Genre criticism and historical context: The case of George Washington's first inaugural address

Abstract

The inaugural address George Washington delivered on April 30, 1789, was shaped above all by his personal beliefs and by his view of the rhetorical situation as he assumed the presidency. His response to that situation, however, appears to have been modulated by a set of generic constraints derived from the rhetoric of office‐taking, from the inaugural speeches of Virginia's colonial governors, and, perhaps, from the accession speeches of eighteenth‐century British monarchs. Seen in this way, the first presidential inaugural emerges as a blend of the old and the new, as a product of personal considerations, situational constraints, and rhetorical customs.