Hamilton Through the Lens of an APUSH Student

Seeing Hamilton once is a fun experience. Seeing again, especially as a current AP U.S. history student, was transformative. My knowledge helped reveal new layers of the story, allowing me to connect the musical to the complexities of early American history on a deeper level. 

The Founding Fathers

With every viewing, I noticed more nuances in the characters’ ambitions, flaws, and relationships. Alexander Hamilton is not just a brilliant but also a controversial founding father; he embodies the tension between personal ambition and public duty. Understanding his story helped me rethink the early nation and the human dynamics behind the political decisions we study in APUSH, specifically his relationship to the Federalist Papers and the national bank. My APUSH knowledge didn’t just help me better understand Hamilton; Watching Hamilton also helped me better understand my APUSH class. The Founding Fathers stopped feeling like the perfectly polished portraits I see in lessons and started appearing as real, complicated human beings. I was able to fully comprehend the duties of Washington, who carried the weight of an entire war on his shoulders, or Jefferson, whose charm in the musical masks the contradictions of a man preaching liberty while owning slaves. Burr, too, became more than “the villain who shot Hamilton.” Watching his character unfold helped me appreciate the political caution, frustration, and insecurity that often get flattened in APUSH summaries. 

The Rap Battles 

Something about seeing serious, historical debates staged as rap battles made their disagreements feel less abstract and more like heated, deeply personal struggles. The musical highlights how clashing visions, Hamilton’s push for a strong centralized government, Jefferson’s dream of agrarian independence, and Washington’s desire for long-term stability, weren’t just policy differences. They were reflections of their backgrounds, their fears, their egos, and the changing world they were trying to navigate. In addition, the battles staged out the argument in a way that was simpler for me to understand than simply reading a text from the 1700s. The modernized language cast excitement and suspense over the outcome. 

The Turntable

One thing that struck me was the turntable on the stage. At first, it just seemed like a clever piece of choreography. Eventually, it felt symbolic, a visual metaphor for the constant motion of history itself. The turntable keeps the characters moving even when they’re standing still, reminding me of how the early American nation was always changing, pulled forward by ambition, conflict, and transition. When Hamilton sings “I am not throwing away my shot,” the turntable carries him forward as if history is physically pushing him into the future he’s trying to create. The more times I watched, the more I realized the turntable wasn’t just staging. It mirrored the cyclical patterns we study in APUSH: the emergence of numerous political parties, the repeating debates over power, and the rise and fall of alliances. It captured the sense that the founders, the revolution, and the new nation were not a thing of the people but a thing of history. The turntable shows that change is inevitable, and illustrates what it may have felt like to live as a part of the narrative, reiterating the repeated phrase that “history has its eyes on you”.