By Megan Goodson
Middle school teachers Jennifer Lorenzo and Kimberly Kirstein love attending history-themed events together.
But last week’s Drew Forum at Drew University in Madison was extra special.
“This is our super bowl!” exclaimed Kirstein, as she and her friend prepared to join a throng of Hamilton-obsessed fans to hear Ron Chernow, whose biography of Founding Father Alexander Hamilton inspired the Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway musical.
Chernow, a historian and journalist, recounted a “life-changing stroll” in Brooklyn when he received a call from Lin Manuel Miranda, who was in Mexico at the time.
“Ron,” Miranda began, “I was reading your book and hip hop songs were jumping off the page.”
After reading the 1998 2004 New York Times best-seller — which earned Chernow a National Humanities Medal and a National Book Critics Circle Award nomination– Miranda became “as fascinated by Hamilton as I was,” the author said.
Chernow’s book traced the improbable rise and tragic fall of Alexander Hamilton, an aide to General George Washington who met his future bride in Morristown during the Revolutionary War. Hamilton’s relationships with Washington–who loved him like the son he never had–and the other founding fathers are central to the story.
When Miranda and Chernow first met, Miranda sat on Chernow’s living room couch and began to snap his fingers.
As Chernow described that meeting, he stopped, took a deep breath, and started to rap a song from the musical.
“How does a bastard grow up to be a scholar…What’s your name? Alexander Hamilton.” Listeners chuckled inside the packed auditorium.
While his book provided the inspiration, Chernow said Miranda’s talents made it stage-worthy.
He could turn “40 pages of the book into four minutes of a song,” with “poetic and pleasing music…that breaks the stereotype of rap being cold and misogynistic,” Chernow marveled.
Miranda’s gift is artistic precision. “He puts an enormous amount of info into just a few words in hip hop,” said the biographer, who served as historical consultant to the production.
Alexander Hamilton’s gift?
“He radiated charm and intelligence,” dazzling everyone who met him, Chernow said.
With a little help from Chernow and Manuel, Hamilton continues to dazzle the likes of Lorenzo and Kirstein, more than two centuries after the icon’s fatal duel in Weehawken.
And don’t be surprised if these two history teachers are back at Drew before long to hear Chernow again. He’s rolling out a book this year about another larger-than-life U.S. figure, Civil War General Ulysses S. Grant.
One can only imagine what Lin Manuel Miranda might do with him.
Megan Goodson is a senior at Drew University studying writing and media studies. The Rockaway Township resident hopes to work in journalism and public relations; right now she is writing a memoir and a series of short stories.
