The Golden Age: How the Virginia Gentry Cultivated the Founding Generation

This is the story of Colonial Virginia in its fullest flowering. From its unique culture to its excellent people, from the glorious Georgian mansions for which it is still remembered to the political leaders its tobacco plantations produced, this is how the special society that grew out of the Virginia Tidewater turned into the cradle of the American Revolution. Particularly, we discuss why the Virginia gentry produced such excellent leaders as it did, and how the culture of leadership and command, when paired with the sense of dignity and refinement for which the classic Virginia Gentlemen were known, created most of America's greatest heroes and most important leaders. In this episode, we dive into both those leaders and what enabled them to be such. We uncover the importance of architecture to the Virginia gentry's social dominance, how leadership was built at the local level and cultivated from the ground up, how the political culture of Virginia's Golden Age produced the Founders, and how their reliance on depleted soil, London merchants, and British debt became a budding economic crisis for colonial Virginia. But, most of all, we discuss how the civil society of the Golden Age was refined and cultivated, and how that produced the men who led the Revolution and created the Early American Republic. Sources for the Episode I am an Amazon Affiliate. If you would like to support the show at no added cost to yourself, you can do so by using the links below to order and read the sources I used to create this episode. Thanks!  Sydnor, Charles S.: Gentlemen Freeholders: Political Practices in Washington's Virginia: https://amzn.to/3R0ujKf  Isaac, Rhys: The Transformation of Virginia, 1740-1790: https://amzn.to/4dEcMiL  Evans, Emory G.: The "Topping People": The Rise and Decline of Virginia's Old Political Elite, 1680-1790: https://amzn.to/430Fmpi   Bruce, Philip Alexander: Economic History of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century: https://amzn.to/4eEocVF   Wertenbaker, Thomas J.: The Planters of Colonial Virginia, https://amzn.to/4uDFJ4Y  Morton, Richard L.: Colonial Virginia, https://amzn.to/4ua3bqY  Dowdey, Clifford: The Golden Age: A Climate for Greatness, https://amzn.to/4wkvVi7  Stanard, Mary Newton: Colonial Virginia: Its People And Customs, https://amzn.to/4u5X2Mm  Wright, Louis B.: The First Gentlemen of Virginia, https://amzn.to/3PgaHRM  Bridenbaugh, Carl: Seat of Empire, https://amzn.to/42WMhQn  0:00 The Virginia Golden Age 2:51 The Refinement of Virginia and Creation of the Virginia Gentleman 4:39 How Architecture Supported the Gentry's Pre-Eminence 6:54 The Inheritors: How Merchants Became Gentlemen 10:20 Virginia Hospitality 11:49 How Plantations and Local Leadership Built the Great Virginia Statesmen 19:02 The House of Burgesses, The Training Ground of the Founders 23:48 The Dire Economic Reality In Colonial Virginia 28:43 How Virginia's Culture Was Refined 29:45 Liberty and Duty: Why the Founding Grew Out of Virginia 34:34 The Golden Age Fractures 38:26 The Sun Sets on Colonial Virginia, and Rises on a Republic They Built