Public Reception

As Kate Mason Rowland was not subtle in her biases, others began to take note when reviewing her biography on George Mason IV. One review in particular from The Independent, challenges Rowland on her attempt to credit her ancestor, “This of course, is sheer nonsense. One may concede, and every patriotic American is willing to concede, that George Mason was a man of great ability: but even his ‘Bill of Rights,’ the most important transaction attributed to him, does not entitle him to such a supreme pinnacle of greatness alone.”[1] Not only did others of Rowland’s time contest her attempts at giving George Mason IV a more prominent historical spot, but they also had significant issues with her beliefs regarding the American South. This review saw what her objective was in writing this piece of work, “This thesis being demonstrated, it would follow that his theories and opinions must be of the first authority, and hence would result as an inevitable sequitur that if such a man as George Mason was the apostle and champion of State Rights, as believed in the South, then the South must be right in the war it waged, and that the opposition should be maintained against the tyranny of Federalism.”[2] Not only can the historians of today identify her sympathy for the South and the Lost Cause, but those in 1893 also recognized her eager sympathy as well. There were a few articles written that reviewed the biography of George Mason IV. Rowland’s work was placed under heavy scrutiny by those who did review her work.

            Another review that was featured in The Literary World; a Monthly Review of Current Literature, spoke of Rowland’s biases yet again within the same volume of her work, “But Miss Rowland injures the cause by untampered advocacy of the right of secession, and entire failure to discriminate George Mason’s mistakes from his wise warnings.”[3] While her hard work and attempts at entering the field as a woman are commended, she is still criticized on the views she has brought into her works, “Her book is copious, well-proportioned, instructive, and in all ways creditable to her, except in its extreme leaning to a cause altogether lost. It is too late in the day to write of Jefferson Davis as ‘our great Southern statesman,’ or as ‘President Davis.”[4] Unfortunately for Rowland, her attempts to transform her ancestor into a figurehead for the South had not gone unnoticed. As these articles indicate, her hard work and contributions to the historical records of the nation’s founding fathers are to be commended, but her credibility and quality of her work are diminished by her personal views. This resulted in a politically charged biography that had become under fire due to the legacy and lasting ideas of the Civil War.

[1] "Literature .: ROWLAND'S LIFE OF GEORGE MASON." The Independent ... Devoted to the Consideration of Politics, Social and Economic Tendencies, History, Literature, and the Arts (1848-1921), Mar 16, 1893, 19.

[2] Ibid., 19.

[3] "GEORGE MASON." 1892. The Literary World; a Monthly Review of Current Literature (1870-1904), Aug 13, 272.

[4] Ibid., 272.