it is nonsense to assume that when L'Enfant refused access to the "original" plan that meant that Ellicott had to rely on memory to reconstruct the plan. L'Enfant had the "large" plan. Ellicott probably had access to small renditions or drafts of the plan which, of course, he and his brother had helped create by their surveys of the city.
Over the 200 years since the death of Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), his story has become a muddled combination of fact, inference, misinformation, hyperbole, and legend. Like many other figures throughout history, the small amount of surviving source material has nurtured the development of a degree of mythology surrounding his story.
In 1806, shortly after Banneker's death, a fire at his home destroyed most of his personal papers (Gillispie). This gap in substantial archival material has hardly hindered the development of the Benjamin Banneker legend; perhaps it has even aided its growth. ..... The narrative that tells of Banneker's life as one of mythical success and unprecedented exceptionalism easily draws an audience, but it washes over what might be more intellectually rewarding questions about the man's life. .... For now, the legend of Benjamin Banneker will continue to exist in his old almanacs and in present culture, serving as an inspiring enigma for those who wonder what lies beyond the surface-level stories of the past.
Meanwhile Andrew Ellicott, the nation's Surveyor General, finished surveying the boundary lines of the federal district, and joined L'Enfant in laying out the city. (Ellicott showed a fine sense of the opportunity presented by the project by hiring a mathematician who was a "free Negro," to help with the survey. The Georgetown newspaper noted the significance of Benjamin Banneker's participation but, nearly sixty years old, he left the arduous project in May and returned to Baltimore to publish his almanac, and thus, contrary to legend, had nothing to do with L'Enfant's plan.)
..., much myth and anecdote surround the life and work of Banneker. An uncertain legacy grew, in part, from the destruction of almost all his papers and possessions when his log cabin home burnt down at the moment he was being buried.
Banneker's life became the source of legend after his death, with many attributing certain accomplishments to him for which there is little or no evidence in the historical record.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)(Banneker's clock) may have been the first clock ever assembled completely from American parts, according to (Elizabeth Ross) Haynes (although other historians have since disputed this). ... The plans for the large city were laid out by French architect and engineer Pierre Charles L'Enfant, who volunteered for service in the American Revolution's Continental Army and was hired for the project by George Washington in 1791. Before long, however, tensions mounted over its direction and progress of the project, and when L'Enfant was fired in 1792, he took off with the plans in tow.
But according to legend, the plans weren't actually lost: Banneker and the Ellicotts had worked closely with L'Enfant and his plans while surveying the city's site. As the University of Massachusetts explains, Banneker had actually committed the plans to memory "[and] was able to reproduce the complete layout—streets, parks, major buildings." However, the University of Massachusetts also points out that other historians doubt Banneker had any involvement in this part of the survey at all, instead saying that Andrew and his brother were the ones who recreated L'Enfant's plan. It's an intriguing myth, but it may only be that.
With limited materials having been preserved related to Banneker's life and career, there's been a fair amount of legend and misinformation presented.
{{cite web}}: |author= has generic name (help)Perhaps owing to the scarcity of recorded fact about his remarkable life, and because he was often invoked symbolically to advance social causes like abolition, Banneker's story has been susceptible to mythmaking. He has been incorrectly credited with drawing the street grid of Washington, D.C., making the first clock on the Eastern seaboard, being the first professional astronomer in America, and discovering the seventeen-year birth cycle of cicadas.
Washington's core was laid out by Pierre L'Enfant, a French-American engineer and city planner, when the federal government decided it needed a new capitol. George Washington carved out 10 miles square on the Potomac River, and appointed L'Enfant in 1791 to plan an ambitious new seat of government.
But L'Enfant didn't exactly carry out his vision alone: He was dismissed from the job in 1792—and he reportedly took his layout with him. That's when Benjamin Banneker, a free black man who had surveyed the capital and helped establish its boundary points, stepped in. Banneker is said to have redrawn L'Enfant's plans from memory in two days, though whether actually he did has been debated by historians; his history and legacy have yet to be fully excavated.
L'Enfant's plans were well received, but he proved to be extremely difficult to work with, arguing incessantly with the commissioners in charge of the capital project. .... When L'Enfant left the project, he took all the designs with him, leaving the project in disarray.
Unsure of how to proceed, Ellicott and the other planners feared they might have to start from scratch. According to writer Gaius Chamberlain, "Banneker surprised them when he asserted that he could reproduce the plans from memory and in two days did exactly as he had promised."
There has been much controversy over the years about whether such an event actually happened. Some historians claim that many of the facts about Banneker's life were embellished or mythologized, leaving the fact that he was able to reimagine L'Enfant's plans in dispute. Others have theorized that it was Andrew Ellicott's brother Benjamin who aided in redrawing the plans from memory, theorizing that he was confused with Banneker because they shared the same first name.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)So when a lot of people think of Benjamin Banneker, they may know him because of the story of him assisting with the layout of the nation's capital in Washington, DC. And I was troubled to find out that with no real evidence legend has it that Benjamin, Banneker single handedly laid out in, develop the plans for Washington DC himself with no help.
And this is the popular narrative in a lot of circles. And even in the mainstream media, the Washington Post published the story citing this is fact, and this is part of his mythology and it's probably untrue, but it made me wonder, like, why do people embellish history? Why would someone take a man like Banneker with the real moral and professional greatness, and then exaggerate a story with things uncertain. Why do we embellish historical figures in general? Maybe in this case, there is something to prove black people have latched onto the great figures to prove competence and to prove value. Maybe it really was thought to be the truth.
A number of fictional accounts of Banneker are available. All of them were dependent upon the following: Proceedings of the Maryland Historical Society for 1837 and 1854 which respectively contain the accounts of Banneker by John B. H. Latrobe and Martha E. Tyson. They were subsequently reprinted as pamphlets.
Recent biographical accounts of Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), a mulatto whose father was a native African and whose grandmother was English, have done his memory a disservice by obscuring his real achievements under a cloud of extravagant claims to scientific accomplishment that have no foundation in fact. The single notable exception is Silvio A. Bedini's The Life of Benjamin Banneker (New York, 1972), a work of painstaking research and scrupulous attention to accuracy which also benefits from the author's discovery of important and hitherto unavailable manuscript sources. However, as Bedini points out, the story of Banneker's involvement in the survey of the Federal District "rests on extremely meager documentation" (p. 104). This consists of a single mention by TJ, two brief statements by Banneker himself, and the newspaper allusion quoted above. In consequence, Bedini's otherwise reliable biography accepts the version of Banneker's role in this episode as presented in reminiscences of nineteenth-century authors. These recollections, deriving in large part from members of the Ellicott family, who were prompted by Quaker inclinations to justice and equality, have compounded the confusion. The nature of TJ's connection with Banneker is treated in the Editorial Note to the group of documents under 30 Aug. 1791, but because of the obscured record it is necessary here to attempt a clarification of the role of this modest, self-taught tobacco farmer in the laying out of the national capital.
First of all, because of unwarranted claims to the contrary, it must be pointed out that there is no evidence whatever that Banneker had anything to do with the survey of the Federal City or indeed with the final establishment of the boundaries of the Federal District. All available testimony shows that he was present only during the few weeks early in 1791 when the rough preliminary survey of the ten mile square was made; that, after this was concluded and before the final survey was begun, he returned to his farm and his astronomical studies in April, accompanying Ellicott part way on his brief journey back to Philadelphia; and that thenceforth he had no connection with the mapping of the seat of government. ...
In any case, Banneker's participation in the surveying of the Federal District was unquestionably brief and his role uncertain.
Teachers who want reliable information on African American history often don't know where to turn. Many have unfortunately looked to unreliable books and publications by Afrocentric writers. The African American Baseline Essays, developed by the public school system in Portland, Ore., are the most widespread Afrocentric teaching material. Educators should be aware of their crippling flaws. ....
"Thomas Jefferson appointed Benjamin Banneker to survey the site for the capital, Washington, D.C.; ...." according to the essay on African American scientists.
Had the author consulted "The Life of Benjamin Banneker" by Silvio Bedini, considered the definitive biography, he would have discovered no evidence for these claims. Jefferson appointed Andrew Ellicott to conduct the survey; Ellicott made Banneker his assistant for three months in 1791.
The Banneker story, impressive as it was, got embellished in 1987, when the public school system in Portland, Oregon, published African-American Baseline Essays, a thick stack of loose-leaf background papers for teachers, commissioned to encourage black history instruction. They have been used in Detroit, Atlanta, Fort Lauderdale, Newark, and scattered schools elsewhere, although they have been attacked for gross inaccuracy in an entire literature of detailed criticism by respected historians. ....
Austin H. Kiplinger and Walter E. Washington write that a proposed city museum at Mount Vernon Square will remind visitors that "George Washington engaged Pierre L' Enfant to map the city and about how Benjamin Banneker [helped] complete the project" [Close to Home, May 7]. Let's hope not.
Benjamin Banneker performed astronomical observations in 1791 when assisting Maj. Andrew Ellicott in a survey of the federal District's boundaries. He departed three months after the survey began, more than a year before its completion.
Meanwhile, a "Plan for the City of Washington" was drawn by one "Peter Charles L'Enfant" (sic). When George Washington chose to dismiss L'Enfant, it was Ellicott who revised L'Enfant's plan and completed the city's mapping. Banneker played no part in this.
This very well-researched book also helps lay to rest some of the myths about what Banneker did and did not do during his most unusual lifetime; unfortunately, many websites and books continue to propagate these myths, probably because those authors do not understand what Banneker actually accomplished. Many state, for example, that Banneker's clock was an exact copy of one he saw, which is not true – he figured out the mathematics and physics on his own for a clock made out of wood, instead of trying simply to copy the small pocket watch that he was lent to observe. However remarkable this clock was, it was not the first clock made in America. Other sources continually repeat the myth that when Pierre l'Enfant was fired from the job of laying out the new Federal City, Benjamin Banneker recreated l'Enfant's plans from memory. Bedini lays this myth to rest .....
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)Benjamin Banneker's achievements, against the odds, made him an American hero, but he has been mythologized to some extent.
For example, John Lockwood said Banneker "helped re-create the plans for the city of Washington," but Banneker actually finished his work on the survey of the perimeter of the District and went home to Ellicott Mills in April 1791, never to return. Pierre L'Enfant did not depart Washington until the following February, leaving Benjamin Ellicott, a brother of the principal surveyor, to draw a small version of the plan to be engraved.
.
The conflicts surrounding L'Enfant gave rise to an often–repeated story that involved Banneker. According to the story, Banneker, having seen the original design for the city only once, re-created it in detail after L'Enfant returned to France with the original plans. This legend has led some people to credit Banneker with a greater role in creating the capital city. However, there is no evidence that Banneker contributed anything to the design of the city or that he ever met L'Enfant.
Modern historians acknowledge that the inaccurate information—the myths surrounding Banneker—resulted in his contributions to the city being overvalued. Unfortunately, those myths sometimes obscure Banneker's greatest contribution to society—the almanacs that he would publish in his later years.
(Banneker's) life and work have become enshrouded in legend and anecdote.
How did the myth of Banneker helping Ellicott remember the plan take hold? I believe it is because the first name of the brother who helped Ellicott is Benjamin, and so Benjamin Banneker was mistaken for Benjamin Ellicott. I think it is nonsense to assume that when L'Enfant refused access to the "original" plan that meant that Ellicott had to rely on memory to reconstruct the plan. L'Enfant had the "large" plan. Ellicott probably had access to small renditions or drafts of the plan which, of course, he and his brother had helped create by their surveys of the city.
Over the 200 years since the death of Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), his story has become a muddled combination of fact, inference, misinformation, hyperbole, and legend. Like many other figures throughout history, the small amount of surviving source material has nurtured the development of a degree of mythology surrounding his story.
In 1806, shortly after Banneker's death, a fire at his home destroyed most of his personal papers (Gillispie). This gap in substantial archival material has hardly hindered the development of the Benjamin Banneker legend; perhaps it has even aided its growth. ..... The narrative that tells of Banneker's life as one of mythical success and unprecedented exceptionalism easily draws an audience, but it washes over what might be more intellectually rewarding questions about the man's life. .... For now, the legend of Benjamin Banneker will continue to exist in his old almanacs and in present culture, serving as an inspiring enigma for those who wonder what lies beyond the surface-level stories of the past.
Meanwhile Andrew Ellicott, the nation's Surveyor General, finished surveying the boundary lines of the federal district, and joined L'Enfant in laying out the city. (Ellicott showed a fine sense of the opportunity presented by the project by hiring a mathematician who was a "free Negro," to help with the survey. The Georgetown newspaper noted the significance of Benjamin Banneker's participation but, nearly sixty years old, he left the arduous project in May and returned to Baltimore to publish his almanac, and thus, contrary to legend, had nothing to do with L'Enfant's plan.)
..., much myth and anecdote surround the life and work of Banneker. An uncertain legacy grew, in part, from the destruction of almost all his papers and possessions when his log cabin home burnt down at the moment he was being buried.
Banneker's life became the source of legend after his death, with many attributing certain accomplishments to him for which there is little or no evidence in the historical record.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)(Banneker's clock) may have been the first clock ever assembled completely from American parts, according to (Elizabeth Ross) Haynes (although other historians have since disputed this). ... The plans for the large city were laid out by French architect and engineer Pierre Charles L'Enfant, who volunteered for service in the American Revolution's Continental Army and was hired for the project by George Washington in 1791. Before long, however, tensions mounted over its direction and progress of the project, and when L'Enfant was fired in 1792, he took off with the plans in tow.
But according to legend, the plans weren't actually lost: Banneker and the Ellicotts had worked closely with L'Enfant and his plans while surveying the city's site. As the University of Massachusetts explains, Banneker had actually committed the plans to memory "[and] was able to reproduce the complete layout—streets, parks, major buildings." However, the University of Massachusetts also points out that other historians doubt Banneker had any involvement in this part of the survey at all, instead saying that Andrew and his brother were the ones who recreated L'Enfant's plan. It's an intriguing myth, but it may only be that.
With limited materials having been preserved related to Banneker's life and career, there's been a fair amount of legend and misinformation presented.
{{cite web}}: |author= has generic name (help)Perhaps owing to the scarcity of recorded fact about his remarkable life, and because he was often invoked symbolically to advance social causes like abolition, Banneker's story has been susceptible to mythmaking. He has been incorrectly credited with drawing the street grid of Washington, D.C., making the first clock on the Eastern seaboard, being the first professional astronomer in America, and discovering the seventeen-year birth cycle of cicadas.
Washington's core was laid out by Pierre L'Enfant, a French-American engineer and city planner, when the federal government decided it needed a new capitol. George Washington carved out 10 miles square on the Potomac River, and appointed L'Enfant in 1791 to plan an ambitious new seat of government.
But L'Enfant didn't exactly carry out his vision alone: He was dismissed from the job in 1792—and he reportedly took his layout with him. That's when Benjamin Banneker, a free black man who had surveyed the capital and helped establish its boundary points, stepped in. Banneker is said to have redrawn L'Enfant's plans from memory in two days, though whether actually he did has been debated by historians; his history and legacy have yet to be fully excavated.
L'Enfant's plans were well received, but he proved to be extremely difficult to work with, arguing incessantly with the commissioners in charge of the capital project. .... When L'Enfant left the project, he took all the designs with him, leaving the project in disarray.
Unsure of how to proceed, Ellicott and the other planners feared they might have to start from scratch. According to writer Gaius Chamberlain, "Banneker surprised them when he asserted that he could reproduce the plans from memory and in two days did exactly as he had promised."
There has been much controversy over the years about whether such an event actually happened. Some historians claim that many of the facts about Banneker's life were embellished or mythologized, leaving the fact that he was able to reimagine L'Enfant's plans in dispute. Others have theorized that it was Andrew Ellicott's brother Benjamin who aided in redrawing the plans from memory, theorizing that he was confused with Banneker because they shared the same first name.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)So when a lot of people think of Benjamin Banneker, they may know him because of the story of him assisting with the layout of the nation's capital in Washington, DC. And I was troubled to find out that with no real evidence legend has it that Benjamin, Banneker single handedly laid out in, develop the plans for Washington DC himself with no help.
And this is the popular narrative in a lot of circles. And even in the mainstream media, the Washington Post published the story citing this is fact, and this is part of his mythology and it's probably untrue, but it made me wonder, like, why do people embellish history? Why would someone take a man like Banneker with the real moral and professional greatness, and then exaggerate a story with things uncertain. Why do we embellish historical figures in general? Maybe in this case, there is something to prove black people have latched onto the great figures to prove competence and to prove value. Maybe it really was thought to be the truth.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help).{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 394, Reference 7.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 394, Reference 8.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 394, Reference 9.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 12..{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 15.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 19.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) In "Cover: Benjamin Bannaker" (Document). Baltimore, Maryland: Maryland Historical Society. 2018.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)(b) {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 26.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 27.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 28.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) In Bedini, 1999, p. 224. Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 29.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 12..{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 15.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) In "Cover: Benjamin Bannaker" (Document). Baltimore, Maryland: Maryland Historical Society. 2018.In 1993 Rita Dove was appointed Poet Laureate of the United States and Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, making her the youngest person — and the first African-American — to receive this highest official honor in American poetry. She held the position for two years. .... Ms. Dove taught creative writing at Arizona State University from 1981 to 1989; subsequently she joined the faculty of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, where, since 1993, she holds the chair of Commonwealth Professor of English.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)A number of fictional accounts of Banneker are available. All of them were dependent upon the following: Proceedings of the Maryland Historical Society for 1837 and 1854 which respectively contain the accounts of Banneker by John B. H. Latrobe and Martha E. Tyson. They were subsequently reprinted as pamphlets.
Recent biographical accounts of Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), a mulatto whose father was a native African and whose grandmother was English, have done his memory a disservice by obscuring his real achievements under a cloud of extravagant claims to scientific accomplishment that have no foundation in fact. The single notable exception is Silvio A. Bedini's The Life of Benjamin Banneker (New York, 1972), a work of painstaking research and scrupulous attention to accuracy which also benefits from the author's discovery of important and hitherto unavailable manuscript sources. However, as Bedini points out, the story of Banneker's involvement in the survey of the Federal District "rests on extremely meager documentation" (p. 104). This consists of a single mention by TJ, two brief statements by Banneker himself, and the newspaper allusion quoted above. In consequence, Bedini's otherwise reliable biography accepts the version of Banneker's role in this episode as presented in reminiscences of nineteenth-century authors. These recollections, deriving in large part from members of the Ellicott family, who were prompted by Quaker inclinations to justice and equality, have compounded the confusion. The nature of TJ's connection with Banneker is treated in the Editorial Note to the group of documents under 30 Aug. 1791, but because of the obscured record it is necessary here to attempt a clarification of the role of this modest, self-taught tobacco farmer in the laying out of the national capital.
First of all, because of unwarranted claims to the contrary, it must be pointed out that there is no evidence whatever that Banneker had anything to do with the survey of the Federal City or indeed with the final establishment of the boundaries of the Federal District. All available testimony shows that he was present only during the few weeks early in 1791 when the rough preliminary survey of the ten mile square was made; that, after this was concluded and before the final survey was begun, he returned to his farm and his astronomical studies in April, accompanying Ellicott part way on his brief journey back to Philadelphia; and that thenceforth he had no connection with the mapping of the seat of government. ...
In any case, Banneker's participation in the surveying of the Federal District was unquestionably brief and his role uncertain.
Teachers who want reliable information on African American history often don't know where to turn. Many have unfortunately looked to unreliable books and publications by Afrocentric writers. The African American Baseline Essays, developed by the public school system in Portland, Ore., are the most widespread Afrocentric teaching material. Educators should be aware of their crippling flaws. ....
"Thomas Jefferson appointed Benjamin Banneker to survey the site for the capital, Washington, D.C.; ...." according to the essay on African American scientists.
Had the author consulted "The Life of Benjamin Banneker" by Silvio Bedini, considered the definitive biography, he would have discovered no evidence for these claims. Jefferson appointed Andrew Ellicott to conduct the survey; Ellicott made Banneker his assistant for three months in 1791.
The Banneker story, impressive as it was, got embellished in 1987, when the public school system in Portland, Oregon, published African-American Baseline Essays, a thick stack of loose-leaf background papers for teachers, commissioned to encourage black history instruction. They have been used in Detroit, Atlanta, Fort Lauderdale, Newark, and scattered schools elsewhere, although they have been attacked for gross inaccuracy in an entire literature of detailed criticism by respected historians. ....
Austin H. Kiplinger and Walter E. Washington write that a proposed city museum at Mount Vernon Square will remind visitors that "George Washington engaged Pierre L' Enfant to map the city and about how Benjamin Banneker [helped] complete the project" [Close to Home, May 7]. Let's hope not.
Benjamin Banneker performed astronomical observations in 1791 when assisting Maj. Andrew Ellicott in a survey of the federal District's boundaries. He departed three months after the survey began, more than a year before its completion.
Meanwhile, a "Plan for the City of Washington" was drawn by one "Peter Charles L'Enfant" (sic). When George Washington chose to dismiss L'Enfant, it was Ellicott who revised L'Enfant's plan and completed the city's mapping. Banneker played no part in this.
This very well-researched book also helps lay to rest some of the myths about what Banneker did and did not do during his most unusual lifetime; unfortunately, many websites and books continue to propagate these myths, probably because those authors do not understand what Banneker actually accomplished. Many state, for example, that Banneker's clock was an exact copy of one he saw, which is not true – he figured out the mathematics and physics on his own for a clock made out of wood, instead of trying simply to copy the small pocket watch that he was lent to observe. However remarkable this clock was, it was not the first clock made in America. Other sources continually repeat the myth that when Pierre l'Enfant was fired from the job of laying out the new Federal City, Benjamin Banneker recreated l'Enfant's plans from memory. Bedini lays this myth to rest .....
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)Benjamin Banneker's achievements, against the odds, made him an American hero, but he has been mythologized to some extent.
For example, John Lockwood said Banneker "helped re-create the plans for the city of Washington," but Banneker actually finished his work on the survey of the perimeter of the District and went home to Ellicott Mills in April 1791, never to return. Pierre L'Enfant did not depart Washington until the following February, leaving Benjamin Ellicott, a brother of the principal surveyor, to draw a small version of the plan to be engraved.
.
The conflicts surrounding L'Enfant gave rise to an often–repeated story that involved Banneker. According to the story, Banneker, having seen the original design for the city only once, re-created it in detail after L'Enfant returned to France with the original plans. This legend has led some people to credit Banneker with a greater role in creating the capital city. However, there is no evidence that Banneker contributed anything to the design of the city or that he ever met L'Enfant.
Modern historians acknowledge that the inaccurate information—the myths surrounding Banneker—resulted in his contributions to the city being overvalued. Unfortunately, those myths sometimes obscure Banneker's greatest contribution to society—the almanacs that he would publish in his later years.
(Banneker's) life and work have become enshrouded in legend and anecdote.
How did the myth of Banneker helping Ellicott remember the plan take hold? I believe it is because the first name of the brother who helped Ellicott is Benjamin, and so Benjamin Banneker was mistaken for Benjamin Ellicott. I think it is nonsense to assume that when L'Enfant refused access to the "original" plan that meant that Ellicott had to rely on memory to reconstruct the plan. L'Enfant had the "large" plan. Ellicott probably had access to small renditions or drafts of the plan which, of course, he and his brother had helped create by their surveys of the city.
Over the 200 years since the death of Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), his story has become a muddled combination of fact, inference, misinformation, hyperbole, and legend. Like many other figures throughout history, the small amount of surviving source material has nurtured the development of a degree of mythology surrounding his story.
In 1806, shortly after Banneker's death, a fire at his home destroyed most of his personal papers (Gillispie). This gap in substantial archival material has hardly hindered the development of the Benjamin Banneker legend; perhaps it has even aided its growth. ..... The narrative that tells of Banneker's life as one of mythical success and unprecedented exceptionalism easily draws an audience, but it washes over what might be more intellectually rewarding questions about the man's life. .... For now, the legend of Benjamin Banneker will continue to exist in his old almanacs and in present culture, serving as an inspiring enigma for those who wonder what lies beyond the surface-level stories of the past.
Meanwhile Andrew Ellicott, the nation's Surveyor General, finished surveying the boundary lines of the federal district, and joined L'Enfant in laying out the city. (Ellicott showed a fine sense of the opportunity presented by the project by hiring a mathematician who was a "free Negro," to help with the survey. The Georgetown newspaper noted the significance of Benjamin Banneker's participation but, nearly sixty years old, he left the arduous project in May and returned to Baltimore to publish his almanac, and thus, contrary to legend, had nothing to do with L'Enfant's plan.)
..., much myth and anecdote surround the life and work of Banneker. An uncertain legacy grew, in part, from the destruction of almost all his papers and possessions when his log cabin home burnt down at the moment he was being buried.
Banneker's life became the source of legend after his death, with many attributing certain accomplishments to him for which there is little or no evidence in the historical record.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)(Banneker's clock) may have been the first clock ever assembled completely from American parts, according to (Elizabeth Ross) Haynes (although other historians have since disputed this). ... The plans for the large city were laid out by French architect and engineer Pierre Charles L'Enfant, who volunteered for service in the American Revolution's Continental Army and was hired for the project by George Washington in 1791. Before long, however, tensions mounted over its direction and progress of the project, and when L'Enfant was fired in 1792, he took off with the plans in tow.
But according to legend, the plans weren't actually lost: Banneker and the Ellicotts had worked closely with L'Enfant and his plans while surveying the city's site. As the University of Massachusetts explains, Banneker had actually committed the plans to memory "[and] was able to reproduce the complete layout—streets, parks, major buildings." However, the University of Massachusetts also points out that other historians doubt Banneker had any involvement in this part of the survey at all, instead saying that Andrew and his brother were the ones who recreated L'Enfant's plan. It's an intriguing myth, but it may only be that.
With limited materials having been preserved related to Banneker's life and career, there's been a fair amount of legend and misinformation presented.
{{cite web}}: |author= has generic name (help)Perhaps owing to the scarcity of recorded fact about his remarkable life, and because he was often invoked symbolically to advance social causes like abolition, Banneker's story has been susceptible to mythmaking. He has been incorrectly credited with drawing the street grid of Washington, D.C., making the first clock on the Eastern seaboard, being the first professional astronomer in America, and discovering the seventeen-year birth cycle of cicadas.
Washington's core was laid out by Pierre L'Enfant, a French-American engineer and city planner, when the federal government decided it needed a new capitol. George Washington carved out 10 miles square on the Potomac River, and appointed L'Enfant in 1791 to plan an ambitious new seat of government.
But L'Enfant didn't exactly carry out his vision alone: He was dismissed from the job in 1792—and he reportedly took his layout with him. That's when Benjamin Banneker, a free black man who had surveyed the capital and helped establish its boundary points, stepped in. Banneker is said to have redrawn L'Enfant's plans from memory in two days, though whether actually he did has been debated by historians; his history and legacy have yet to be fully excavated.
L'Enfant's plans were well received, but he proved to be extremely difficult to work with, arguing incessantly with the commissioners in charge of the capital project. .... When L'Enfant left the project, he took all the designs with him, leaving the project in disarray.
Unsure of how to proceed, Ellicott and the other planners feared they might have to start from scratch. According to writer Gaius Chamberlain, "Banneker surprised them when he asserted that he could reproduce the plans from memory and in two days did exactly as he had promised."
There has been much controversy over the years about whether such an event actually happened. Some historians claim that many of the facts about Banneker's life were embellished or mythologized, leaving the fact that he was able to reimagine L'Enfant's plans in dispute. Others have theorized that it was Andrew Ellicott's brother Benjamin who aided in redrawing the plans from memory, theorizing that he was confused with Banneker because they shared the same first name.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)So when a lot of people think of Benjamin Banneker, they may know him because of the story of him assisting with the layout of the nation's capital in Washington, DC. And I was troubled to find out that with no real evidence legend has it that Benjamin, Banneker single handedly laid out in, develop the plans for Washington DC himself with no help.
And this is the popular narrative in a lot of circles. And even in the mainstream media, the Washington Post published the story citing this is fact, and this is part of his mythology and it's probably untrue, but it made me wonder, like, why do people embellish history? Why would someone take a man like Banneker with the real moral and professional greatness, and then exaggerate a story with things uncertain. Why do we embellish historical figures in general? Maybe in this case, there is something to prove black people have latched onto the great figures to prove competence and to prove value. Maybe it really was thought to be the truth.
A selection of rare items used by Benjamin Banneker, noted black American scientist, is to be auctioned early next month, but organizers of the planned Banneker museum and park in Baltimore County hope to raise money to buy the artifacts first..
The items – which include a William and Mary drop-leaf table, candlesticks and molds, and several documents – are scheduled to be put on the block at Sloane's Auction House in Bethesda.
Jean Walsh, a member of the Friends of Benjamin Banneker Historical Park, said the items had been in the possession of a descendant of George Ellicott, who at age 17 befriended the much older Banneker – known as "the first black man of science."
"George was interested in astronomy, and he loaned a number of things to Banneker, including the table and several books," Walsh said....
Groundbreaking is planned for September for the long-awaited Benjamin Banneker Historical Park and Museum in Oella, and Walsh and other supporters would like to exhibit the items there.
Gwen Marable, president of the organization, said an attempt had been made to persuade the owner, Elizabeth Wilde of Indianapolis, to donate or sell some of the artifacts to the museum.
"We want to spearhead an effort to keep these things here in Maryland," said Marable, a descendant of one of Banneker's three sisters.
Samuel Hopkins – a descendant of the Ellicott family, who were mill owners and co-founders of Ellicott City – said he encouraged Wilde to turn the artifacts over to the museum.
"I spoke to her some time ago and told her I thought it would be fine if she gave some of the stuff to the museum," Hopkins said. "I suggested to her that, if she did not give it to the society, that she might let the society make copies of the documents for display."
Patrick O'Neill, who is helping to arrange the auction for Sloane's, said the items are being appraised. Appraisal of historic pieces can be difficult, though officials expect the table to sell for $10,000 to $30,000. ....
According to Silvio A. Bedini, author of The Life of Benjamin Banneker, the scientist instructed his nephews to return the table and books to the Ellicott family and give them some of his effects. The day of his funeral in 1806, Banneker's log cabin burned to the ground. It is on that site where the museum and park are to be built.
Bedini said the artifacts are especially valuable because they are among the few remaining privately owned Banneker items.
Elizabeth Wilde, the Ellicott family member who inherited the Banneker-related items, plans to sell more than 20 Banneker artifacts and documents next month through C. G. Sloan auction house in Bethesda. Wilde, who lives in Indianapolis, has rebuffed appeals from Banneker historians, relatives and admirers to donate the artifacts to the new Banneker museum or give the sponsoring group more time to raise money so it can buy the items itself.
The items, including a drop-leaf table, candlestick and candle mold, maps, letters and diaries, .... .
Emanuel Friedman, an investment banker and chairman of Friedman, Billings and Ramsey in Rosslyn, Va., made winning bids of $32,500 for the table, $7,500 for letters, a scrapbook and personal papers from the Ellicott estate, $6,000 for the candlesticks, and $3,750 for the ledger. .... Friedman said he planned to keep some for a personal collection and donate the rest to a new African-American Civil War Foundation museum being planned in Washington, which he believed would be willing to share the artifacts with the Banneker museum. ....
Richard B. Hughes, chief of the Maryland Office of Archaeology, said the consortium still wants to buy other artifacts such as a book containing Banneker's scientific notations that Elizabeth Wilde – an Ellicott descendant who owned the artifacts – did not include in yesterday's auction.
"Because of the involvement of public money, we had to set limits on what we could spend based on the advice we received from appraisers," Hughes said of the consortium, which put in winning bids only on two books with accompanying manuscripts – for $75 – on the settlement of Ellicott Mills and the history of the mills.
The stranger with the deep pockets was Emanuel Freedman, and, when the auction was over, he had dropped a cool $85,000 on the collection of artifacts. He single-handedly thwarted the museum supporters' efforts to round up the prized pieces. In the end, the contingent of supporters had managed to buy only a handwritten ledger once owned by Banneker, who helped to chart the boundaries of the area that would become the District of Columbia.
More than 190 years after his death, some prized possessions of renowned black scientist Benjamin Banneker soon will be coming home. The collection, which Banneker historians, relatives and admirers once feared would be dispersed forever when it was auctioned in Sep 1996, will be sent to two Maryland museums that bear his name.
A happy ending is in sight for the planned Benjamin Banneker Historical Park and Museum in Oella, outbid at auction last fall for valuable artifacts once owned by the noted African-American astronomer and inventor. Next week, the Virginia-based investment banker who paid $85,000 for a table, candlesticks, documents and other items is expected to sign an agreement allowing the museum to display the artifacts for 20 years. .... Items auctioned in Bethesda in September came from a descendant of the Ellicotts, a white family that forged a strong friendship with the scientist, who died in 1806. Among them: a maple and pine drop-leaf table believed to have been lent to Banneker by the Ellicott family, two candlesticks and a candle mold, a ledger from the Ellicott & Co. general store noting purchases by Banneker, and several documents and letters pertaining to Banneker and the Ellicotts. ..... Friedman, a history buff, donated the artifacts to a Civil War monument and visitors center being built by his friend Frank Smith Jr., a Washington councilman. He said the entire collection, which includes other items of Banneker's period that did not relate to him, will be part of a Black History exhibit at The Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington. They will then be turned over to the Banneker-Douglas Museum in Annapolis, until construction of the Oella museum is completed.
This exhibition and related materials is made possible by a generous grant from Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co., Inc.
The artifacts donated by Mr. Friedman, including a William and Mary drop-leaf table, candlesticks and documents, will be brought to the museum next year.
Teachers who want reliable information on African American history often don't know where to turn. Many have unfortunately looked to unreliable books and publications by Afrocentric writers. The African American Baseline Essays, developed by the public school system in Portland, Ore., are the most widespread Afrocentric teaching material. Educators should be aware of their crippling flaws. ....
"Thomas Jefferson appointed Benjamin Banneker to survey the site for the capital, Washington, D.C.; ...." according to the essay on African American scientists.
Had the author consulted "The Life of Benjamin Banneker" by Silvio Bedini, considered the definitive biography, he would have discovered no evidence for these claims. Jefferson appointed Andrew Ellicott to conduct the survey; Ellicott made Banneker his assistant for three months in 1791.
.
The conflicts surrounding L'Enfant gave rise to an often—repeated story that involved Banneker. According to the story, Banneker, having seen the original design for the city only once, re-created it in detail after L'Enfant returned to France with the original plans. This legend has led some people to credit Banneker with a greater role in creating the capital city. However, there is no evidence that Banneker contributed anything to the design of the city or that he ever met L'Enfant.
Modern historians acknowledge that the inaccurate information—the myths surrounding Banneker—resulted in his contributions to the city being overvalued. Unfortunately, those myths sometimes obscure Banneker's greatest contribution to society—the almanacs that he would publish in his later years.
Perhaps owing to the scarcity of recorded fact about his remarkable life, and because he was often invoked symbolically to advance social causes like abolition, Banneker's story has been susceptible to mythmaking. He has been incorrectly credited with drawing the street grid of Washington, D.C., ....
.... "Banneker "wrote a proposal for the establishment of a United States Department of Peace," according to the essay on African American scientists.
Had the author consulted "The Life of Benjamin Banneker" by Silvio Bedini, considered the definitive biography, he would have discovered no evidence for these claims. .... Benjamin Rush authored the Department of Peace proposal; the confusion arose among earlier biographers because the proposal appeared in Banneker's 1793 almanac.
Perhaps owing to the scarcity of recorded fact about his remarkable life, and because he was often invoked symbolically to advance social causes like abolition, Banneker's story has been susceptible to mythmaking. He has been incorrectly credited with ......, making the first clock on the Eastern seaboard, being the first professional astronomer in America, and discovering the seventeen-year birth cycle of cicadas.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)A number of fictional accounts of Banneker are available. All of them were dependent upon the following: Proceedings of the Maryland Historical Society for 1837 and 1854 which respectively contain the accounts of Banneker by John B. H. Latrobe and Martha E. Tyson. They were subsequently reprinted as pamphlets.
Recent biographical accounts of Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), a mulatto whose father was a native African and whose grandmother was English, have done his memory a disservice by obscuring his real achievements under a cloud of extravagant claims to scientific accomplishment that have no foundation in fact. The single notable exception is Silvio A. Bedini's The Life of Benjamin Banneker (New York, 1972), a work of painstaking research and scrupulous attention to accuracy which also benefits from the author's discovery of important and hitherto unavailable manuscript sources. However, as Bedini points out, the story of Banneker's involvement in the survey of the Federal District "rests on extremely meager documentation" (p. 104). This consists of a single mention by TJ, two brief statements by Banneker himself, and the newspaper allusion quoted above. In consequence, Bedini's otherwise reliable biography accepts the version of Banneker's role in this episode as presented in reminiscences of nineteenth-century authors. These recollections, deriving in large part from members of the Ellicott family, who were prompted by Quaker inclinations to justice and equality, have compounded the confusion. The nature of TJ's connection with Banneker is treated in the Editorial Note to the group of documents under 30 Aug. 1791, but because of the obscured record it is necessary here to attempt a clarification of the role of this modest, self-taught tobacco farmer in the laying out of the national capital.
First of all, because of unwarranted claims to the contrary, it must be pointed out that there is no evidence whatever that Banneker had anything to do with the survey of the Federal City or indeed with the final establishment of the boundaries of the Federal District. All available testimony shows that he was present only during the few weeks early in 1791 when the rough preliminary survey of the ten mile square was made; that, after this was concluded and before the final survey was begun, he returned to his farm and his astronomical studies in April, accompanying Ellicott part way on his brief journey back to Philadelphia; and that thenceforth he had no connection with the mapping of the seat of government. ...
In any case, Banneker's participation in the surveying of the Federal District was unquestionably brief and his role uncertain.
Teachers who want reliable information on African American history often don't know where to turn. Many have unfortunately looked to unreliable books and publications by Afrocentric writers. The African American Baseline Essays, developed by the public school system in Portland, Ore., are the most widespread Afrocentric teaching material. Educators should be aware of their crippling flaws. ....
"Thomas Jefferson appointed Benjamin Banneker to survey the site for the capital, Washington, D.C.; ...." according to the essay on African American scientists.
Had the author consulted "The Life of Benjamin Banneker" by Silvio Bedini, considered the definitive biography, he would have discovered no evidence for these claims. Jefferson appointed Andrew Ellicott to conduct the survey; Ellicott made Banneker his assistant for three months in 1791.
The Banneker story, impressive as it was, got embellished in 1987, when the public school system in Portland, Oregon, published African-American Baseline Essays, a thick stack of loose-leaf background papers for teachers, commissioned to encourage black history instruction. They have been used in Detroit, Atlanta, Fort Lauderdale, Newark, and scattered schools elsewhere, although they have been attacked for gross inaccuracy in an entire literature of detailed criticism by respected historians. ....
Austin H. Kiplinger and Walter E. Washington write that a proposed city museum at Mount Vernon Square will remind visitors that "George Washington engaged Pierre L' Enfant to map the city and about how Benjamin Banneker [helped] complete the project" [Close to Home, May 7]. Let's hope not.
Benjamin Banneker performed astronomical observations in 1791 when assisting Maj. Andrew Ellicott in a survey of the federal District's boundaries. He departed three months after the survey began, more than a year before its completion.
Meanwhile, a "Plan for the City of Washington" was drawn by one "Peter Charles L'Enfant" (sic). When George Washington chose to dismiss L'Enfant, it was Ellicott who revised L'Enfant's plan and completed the city's mapping. Banneker played no part in this.
This very well-researched book also helps lay to rest some of the myths about what Banneker did and did not do during his most unusual lifetime; unfortunately, many websites and books continue to propagate these myths, probably because those authors do not understand what Banneker actually accomplished. Many state, for example, that Banneker's clock was an exact copy of one he saw, which is not true – he figured out the mathematics and physics on his own for a clock made out of wood, instead of trying simply to copy the small pocket watch that he was lent to observe. However remarkable this clock was, it was not the first clock made in America. Other sources continually repeat the myth that when Pierre l'Enfant was fired from the job of laying out the new Federal City, Benjamin Banneker recreated l'Enfant's plans from memory. Bedini lays this myth to rest .....
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)Benjamin Banneker's achievements, against the odds, made him an American hero, but he has been mythologized to some extent.
For example, John Lockwood said Banneker "helped re-create the plans for the city of Washington," but Banneker actually finished his work on the survey of the perimeter of the District and went home to Ellicott Mills in April 1791, never to return. Pierre L'Enfant did not depart Washington until the following February, leaving Benjamin Ellicott, a brother of the principal surveyor, to draw a small version of the plan to be engraved.
.
The conflicts surrounding L'Enfant gave rise to an often–repeated story that involved Banneker. According to the story, Banneker, having seen the original design for the city only once, re-created it in detail after L'Enfant returned to France with the original plans. This legend has led some people to credit Banneker with a greater role in creating the capital city. However, there is no evidence that Banneker contributed anything to the design of the city or that he ever met L'Enfant.
Modern historians acknowledge that the inaccurate information—the myths surrounding Banneker—resulted in his contributions to the city being overvalued. Unfortunately, those myths sometimes obscure Banneker's greatest contribution to society—the almanacs that he would publish in his later years.
(Banneker's) life and work have become enshrouded in legend and anecdote.
How did the myth of Banneker helping Ellicott remember the plan take hold? I believe it is because the first name of the brother who helped Ellicott is Benjamin, and so Benjamin Banneker was mistaken for Benjamin Ellicott. I think it is nonsense to assume that when L'Enfant refused access to the "original" plan that meant that Ellicott had to rely on memory to reconstruct the plan. L'Enfant had the "large" plan. Ellicott probably had access to small renditions or drafts of the plan which, of course, he and his brother had helped create by their surveys of the city.
Over the 200 years since the death of Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), his story has become a muddled combination of fact, inference, misinformation, hyperbole, and legend. Like many other figures throughout history, the small amount of surviving source material has nurtured the development of a degree of mythology surrounding his story.
In 1806, shortly after Banneker's death, a fire at his home destroyed most of his personal papers (Gillispie). This gap in substantial archival material has hardly hindered the development of the Benjamin Banneker legend; perhaps it has even aided its growth. ..... The narrative that tells of Banneker's life as one of mythical success and unprecedented exceptionalism easily draws an audience, but it washes over what might be more intellectually rewarding questions about the man's life. .... For now, the legend of Benjamin Banneker will continue to exist in his old almanacs and in present culture, serving as an inspiring enigma for those who wonder what lies beyond the surface-level stories of the past.
Meanwhile Andrew Ellicott, the nation's Surveyor General, finished surveying the boundary lines of the federal district, and joined L'Enfant in laying out the city. (Ellicott showed a fine sense of the opportunity presented by the project by hiring a mathematician who was a "free Negro," to help with the survey. The Georgetown newspaper noted the significance of Benjamin Banneker's participation but, nearly sixty years old, he left the arduous project in May and returned to Baltimore to publish his almanac, and thus, contrary to legend, had nothing to do with L'Enfant's plan.)
..., much myth and anecdote surround the life and work of Banneker. An uncertain legacy grew, in part, from the destruction of almost all his papers and possessions when his log cabin home burnt down at the moment he was being buried.
Banneker's life became the source of legend after his death, with many attributing certain accomplishments to him for which there is little or no evidence in the historical record.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)(Banneker's clock) may have been the first clock ever assembled completely from American parts, according to (Elizabeth Ross) Haynes (although other historians have since disputed this). ... The plans for the large city were laid out by French architect and engineer Pierre Charles L'Enfant, who volunteered for service in the American Revolution's Continental Army and was hired for the project by George Washington in 1791. Before long, however, tensions mounted over its direction and progress of the project, and when L'Enfant was fired in 1792, he took off with the plans in tow.
But according to legend, the plans weren't actually lost: Banneker and the Ellicotts had worked closely with L'Enfant and his plans while surveying the city's site. As the University of Massachusetts explains, Banneker had actually committed the plans to memory "[and] was able to reproduce the complete layout—streets, parks, major buildings." However, the University of Massachusetts also points out that other historians doubt Banneker had any involvement in this part of the survey at all, instead saying that Andrew and his brother were the ones who recreated L'Enfant's plan. It's an intriguing myth, but it may only be that.
With limited materials having been preserved related to Banneker's life and career, there's been a fair amount of legend and misinformation presented.
{{cite web}}: |author= has generic name (help)Perhaps owing to the scarcity of recorded fact about his remarkable life, and because he was often invoked symbolically to advance social causes like abolition, Banneker's story has been susceptible to mythmaking. He has been incorrectly credited with drawing the street grid of Washington, D.C., making the first clock on the Eastern seaboard, being the first professional astronomer in America, and discovering the seventeen-year birth cycle of cicadas.
Washington's core was laid out by Pierre L'Enfant, a French-American engineer and city planner, when the federal government decided it needed a new capitol. George Washington carved out 10 miles square on the Potomac River, and appointed L'Enfant in 1791 to plan an ambitious new seat of government.
But L'Enfant didn't exactly carry out his vision alone: He was dismissed from the job in 1792—and he reportedly took his layout with him. That's when Benjamin Banneker, a free black man who had surveyed the capital and helped establish its boundary points, stepped in. Banneker is said to have redrawn L'Enfant's plans from memory in two days, though whether actually he did has been debated by historians; his history and legacy have yet to be fully excavated.
L'Enfant's plans were well received, but he proved to be extremely difficult to work with, arguing incessantly with the commissioners in charge of the capital project. .... When L'Enfant left the project, he took all the designs with him, leaving the project in disarray.
Unsure of how to proceed, Ellicott and the other planners feared they might have to start from scratch. According to writer Gaius Chamberlain, "Banneker surprised them when he asserted that he could reproduce the plans from memory and in two days did exactly as he had promised."
There has been much controversy over the years about whether such an event actually happened. Some historians claim that many of the facts about Banneker's life were embellished or mythologized, leaving the fact that he was able to reimagine L'Enfant's plans in dispute. Others have theorized that it was Andrew Ellicott's brother Benjamin who aided in redrawing the plans from memory, theorizing that he was confused with Banneker because they shared the same first name.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)So when a lot of people think of Benjamin Banneker, they may know him because of the story of him assisting with the layout of the nation's capital in Washington, DC. And I was troubled to find out that with no real evidence legend has it that Benjamin, Banneker single handedly laid out in, develop the plans for Washington DC himself with no help.
And this is the popular narrative in a lot of circles. And even in the mainstream media, the Washington Post published the story citing this is fact, and this is part of his mythology and it's probably untrue, but it made me wonder, like, why do people embellish history? Why would someone take a man like Banneker with the real moral and professional greatness, and then exaggerate a story with things uncertain. Why do we embellish historical figures in general? Maybe in this case, there is something to prove black people have latched onto the great figures to prove competence and to prove value. Maybe it really was thought to be the truth.
This place is situated in Klay, Bomi Terr., Liberia, its geographical coordinates are 6° 49' 44" North, 10° 46' 21" West and its original name (with diacritics) is Banaka.
Banaka (Banaka) is a populated place .... in Bomi County (Bomi), Liberia (Africa) .... . It is located at an elevation of 117 meters above sea level.
Banaka is a place with a very small population in the country of Liberia .... . Cities, towns and places near Banaka include Bonja, Kuodi, Wuefa and Fassa. The closest major cities include Monrovia, Freetown, Conakry and Daloa.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)(Arith.) the method of solving problems by proceeding with each of two assumed numbers, according to the conditions of the problem, and by comparing the difference of the results with those of the numbers, deducing the correction to be applied to one of them to obtain the true result.
Benjamin Banneker (page 551)
After the war, he (Ellicott) returned to Fountainvale, the family home in Ellicott Upper Mills, and published a series of almanacs, The United States Almanack. (The earliest known copy is dated 1782.)
Benjamin Banneker. Holographic manuscript of his 1792 almanac and ephemeris, with the published edition: Benjamin Banneker's Almanack. Baltimore: William Goddard and James Angell …, both 1791. Manuscript: Gift of William Goddard, 1813. Published almanac: Gift of Samuel L. Munson, 1925
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help).{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 394, Reference 7.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 394, Reference 8.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 394, Reference 9.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 12..{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 15.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 19.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) In "Cover: Benjamin Bannaker" (Document). Baltimore, Maryland: Maryland Historical Society. 2018.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)(b) {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 26.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 27.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 28.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) In Bedini, 1999, p. 224. Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 29.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) In "Cover: Benjamin Bannaker" (Document). Baltimore, Maryland: Maryland Historical Society. 2018.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) On display in the Benjamin Banneker Museum, Oella, Maryland. Photographed by F. Delventhal, February 18, 2017.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 12..{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 15.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) In "Cover: Benjamin Bannaker" (Document). Baltimore, Maryland: Maryland Historical Society. 2018.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
... Wefald writes that when Jefferson received a letter and almanac from Benjamin Banneker, Jefferson was "honest enough to change his position." Jefferson did not say that he had changed his opinion of the intellectual abilities of blacks. In his letter to Banneker, Aug. 30, 1791, Jefferson merely said: "No body wishes more than I do to see such proofs as you exhibit, that nature has given to our black brethren, talents equal to those of the other colors of men, and that the appearance of a want of them is owing merely to the degraded condition of their existence, both in Africa & America." Closely read, Jefferson's letter is only an indication that he "wishes to see such proofs", but there is no definite indication that he changed his mind. On Banneker's abilities Jefferson was ambivalent.
Jefferson's letter in reply was tepid and noncommittal:
Jefferson replied promptly and politely – but ambiguously on the subject of slavery:
In "Exhibition: Thomas Jefferson: Creating A Virginia Republic: Benjamin Banneker: Talents equal to those of the other colors of men". Library of Congress. April 24, 2000. Archived from the original on February 5, 2021. Retrieved February 28, 2021.
Notes: ... . While serving as secretary of state, Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), one of Virginia's largest planters and slaveholders, wrote this 30 August 1791 response to Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), an African-American mathematician and surveyor living in Maryland, who had written a forceful letter to Jefferson the day before, chastising him for holding slaves and questioning his sincerity as a "friend of liberty." .... In a polite response to Banneker's August 1791 letter, Jefferson expressed his ambivalent feelings about slavery and assured the surveyor that "no body wishes more ardently to see a good system commenced for raising the condition" of blacks "to what it ought to be."
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: editors list (link){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 26.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 27.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 28.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)Banneker, Benjamin (09 November 1731–19 October 1806), farmer and astronomer, ...
{{cite encyclopedia}}: |author= has generic name (help)On Sunday, this 9th instant, departed this life at his residence in Baltimore county, in the 73rd year of his age, Mr. BENJAMIN BANNEKER, a black man, and immediate descendant of an African father.In Maryland Historical Society Library Department (February 6, 2014). "The Dreams of Benjamin Banneker". H. Furlong Baldwin Library: Underbelly. Maryland Historical Society. Archived from the original on September 17, 2020. Retrieved September 17, 2020.
{{cite encyclopedia}}: |author= has generic name (help)Benjamin Banneker. Holographic manuscript of his 1792 almanac and ephemeris, with the published edition: Benjamin Banneker's Almanack. Baltimore: William Goddard and James Angell …, both 1791. Manuscript: Gift of William Goddard, 1813. Published almanac: Gift of Samuel L. Munson, 1925.Note: This web page contains links to three digitized images of pages in the manuscript for the almanac and to 12 digitized images of printed pages of the published almanac.
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Note: This manuscript, attributed to Banneker by Baltimore printer William Goddard (1740–1817), was printed as Banneker's Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia Almanack and Ephemeris for the Year of Our Lord 1792, Baltimore: Printed and Sold, Wholesale and Retail, by William Goddard and James Angell, at their
Printing-Office, in Market Street. The web page contains 19 links to digitized images of handwritten editorial notes describing the provenance of the manuscript, sequential digitized images of each page in the manuscript, and additional digitized images of pages in the manuscript.Volumes 8–12 (1790–1793) contain papers covering Jefferson's service as secretary of state, including letters from Jefferson to his daughters at Monticello and many promissory notes demonstrating the degree of his indebtedness.
Footnote: RC (MHi); at head of text: "Thomas Jefferson Secretary of State"; endorsed by TJ as received 26 Aug. 1791 and so recorded in SJL." (Abbreviations: "MHi": "Massachusetts Historical Society"; "RC": Recipient's Copy"; "SJL": "Jefferson's "Summary Journal of Letters" written and received"; "TJ": "Thomas Jefferson").(Original source: Cullen, Charles T., ed. (1986). The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 22: 6 August 1791 – 31 December 1791. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. p. 52. ISBN 9780691184654. LCCN 50007486. OCLC 1043555596. Retrieved August 31, 2019.
Footnote: RC (MHi); at head of text: "Thomas Jefferson Secretary of State"; endorsed by TJ as received 26 Aug. 1791 and so recorded in SJL.)
Footnote: "PrC (DLC)". (Abbreviations: "DLC": "Library of Congress"; "PrC": "Press Copy".)(Original source: Cullen, Charles T., ed. (1986). The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 22: 6 August 1791 – 31 December 1791. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. pp. 97–98. ISBN 9780691184654. LCCN 50007486. OCLC 1043555596. Retrieved August 31, 2019.
Footnote: PrC (DLC))
In 1785, Jefferson was using both stationary and portable presses made by James Watt & Co.(Reference: Bedini, Silvio A., Thomas Jefferson and His Copying Machines, University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville, 1984.)
Marked "Hawkins & Peale's Patent Polygraph No. 57," this machine was used by Jefferson from 1806 until his death. Jefferson first acquired the letter-copying device he called "the finest invention of the present age" in March of 1804.
the use of the polygraph has spoiled me for the old copying press the copies of which are hardly ever legible, ... I could not, now therefore, live without the Polygraph. ....
Footnote: "PrC (DLC); at foot of first page of text: "M. de Condorcet."" (Abbreviations: "DLC": "Library of Congress"; "PrC": "Press Copy".)(Original source: Cullen, Charles T., ed. (1986). The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 22: 6 August 1791 – 31 December 1791. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. pp. 98–99. ISBN 9780691184654. LCCN 50007486. OCLC 1043555596. Retrieved August 31, 2019.
Footnote: "PrC (DLC); at foot of first page of text: "M. de Condorcet.""
Footnote: "RC (NjP: Straus Autograph Collection); endorsed by Barlow. PoC (DLC)" (Abbreviations: "DLC: "Library of Congress"" "NjP: "Princeton University"; "Poc": "Polygraph Copy";"RC": "Recipient's copy".)(Original source: Looney, J. Jefferson, ed. (2004). The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Retirement Series, vol. 1, 4 March 1809 to 15 November 1809. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. pp. 588–590. ISBN 9780691184593. LCCN 2004048327. OCLC 1045069067. Retrieved August 31, 2019.
Footnote: "RC (NjP: Straus Autograph Collection); endorsed by Barlow. PoC (DLC)")
The collection consists of Americana dating, primarily, from the period of the American Revolution and the thirty years immediately following, collected by Straus. Included are autograph letters from, and documents signed by, some of the leading figures of the period, such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, ....
Hawkins & Peale patented a polygraph in the US in 1803, and beginning in 1804 Thomas Jefferson collaborated with them in working on improvements in the machine. Jefferson used a polygraph for the rest of his life.(Reference: Bedini, Silvio A., Thomas Jefferson and His Copying Machines, University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville, 1984.)
Historical Notes: Marked "Hawkins & Peale's Patent Polygraph No. 57," this machine was used by Jefferson from 1806 until his death. Jefferson first acquired the letter-copying device he called "the finest invention of the present age" in March of 1804. Invented and named by Englishman John Isaac Hawkins, the polygraph used the principles of the pantograph, a draftsman's tool for reducing and enlarging drawings. The writer's hand moves one pen whose action is duplicated by the second one, producing a copy strikingly like the original.
Before he returned to England in 1803, Hawkins assigned his American patent rights to Charles Willson Peale, who developed and marketed the invention. Jefferson was one of his most eager clients, purchasing one for the President's House and one for Monticello. He soon exchanged these machines for new ones, as Peale continued to perfect the design — often according to Jefferson's suggestions. By 1809 Jefferson wrote that "the use of the polygraph has spoiled me for the old copying press the copies of which are hardly ever legible . . . . I could not, now therefore, live without the Polygraph."
the use of the polygraph has spoiled me for the old copying press the copies of which are hardly ever legible, ... I could not, now therefore, live without the Polygraph. ....
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)The astronomical journal is the only remaining artifact written in Banneker's hand, as his cabin and most of his belongings burned down in a fire as his body was being laid in the ground in 1806. On his instruction, the astronomical journal and some other loose manuscripts were removed upon his death and left to George Ellicott (1760–1832). The journal stayed in the hands of the Ellicott family until 1844 when it was deposited here at MdHS, where it was used by John H.B. Latrobe the following year. Quaker philanthropist and MdHS member Moses Sheppard (1771–1857) had the book rebound in Russian leather in 1852, and at this date most likely combined the astronomical journal with some of Banneker's loose manuscripts as well as a day book. At some unknown date the astronomical journal left MdHS and returned to the hands of the Ellicott family. It stayed there, away from the public's eye until 1987 when Ellicott family descendant Dorothea West Fitzhugh donated it in honor of her late husband Robert Tyson Fitzhugh. In 1999 MdHS sent the journal to the Center for Conservation in Philadelphia where it was rebound, deacidified, and given full conservation treatment.
A selection of rare items used by Benjamin Banneker, noted black American scientist, is to be auctioned early next month, but organizers of the planned Banneker museum and park in Baltimore County hope to raise money to buy the artifacts first..
The items – which include a William and Mary drop-leaf table, candlesticks and molds, and several documents – are scheduled to be put on the block at Sloane's Auction House in Bethesda.
Jean Walsh, a member of the Friends of Benjamin Banneker Historical Park, said the items had been in the possession of a descendant of George Ellicott, who at age 17 befriended the much older Banneker – known as "the first black man of science."
"George was interested in astronomy, and he loaned a number of things to Banneker, including the table and several books," Walsh said....
Groundbreaking is planned for September for the long-awaited Benjamin Banneker Historical Park and Museum in Oella, and Walsh and other supporters would like to exhibit the items there.
Gwen Marable, president of the organization, said an attempt had been made to persuade the owner, Elizabeth Wilde of Indianapolis, to donate or sell some of the artifacts to the museum.
"We want to spearhead an effort to keep these things here in Maryland," said Marable, a descendant of one of Banneker's three sisters.
Samuel Hopkins – a descendant of the Ellicott family, who were mill owners and co-founders of Ellicott City – said he encouraged Wilde to turn the artifacts over to the museum.
"I spoke to her some time ago and told her I thought it would be fine if she gave some of the stuff to the museum," Hopkins said. "I suggested to her that, if she did not give it to the society, that she might let the society make copies of the documents for display."
Patrick O'Neill, who is helping to arrange the auction for Sloane's, said the items are being appraised. Appraisal of historic pieces can be difficult, though officials expect the table to sell for $10,000 to $30,000. ....
According to Silvio A. Bedini, author of The Life of Benjamin Banneker, the scientist instructed his nephews to return the table and books to the Ellicott family and give them some of his effects. The day of his funeral in 1806, Banneker's log cabin burned to the ground. It is on that site where the museum and park are to be built.
Bedini said the artifacts are especially valuable because they are among the few remaining privately owned Banneker items.
Elizabeth Wilde, the Ellicott family member who inherited the Banneker-related items, plans to sell more than 20 Banneker artifacts and documents next month through C. G. Sloan auction house in Bethesda. Wilde, who lives in Indianapolis, has rebuffed appeals from Banneker historians, relatives and admirers to donate the artifacts to the new Banneker museum or give the sponsoring group more time to raise money so it can buy the items itself.
The items, including a drop-leaf table, candlestick and candle mold, maps, letters and diaries, .... .
Emanuel Friedman, an investment banker and chairman of Friedman, Billings and Ramsey in Rosslyn, Va., made winning bids of $32,500 for the table, $7,500 for letters, a scrapbook and personal papers from the Ellicott estate, $6,000 for the candlesticks, and $3,750 for the ledger. .... Friedman said he planned to keep some for a personal collection and donate the rest to a new African-American Civil War Foundation museum being planned in Washington, which he believed would be willing to share the artifacts with the Banneker museum. ....
Richard B. Hughes, chief of the Maryland Office of Archaeology, said the consortium still wants to buy other artifacts such as a book containing Banneker's scientific notations that Elizabeth Wilde – an Ellicott descendant who owned the artifacts – did not include in yesterday's auction.
"Because of the involvement of public money, we had to set limits on what we could spend based on the advice we received from appraisers," Hughes said of the consortium, which put in winning bids only on two books with accompanying manuscripts – for $75 – on the settlement of Ellicott Mills and the history of the mills.
The stranger with the deep pockets was Emanuel Freedman, and, when the auction was over, he had dropped a cool $85,000 on the collection of artifacts. He single-handedly thwarted the museum supporters' efforts to round up the prized pieces. In the end, the contingent of supporters had managed to buy only a handwritten ledger once owned by Banneker, who helped to chart the boundaries of the area that would become the District of Columbia.
More than 190 years after his death, some prized possessions of renowned black scientist Benjamin Banneker soon will be coming home. The collection, which Banneker historians, relatives and admirers once feared would be dispersed forever when it was auctioned in Sep 1996, will be sent to two Maryland museums that bear his name.
A happy ending is in sight for the planned Benjamin Banneker Historical Park and Museum in Oella, outbid at auction last fall for valuable artifacts once owned by the noted African-American astronomer and inventor. Next week, the Virginia-based investment banker who paid $85,000 for a table, candlesticks, documents and other items is expected to sign an agreement allowing the museum to display the artifacts for 20 years. .... Items auctioned in Bethesda in September came from a descendant of the Ellicotts, a white family that forged a strong friendship with the scientist, who died in 1806. Among them: a maple and pine drop-leaf table believed to have been lent to Banneker by the Ellicott family, two candlesticks and a candle mold, a ledger from the Ellicott & Co. general store noting purchases by Banneker, and several documents and letters pertaining to Banneker and the Ellicotts. ..... Friedman, a history buff, donated the artifacts to a Civil War monument and visitors center being built by his friend Frank Smith Jr., a Washington councilman. He said the entire collection, which includes other items of Banneker's period that did not relate to him, will be part of a Black History exhibit at The Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington. They will then be turned over to the Banneker-Douglas Museum in Annapolis, until construction of the Oella museum is completed.
This exhibition and related materials is made possible by a generous grant from Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co., Inc.
The artifacts donated by Mr. Friedman, including a William and Mary drop-leaf table, candlesticks and documents, will be brought to the museum next year.
The museum has desk and candle molds used by Benjamin.
Teachers who want reliable information on African American history often don't know where to turn. Many have unfortunately looked to unreliable books and publications by Afrocentric writers. The African American Baseline Essays, developed by the public school system in Portland, Ore., are the most widespread Afrocentric teaching material. Educators should be aware of their crippling flaws. ....
"Thomas Jefferson appointed Benjamin Banneker to survey the site for the capital, Washington, D.C.; ...." according to the essay on African American scientists.
Had the author consulted "The Life of Benjamin Banneker" by Silvio Bedini, considered the definitive biography, he would have discovered no evidence for these claims. Jefferson appointed Andrew Ellicott to conduct the survey; Ellicott made Banneker his assistant for three months in 1791.
.
The conflicts surrounding L'Enfant gave rise to an often—repeated story that involved Banneker. According to the story, Banneker, having seen the original design for the city only once, re-created it in detail after L'Enfant returned to France with the original plans. This legend has led some people to credit Banneker with a greater role in creating the capital city. However, there is no evidence that Banneker contributed anything to the design of the city or that he ever met L'Enfant.
Modern historians acknowledge that the inaccurate information—the myths surrounding Banneker—resulted in his contributions to the city being overvalued. Unfortunately, those myths sometimes obscure Banneker's greatest contribution to society—the almanacs that he would publish in his later years.
Perhaps owing to the scarcity of recorded fact about his remarkable life, and because he was often invoked symbolically to advance social causes like abolition, Banneker's story has been susceptible to mythmaking. He has been incorrectly credited with drawing the street grid of Washington, D.C., ....
.... "Banneker "wrote a proposal for the establishment of a United States Department of Peace," according to the essay on African American scientists.
Had the author consulted "The Life of Benjamin Banneker" by Silvio Bedini, considered the definitive biography, he would have discovered no evidence for these claims. .... Benjamin Rush authored the Department of Peace proposal; the confusion arose among earlier biographers because the proposal appeared in Banneker's 1793 almanac.
Perhaps owing to the scarcity of recorded fact about his remarkable life, and because he was often invoked symbolically to advance social causes like abolition, Banneker's story has been susceptible to mythmaking. He has been incorrectly credited with ......, making the first clock on the Eastern seaboard, being the first professional astronomer in America, and discovering the seventeen-year birth cycle of cicadas.
In 1993 Rita Dove was appointed Poet Laureate of the United States and Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, making her the youngest person — and the first African-American — to receive this highest official honor in American poetry. She held the position for two years. .... Ms. Dove taught creative writing at Arizona State University from 1981 to 1989; subsequently she joined the faculty of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, where, since 1993, she holds the chair of Commonwealth Professor of English.
(Arith.) the method of solving problems by proceeding with each of two assumed numbers, according to the conditions of the problem, and by comparing the difference of the results with those of the numbers, deducing the correction to be applied to one of them to obtain the true result.
A number of fictional accounts of Banneker are available. All of them were dependent upon the following: Proceedings of the Maryland Historical Society for 1837 and 1854 which respectively contain the accounts of Banneker by John B. H. Latrobe and Martha E. Tyson. They were subsequently reprinted as pamphlets.
Recent biographical accounts of Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), a mulatto whose father was a native African and whose grandmother was English, have done his memory a disservice by obscuring his real achievements under a cloud of extravagant claims to scientific accomplishment that have no foundation in fact. The single notable exception is Silvio A. Bedini's The Life of Benjamin Banneker (New York, 1972), a work of painstaking research and scrupulous attention to accuracy which also benefits from the author's discovery of important and hitherto unavailable manuscript sources. However, as Bedini points out, the story of Banneker's involvement in the survey of the Federal District "rests on extremely meager documentation" (p. 104). This consists of a single mention by TJ, two brief statements by Banneker himself, and the newspaper allusion quoted above. In consequence, Bedini's otherwise reliable biography accepts the version of Banneker's role in this episode as presented in reminiscences of nineteenth-century authors. These recollections, deriving in large part from members of the Ellicott family, who were prompted by Quaker inclinations to justice and equality, have compounded the confusion. The nature of TJ's connection with Banneker is treated in the Editorial Note to the group of documents under 30 Aug. 1791, but because of the obscured record it is necessary here to attempt a clarification of the role of this modest, self-taught tobacco farmer in the laying out of the national capital.
First of all, because of unwarranted claims to the contrary, it must be pointed out that there is no evidence whatever that Banneker had anything to do with the survey of the Federal City or indeed with the final establishment of the boundaries of the Federal District. All available testimony shows that he was present only during the few weeks early in 1791 when the rough preliminary survey of the ten mile square was made; that, after this was concluded and before the final survey was begun, he returned to his farm and his astronomical studies in April, accompanying Ellicott part way on his brief journey back to Philadelphia; and that thenceforth he had no connection with the mapping of the seat of government. ...
In any case, Banneker's participation in the surveying of the Federal District was unquestionably brief and his role uncertain.
Teachers who want reliable information on African American history often don't know where to turn. Many have unfortunately looked to unreliable books and publications by Afrocentric writers. The African American Baseline Essays, developed by the public school system in Portland, Ore., are the most widespread Afrocentric teaching material. Educators should be aware of their crippling flaws. ....
"Thomas Jefferson appointed Benjamin Banneker to survey the site for the capital, Washington, D.C.; ...." according to the essay on African American scientists.
Had the author consulted "The Life of Benjamin Banneker" by Silvio Bedini, considered the definitive biography, he would have discovered no evidence for these claims. Jefferson appointed Andrew Ellicott to conduct the survey; Ellicott made Banneker his assistant for three months in 1791.
The Banneker story, impressive as it was, got embellished in 1987, when the public school system in Portland, Oregon, published African-American Baseline Essays, a thick stack of loose-leaf background papers for teachers, commissioned to encourage black history instruction. They have been used in Detroit, Atlanta, Fort Lauderdale, Newark, and scattered schools elsewhere, although they have been attacked for gross inaccuracy in an entire literature of detailed criticism by respected historians. ....
Austin H. Kiplinger and Walter E. Washington write that a proposed city museum at Mount Vernon Square will remind visitors that "George Washington engaged Pierre L' Enfant to map the city and about how Benjamin Banneker [helped] complete the project" [Close to Home, May 7]. Let's hope not.
Benjamin Banneker performed astronomical observations in 1791 when assisting Maj. Andrew Ellicott in a survey of the federal District's boundaries. He departed three months after the survey began, more than a year before its completion.
Meanwhile, a "Plan for the City of Washington" was drawn by one "Peter Charles L'Enfant" (sic). When George Washington chose to dismiss L'Enfant, it was Ellicott who revised L'Enfant's plan and completed the city's mapping. Banneker played no part in this.
This very well-researched book also helps lay to rest some of the myths about what Banneker did and did not do during his most unusual lifetime; unfortunately, many websites and books continue to propagate these myths, probably because those authors do not understand what Banneker actually accomplished. Many state, for example, that Banneker's clock was an exact copy of one he saw, which is not true – he figured out the mathematics and physics on his own for a clock made out of wood, instead of trying simply to copy the small pocket watch that he was lent to observe. However remarkable this clock was, it was not the first clock made in America. Other sources continually repeat the myth that when Pierre l'Enfant was fired from the job of laying out the new Federal City, Benjamin Banneker recreated l'Enfant's plans from memory. Bedini lays this myth to rest .....
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)Benjamin Banneker's achievements, against the odds, made him an American hero, but he has been mythologized to some extent.
For example, John Lockwood said Banneker "helped re-create the plans for the city of Washington," but Banneker actually finished his work on the survey of the perimeter of the District and went home to Ellicott Mills in April 1791, never to return. Pierre L'Enfant did not depart Washington until the following February, leaving Benjamin Ellicott, a brother of the principal surveyor, to draw a small version of the plan to be engraved.
.
The conflicts surrounding L'Enfant gave rise to an often–repeated story that involved Banneker. According to the story, Banneker, having seen the original design for the city only once, re-created it in detail after L'Enfant returned to France with the original plans. This legend has led some people to credit Banneker with a greater role in creating the capital city. However, there is no evidence that Banneker contributed anything to the design of the city or that he ever met L'Enfant.
Modern historians acknowledge that the inaccurate information—the myths surrounding Banneker—resulted in his contributions to the city being overvalued. Unfortunately, those myths sometimes obscure Banneker's greatest contribution to society—the almanacs that he would publish in his later years.
(Banneker's) life and work have become enshrouded in legend and anecdote.
How did the myth of Banneker helping Ellicott remember the plan take hold? I believe it is because the first name of the brother who helped Ellicott is Benjamin, and so Benjamin Banneker was mistaken for Benjamin Ellicott. I think it is nonsense to assume that when L'Enfant refused access to the "original" plan that meant that Ellicott had to rely on memory to reconstruct the plan. L'Enfant had the "large" plan. Ellicott probably had access to small renditions or drafts of the plan which, of course, he and his brother had helped create by their surveys of the city.
Over the 200 years since the death of Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), his story has become a muddled combination of fact, inference, misinformation, hyperbole, and legend. Like many other figures throughout history, the small amount of surviving source material has nurtured the development of a degree of mythology surrounding his story.
In 1806, shortly after Banneker's death, a fire at his home destroyed most of his personal papers (Gillispie). This gap in substantial archival material has hardly hindered the development of the Benjamin Banneker legend; perhaps it has even aided its growth. ..... The narrative that tells of Banneker's life as one of mythical success and unprecedented exceptionalism easily draws an audience, but it washes over what might be more intellectually rewarding questions about the man's life. .... For now, the legend of Benjamin Banneker will continue to exist in his old almanacs and in present culture, serving as an inspiring enigma for those who wonder what lies beyond the surface-level stories of the past.
Meanwhile Andrew Ellicott, the nation's Surveyor General, finished surveying the boundary lines of the federal district, and joined L'Enfant in laying out the city. (Ellicott showed a fine sense of the opportunity presented by the project by hiring a mathematician who was a "free Negro," to help with the survey. The Georgetown newspaper noted the significance of Benjamin Banneker's participation but, nearly sixty years old, he left the arduous project in May and returned to Baltimore to publish his almanac, and thus, contrary to legend, had nothing to do with L'Enfant's plan.)
..., much myth and anecdote surround the life and work of Banneker. An uncertain legacy grew, in part, from the destruction of almost all his papers and possessions when his log cabin home burnt down at the moment he was being buried.
Banneker's life became the source of legend after his death, with many attributing certain accomplishments to him for which there is little or no evidence in the historical record.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)(Banneker's clock) may have been the first clock ever assembled completely from American parts, according to (Elizabeth Ross) Haynes (although other historians have since disputed this). ... The plans for the large city were laid out by French architect and engineer Pierre Charles L'Enfant, who volunteered for service in the American Revolution's Continental Army and was hired for the project by George Washington in 1791. Before long, however, tensions mounted over its direction and progress of the project, and when L'Enfant was fired in 1792, he took off with the plans in tow.
But according to legend, the plans weren't actually lost: Banneker and the Ellicotts had worked closely with L'Enfant and his plans while surveying the city's site. As the University of Massachusetts explains, Banneker had actually committed the plans to memory "[and] was able to reproduce the complete layout—streets, parks, major buildings." However, the University of Massachusetts also points out that other historians doubt Banneker had any involvement in this part of the survey at all, instead saying that Andrew and his brother were the ones who recreated L'Enfant's plan. It's an intriguing myth, but it may only be that.
With limited materials having been preserved related to Banneker's life and career, there's been a fair amount of legend and misinformation presented.
{{cite web}}: |author= has generic name (help)Perhaps owing to the scarcity of recorded fact about his remarkable life, and because he was often invoked symbolically to advance social causes like abolition, Banneker's story has been susceptible to mythmaking. He has been incorrectly credited with drawing the street grid of Washington, D.C., making the first clock on the Eastern seaboard, being the first professional astronomer in America, and discovering the seventeen-year birth cycle of cicadas.
Washington's core was laid out by Pierre L'Enfant, a French-American engineer and city planner, when the federal government decided it needed a new capitol. George Washington carved out 10 miles square on the Potomac River, and appointed L'Enfant in 1791 to plan an ambitious new seat of government.
But L'Enfant didn't exactly carry out his vision alone: He was dismissed from the job in 1792—and he reportedly took his layout with him. That's when Benjamin Banneker, a free black man who had surveyed the capital and helped establish its boundary points, stepped in. Banneker is said to have redrawn L'Enfant's plans from memory in two days, though whether actually he did has been debated by historians; his history and legacy have yet to be fully excavated.
L'Enfant's plans were well received, but he proved to be extremely difficult to work with, arguing incessantly with the commissioners in charge of the capital project. .... When L'Enfant left the project, he took all the designs with him, leaving the project in disarray.
Unsure of how to proceed, Ellicott and the other planners feared they might have to start from scratch. According to writer Gaius Chamberlain, "Banneker surprised them when he asserted that he could reproduce the plans from memory and in two days did exactly as he had promised."
There has been much controversy over the years about whether such an event actually happened. Some historians claim that many of the facts about Banneker's life were embellished or mythologized, leaving the fact that he was able to reimagine L'Enfant's plans in dispute. Others have theorized that it was Andrew Ellicott's brother Benjamin who aided in redrawing the plans from memory, theorizing that he was confused with Banneker because they shared the same first name.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)So when a lot of people think of Benjamin Banneker, they may know him because of the story of him assisting with the layout of the nation's capital in Washington, DC. And I was troubled to find out that with no real evidence legend has it that Benjamin, Banneker single handedly laid out in, develop the plans for Washington DC himself with no help.
And this is the popular narrative in a lot of circles. And even in the mainstream media, the Washington Post published the story citing this is fact, and this is part of his mythology and it's probably untrue, but it made me wonder, like, why do people embellish history? Why would someone take a man like Banneker with the real moral and professional greatness, and then exaggerate a story with things uncertain. Why do we embellish historical figures in general? Maybe in this case, there is something to prove black people have latched onto the great figures to prove competence and to prove value. Maybe it really was thought to be the truth.
A number of fictional accounts of Banneker are available. All of them were dependent upon the following: Proceedings of the Maryland Historical Society for 1837 and 1854 which respectively contain the accounts of Banneker by John B. H. Latrobe and Martha E. Tyson. They were subsequently reprinted as pamphlets.
Recent biographical accounts of Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), a mulatto whose father was a native African and whose grandmother was English, have done his memory a disservice by obscuring his real achievements under a cloud of extravagant claims to scientific accomplishment that have no foundation in fact. The single notable exception is Silvio A. Bedini's The Life of Benjamin Banneker (New York, 1972), a work of painstaking research and scrupulous attention to accuracy which also benefits from the author's discovery of important and hitherto unavailable manuscript sources. However, as Bedini points out, the story of Banneker's involvement in the survey of the Federal District "rests on extremely meager documentation" (p. 104). This consists of a single mention by TJ, two brief statements by Banneker himself, and the newspaper allusion quoted above. In consequence, Bedini's otherwise reliable biography accepts the version of Banneker's role in this episode as presented in reminiscences of nineteenth-century authors. These recollections, deriving in large part from members of the Ellicott family, who were prompted by Quaker inclinations to justice and equality, have compounded the confusion. The nature of TJ's connection with Banneker is treated in the Editorial Note to the group of documents under 30 Aug. 1791, but because of the obscured record it is necessary here to attempt a clarification of the role of this modest, self-taught tobacco farmer in the laying out of the national capital.
First of all, because of unwarranted claims to the contrary, it must be pointed out that there is no evidence whatever that Banneker had anything to do with the survey of the Federal City or indeed with the final establishment of the boundaries of the Federal District. All available testimony shows that he was present only during the few weeks early in 1791 when the rough preliminary survey of the ten mile square was made; that, after this was concluded and before the final survey was begun, he returned to his farm and his astronomical studies in April, accompanying Ellicott part way on his brief journey back to Philadelphia; and that thenceforth he had no connection with the mapping of the seat of government. ...
In any case, Banneker's participation in the surveying of the Federal District was unquestionably brief and his role uncertain.
Teachers who want reliable information on African American history often don't know where to turn. Many have unfortunately looked to unreliable books and publications by Afrocentric writers. The African American Baseline Essays, developed by the public school system in Portland, Ore., are the most widespread Afrocentric teaching material. Educators should be aware of their crippling flaws. ....
"Thomas Jefferson appointed Benjamin Banneker to survey the site for the capital, Washington, D.C.; ...." according to the essay on African American scientists.
Had the author consulted "The Life of Benjamin Banneker" by Silvio Bedini, considered the definitive biography, he would have discovered no evidence for these claims. Jefferson appointed Andrew Ellicott to conduct the survey; Ellicott made Banneker his assistant for three months in 1791.
The Banneker story, impressive as it was, got embellished in 1987, when the public school system in Portland, Oregon, published African-American Baseline Essays, a thick stack of loose-leaf background papers for teachers, commissioned to encourage black history instruction. They have been used in Detroit, Atlanta, Fort Lauderdale, Newark, and scattered schools elsewhere, although they have been attacked for gross inaccuracy in an entire literature of detailed criticism by respected historians. ....
Austin H. Kiplinger and Walter E. Washington write that a proposed city museum at Mount Vernon Square will remind visitors that "George Washington engaged Pierre L' Enfant to map the city and about how Benjamin Banneker [helped] complete the project" [Close to Home, May 7]. Let's hope not.
Benjamin Banneker performed astronomical observations in 1791 when assisting Maj. Andrew Ellicott in a survey of the federal District's boundaries. He departed three months after the survey began, more than a year before its completion.
Meanwhile, a "Plan for the City of Washington" was drawn by one "Peter Charles L'Enfant" (sic). When George Washington chose to dismiss L'Enfant, it was Ellicott who revised L'Enfant's plan and completed the city's mapping. Banneker played no part in this.
This very well-researched book also helps lay to rest some of the myths about what Banneker did and did not do during his most unusual lifetime; unfortunately, many websites and books continue to propagate these myths, probably because those authors do not understand what Banneker actually accomplished. Many state, for example, that Banneker's clock was an exact copy of one he saw, which is not true – he figured out the mathematics and physics on his own for a clock made out of wood, instead of trying simply to copy the small pocket watch that he was lent to observe. However remarkable this clock was, it was not the first clock made in America. Other sources continually repeat the myth that when Pierre l'Enfant was fired from the job of laying out the new Federal City, Benjamin Banneker recreated l'Enfant's plans from memory. Bedini lays this myth to rest .....
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)Benjamin Banneker's achievements, against the odds, made him an American hero, but he has been mythologized to some extent.
For example, John Lockwood said Banneker "helped re-create the plans for the city of Washington," but Banneker actually finished his work on the survey of the perimeter of the District and went home to Ellicott Mills in April 1791, never to return. Pierre L'Enfant did not depart Washington until the following February, leaving Benjamin Ellicott, a brother of the principal surveyor, to draw a small version of the plan to be engraved.
.
The conflicts surrounding L'Enfant gave rise to an often–repeated story that involved Banneker. According to the story, Banneker, having seen the original design for the city only once, re-created it in detail after L'Enfant returned to France with the original plans. This legend has led some people to credit Banneker with a greater role in creating the capital city. However, there is no evidence that Banneker contributed anything to the design of the city or that he ever met L'Enfant.
Modern historians acknowledge that the inaccurate information—the myths surrounding Banneker—resulted in his contributions to the city being overvalued. Unfortunately, those myths sometimes obscure Banneker's greatest contribution to society—the almanacs that he would publish in his later years.
(Banneker's) life and work have become enshrouded in legend and anecdote.
How did the myth of Banneker helping Ellicott remember the plan take hold? I believe it is because the first name of the brother who helped Ellicott is Benjamin, and so Benjamin Banneker was mistaken for Benjamin Ellicott. I think it is nonsense to assume that when L'Enfant refused access to the "original" plan that meant that Ellicott had to rely on memory to reconstruct the plan. L'Enfant had the "large" plan. Ellicott probably had access to small renditions or drafts of the plan which, of course, he and his brother had helped create by their surveys of the city.
Over the 200 years since the death of Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), his story has become a muddled combination of fact, inference, misinformation, hyperbole, and legend. Like many other figures throughout history, the small amount of surviving source material has nurtured the development of a degree of mythology surrounding his story.
In 1806, shortly after Banneker's death, a fire at his home destroyed most of his personal papers (Gillispie). This gap in substantial archival material has hardly hindered the development of the Benjamin Banneker legend; perhaps it has even aided its growth. ..... The narrative that tells of Banneker's life as one of mythical success and unprecedented exceptionalism easily draws an audience, but it washes over what might be more intellectually rewarding questions about the man's life. .... For now, the legend of Benjamin Banneker will continue to exist in his old almanacs and in present culture, serving as an inspiring enigma for those who wonder what lies beyond the surface-level stories of the past.
Meanwhile Andrew Ellicott, the nation's Surveyor General, finished surveying the boundary lines of the federal district, and joined L'Enfant in laying out the city. (Ellicott showed a fine sense of the opportunity presented by the project by hiring a mathematician who was a "free Negro," to help with the survey. The Georgetown newspaper noted the significance of Benjamin Banneker's participation but, nearly sixty years old, he left the arduous project in May and returned to Baltimore to publish his almanac, and thus, contrary to legend, had nothing to do with L'Enfant's plan.)
..., much myth and anecdote surround the life and work of Banneker. An uncertain legacy grew, in part, from the destruction of almost all his papers and possessions when his log cabin home burnt down at the moment he was being buried.
Banneker's life became the source of legend after his death, with many attributing certain accomplishments to him for which there is little or no evidence in the historical record.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)(Banneker's clock) may have been the first clock ever assembled completely from American parts, according to (Elizabeth Ross) Haynes (although other historians have since disputed this). ... The plans for the large city were laid out by French architect and engineer Pierre Charles L'Enfant, who volunteered for service in the American Revolution's Continental Army and was hired for the project by George Washington in 1791. Before long, however, tensions mounted over its direction and progress of the project, and when L'Enfant was fired in 1792, he took off with the plans in tow.
But according to legend, the plans weren't actually lost: Banneker and the Ellicotts had worked closely with L'Enfant and his plans while surveying the city's site. As the University of Massachusetts explains, Banneker had actually committed the plans to memory "[and] was able to reproduce the complete layout—streets, parks, major buildings." However, the University of Massachusetts also points out that other historians doubt Banneker had any involvement in this part of the survey at all, instead saying that Andrew and his brother were the ones who recreated L'Enfant's plan. It's an intriguing myth, but it may only be that.
With limited materials having been preserved related to Banneker's life and career, there's been a fair amount of legend and misinformation presented.
{{cite web}}: |author= has generic name (help)Perhaps owing to the scarcity of recorded fact about his remarkable life, and because he was often invoked symbolically to advance social causes like abolition, Banneker's story has been susceptible to mythmaking. He has been incorrectly credited with drawing the street grid of Washington, D.C., making the first clock on the Eastern seaboard, being the first professional astronomer in America, and discovering the seventeen-year birth cycle of cicadas.
Washington's core was laid out by Pierre L'Enfant, a French-American engineer and city planner, when the federal government decided it needed a new capitol. George Washington carved out 10 miles square on the Potomac River, and appointed L'Enfant in 1791 to plan an ambitious new seat of government.
But L'Enfant didn't exactly carry out his vision alone: He was dismissed from the job in 1792—and he reportedly took his layout with him. That's when Benjamin Banneker, a free black man who had surveyed the capital and helped establish its boundary points, stepped in. Banneker is said to have redrawn L'Enfant's plans from memory in two days, though whether actually he did has been debated by historians; his history and legacy have yet to be fully excavated.
L'Enfant's plans were well received, but he proved to be extremely difficult to work with, arguing incessantly with the commissioners in charge of the capital project. .... When L'Enfant left the project, he took all the designs with him, leaving the project in disarray.
Unsure of how to proceed, Ellicott and the other planners feared they might have to start from scratch. According to writer Gaius Chamberlain, "Banneker surprised them when he asserted that he could reproduce the plans from memory and in two days did exactly as he had promised."
There has been much controversy over the years about whether such an event actually happened. Some historians claim that many of the facts about Banneker's life were embellished or mythologized, leaving the fact that he was able to reimagine L'Enfant's plans in dispute. Others have theorized that it was Andrew Ellicott's brother Benjamin who aided in redrawing the plans from memory, theorizing that he was confused with Banneker because they shared the same first name.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)So when a lot of people think of Benjamin Banneker, they may know him because of the story of him assisting with the layout of the nation's capital in Washington, DC. And I was troubled to find out that with no real evidence legend has it that Benjamin, Banneker single handedly laid out in, develop the plans for Washington DC himself with no help.
And this is the popular narrative in a lot of circles. And even in the mainstream media, the Washington Post published the story citing this is fact, and this is part of his mythology and it's probably untrue, but it made me wonder, like, why do people embellish history? Why would someone take a man like Banneker with the real moral and professional greatness, and then exaggerate a story with things uncertain. Why do we embellish historical figures in general? Maybe in this case, there is something to prove black people have latched onto the great figures to prove competence and to prove value. Maybe it really was thought to be the truth.
Teachers who want reliable information on African American history often don't know where to turn. Many have unfortunately looked to unreliable books and publications by Afrocentric writers. The African American Baseline Essays, developed by the public school system in Portland, Ore., are the most widespread Afrocentric teaching material. Educators should be aware of their crippling flaws. ....
"Thomas Jefferson appointed Benjamin Banneker to survey the site for the capital, Washington, D.C.; ...." according to the essay on African American scientists.
Had the author consulted "The Life of Benjamin Banneker" by Silvio Bedini, considered the definitive biography, he would have discovered no evidence for these claims. Jefferson appointed Andrew Ellicott to conduct the survey; Ellicott made Banneker his assistant for three months in 1791.
.
The conflicts surrounding L'Enfant gave rise to an often—repeated story that involved Banneker. According to the story, Banneker, having seen the original design for the city only once, re-created it in detail after L'Enfant returned to France with the original plans. This legend has led some people to credit Banneker with a greater role in creating the capital city. However, there is no evidence that Banneker contributed anything to the design of the city or that he ever met L'Enfant.
Modern historians acknowledge that the inaccurate information—the myths surrounding Banneker—resulted in his contributions to the city being overvalued. Unfortunately, those myths sometimes obscure Banneker's greatest contribution to society—the almanacs that he would publish in his later years.
Perhaps owing to the scarcity of recorded fact about his remarkable life, and because he was often invoked symbolically to advance social causes like abolition, Banneker's story has been susceptible to mythmaking. He has been incorrectly credited with drawing the street grid of Washington, D.C., ....
.... "Banneker "wrote a proposal for the establishment of a United States Department of Peace," according to the essay on African American scientists.
Had the author consulted "The Life of Benjamin Banneker" by Silvio Bedini, considered the definitive biography, he would have discovered no evidence for these claims. .... Benjamin Rush authored the Department of Peace proposal; the confusion arose among earlier biographers because the proposal appeared in Banneker's 1793 almanac.
Perhaps owing to the scarcity of recorded fact about his remarkable life, and because he was often invoked symbolically to advance social causes like abolition, Banneker's story has been susceptible to mythmaking. He has been incorrectly credited with ......, making the first clock on the Eastern seaboard, being the first professional astronomer in America, and discovering the seventeen-year birth cycle of cicadas.
A number of fictional accounts of Banneker are available. All of them were dependent upon the following: Proceedings of the Maryland Historical Society for 1837 and 1854 which respectively contain the accounts of Banneker by John B. H. Latrobe and Martha E. Tyson. They were subsequently reprinted as pamphlets.
Recent biographical accounts of Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), a mulatto whose father was a native African and whose grandmother was English, have done his memory a disservice by obscuring his real achievements under a cloud of extravagant claims to scientific accomplishment that have no foundation in fact. The single notable exception is Silvio A. Bedini's The Life of Benjamin Banneker (New York, 1972), a work of painstaking research and scrupulous attention to accuracy which also benefits from the author's discovery of important and hitherto unavailable manuscript sources. However, as Bedini points out, the story of Banneker's involvement in the survey of the Federal District "rests on extremely meager documentation" (p. 104). This consists of a single mention by TJ, two brief statements by Banneker himself, and the newspaper allusion quoted above. In consequence, Bedini's otherwise reliable biography accepts the version of Banneker's role in this episode as presented in reminiscences of nineteenth-century authors. These recollections, deriving in large part from members of the Ellicott family, who were prompted by Quaker inclinations to justice and equality, have compounded the confusion. The nature of TJ's connection with Banneker is treated in the Editorial Note to the group of documents under 30 Aug. 1791, but because of the obscured record it is necessary here to attempt a clarification of the role of this modest, self-taught tobacco farmer in the laying out of the national capital.
First of all, because of unwarranted claims to the contrary, it must be pointed out that there is no evidence whatever that Banneker had anything to do with the survey of the Federal City or indeed with the final establishment of the boundaries of the Federal District. All available testimony shows that he was present only during the few weeks early in 1791 when the rough preliminary survey of the ten mile square was made; that, after this was concluded and before the final survey was begun, he returned to his farm and his astronomical studies in April, accompanying Ellicott part way on his brief journey back to Philadelphia; and that thenceforth he had no connection with the mapping of the seat of government. ...
In any case, Banneker's participation in the surveying of the Federal District was unquestionably brief and his role uncertain.
Teachers who want reliable information on African American history often don't know where to turn. Many have unfortunately looked to unreliable books and publications by Afrocentric writers. The African American Baseline Essays, developed by the public school system in Portland, Ore., are the most widespread Afrocentric teaching material. Educators should be aware of their crippling flaws. ....
"Thomas Jefferson appointed Benjamin Banneker to survey the site for the capital, Washington, D.C.; ...." according to the essay on African American scientists.
Had the author consulted "The Life of Benjamin Banneker" by Silvio Bedini, considered the definitive biography, he would have discovered no evidence for these claims. Jefferson appointed Andrew Ellicott to conduct the survey; Ellicott made Banneker his assistant for three months in 1791.
The Banneker story, impressive as it was, got embellished in 1987, when the public school system in Portland, Oregon, published African-American Baseline Essays, a thick stack of loose-leaf background papers for teachers, commissioned to encourage black history instruction. They have been used in Detroit, Atlanta, Fort Lauderdale, Newark, and scattered schools elsewhere, although they have been attacked for gross inaccuracy in an entire literature of detailed criticism by respected historians. ....
Austin H. Kiplinger and Walter E. Washington write that a proposed city museum at Mount Vernon Square will remind visitors that "George Washington engaged Pierre L' Enfant to map the city and about how Benjamin Banneker [helped] complete the project" [Close to Home, May 7]. Let's hope not.
Benjamin Banneker performed astronomical observations in 1791 when assisting Maj. Andrew Ellicott in a survey of the federal District's boundaries. He departed three months after the survey began, more than a year before its completion.
Meanwhile, a "Plan for the City of Washington" was drawn by one "Peter Charles L'Enfant" (sic). When George Washington chose to dismiss L'Enfant, it was Ellicott who revised L'Enfant's plan and completed the city's mapping. Banneker played no part in this.
This very well-researched book also helps lay to rest some of the myths about what Banneker did and did not do during his most unusual lifetime; unfortunately, many websites and books continue to propagate these myths, probably because those authors do not understand what Banneker actually accomplished. Many state, for example, that Banneker's clock was an exact copy of one he saw, which is not true – he figured out the mathematics and physics on his own for a clock made out of wood, instead of trying simply to copy the small pocket watch that he was lent to observe. However remarkable this clock was, it was not the first clock made in America. Other sources continually repeat the myth that when Pierre l'Enfant was fired from the job of laying out the new Federal City, Benjamin Banneker recreated l'Enfant's plans from memory. Bedini lays this myth to rest .....
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)Benjamin Banneker's achievements, against the odds, made him an American hero, but he has been mythologized to some extent.
For example, John Lockwood said Banneker "helped re-create the plans for the city of Washington," but Banneker actually finished his work on the survey of the perimeter of the District and went home to Ellicott Mills in April 1791, never to return. Pierre L'Enfant did not depart Washington until the following February, leaving Benjamin Ellicott, a brother of the principal surveyor, to draw a small version of the plan to be engraved.
.
The conflicts surrounding L'Enfant gave rise to an often–repeated story that involved Banneker. According to the story, Banneker, having seen the original design for the city only once, re-created it in detail after L'Enfant returned to France with the original plans. This legend has led some people to credit Banneker with a greater role in creating the capital city. However, there is no evidence that Banneker contributed anything to the design of the city or that he ever met L'Enfant.
Modern historians acknowledge that the inaccurate information—the myths surrounding Banneker—resulted in his contributions to the city being overvalued. Unfortunately, those myths sometimes obscure Banneker's greatest contribution to society—the almanacs that he would publish in his later years.
(Banneker's) life and work have become enshrouded in legend and anecdote.
How did the myth of Banneker helping Ellicott remember the plan take hold? I believe it is because the first name of the brother who helped Ellicott is Benjamin, and so Benjamin Banneker was mistaken for Benjamin Ellicott. I think it is nonsense to assume that when L'Enfant refused access to the "original" plan that meant that Ellicott had to rely on memory to reconstruct the plan. L'Enfant had the "large" plan. Ellicott probably had access to small renditions or drafts of the plan which, of course, he and his brother had helped create by their surveys of the city.
Over the 200 years since the death of Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), his story has become a muddled combination of fact, inference, misinformation, hyperbole, and legend. Like many other figures throughout history, the small amount of surviving source material has nurtured the development of a degree of mythology surrounding his story.
In 1806, shortly after Banneker's death, a fire at his home destroyed most of his personal papers (Gillispie). This gap in substantial archival material has hardly hindered the development of the Benjamin Banneker legend; perhaps it has even aided its growth. ..... The narrative that tells of Banneker's life as one of mythical success and unprecedented exceptionalism easily draws an audience, but it washes over what might be more intellectually rewarding questions about the man's life. .... For now, the legend of Benjamin Banneker will continue to exist in his old almanacs and in present culture, serving as an inspiring enigma for those who wonder what lies beyond the surface-level stories of the past.
Meanwhile Andrew Ellicott, the nation's Surveyor General, finished surveying the boundary lines of the federal district, and joined L'Enfant in laying out the city. (Ellicott showed a fine sense of the opportunity presented by the project by hiring a mathematician who was a "free Negro," to help with the survey. The Georgetown newspaper noted the significance of Benjamin Banneker's participation but, nearly sixty years old, he left the arduous project in May and returned to Baltimore to publish his almanac, and thus, contrary to legend, had nothing to do with L'Enfant's plan.)
..., much myth and anecdote surround the life and work of Banneker. An uncertain legacy grew, in part, from the destruction of almost all his papers and possessions when his log cabin home burnt down at the moment he was being buried.
Banneker's life became the source of legend after his death, with many attributing certain accomplishments to him for which there is little or no evidence in the historical record.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)(Banneker's clock) may have been the first clock ever assembled completely from American parts, according to (Elizabeth Ross) Haynes (although other historians have since disputed this). ... The plans for the large city were laid out by French architect and engineer Pierre Charles L'Enfant, who volunteered for service in the American Revolution's Continental Army and was hired for the project by George Washington in 1791. Before long, however, tensions mounted over its direction and progress of the project, and when L'Enfant was fired in 1792, he took off with the plans in tow.
But according to legend, the plans weren't actually lost: Banneker and the Ellicotts had worked closely with L'Enfant and his plans while surveying the city's site. As the University of Massachusetts explains, Banneker had actually committed the plans to memory "[and] was able to reproduce the complete layout—streets, parks, major buildings." However, the University of Massachusetts also points out that other historians doubt Banneker had any involvement in this part of the survey at all, instead saying that Andrew and his brother were the ones who recreated L'Enfant's plan. It's an intriguing myth, but it may only be that.
With limited materials having been preserved related to Banneker's life and career, there's been a fair amount of legend and misinformation presented.
{{cite web}}: |author= has generic name (help)Perhaps owing to the scarcity of recorded fact about his remarkable life, and because he was often invoked symbolically to advance social causes like abolition, Banneker's story has been susceptible to mythmaking. He has been incorrectly credited with drawing the street grid of Washington, D.C., making the first clock on the Eastern seaboard, being the first professional astronomer in America, and discovering the seventeen-year birth cycle of cicadas.
Washington's core was laid out by Pierre L'Enfant, a French-American engineer and city planner, when the federal government decided it needed a new capitol. George Washington carved out 10 miles square on the Potomac River, and appointed L'Enfant in 1791 to plan an ambitious new seat of government.
But L'Enfant didn't exactly carry out his vision alone: He was dismissed from the job in 1792—and he reportedly took his layout with him. That's when Benjamin Banneker, a free black man who had surveyed the capital and helped establish its boundary points, stepped in. Banneker is said to have redrawn L'Enfant's plans from memory in two days, though whether actually he did has been debated by historians; his history and legacy have yet to be fully excavated.
L'Enfant's plans were well received, but he proved to be extremely difficult to work with, arguing incessantly with the commissioners in charge of the capital project. .... When L'Enfant left the project, he took all the designs with him, leaving the project in disarray.
Unsure of how to proceed, Ellicott and the other planners feared they might have to start from scratch. According to writer Gaius Chamberlain, "Banneker surprised them when he asserted that he could reproduce the plans from memory and in two days did exactly as he had promised."
There has been much controversy over the years about whether such an event actually happened. Some historians claim that many of the facts about Banneker's life were embellished or mythologized, leaving the fact that he was able to reimagine L'Enfant's plans in dispute. Others have theorized that it was Andrew Ellicott's brother Benjamin who aided in redrawing the plans from memory, theorizing that he was confused with Banneker because they shared the same first name.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)So when a lot of people think of Benjamin Banneker, they may know him because of the story of him assisting with the layout of the nation's capital in Washington, DC. And I was troubled to find out that with no real evidence legend has it that Benjamin, Banneker single handedly laid out in, develop the plans for Washington DC himself with no help.
And this is the popular narrative in a lot of circles. And even in the mainstream media, the Washington Post published the story citing this is fact, and this is part of his mythology and it's probably untrue, but it made me wonder, like, why do people embellish history? Why would someone take a man like Banneker with the real moral and professional greatness, and then exaggerate a story with things uncertain. Why do we embellish historical figures in general? Maybe in this case, there is something to prove black people have latched onto the great figures to prove competence and to prove value. Maybe it really was thought to be the truth.
(Arith.) the method of solving problems by proceeding with each of two assumed numbers, according to the conditions of the problem, and by comparing the difference of the results with those of the numbers, deducing the correction to be applied to one of them to obtain the true result.
The earliest observable change in the agricultural system of Maryland, was occasioned by a purchase made in 1772, by the brothers Joseph, Andrew and John Ellicott, of lands and mill-sites on the Patapsco river, 10 miles west of Baltimore, and by the building of their mills for grinding wheat and other grains. The purchase embraced the lands, on both sides of the Patapsco, for four miles in extent, and included all the water power within that distance, .....
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)In the city, and within the compass of twenty miles around it, there were upwards of sixty grain mills, of various descriptions, in which it was said that fully a million and a quarter of dollars were invested. This, of course, was an element of great prospective wealth, especially as the water power for manufactures, within the radius of those twenty miles, at Patapsco Falls, ....
... Andrew Ellicott retained Banneker to make the astronomical calculations necessary to establish the location of the south corner stone, while Ellicott and the field crews did the actual surveying.
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help).{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 394, Reference 7.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 394, Reference 8.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 394, Reference 9.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 12..{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 15.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 19.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) In "Cover: Benjamin Bannaker" (Document). Baltimore, Maryland: Maryland Historical Society. 2018.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)(b) {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 26.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 27.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 28.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) In Bedini, 1999, p. 224. Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 29.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) In "Cover: Benjamin Bannaker" (Document). Baltimore, Maryland: Maryland Historical Society. 2018.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) On display in the Benjamin Banneker Museum, Oella, Maryland. Photographed by F. Delventhal, February 18, 2017.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 12..{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 395, Reference 15.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) In "Cover: Benjamin Bannaker" (Document). Baltimore, Maryland: Maryland Historical Society. 2018.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
... Wefald writes that when Jefferson received a letter and almanac from Benjamin Banneker, Jefferson was "honest enough to change his position." Jefferson did not say that he had changed his opinion of the intellectual abilities of blacks. In his letter to Banneker, Aug. 30, 1791, Jefferson merely said: "No body wishes more than I do to see such proofs as you exhibit, that nature has given to our black brethren, talents equal to those of the other colors of men, and that the appearance of a want of them is owing merely to the degraded condition of their existence, both in Africa & America." Closely read, Jefferson's letter is only an indication that he "wishes to see such proofs", but there is no definite indication that he changed his mind. On Banneker's abilities Jefferson was ambivalent.
Jefferson's letter in reply was tepid and noncommittal:
Jefferson replied promptly and politely – but ambiguously on the subject of slavery:
In "Exhibition: Thomas Jefferson: Creating A Virginia Republic: Benjamin Banneker: Talents equal to those of the other colors of men". Library of Congress. April 24, 2000. Archived from the original on February 5, 2021. Retrieved February 28, 2021.
Notes: ... . While serving as secretary of state, Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), one of Virginia's largest planters and slaveholders, wrote this 30 August 1791 response to Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), an African-American mathematician and surveyor living in Maryland, who had written a forceful letter to Jefferson the day before, chastising him for holding slaves and questioning his sincerity as a "friend of liberty." .... In a polite response to Banneker's August 1791 letter, Jefferson expressed his ambivalent feelings about slavery and assured the surveyor that "no body wishes more ardently to see a good system commenced for raising the condition" of blacks "to what it ought to be."
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: editors list (link){{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Cited in Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 26.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 27.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Bedini, 1999, p. 396, Reference 28.Banneker, Benjamin (09 November 1731–19 October 1806), farmer and astronomer, ...
{{cite encyclopedia}}: |author= has generic name (help)Benjamin Banneker. Holographic manuscript of his 1792 almanac and ephemeris, with the published edition: Benjamin Banneker's Almanack. Baltimore: William Goddard and James Angell …, both 1791. Manuscript: Gift of William Goddard, 1813. Published almanac: Gift of Samuel L. Munson, 1925.Note: This web page contains links to three digitized images of pages in the manuscript for the almanac and to 12 digitized images of printed pages of the published almanac.
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Note: This manuscript, attributed to Banneker by Baltimore printer William Goddard (1740–1817), was printed as Banneker's Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia Almanack and Ephemeris for the Year of Our Lord 1792, Baltimore: Printed and Sold, Wholesale and Retail, by William Goddard and James Angell, at their
Printing-Office, in Market Street. The web page contains 19 links to digitized images of handwritten editorial notes describing the provenance of the manuscript, sequential digitized images of each page in the manuscript, and additional digitized images of pages in the manuscript.Footnote: RC (MHi); at head of text: "Thomas Jefferson Secretary of State"; endorsed by TJ as received 26 Aug. 1791 and so recorded in SJL." (Abbreviations: "MHi": "Massachusetts Historical Society"; "RC": Recipient's Copy"; "SJL": "Jefferson's "Summary Journal of Letters" written and received"; "TJ": "Thomas Jefferson").(Original source: Cullen, Charles T., ed. (1986). The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 22: 6 August 1791 – 31 December 1791. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. p. 52. ISBN 9780691184654. LCCN 50007486. OCLC 1043555596. Retrieved August 31, 2019.
Footnote: RC (MHi); at head of text: "Thomas Jefferson Secretary of State"; endorsed by TJ as received 26 Aug. 1791 and so recorded in SJL.)
Footnote: "PrC (DLC)". (Abbreviations: "DLC": "Library of Congress"; "PrC": "Press Copy".)(Original source: Cullen, Charles T., ed. (1986). The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 22: 6 August 1791 – 31 December 1791. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. pp. 97–98. ISBN 9780691184654. LCCN 50007486. OCLC 1043555596. Retrieved August 31, 2019.
Footnote: PrC (DLC))
In 1785, Jefferson was using both stationary and portable presses made by James Watt & Co.(Reference: Bedini, Silvio A., Thomas Jefferson and His Copying Machines, University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville, 1984.)
Marked "Hawkins & Peale's Patent Polygraph No. 57," this machine was used by Jefferson from 1806 until his death. Jefferson first acquired the letter-copying device he called "the finest invention of the present age" in March of 1804.
the use of the polygraph has spoiled me for the old copying press the copies of which are hardly ever legible, ... I could not, now therefore, live without the Polygraph. ....
Footnote: "PrC (DLC); at foot of first page of text: "M. de Condorcet."" (Abbreviations: "DLC": "Library of Congress"; "PrC": "Press Copy".)(Original source: Cullen, Charles T., ed. (1986). The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 22: 6 August 1791 – 31 December 1791. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. pp. 98–99. ISBN 9780691184654. LCCN 50007486. OCLC 1043555596. Retrieved August 31, 2019.
Footnote: "PrC (DLC); at foot of first page of text: "M. de Condorcet.""
Footnote: "RC (NjP: Straus Autograph Collection); endorsed by Barlow. PoC (DLC)" (Abbreviations: "DLC: "Library of Congress"" "NjP: "Princeton University"; "Poc": "Polygraph Copy";"RC": "Recipient's copy".)(Original source: Looney, J. Jefferson, ed. (2004). The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Retirement Series, vol. 1, 4 March 1809 to 15 November 1809. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. pp. 588–590. ISBN 9780691184593. LCCN 2004048327. OCLC 1045069067. Retrieved August 31, 2019.
Footnote: "RC (NjP: Straus Autograph Collection); endorsed by Barlow. PoC (DLC)")
The collection consists of Americana dating, primarily, from the period of the American Revolution and the thirty years immediately following, collected by Straus. Included are autograph letters from, and documents signed by, some of the leading figures of the period, such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, ....
Hawkins & Peale patented a polygraph in the US in 1803, and beginning in 1804 Thomas Jefferson collaborated with them in working on improvements in the machine. Jefferson used a polygraph for the rest of his life.(Reference: Bedini, Silvio A., Thomas Jefferson and His Copying Machines, University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville, 1984.)
Historical Notes: Marked "Hawkins & Peale's Patent Polygraph No. 57," this machine was used by Jefferson from 1806 until his death. Jefferson first acquired the letter-copying device he called "the finest invention of the present age" in March of 1804. Invented and named by Englishman John Isaac Hawkins, the polygraph used the principles of the pantograph, a draftsman's tool for reducing and enlarging drawings. The writer's hand moves one pen whose action is duplicated by the second one, producing a copy strikingly like the original.
Before he returned to England in 1803, Hawkins assigned his American patent rights to Charles Willson Peale, who developed and marketed the invention. Jefferson was one of his most eager clients, purchasing one for the President's House and one for Monticello. He soon exchanged these machines for new ones, as Peale continued to perfect the design — often according to Jefferson's suggestions. By 1809 Jefferson wrote that "the use of the polygraph has spoiled me for the old copying press the copies of which are hardly ever legible . . . . I could not, now therefore, live without the Polygraph."
the use of the polygraph has spoiled me for the old copying press the copies of which are hardly ever legible, ... I could not, now therefore, live without the Polygraph. ....
{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)The Banneker story, impressive as it was, got embellished in 1987, when the public school system in Portland, Oregon, published African-American Baseline Essays, a thick stack of loose-leaf background papers for teachers, commissioned to encourage black history instruction. They have been used in Detroit, Atlanta, Fort Lauderdale, Newark, and scattered schools elsewhere, although they have been attacked for gross inaccuracy in an entire literature of detailed criticism by respected historians. ....
Teachers who want reliable information on African American history often don't know where to turn. Many have unfortunately looked to unreliable books and publications by Afrocentric writers. The African American Baseline Essays, developed by the public school system in Portland, Ore., are the most widespread Afrocentric teaching material. Educators should be aware of their crippling flaws. ....
"Thomas Jefferson appointed Benjamin Banneker to survey the site for the capital, Washington, D.C.; ...." according to the essay on African American scientists.
Had the author consulted "The Life of Benjamin Banneker" by Silvio Bedini, considered the definitive biography, he would have discovered no evidence for these claims. Jefferson appointed Andrew Ellicott to conduct the survey; Ellicott made Banneker his assistant for three months in 1791.
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The conflicts surrounding L'Enfant gave rise to an often—repeated story that involved Banneker. According to the story, Banneker, having seen the original design for the city only once, re-created it in detail after L'Enfant returned to France with the original plans. This legend has led some people to credit Banneker with a greater role in creating the capital city. However, there is no evidence that Banneker contributed anything to the design of the city or that he ever met L'Enfant.
Modern historians acknowledge that the inaccurate information—the myths surrounding Banneker—resulted in his contributions to the city being overvalued. Unfortunately, those myths sometimes obscure Banneker's greatest contribution to society—the almanacs that he would publish in his later years.
Perhaps owing to the scarcity of recorded fact about his remarkable life, and because he was often invoked symbolically to advance social causes like abolition, Banneker's story has been susceptible to mythmaking. He has been incorrectly credited with drawing the street grid of Washington, D.C., ....
... Wefald writes that when Jefferson received a letter and almanac from Benjamin Banneker, Jefferson was "honest enough to change his position." Jefferson did not say that he had changed his opinion of the intellectual abilities of blacks. In his letter to Banneker, Aug. 30, 1791, Jefferson merely said: "No body wishes more than I do to see such proofs as you exhibit, that nature has given to our black brethren, talents equal to those of the other colors of men, and that the appearance of a want of them is owing merely to the degraded condition of their existence, both in Africa & America." Closely read, Jefferson's letter is only an indication that he "wishes to see such proofs", but there is no definite indication that he changed his mind. On Banneker's abilities Jefferson was ambivalent.
Jefferson's letter in reply was tepid and noncommittal:
Jefferson replied promptly and politely – but ambiguously on the subject of slavery:
In "Exhibition: Thomas Jefferson: Creating A Virginia Republic: Benjamin Banneker: Talents equal to those of the other colors of men". Library of Congress. April 24, 2000. Archived from the original on February 5, 2021. Retrieved February 28, 2021.
Notes: ... . While serving as secretary of state, Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), one of Virginia's largest planters and slaveholders, wrote this 30 August 1791 response to Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), an African-American mathematician and surveyor living in Maryland, who had written a forceful letter to Jefferson the day before, chastising him for holding slaves and questioning his sincerity as a "friend of liberty." .... In a polite response to Banneker's August 1791 letter, Jefferson expressed his ambivalent feelings about slavery and assured the surveyor that "no body wishes more ardently to see a good system commenced for raising the condition" of blacks "to what it ought to be."