Matthew R. Costello

Matthew Costello is the Assistant Director of the David M. Rubenstein National Center for White House History for the White House Historical Association in Washington, D.C. His book, The Property of the Nation: George Washington’s Tomb, Mount Vernon, and the Memory of the First President was published by University Press of Kansas in fall 2019 and was a finalist for the George Washington Book Prize.

Costello has also published articles in The Journal of History and Cultures, Essays in History, The Dome, and White House History. He earned his PhD and MA from Marquette University, and BA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

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Matthew

Costello

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Property of the Nation: Washington's Tomb, Fall 2020 George Washington Prize | Vol. 65, No. 8

Following Washington's death in 1799, cultural and intellectual agents in early America began to transform the first president into a national symbol through books, poems, and artwork.

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