| I was among the slew of people whose Fourth of July weekend plans included watching Hamilton. With the film’s debut on Disney+ came another round of accolades and criticism. Anything as buzzy as Hamilton—which earned its creator Lin-Manuel Miranda 11 Tony awards, a Pulitzer, and a MacArthur “genius grant”—is bound to receive a degree of critical pushback. Historians have fact-checked the musical, which reimagines the Founding Fathers in hip-hop form. Others have challenged the spirit of celebrating these figures to begin with. The recent release of the film version coincides with a move to rethink how we celebrate Independence Day and how we honor historic leaders who owned slaves and defended slavery, including our first president. Another strain of criticism addresses the women in Hamilton. In the original cast, just three women play named characters with speaking roles, the iconic “Schuyler sisters.” The women are powerhouse performers responsible for some of the catchiest and most meme-worthy songs in the show (“werk!”): the older sister Angelica, who flirtatiously encourages Alexander Hamilton’s political ambitions; the middle sister Eliza, his wife who endures his workaholic nature; and the youngest sister Peggy, played by the same performer who portrays the woman he has an affair with. But critics have asked: Should the only female voices in the show be love interests? Why not make more of the ethics of Hamilton’s decision to seek out a sexual relationship with a woman who comes to him for help escaping her abusive husband? And is his wife’s forgiveness and devotion a sign of her significant role in history, or simply her deference? Whatever your take on the version of Eliza Schulyer Hamilton in the play, the real-life Eliza offers a testimony of faith amid hardship and Christian service. Ed Stetzer blogged recently about how Hamilton pointed Eliza to her faith in his final letter, writing, “The consolations of Religion, my beloved, can alone support you; and these you have a right to enjoy. Fly to the bosom of your God and be comforted. With my last idea; I shall cherish the sweet hope of meeting you in a better world. Adieu best of wives and best of Women. Embrace all my darling Children for me.” Eliza Hamilton lost her sister, her eldest son, her father, and her husband in the span of three years, Stetzer noted, yet lived until age 97 as a social activist. In the play’s final song, “Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story,” she sings, “I stop wasting time on tears / I live another fifty years,” describing how she collects stories from fellow Revolutionary soldiers, organizes her late husband’s history, helps fund the Washington Monument, and starts an orphanage in New York City. Does her role put her on the sidelines of history for the sake of spotlighting her Founding Father husband? I like what Michael Schulman wrote when Hamilton came out five years ago. The show’s creator, Lin-Manuel Miranda, “knows the importance of who tells the story, and how. And, by implicitly equating Eliza’s acts of narration with his own, he’s acknowledging the women who built the country alongside the men.” “You’re left wondering whether the ‘Hamilton’ of the title isn’t just Alexander, but Eliza, too.” Kate | 